ng across its
top to the lake. Peachy ran nimbly along this limb until she came as
near to the tip as her weight would permit. She stood there an instant
balancing herself; then she walked swiftly back and forth. Finally she
jumped to the ground, landing squarely on her feet. She ran like a deer
to join the file of women.

Involuntarily the men applauded.

"Remember the time when they first came to the island," Ralph said, "how
she was proud like a lion because she managed to hold herself for an
instant on a tree-branch? Her wings were helping her then. Now it's
a real balancing act. Some stunt that! By Jove, she must have been
practising tightrope walking." In spite of his scowl, a certain
tenderness, half of past admiration, half of present pride, gleamed in
his eyes.

"You betchu they have. They've been practising running and jumping and
leaping and vaulting and God only knows what else. Well, we've only got
to keep this up two or three days longer and they'll come back." Honey
spoke in a tone which palpably he tried to make jaunty. In spite of
himself, there was a wavering note of uncertainty in it.

"Oh, we'll get them yet!" Ralph said. "How about it, old fellow?"
Ralph had never lost his old habit of turning to Frank in psychological
distress.

But Frank again kept silence.

"Betchu we find them at home to-night," Honey said as they started down
the trail an hour ahead of time. "Who'll take me. Come!"

No one took him, luckily for Honey. There was no sign of life that
night, nor the next, nor the next. And in the meantime, the women did
not manifest themselves once during the daytime at the New Camp.

"God, we've got to do something about this," Ralph said at the end of
five days. "This is getting serious. I want to see Angela. I hadn't any
idea I could miss her so much. It seems as if they'd been gone for a
month. They must have been preparing for this siege for weeks. Where the
thunder are they hiding--in the jungle somewhere, of course?"

"Oh, of course," Honey assented. "I miss the boys, too," he mourned, "I
used to have a frolic with them every morning before I left and every
night when I got home."

"And it's all so uncomfortable living alone," Ralph grumbled. He was
unshaven. The others showed in various aspects of untidiness the lack of
female standards.

"I'm so sick of my own cooking," Honey complained.

"Not so sick as we are," said Pete.

"Anybody can have my job that wants it," Honey