rasses made
a dim-colored, velvety fabric that contrasted richly with her coppery
satin surfaces and her brilliant orange wings.

The excitement of this had hardly died down when Frank Merrill brought
the tale of another adventure to camp. He had fallen into the habit of
withdrawing late in the afternoon to one of the reefs, far enough away
to read and to write quietly. One day, just as he had gone deep into his
book, a shadow fell across it. Startled, he looked up. Directly over his
head, pasted on the sky like a scarlet V, hovered the "dark one." After
his first instant of surprise and a second interval of perplexity, he
put his book down, settled himself back quietly, and watched. Conscious
of his espionage apparently, she flew away, floated, flew back, floated,
flew up, flew down, floated--always within a little distance. After half
an hour of this aerial irresolution, she sailed off. She repeated her
performance the next afternoon and the next, and the next, staying
longer each time. By the end of the week she was spending whole
afternoons there. She, too, became a regular visitor.

She never spoke. And she scarcely moved. She waved her great scarlet
wings only fast enough to hold herself beyond Frank's reach. But
from that distance she watched his movements, watched closely and
unceasingly, watched with the interest of a child at a moving-picture
show. Her surveillance of him was so intense it seemed impossible that
she could see anything else. But if one of the other four men started
to join them, she became a flash of scarlet lightning that tore the
distance.

Frank, of course, found this interesting. Every day he made voluminous
notes of his observations. Every night be embodied these notes in his
monograph.

"What does she look like close to?" the others asked him again and
again.

"Really, I've hardly had a chance to notice yet," was Frank's invariable
answer. "She's a comely young person, I should say, and, as you can
easily see, of the brunette coloring. I'm so much more interested in her
flying than in her appearance that I've never really taken a good look
at her. Unfortunately she flies less well than the others. I wish I
could get a chance to study all of them--the 'quiet one' in particular;
she flies so much faster. On the other hand, this one seems able to hold
herself motionless in the air longer than they."

"She's lazy," Honey Smith said decisively. "I got that right off. She
looks like a S