"The reason I took his canoe is that I remembered that Men probably can't swim. At least, the chimpanzee, which is the nearest living relative of Man, can't, whereas we can swim instinctively as soon as we're able to walk.
"But there's a bigger issue than Nguchoy and the Men. You probably think I'm a bit cracked, with my concern for conservation.
"We know that Man, during the period of his civilization, was prodigally wasteful of his resources. The exhaustion of the mineral oils is an example. And the world-wide extinction of the larger mammals at the close of the last ice age was probably his doing, at least in part. We're sure that he was responsible for wiping out all the larger species of whales, and we suspect that he also killed off all but two of the twenty or more species of elephant that abounded at that time. Most of the large mammals of today have evolved in the last few million years from forms that were small enough to sit in your hand in Man's time.
"We don't know just why he became extinct, or almost extinct. Perhaps a combination of war and disease did it. Perhaps the exhaustion of his resources had a share. You know what a hardboiled materialist I am in most things; but it always has seemed to me that it was a case of outraged nature taking its revenge. That's not rational, but it's the way I feel. And I've dedicated my life to seeing that we don't make the same mistake.
"Now do you see why I had to do what I did?"
Chujee was silent for a moment, then said: "Perhaps I do. I won't say I approve... yet. But I'll think it over for a few days. Say, we'll have to land soon; the agoutis are getting all tired out from swimming."
The canoe slid on down the river in the Indian-summer sunshine. The white men who had applied the name "Indian summer" to that part of the year were gone, as were the Indians after whom it had been named. Of mighty Man, the only remnant was a little savage tribe in the Alleghenies. A representative of a much more ancient order, a dragonfly, hovered over the bow, its four glassy wings glittering in the sunlight. Then with a faint whir it wheeled and fled.