Ralph Addington studied Frank Merrill’s gigantic copper-colored bulk enviously.  “I guess you could,” he agreed.

“Fortunately,” Frank went on, “it would be impossible for such a situation to arise.  Men don’t war on women.”

“On the contrary,” Ralph disagreed, “men always war on women, and women on men.  Why, Merrill,” he added with his inevitable tone of patronage, “aren’t you wise to the fact that the war between the sexes is in reality more bitter and bloody than any war between the races?”

But Frank did not answer.  He only stared.

“Did you notice,” Pete Murphy asked, “what wonderful hair they had?  Loose like that — they looked more than ever like Valkyries.”

“Yes, I got that,” Ralph answered.  He smiled until all his white teeth showed.  “And take it from me, that’s a point gained.  When a woman begins to let her hair down, she’s interested.”

“Well,” said Honey Smith, “their game may be the same as every other woman’s you’ve known, but it takes a damned long time to come down to cases.  What I want to know is how many months more will have to pass before we speak when we pass by.”

“That matter’ll take care of itself,” Ralph reassured him.  “You leave it to natural selection.”

“Well, 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.