"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. As it drew nearer, they could make out the high-domed, most un-birdlike head set with pop-eyes fixed in a permanent expression of astonishment, the short bill, slightly hooked at the tip, and the huge expanse of the wings. It seemed to be inspecting them as a smaller avian might inspect a bug crawling across a road.
As it drew nearer, it swooped to within a couple dozen feet of the car; they noticed that its feet, folded back beneath the body, had a metallic luster. Then Vanderschoof fired, with a bang that almost deafened the rest. The bird seemed surprised rather than frightened or resentful. At the sound of the gun it bounded upward a few feet and then swung again, moving along parallel with the car and twisting its neck to take a good look at the passengers. The chance was too good to be missed; both Pappagourdas and Vanderschoof fired this time, steadying themselves against the motion of the car. One of the shots evidently went home, for a couple of feathers floated down, and the bird, with a series of ear-piercing squawks, spiralled down the side of the mountain toward the river-bank, three or four hundred feet below.
"Bull's eye!" yelled Pappagourdas. "Gimme the cigar! 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."