"I--do--believe that my father sleeps with one eye open, thinking of that golden egg, as he calls it--the little recording apparatus," she said, when the White Birch Group, as one, asked that the special program for this ceremonial meeting should be a talk from an inventor's daughter upon this most daring enterprise of the age. "He says that if _that_ does not drift back to earth safely with the crow-like parachute--if anything should happen to it, to the two little wheels, with the paper winding from one on to the other, all dashed with pencil marks--the world would call him a fool's mate.... If it did!" Pem's teeth were clinched. "But, of course, without the record, there would be nothing to show how high the little rocket had really flown--showing the bigger one the road," with an excited gasp. "Yes, I can understand how anxious he must be about the safe return of the egg--or the log--whichever you choose to call it--the first record from space, anyway." Tanpa's tone was almost equally excited. "And of course the wind may play pranks with the parachute--drift it away down the mountainside!" "So that we'd lose it in the darkness--oh-h!" Pem shivered upon the thought. "But we'll all be on the lookout to prevent that, as many of us as are there--and that won't be more than a picked few, Dad says, to witness this first experiment.... When--when the real Thunder Bird flies, though--" she turned those patchwork eyes now, sky-blue, flame-red, upon her companions--"you'll all--all-ll be there. And, oh! won't it--won't it be a sight to watch--it--tear?" Drooping towards the fire-glow, lips parted in entranced assurance, the slight figure became lost in the same dream which had held it months before in a February Pullman, while a daring flame, like a red-capped pearl diver, plunging into the mystery of that fairy thing, that gleaming stole about her neck brought out milky flashes of luster--together with those New Jerusalem tints, jade and gold and ruby. Finished now it was, the pearl-woven prophecy--fair record to go down to posterity! In faith--such faith as had inspired Penelope, faithful wife, of old, to weave and unravel her endless web, steadfast in the belief of her husband's return, so the girlish fingers upon the loom had wrought the transcendent story to a finish. To a finish even to the sprinkling of gold pieces, the yellow bonanza, coming from somewhere, to gorge the Thunder Bird, for its record flight; to a finish even to the celestial climax, the little blue powder-flash lighting up the dear, fair face of Mammy Moon!