away. The girls seemed to be floating in a sea of
crimson-amber ether. Its light brought lustre to every feather; it
turned the edges of their wings to flame; it changed their smoothly
piled hair to helmets of burnished metal.

The men tore from the beach to the trees at full speed. For a moment the
violence of this action threw the girls into a panic. They fluttered,
broke lines, flew high, circled. And all the time, they uttered shrill
cries of distress.

"They're frightened," Billy Fairfax said. "Keep quiet, boys."

The men stopped running, stood stock-still.

Gradually the girls calmed, sank, took up the interweaving figures of
their air-dance. If at their first appearance they seemed creatures of
the sea, this time they were as distinctively of the forest. They looked
like spirits of the trees over which they hovered. Indeed, but for their
wings they might have been dryads. Wreaths of green encircled their
heads and waists. Long leafy streamers trailed from their shoulders.
Often in the course of their aerial play, they plunged down into the
feathery tree-tops.

Once, the blonde with the blue wings sailed out of the group and
balanced herself for a toppling second on a long, outstretching bough.

"Good Lord, what a picture!" Pete Murphy said.

As if she understood, she repeated her performance. She cast a glance
over her shoulder at them--unmistakably noting the effect.

"Hates herself, doesn't she?" commented Honey Smith. "They're talking!"
he added after an interval of silence. "Some one of them is giving
directions--I can tell by the tone of her voice. Can't make out which
one it is though. Thank God, they can talk!"

"It's the quiet one--the blonde--the one with the white wings,"
Billy Fairfax explained. "She's captain. Some bean on her, too; she
straightened them out a moment ago when they got so frightened."

"I now officially file my claim," said Ralph Addington, "to that peachy
one--the golden blonde--the one with the blue wings, the one who tried
to stand on the bough. That girl's a corker. I can tell her kind of
pirate craft as far as I see it."

"Me for the thin one!" said Pete Murphy. "She's a pippin, if you please.
Quick as a cat! Graceful as they make them. And look at that mop of red
hair! Isn't that a holocaust? I bet she's a shrew."

"You win, all right," agreed Ralph Addington. "I'd like nothing better
than the job of taming her, too."

"See here, Ralph," bantered Pete, "I've copped