Alas! for vindication. Alas! for the invisible practical joker which seems sometimes to dog our steps in life and steal our trick when we least expect it.

A maiden knelt upon the white sands out at the wild heart of the sand-dunes, here purple with the shading blossoms of pea-vines, lace-trimmed with everlastings, or raggedly plumed with rank beach-grass and prickly barb-weed.

Near the great pyramid of clam-shells, where the Indians had held an historic feast and got their fire with primitive rubbing of sticks, she knelt upon her right knee, her left foot pressed down hard upon the flat fire-board whose scooped pit, or hollow, had a notch resting upon a wooden tray placed beneath it.

Her left hand--its arm escaping from the white middy-blouse, bared to the shoulder to allow free scope--grasped the handle or socket of her upright drill.

The right pink arm, each muscle strenuously “on the job” under the rounded flesh, worked steadily to and fro the fire-maker’s bow, hand-painted with flame, drawn taut by its leather thong, resting upon the socket at the top of the drill, thus grinding the lower point of that drill into the soft, punky wood of the fire-board, which presently, as the powdered wood-dust fell into the tray beneath, turned black--smoked.

Her hand-painted bag of tinder lay on the sands beside her--that inflammable tinder to foster the spark when it came!

Steadily she drove the bow at first! Anxiously, now, with a horrid little fear beginning to get a hand-hold on her heart, that, after all, the ordeal by fire might not work out as she had expected--the vindication come off--and prove her triumphant mistress of this situation, at least, a perfect fire-witch, even if she had behaved like a simpleton in the shipyard!

Faster, faster--with more and more force--desperately, at last, slipped backward and forward the bow! Harder--harder--ground the drill; the fire-witch, her drooping face aflame, her pretty eyelashes twinkling in a paroxysm, working for dear life now--for vindication--honor--as it seemed to her whose moods were generally highly colored, touched with the extravagance of flame.

Smoke and more smoke in little dun-gray billows! And never a spark of red!

“Rest a while, dear,” said the Guardian. “Then try again--and perhaps you’ll get it.”

She did rest, Sesooā, the fire-witch, in the shadow of the historic shell-heap over which the last flame of sunset most tantalizingly rioted. She curled down upon her left side on the sands, easing her aching right arm.

Then a second fierce trial! A breathing spell! And another wild paroxysm of effort, the decorated bow almost demented now!

Flat failure!

Smoke--and no fire!

She looked up--and caught a smile upon the face of Atlas!

Atlas who had rowed down the river when his day’s work in the shipyard was over, to meet his hostesses, the Camp Fire Group, midway of the dunes for this picnic-supper--and to excitedly discuss the fact that the new ship’s hull which they had so lately seen launched, had been fired upon by a submarine on her towed trip round to Gloucester--would have been sunk had not a Destroyer appeared!

Atlas whose halo the dune-breezes bared--the prismatic bump upon his temple, fast diminishing! Atlas who had laid himself out to make friends with the little fire-witch, deciding that she would make a perfect “pal,” the sort of girl he had always desired for a chum, with plenty of pep in her--if only she wasn’t such a little fire-balloon!

Atlas who had been met with flame turned to ice--or next door to it--with as much frigidity as politeness would allow, tempered by a perfunctory little speech of thanks, rehearsed a dozen times beforehand and eked out by the Guardian, for his heroic presence of mind in that swift leap which prevented the extinguishing in herself of the vital spark by a heavy ship’s rib!

And now it was Atlas’ turn! His smile at her failure was fleeting, involuntary--gone in a moment. But for that one moment it was a smile; a perfectly uncivilized--highly barbaric--grin.

Down went Sesooā’s hand-painted bow beside her tinder-bag!

Neck aflame, so that it could scarcely be distinguished from the red tie of her Minute-Girl Costume, cheeks burning, if the wood-dust wouldn’t, eyes, eyelashes, red-gold hair, all, emitting sparks, a fire-ball herself, she uncurled--sprang to her feet!

Her hand went to her throat. Breathlessly, desperately, she was fighting to get the better of the stray powder-puff of anger--as Iver had done--before it exploded openly.

One glance she flung at Atlas--and he was consumed!

“Let me--let me go!... Oh! we haven’t--haven’t--got wood enough for a fi-ire. You’d better light it with matches. I’ll go--let me--and get some more--driftwood, wreck-wood--to make a rainbow fire! Back--back near--the--bungalow....”

In explosive incoherency her eyes met the Guardian’s. And Gheezies never failed to read a girl’s soul.

“All right!” she said. “If one of the other girls goes with you! It would be nice to have such a wonderful fire, giving off every hue in the rainbow, out here in the middle of the dunes--as we had the night we entertained aviators--and sit around it after our cooking is through. But it’s coming on dark! Don’t be long! Take--Betty!”

Betty had to take herself--little evergreen Holly! The Flame had already flown--a tearing, scintillating flame, as it raced over sand-mound and graying sand-hill.

“I’ve just got to be alone! If not--I’d explode! Oh, he’s simply--simply hateful, that Atlas boy--if he did save............