When Bradley went on guard at midnight, September 14th, his thoughts were largelyoccupied with rejoicing that the night was almost spent without serious mishap and that themorrow would doubtless see them all safely returned to Fort Dinosaur. The hopefulness of hismood was tinged with sorrow by recollection of the two members of his party who lay back therein the savage wilderness and for whom there would never again be a homecoming.No premonition of impending ill cast gloom over his anticipations for the coming day, forBradley was a man who, while taking every precaution against possible danger, permitted nogloomy forebodings to weigh down his spirit. When danger threatened, he was prepared; but hewas not forever courting disaster, and so it was that when about one o'clock in the morning of thefifteenth, he heard the dismal flapping of giant wings overhead, he was neither surprised norfrightened but idly prepared for an attack he had known might reasonably be expected.The sound seemed to come from the south, and presently, low above the trees in thatdirection, the man made out a dim, shadowy form circling slowly about. Bradley was a braveman, yet so keen was the feeling of revulsion engendered by the sight and sound of that grim, uncanny shape that he distinctly felt the gooseflesh rise over the surface of his body, and it waswith difficulty that he refrained from following an instinctive urge to fire upon the nocturnalintruder. Better, far better would it have been had he given in to the insistent demand of hissubconscious mentor; but his almost fanatical obsession to save ammunition proved now hisundoing, for while his attention was riveted upon the thing circling before him and while his earswere filled with the beating of its wings, there swooped silently out of the black night behind himanother weird and ghostly shape. With its huge wings partly closed for the dive and its whiterobe fluttering in its wake, the apparition swooped down upon the Englishman.So great was the force of the impact when the thing struck Bradley between the shouldersthat the man was half stunned. His rifle flew from his grasp; he felt clawlike talons of greatstrength seize him beneath his arms and sweep him off his feet; and then the thing rose swiftlywith him, so swiftly that his cap was blown from his head by the rush of air as he was bornerapidly upward into the inky sky and the cry of warning to his companions was forced back intohis lungs.The creature wheeled immediately toward the east and was at once joined by its fellow, whocircled them once and then fell in behind them. Bradley now realized the strategy that the pairhad used to capture him and at once concluded that he was in the power of reasoning beingsclosely related to the human race if not actually of it