"The Great White Way for mine," said Pete Murphy, "at night--all
the corset and whisky signs flashing, the streets jammed with
benzine-buggies, the sidewalks crowded with boobs, and every lobster
palace filled to the roof with chorus girls."

"Say," Billy Fairfax burst out suddenly; and for the first time since
the shipwreck a voice among them carried a clear business-like note of
curiosity. "You fellows troubled with your eyes? As sure as shooting,
I'm seeing things. Out in the west there--black spots--any of the rest
of you get them?"

One or two of the group glanced cursorily backwards. A pair of
perfunctory "Noes!" greeted Billy's inquiry.

"Well, I'm daffy then," Billy decided. He went on with a sudden abnormal
volubility. "Queer thing about it is I've been seeing them the whole
morning. I've just got back to that Point where I realized there was
something wrong. I've always had a remarkably far sight." He rushed
on at the same speed; but now he had the air of one who is trying to
reconcile puzzling phenomena with natural laws. "And it seems as if--but
there are no birds large enough--wish it would stop, though. Perhaps you
get a different angle of vision down in these parts. Did any of you ever
hear of that Russian peasant who could see the four moons of Jupiter
without a glass? The astronomers tell about him."

Nobody answered his question. But it seemed suddenly to bring them back
to the normal.

"See here, boys," Frank Merrill said, an unexpected note of authority in
his voice, "we can't sit here all the morning like this. We ought to rig
up a signal, in case any ship--. Moreover, we've got to get together and
save as much as we can. We'll be hungry in a little while. We can't lie
down on that job too long."

Honey Smith jumped to his feet. "Well, Lord knows, I want to get busy. I
don't want to do any more thinking, thank you. How I ache! Every muscle
in my body is raising particular Hades at this moment."

The others pulled themselves up, groaned, stretched, eased protesting
muscles. Suddenly Honey Smith pounded Billy Fairfax on the shoulder,
"You're it, Billy," he said and ran down the beach. In another instant
they were all playing tag. This changed after five minutes to baseball
with a lemon for a ball and a chair-leg for a bat. A mood of wild
exhilaration caught them. The inevitable psychological reaction had set
in. Their morbid horror of Nature vanished in its vitalizing flood like
a cobweb in a