All unconscious of the stalker, the men came, late in the

afternoon, to a spot which seemed favorable as a campsite.

A cold spring bubbled from the base of a rocky formation which

overhung and partially encircled a small inclosure. At Bradley's

command, the men took up the duties assigned them--gathering

wood, building a cook-fire and preparing the evening meal.

It was while they were thus engaged that Brady's attention was

attracted by the dismal flapping of huge wings. He glanced up,

expecting to see one of the great flying reptiles of a bygone

age, his rifle ready in his hand. Brady was a brave man. He had

groped his way up narrow tenement stairs and taken an armed

maniac from a dark room without turning a hair; but now as he

looked up, he went white and staggered back.

"Gawd!" he almost screamed. "What is it?"

Attracted by Brady's cry the others seized their rifles as they

followed his wide-eyed, frozen gaze, nor was there one of them

that was not moved by some species of terror or awe. Then Brady

spoke again in an almost inaudible voice. "Holy Mother protect

us--it's a banshee!"

Bradley, always cool almost to indifference in the face of

danger, felt a strange, creeping sensation run over his flesh, as

slowly, not a hundred feet above them, the thing flapped itself

across the sky, its huge, round eyes glaring down upon them.

And until it disappeared over the tops of the trees of a near-by

wood the five men stood as though paralyzed, their eyes never

leaving the weird shape; nor never one of them appearing to recall

that he grasped a loaded rifle in his hands.

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