...
IV.
Dinner was ended. Daisy Holroyd
lighted her father’s pipe for him, and insisted On my smoking
as much as I pleased. Then she sat down, and folded her hands like
a good little girl, waiting for her father to make the revelation
which I felt in my bones must be something out of the ordinary.
The professor smoked for a while, gazing meditatively at his daughter.
then, fixing his gray eyes on me, he said:
“Have
you ever heard of the kree—that Australian bird, half parrot,
half hawk, that destroys so many sheep in New South Wales?”
I nodded.
“The
kree kills a sheep by alighting on its back and tearing away the flesh
with its hooked beak until a vital part is reached You know that?
Well, it has been discovered that the kree had prehistoric prototypes
These birds were enormous creatures, who Preyed upon main-moths and
mastodons, and even upon the great saurians It has been Conclusively
proved that a few saurians have been killed by the ancestors of the
kree, but the favourite food of these birds was undoubtedly the Thermosaurus
It is believed that the birch attacked the eyes of the Thermosaurus
and when, as was its habit, the mammoth creature turned on its back
to claw them, they fell upon the thinner scales of its stomach armour
and finally killed it. This, of course, is a theory, but we have almost
absolute proofs of its correctness. Now, these two birds are known
among scientists as the ekaf-bird and the ool-yllik. The names are
Australian, in which country most of their remains have been unearthed.
They lived during the Carboniferous period. Now it is not generally
known, but the fact is, that in 1801 Captain Ransom, of the British
exploring vessel Gull, purchased from the natives of Tasmania the
skin of an ekaf-bird that could not have been killed more than twenty-four
hours previous to its sale. I saw this skin in the British Museum.
It was labelled “unknown bird, probably extinct.” It took
me exactly a week to satisfy myself that it was actually the skin
of an ekaf-bird. But that is not all, Dick, my boy,” continued
the professor excitedly. “In 1854, Admiral Stuart, of our own
navy, saw the carcass of a strange gigantic bird floating along the
southern coast of Australia. Sharks were after it, and, before a boat
could be lowered, these miserable fish got it. But the good old admiral
secured a few feathers and sent them to the Smithsonian. I saw them.
They were not even labelled, but I knew that they were feathers from
the ekaf-bird or its near relative, the ool-yllik.”
I had grown
so interested that I had leaned far across the table. Daisy, too,
bent forward. It was only when the professor paused for a moment that
I noticed how close together our heads were-Daisy’s and mine.
I don’t think she realized it. She did not move.
“Now
comes the important part of this long discourse,” said the professor,
smiling at our eagerness. “Ever since the carcass of our derelict
Thermosaurus was first noticed, every captain who has seen it has
also reported the presence of one or more gigantic birds in the neighbourhood.
These birds, at a great distance, appeared to be hovering over the
carcass, but on the approach of a vessel they disappeared. Even in
midocean they were observed. When I heard about it I was puzzled.
A month later I was satisfied that neither the ekaf-bird nor the ool-yllik
was extinct. Last Monday I knew that I was right. I found forty-eight
distinct impressions of the huge seven-toed claw of the ekaf-bird
on the beach here at Pine Inlet. You may imagine my excitement. I
succeeded iii digging up enough wet sand around one of these impressions
to preserve its form. I managed to get it into a soap box, and now
it is there in my shop. The tide rose too rapidly for me to save the
other footprints.”
I shuddered
at the possibility of a clumsy misstep on my part obliterating the
impression of an ool-yllik.
“That
is the reason that my daughter warned you off the beach,” he
said mildly.
“Hanging
would have been too good for the vandal who destroyed such priceless
prizes!” I cried out in self-reproach.
Daisy Holroyd
turned a flushed face to mine, and impulsively laid her hand on my
sleeve.
“How
could you know?” she said.
“It’s
all right now,” said her father, emphasizing each word with
a gentle tap of his pipe-bowl on the table edge; don’t be hard
on yourself; Dick, my boy. You’ll do yeoman’s service
yet.”
It was nearly
midnight, and still we chatted on about the Thermosaurus, the ekaf-bird,
and the ool-yllik, eagerly discussing the probability of the great
reptile’s carcass being in the vicinity. That alone seemed to
explain the presence of these prehistoric birds at Pine Inlet.
“Do they
ever attack human beings?” I asked.
The professor
looked startled.
“Gracious!”
he exclaimed, “I never thought of that. And Daisy running about
out of doors! Dear me! it takes a scientist to be an unnatural parent!”
His alarm was
half real, half assumed; but all the same, he glanced gravely at us
both, shaking his handsome head, absorbed in thought. Daisy herself
looked a little doubtful. As for me, my sensations were distinctly
queer.
“It is
true,” said the professor, frowning at the wall, “that
human remains have been found associated with the bones of the ekaf-bird—I
don’t know how intimately. It is a matter to be taken into most
serious consideration.”
“The
problem can be solved,” said I, “in several ways. One
is, to keep Miss Holroyd in the house—”
“I shall
not stay in!” cried Daisy indignantly.
We all laughed,
and her father assured her that she should not be abused.
“Even
if I did stay in,” she said, “one of these birds might
alight on Master Dick.”
She looked
saucily at me as she spoke, but turned crimson when her father observed
quietly, “You don’t seem to think of me, Daisy.”
“Of course
I do,” she said, getting up and putting both arms around her
father’s neck; “but Dick—as—as you call him—is
so helpless and timid.”
My blissful
smile froze on my lips.
“Timid!”
I repeated.
She came back
to the table, making me a mocking reverence.
“Do you
think I am to be laughed at with impunity?” she said.
“What
are your other plans, Dick, my boy?” asked the professor.—”Daisy,
let him alone, you little tease!”
“One
is, to haul a lot of cast-iron boilers along the dunes,” I said.
“If these birds come when the carcass floats in, and if they
seem disposed to trouble us, we could crawl into the boilers and be
safe.”
“Why,
that is really brilliant!” cried Daisy.
“Be quiet,
my child! Dick, the plan is sound and sensible and perfectly practical.
Mc-Peek and Frisby shall go for a dozen loads of boilers to-morrow.”
“It will
spoil the beauty of the landscape,” said Daisy, with a taunting
nod to me.
“And
Frisby will probably attempt to cover them with bill-posters,”
I added, laughing.
“That,”
said Daisy, “I shall prevent, even at the cost of my life.”
And she stood up, looking very determined.
“Children,
children,” protested the professor, “go to bed—you
bother me.”
Then I turned
deliberately to Miss Holroyd.
“Good-night,
Daisy,” I said.
“Good-night,
Dick,” she said, very gently.
End of PART Four..... GO TO PART
FIVE..... 
