A shower of gravel spattered after him as Mike jammed his heels into the shoulder of the highway to anchor the other end. Then he heard the booming sound of the robot's fall.
Blackie clawed his way up the bank. Vito and Sid were smashing furiously at the floundering machine. Mike danced about the melee with bared teeth, charging in once as if to leap upon the quarry with both feet. Frustrated by the peril of the whirling two-by-fours, he swept up handfuls of gravel to hurl.
Blackie turned to run for one of the axes. Just then, Sid struck home to the head of the robot.
Sparks spat out amid a tinkle of glass. The machine ceased all motion.
"All right!" panted Blackie. "All right! That's enough!"
They stepped back, snarls fading. A handful of gravel trickled through Mike's fingers and pattered loudly on the concrete. Gradually, the men began to straighten up, seeing the robot as an inert heap of metal rather than as a weird beast in its death throes.
"We better load up an' get," said Blackie. "We wanna be over on the trail if they send somethin' up the road to look for this."
Vito dragged the robot off the highway by the head, and they began the task of lashing it to the two-by-fours.
It was about two hours later when they plodded around a street corner among the ruins and stopped before a fairly intact building. By that time, they had picked up an escort of dirty, half-clad children who ran ahead to spread the news.
Two other men and a handful of women gathered around with eager exclamations. The hunters dropped their catch.