They urged us to throw at it, and we did, but the thing was a long way off, and it was only after a number of failures, at which those elvish damsels laughed delightedly, that Jeff succeeded in bringing the whole structure to the ground. It took me still longer, and Terry, to his intense annoyance, came third. Then Celis set up the little tripod again, and looked back at us, knocking it down, pointing at it, and shaking her short curls severely. “No,” she said. “Bad--wrong!” We were quite able to follow her. Then she set it up once more, put the fat nut on top, and returned to the others; and there those aggravating girls sat and took turns throwing little stones at that thing, while one stayed by as a setter-up; and they just popped that nut off, two times out of three, without upsetting the sticks. Pleased as Punch they were, too, and we pretended to be, but weren’t. We got very friendly over this game, but I told Terry we’d be sorry if we didn’t get off while we could, and then we begged for knives. It was easy to show what we wanted to do, and they each proudly produced a sort of strong clasp-knife from their pockets. “Yes,” we said eagerly, “that’s it! Please--” We had learned quite a bit of their language, you see. And we just begged for those knives, but they would not give them to us. If we came a step too near they backed off, standing light and eager for flight. “It’s no sort of use,” I said. “Come on--let’s get a sharp stone or something--we must get this thing off.” So we hunted about and found what edged fragments we could, and hacked away, but it was like trying to cut sailcloth with a clamshell. Terry hacked and dug, but said to us under his breath. “Boys, we’re in pretty good condition--let’s make a life and death dash and get hold of those girls--we’ve got to.” They had drawn rather nearer to watch our efforts, and we did take them rather by surprise; also, as Terry said, our recent training had strengthened us in wind and limb, and for a few desperate moments those girls were scared and we almost triumphant. But just as we stretched out our hands, the distance between us widened; they had got their pace apparently, and then, though we ran at our utmost speed, and much farther than I thought wise, they kept just out of reach all the time. We stopped breathless, at last, at my repeated admonitions. “This is stark foolishness,” I urged. “They are doing it on purpose--come back or you’ll be sorry.” We went back, much slower than we came, and in truth we were sorry. As we reached our swaddled machine, and sought again to tear loose its covering, there rose up from all around the sturdy forms, the quiet determined faces we knew so well. “Oh Lord!” groaned Terry. “The Colonels! It’s all up--they’re forty to one.”