m and Mike. On the second swing, he got it over the head of the robot.
He saw Mike brace himself.

The robot staggered. It pivoted clumsily to its left, groping vaguely
for the hindrance. Mike and Blackie tugged again, and the machine wound
up facing them in its efforts to maintain balance. Its companions
marched steadily along the road.

"Switch ends!" barked Blackie.

Alert, Mike tossed him the other end of the rope and caught Blackie's.
They ran past the robot on either side, looping it in. Blackie kept
going until he was above the ditch. He wound a turn of rope about his
forearm and plunged down the bank.

[Illustration: _With skill of long practice, they brought the robot
down._]

A shower of gravel spattered after him as Mike jammed his heels into the
shoulder of the highway to anchor the other end. Then he heard the
booming sound of the robot's fall.

Blackie clawed his way up the bank. Vito and Sid were smashing furiously
at the floundering machine. Mike danced about the melee with bared
teeth, charging in once as if to leap upon the quarry with both feet.
Frustrated by the peril of the whirling two-by-fours, he swept up
handfuls of gravel to hurl.

Blackie turned to run for one of the axes. Just then, Sid struck home to
the head of the robot.

Sparks spat out amid a tinkle of glass. The machine ceased all motion.

"All right!" panted Blackie. "All _right_! That's enough!"

They stepped back, snarls fading. A handful of gravel trickled through
Mike's fingers and pattered loudly on the concrete. Gradually, the men
began to straighten up, seeing the robot as an inert heap of metal
rather than as a weird beast in its death throes.

"We better load up an' get," said Blackie. "We wanna be over on the
trail if they send somethin' up the road to look for _this_."

Vito dragged the robot off the highway by the head, and they began the
task of lashing it to the two-by-fours.

It was about two hours later when they plodded around a street corner
among the ruins and stopped before a fairly intact building. By that
time, they had picked up an escort of dirty, half-clad children who ran
ahead to spread the news.

Two other men and a handful of women gathered around with eager
exclamations. The hunters dropped their catch.

"Better get to work on him," said Blackie, glancing at the sky. "Be dark
soon."

The men who had remained as guards ran inside the entrance of polished
granite and brought out tools: h