The bird started, turned toward him, looked at him for an instant with wild, fearless eyes, then continued its preening. Suddenly it stopped and cocked its head as if listening to something. Then David heard it too: a shout down the mountainside, louder and clearer now, excited and jubilant. He shivered and looked down. The Scientist was tearing up the goat trail as fast as his long legs would carry him--and he was waving a rifle. "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."