it's a deuce of a slow process," Honey grumbled.

What hitherto had been devotion to their work grew almost to mania. It
increased their interest that the little settlement of five cabins was
fast taking shape. The men slept in beds now; for they had furnished
their rooms. They had begun to decorate the walls. They re-opened the
trunks and made another careful division of spoils. They were even
experimenting with razors and quarreling amicably over their merits. At
night, when their work was done, they actually changed their clothes.

"One week more of this," commented Honey Smith, "and we'll be serving
meals in courses. I hope that our lady-friends will call sometime when
we're dressed for dinner. I've tried several flossy effects in
ties without results. But I expect to lay them out cold with these
riding-boots."

Nevertheless many days passed and the flying-girls continued not to
appear.

"I don't believe they're ever coming again," Pete Murphy said one day in
a tone of despair.

"Oh, they'll come," Ralph Addington insisted. "They think themselves
that they're not coming again, after having proved to us that they could
fly just as well as ever. But they'll appear sometime when we least
expect it. There's something pulling them over here that's stronger than
anything they've ever come up against. They don't know what it is, but
we do--Mr. G. Bernard Shaw's life-force. They haven't realized yet what
put the spoke in their wheel, but it will bring them here in the end."

But days and days went by. The men worked hard, in the main
good-naturedly, but with occasional outbreaks of discontent and
irritation. "How about that proposition of the life-force?" they asked
Ralph Addington again and again. "You wait!" was all he ever answered.

One day, Honey Smith, who had gone off for a solitary walk, came running
back to camp. "What do you think?" he burst out when he got within
earshot. "I've seen one of them, the little brunette, the one with the
orange wings, the 'plain one.' She was flying on the other side of the
island all by her lonesome. She saw me first, and as sure as I stand
here, she called to me--a regular bird-call. I whistled and she came
flying over in my direction. Blamed if she didn't keep right over my
head for the whole trip."

"Low?" Ralph questioned eagerly.

"Yes," Honey answered succinctly, "but not low enough. I couldn't touch
her, of course. If I stopped for a while and kept quiet as the
dead