The other four men burst into shocked remonstrance.

"Well, don't go up in the air," Ralph said in an amused voice. "It wouldn't hurt them any. And it seems to me if we've definitely made up our minds to capture them, the best way is the swiftest and surest."

"But to shoot a woman!" Pete exclaimed.

"Well, don't worry," Ralph answered him, "we haven't any guns. I did think of bows and arrows, though." He said this in the tone of one who throws out a suggestion and he stopped to study the faces of his fellow conspirators. Equally they expressed horror and disgust. "All right,"

he said with equanimity. "I see you're like all human nature. You're determined to pull off this caveman stunt, but you want to do it with every appearance of chivalry and generosity. You're saving face. All right! I'm agreeable--although personally I think the quickest way the most merciful. Has anybody a better plan?"

n.o.body had. It was obvious, though, from the talk that followed, that they had all been secretly considering the matter.

"The only thing for us to do," Honey said at once, "is to lie in wait.

Conceal ourselves in the bushes and leap out on them."

"That sounds easy," Ralph said. "But has it occurred to you that these girls have the ears of wild animals? Has it occurred to you that they have all the instincts and cunning of the animal and all the intuition and prescience of the woman? Has it occurred to you that they always approach from above?"

"The only thing I can think of," said Billy, "is to la.s.so them. Only we've got to get them to alight and walk round first. But either they can't walk or they don't like to walk. We must off offer them some bait.

Now, what in thunder would tempt a creature that's one-third woman, one-third bird, and one-third angel to come down to earth?"

For a moment they were all silent considering this question. "By Jove,"

Ralph burst out finally, "what are we all sitting here like dopes for?

Those trunks are full of women's clothes. Did you ever see a woman yet who wouldn't fall for ribbons and laces?"

"Good shot!" exclaimed Honey. "Let's go through the women-truck to-morrow and pick out some things that would please a girl. We'll put them on the beach a good distance off from us, so they'll not think it's a trap. If we do that every day for a week or two they'll get accustomed to walking round while we're working. It's our play to take no notice of them whatever."

"That's the answer," Ralph said in a tone of satisfaction.

Immediately after breakfast, the next morning, they made for the file of trunks so contemptuously rejected the first week of their stay. Honey, who was always head and shoulders in front of the others, broke open the first one.

"By jiminy, boys!" he shouted, seizing something that lay on top and waving it over his head, "we've got them on the go-off. By George," he went on, lowering his voice, "I bet that belonged to some darned pretty woman."

The men crowded about him; and, as they examined his find, their faces softened. Nothing could more subtly have emanated femininity. It was a hand-mirror of silver. Two carved Cupids held the gla.s.s between them.

Their long wings made the handle.

"Put it down there on the hard sand," Ralph said, "where they can't fail to see it."

"Hold!" exclaimed Honey in a tone of burlesque warning. "There must be five mirrors. He knows nothing of women who thinks that one mirror may be divided among five girls. I hope Lulu cops this one."

His companions did not laugh. Apparently they were impressed with the sapience of his remark. They searched the trunks until they had gathered the five that Honey demanded. They placed them in a row just above the high-water line. The mirrors caught the sunlight, reflected it.

"They won't do a thing to those girls," said Honey. There was the glee in his voice of a little boy who is playing a practical joke.

The girls came in a group in the middle of the afternoon.

"They've spotted them already," said Honey.

"Trust a woman and a looking-gla.s.s."

The discovery ruined discipline; it broke ranks; the five girls flew high, flew low, flew separated, flew grouped, crowded about Julia, obviously asking her advice. Obviously she gave it; for following her quick, clear tones of advice came a confused chattering--remonstrance.

Then Peachy, Clara, Chiquita, and Lulu dropped a little. Julia alone came no nearer. She alone showed no excitement.

The men meantime watched. They could not, as they had so loftily resolved, pretend to ignore the situation. But they kept silent and still. Once or twice the girls glanced curiously in their direction.

But in the main they ignored them. Descending in big, slow, cautious, sliding curves, they circled nearer and nearer the sand.

Suddenly Lulu screamed. Still screaming, she bounded--it was almost that she bounced--straight up. The others streamed to the zenith in the wake of her panic, caught up, closed about her. There floated down the shrillness of agitated question and answer.

"What the Hades--" Ralph said in a mystified tone.

"I've got it," said Honey. "She caught a look at herself in one of the mirrors and she's scared. Don't be afraid, Lulu," he called in a rea.s.suring tone; "it won't hurt you."

Lulu evidently got what he intended to convey. Again she sank slowly, hovered an instant close to the sand, brought her face near to a mirror, bounced up, dipped down, brought her face nearer, fluttered, put out one hand, withdrew it, put out the other, withdrew it, put out both, seized a mirror firmly, darted to the zenith.

"Well, what do you know about that!" said Billy. And, "Oh, the angels!"

exclaimed Pete. Ralph's face opened in the fatuous grin which always meant satisfaction with him. Honey turned somersaults of delight. Even Frank twinkled.

For, high up in the heaven, five heads positively b.u.mped over the meager oval of silver.

Lulu finally pulled out of the crowd and flew away. But all the time she held the mirror straight before her, clasped tightly in two hands, ecstatically "eating herself up" as Honey described it.

The men continued to watch.

Gradually, one after another, the other four girls fell under the lure of their vanity and their acquisitiveness.

Clara dove first, clutched a long-handled oval of yellow celluloid.

Next Chiquita swam lazily downward, made a brief scarlet flutter on the beach, seized an elaborate double mirror set in gilded wood. Peachy followed; she chose a heart-shaped gla.s.s, ebony-framed. Last of all, Julia came floating slowly down. She took the only one that was left: it was, of course, the smallest; it was framed in carved ivory.

For the next ten minutes, the sky presented a picture of five winged women, stationed at various points of the compa.s.s, ecstatically studying their own beautiful faces in mirrors held in their white, strong-looking hands.

Then, flying together again, they discovered that the mirrors reflected.

At first, this created panic, then amus.e.m.e.nt. Ensued a delicious girl-frolic. Darting through the air, laughing, jabbering, they played tag, throwing the light into each other's eyes. A little later Peachy gathered them into a bunch and whispered instructions. Immediately they began flashing the mirrors into the men's faces. To escape this bombardment, their victims had finally to throw themselves face downward on the sand.

In the midst of this excitement came disaster.

Lulu dropped her mirror.

It hit square and shattered on the sand to many brilliant splinters.

Lulu fell like a stone, seized the empty frame, gazed into it for a heart-broken second, burst into tears.

It was the first time that the men as a group had ever seen in the flying-girls an exhibition of this feminine faculty. For a moment, they watched her, deeply interested, as though confronted by an unfamiliar phenomenon. Then Billy wriggled.

"Say, stop her, somebody," he begged, "I hate to hear a woman cry."

"So do I," said Peter, his face twisted into creases of discomfort.

"She's your girl, Honey. Stop her, for G.o.d's sake."

"How's he going to stop her, I'd like to know?" demanded Ralph. "We don't converse very fluently yet, you know."

"Well, I know how to stop her," said Honey, leaping up. "I say, Lulu,"

he called. "Stop that crying, that's a good girl. It makes us all sick.