ifle.

"Phoenix!" David cried. "Fly! Fly, Phoenix!"

The bird looked at the Scientist, then at David, its glance curious
but without understanding. Paralyzed with fear, David remained on his
knees as the Scientist reached an open place and threw the gun up to
his shoulder. The bullet went whining by with an ugly hornet-noise,
and the report of the gun echoed along the scarp.

[Illustration]

"Fly, Phoenix!" David sobbed. A second bullet snarled at the bird, and
spattered out little chips of rock from the inner wall of the ledge.

"Oh, fly, fly!" David jumped up and flung himself between the bird
and the Scientist. "It's me!" he cried. "It's David!" The bird gazed
at him closely, and a light flickered in its eye as though the name
had reached out and almost, but not quite, touched an ancient memory.
Hesitantly it stretched forth one wing, and with the tip of it lightly
brushed David's forehead, leaving there a mark that burned coolly.

"_Get away from that bird, you little idiot!_" the Scientist shrieked.
"_GET AWAY!_"

David ignored him. "Fly, Phoenix!" he cried, and he pushed the bird
toward the edge.

Understanding dawned in the amber eyes at last. The bird, with one
clear, defiant cry, leaped to an out-jutting boulder. The golden wings
spread, the golden neck curved back, the golden talons pushed against
the rock. The bird launched itself into the air and soared out over
the valley, sparkling, flashing, shimmering; a flame, large as a
sunburst, a meteor, a diamond, a star, diminishing at last to a speck
of gold dust, which glimmered twice in the distance before it was gone
altogether.

* * * * *

_The Author_

Edward Ormondroyd

When Edward Ormondroyd was about thirteen, his family moved from
Pennsylvania to Ann Arbor, Michigan. He and a friend began to read
Arthur Ransome's boating stories and, inspired by the adventures of
the Swallows, built their own fourteen-foot sailboat and tried to
re-create that English magic on the Huron River.

In 1943 he graduated from high school and joined the Navy. Destroyer
Escort 419 was his home for the next two years. "When the war was
over, she looked in on China and Korea, and came home. She did show me
San Francisco Bay at dusk. One look convinced me that I would like to
live by it; and I have, ever since."

After the war, Mr. Ormondroyd went to the University of California at
Berkeley. He graduated in 1951, and since the