The other girls dropped down after a while and seized a fan, or in Clara’s case two, and Peachy’s three.  They sailed off into the west, fanning themselves slowly.

“Say, we’ve got to have our ammunition all ready the next time they come,” said Ralph.  “I bet they’re here this afternoon.  They’ve never had any of these lover-like little attentions, apparently.  And they’re falling for them so quick that it’s fairly embarrassing.  Pete, you’ll have to be muckraking this island before we get through.”

In their search for what Honey called “bait,” they came across a trunk filled with scarfs of various descriptions; gauze, satin, chiffon; embroidered, sequined, fringed; every color, fabric, and decoration; every shape and size.  “Drummers’ samples!” Honey commented.

“I tell you what we’ll do now,” Ralph suggested.  “Put the first five scarfs on the beach where they can get them.  But if they want any more, make them take them from our hands.  Be careful, though, not to frighten them.  One move in their direction and we’ll undo everything we’ve accomplished.”

As Ralph prophesied, the girls came again that day, but they waited until after sunset.  It was full-moon night, however; the island was as white as day.  They must have seen the gay-colored heaps from a distance; they pounced on them at once.  The air resounded with cooings of delight.  There was no doubt of it; the scarfs pleased them almost as much as the mirrors.  Before the first flush of their delight had passed, Honey ran down the beach, bearing aloft a long, shimmering, white streamer.  Ralph followed with a scarf of black and gold.  Billy, Pete, and Frank joined them, each fluttering a brilliant silk gonfalon.

The girls drew away in alarm at first.  Then they drew together for counsel.  All the time the men stood quiet, waving their delicately hued spoils.  One by one — Clara first, then Chiquita, Lulu, Peachy, Julia — they succumbed; they sank slowly.  Even then they floated for a long while, visibly swinging between the desire for possession and the instinct of caution.  But in the end each one of them took from her mate the scarf he held up to her.  Followed the prettiest exhibition of flying that Angel Island had yet seen.  The girls fastened the long gauzes to their heads and shoulders.  They flicked and flitted and flittered, they danced and pirouetted and spun through the air, trailing what in the aqueous moonlight looked like mist, irradiated, star-sown.

“Well,” said Ralph that night after the girls had vanished, “I don’t see that this business of handing out loot is getting us anywhere.  We can keep this up until we’ve given those harpies every blessed thing in the trunks.  Then where are we?  They’ll have everything we have to give, and we’ll be no nearer acquainted.  We’ve got to do something else.”

“If we could only get them down to earth — if we could only accustom them to walking about,” Honey declared, “I’m sure we could rig up some kind of trap.”