on across the dunes, the shells cutting my feet and the bushes tearing
my wet swimming-suit, until I dripped with blood from shoulder to
ankle. Out in the ocean the carcass of the thermosaurus floated, claws
outspread, belly glistening in the gray light, and over him circled
two birds. As I reached the shelter I knelt and fired into the mass of
scales, and at my first shot a horrible thing occurred--the
lizard-like head writhed, the slitted yellow eyes sliding open from
the film that covered them. A shudder passed across the undulating
body, the great scaled belly heaved, and one leg feebly clawed at the
air.

"The thing was still alive!

"Crushing back the horror that almost paralyzed my hands, I planted
shot after shot into the quivering reptile, while it writhed and
clawed, striving to turn over and dive; and at each shot the black
blood spurted in long, slim jets across the water. And now Daisy was
at my side, pale and determined, swiftly clasping each tape-marked
wire to the iron rings in the circle around us. Twice I filled the
magazine from my belt, and twice I poured streams of steel-tipped
bullets into the scaled mass, twisting and shuddering on the sea.
Suddenly the birds steered towards us. I felt the wind from their vast
wings. I saw the feathers erect, vibrating. I saw the spread claws
outstretched, and I struck furiously at them, crying to Daisy to run
into the iron shelter. Backing, swinging my clubbed rifle, I
retreated, but I tripped across one of the taut pallium wires, and in
an instant the hideous birds were on me, and the bone in my forearm
snapped like a pipe-stem at a blow from their wings. Twice I struggled
to my knees, blinded with blood, confused, almost fainting; then I
fell again, rolling into the mouth of the iron boiler.

* * * * *

"When I struggled back to consciousness Daisy knelt silently beside
me, while Captain McPeek and Professor Holroyd bound up my shattered
arm, talking excitedly. The pain made me faint and dizzy. I tried to
speak and could not. At last they got me to my feet and into the
wagon, and Daisy came, too, and crouched beside me, wrapped in
oilskins to her eyes. Fatigue, lack of food, and excitement had
combined with wounds and broken bones to extinguish the last atom of
strength in my body; but my mind was clear enough to understand that
the trouble was over and the thermosaurus safe.

"I heard McPeek say that one of the birds that I