Angel Island

They flew away finally.

The next day the same thing happened - and the next - and the next.

But on the fourth day, something quite different occurred.

The instant the men saw the girls approaching, they carefully closed the

door and windows of the Clubhouse, and then marched into the interior of

the island. Close by the lake, there was a thick jungle of trees - a

place where the branches matted together, in a roof-like structure,

leaving a cleared space below. The men crawled into this shelter on

their hands and knees for an eighth of a mile. They stayed there three

hours.

The girls had followed this procession in an air-course that exactly

paralleled the trail. When the men disappeared under the trees, they

came together in a chattering group, obviously astonished, obviously

irritated. Hours went by. Not a thing stirred in the jungle; not a sound

came from it. The girls hovered and floated, dipped, dove, flew along

the edge of the lake close to the water, tried by looking under the

trees, to get what was going on. It was useless. Then they alighted on

the tree-tops and swung themselves down from branch to branch until they

were as near earth as they dared to come. Again they peered and peeped.

And again it was useless. In the end, flying and floating with the

disconsolate air of those who kill time, they frankly waited until the

men emerged from the jungle. Then, again the girls took up the airy

course that paralleled the trail to the camp.

For two weeks the men rigidly followed a program. Alternately they shut

themselves inside the Clubhouse and concealed themselves in the forest.

They stayed the same length of time in both places - never less than

three hours.

For two weeks, the girls rigidly followed a program. When the men

retired to the Clubhouse, they spent the three hours hovering over it,

sometimes banging viciously with feet and hands against the walls,

sometimes dropping stones on the roof. When the men retired to the

jungle, they spent the three hours beating about the branches of the

trees, dipping lower and lower into the underbrush, taking, as time went

on, greater and greater risks. But, as in both cases, the men were

screened from observation, all their efforts were useless.

Finally came a day with a difference. The men retired to the forest as

usual but, by an apparent inadvertence, they left the door of the

Clubhouse open a crack.

As usual the girls followed the men to the lake, but this time there was

a different air about them; they seemed to bubble with excitement. The

men crawled under the underbrush and waited. The girls made a

perfunctory search of the jungle and then, as at a concerted signal,

they darted like bolts of lightning back in the direction of the camp.