Fletcher Pratt

“ Let's stop the car and go get it.”
“What's the use,” said Stevens, “you couldn't eat it, anyway. Listen to him yell, would you?”
Above the sound of the motor the screeching of the wounded bird still reached them faintly from the bottom of the cliff.
“I think it's a damn shame to shoot up the poor thing,” said Marta Lami.
“Oh, he'll be all right,” declared Vanderschoof. “Don't believe we touched anything but one wing, and it'll just sit and eat ground-berries till it gets well.” ”

“ The car coughed to the rise, made it and slid across the bridge.
“It is a bird,” said the dancer, “and what a bird! Papa, look at the ostrich.”
Pappagourdas and Vanderschoof followed her pointing finger. Along its direction they saw, a couple of hundred feet behind and above them, the widespread wings and heavy body of the same type of four-winged bird Roberts had encountered. Vanderschoof tugged at his pocket. “Maybe it'll come close enough to give us a shot,” he said hopefully.
The bird was certainly gaining on them, though the speedometer of the car had risen beyond forty miles an hour. ”

“ Birds sleep at night.”
Stevens took a half-unwilling step toward the door. “Let me come with you,” said Vanderschoof, rising.
“What's the matter, papa? You got a little yellow in you, too?”
He was dignified. “Not at all. Here I'll leave my gun with you, Miss Lami.”
“We'll be seeing you,” said Stevens, over his shoulder. “Don't worry.” And they were gone.
To the dancer their absence was endless. She would have given anything for the velvet kick of a good drink of gin—“but I suppose it would burn out my bearings,” she mused ruefully. Heavens, she must spend the rest of her days as a robot. ”

“ Vanderschoof, watching with a trace of anxiety, saw the birds also put on more speed. “They are following us,” he declared with conviction.
“Look,” said Marta Lami, “that one is carrying something, too.”
As she spoke, the bird, flying high, gained a position just above and ahead of the car, dropped the object and instantly wheeled off and down to one side. There was a heavy thud on the road ahead, and a big rock bounded and rolled a score of feet before the car.
Marta Lami screamed. Vanderschoof swore, with feeling. “Get out your guns and drive them off,” said Stevens. ”

“ The car whirled out the Albany Post Road in a silence that was indicative of the rivalry that had already sprung up between Stevens and Vanderschoof. As for Pappagourdas he found himself demoted to the position of a “yes man.”
They had provided themselves with a liberal supply of guns and ammunition, and with the foolish conservatism of the very rich, refusing to believe that money was valueless, had raided store after store until they had acquired a considerable supply of currency. ”

“ For it held the balance between the walking cartoons of men in metal, such as they themselves were, and the ugly and solid statues they had seen strewn about the streets of New York. It had the metal bands across the forehead that they possessed, above which issued the same wiry hair, but in this case curiously interwoven as though subjected to some great heat and melted into a single mass. ”

“ Stevens turned and thrust his fist through the glass upper portion of the door. Out in the dusk the three bird-forms were settling round their fallen foe. The flash of the banker's gun stabbed the night and was answered by a scream. Before he could take aim again, with a quick beat of wings, they were gone and when, daring greatly, he ran out a few moments later, he found that Pappagourdas was gone also. ”