Page:Weird Tales volume 24 number 03.djvu/65

336 which point he produced a match from his side pocket and struck it on the mailbox nailed to the oak tree. But the tree wasn't there. It had moved, moved out of reach. The earth was shouldered aside. At the base of the huge, broken-barked bole was what seemed to be a wake of turf.

"Fo' fo'teen years," he explained excitedly to Eric Shane, who lived across the street, "I strike m' match on the tree. You see me do it. What is happen?" He looked around belligerently at the little group that had collected, and which had drifted back to the scene of the novelty.

"I tell you what. I come down the walk and put out my hand to the postbox to strike the match. Every morning just the same. Eric will tell you so. But now I can't reach it," he said, his voice trembling. "Look for yourself. The tree has move' away from the sidewalk!" He pointed passionately at the base of the tree with his unlighted pipe. Before it, between the little huddle of men and the tree, was a plowed furrow, like a short, fresh grave.

Wiry, dark little Fred Yanotsky, who had once inspected ore at the Ashton mills, was looking up at the laboratories on the hill above Sholla's house.

"You vill find vhy up d'ere, I t'ink," he said malignantly. "No good come of machines. I know. I work wit' machines for ten, twelve year. Many funny t'ings happen. Funny t'ings." His voice trailed off ominously.

"Ah!" exclaimed Sholla contemptuously. "You talk like crazy. Because you catch yourself in the wheels one time, whose fault was it? You want to hang the big stamp, maybe, or the digger? P'r'aps you like to burn those generator' up there, like witches in the old country?"

"I do' know," said Yanotsky slowly, shaking his head. "I see some awful funny t'ings." He looked up balefully at the power plant, and fingered the mutilations of the arm that had been caught in the mill machinery many years ago.

"Ay," spoke up an old bearded fellow, Papa Freng. "What has happened to the game? Tell me, Roman Sholla."

"The game?" said Sholla. "How do you mean?"

"The game, the small game. What has happened to all the rabbits? Where are the squirrels that used to come to my window for nuts, all summer and all winter? I tell you, there has been no small game seen here these three months, nor the small green snakes, even. Roman Sholla, what of the birds?"

"Birds? What are you talking about, papa? Up there is a bird, now." He pointed off at a slow-winged turkey buzzard of remarkable size, a really gigantic specimen, that was pursuing a low, undulating flight toward the wood that surrounded the hill and the laboratories. The five men at the oak tree turned and eyed the bird warily as though they were watching Judgment approach. The buzzard passed nearly overhead, somewhat to the right of Sholla's house, and side-winged into a wide spiral as it prepared to alight in the trees half-way between the house and the laboratories on the hill. Its trailing legs dropped a trifle, the wings spread umbrella-wise, and momentarily it disappeared from view among the foliage. Sholla turned to Papa Freng triumphantly, saying,

"Well, papa, there was one—or didn't I see it?"

"Look!" said the old man, seizing his arm and shaking it.

The buzzard had suddenly reappeared, beating its wings so violently that to the five astonished men it sounded like a waterfall. The frantic bird uttered hoarse, terrified cries, thrashing the air