laughing."

Pete Murphy, who always woke in high spirits, began to joke Ralph
Addington. The other three were silent. In fifteen minutes they were all
asleep; sixty, they were all awake again.

It was Pete Murphy who sounded the alarm this time. "Say, something
spoke to me," he said. "Or else I'm a nut. Or else I have had the most
vivid dream I've ever had." Evidently he did not believe that it was a
dream. He sat up and listened; the others listened, too. There was no
sound in the soft, still night, however. They talked for a little while,
a strangely subdued quintette. It was as though they were all trying to
comment on these experiences without saying anything about them.

They slept through the next night undisturbed until just before sunrise.
Then Honey Smith woke them. It was still dark, but a fine dawn-glow
had begun faintly to silver the east. "Say, you fellows," he exclaimed.
"Wake up!" His voice vibrated with excitement, although he seemed to try
to keep it low. "There are strange critters round here. No mistake this
time. Woke with a start, feeling that something had brushed over me--saw
a great bird--a gigantic thing--flying off heard one woman's laugh--then
another--."

It was significant that nobody joked Honey this time. "Say, this
island'll be a nut-house if this keeps up," Pete Murphy said irritably.
"Let's go to sleep again."

"No, you don't!" said Honey. "Not one of you is going to sleep. You're
all going to sit up with me until the blasted sun comes up."

People always hastened to accommodate Honey. In spite of the hour,
they began to rake the fire, to prepare breakfast. The others became
preoccupied gradually, but Honey still sat with his face towards the
water, watching.

It grew brighter.

"It's time we started to build a camp, boys," Frank Merrill said,
withdrawing momentarily from deep reflection. "We'll go crazy doing
nothing all the time. We'll--."

"Great God," Honey interrupted. "Look!"

Far out to sea and high in the air, birds were flying. There were
five of them and they were enormous. They flew with amazing strength,
swiftness, and grace; but for the most part they about a fixed area like
bees at a honey-pot. It was a limited area, but within it they dipped,
dropped, curved, wove in and out.

"Well, I'll be--."

"They're those black spots we saw the first day, Pete," Billy Fairfax
said breathlessly. "We thought it was the sun."

"That's what I heard in the night," Frank