Bradley half raised his rifle to fire again and then lowered it
with a shake of his head. Tippet was beyond succor--why waste a
bullet that Caspak could never replace? If he could now escape
the further notice of the monster it would be a wiser act than to
throw his life away in futile revenge. He saw that the reptile
was not looking in his direction, and so he slipped noiselessly
behind the bole of a large tree and thence quietly faded away in
the direction he believed the others to have taken. At what he
considered a safe distance he halted and looked back. Half hidden
by the intervening trees he still could see the huge head and the
massive jaws from which protrude the limp legs of the dead man.
Then, as though struck by the hammer of Thor, the creature
collapsed and crumpled to the ground. Bradley's single bullet,
penetrating the body through the soft skin of the belly, had slain
the Titan.

A few minutes later, Bradley found the others of the party.
The four returned cautiously to the spot where the creature lay
and after convincing themselves that it was quite dead, came close
to it. It was an arduous and gruesome job extricating Tippet's
mangled remains from the powerful jaws, the men working for the
most part silently.

"It was the work of the banshee all right," muttered Brady.
"It warned poor Tippet, it did."

"Hit killed him, that's wot hit did, hand hit'll kill some more
of us," said James, his lower lip trembling.

"If it was a ghost," interjected Sinclair, "and I don't say as it