watched the hawk, there came an exclamation of satisfaction.

"Did you see that, Harry?" called the occupant of the gray car to a
slightly built, bronzed companion in a machine of vivid yellow,
christened by some who had ridden in it the "Spanish Omelet." "Did
you see that kill? As clean as a hound's tooth, and not a lost motion of
a feather. Some sport-that fish-hawk! Gad!"

"Yes, it was a neat bit of work, Gerry. But rather out of keeping with the
day."

"Out of keeping? What do you mean?"

"Well, out of tune, if you like that better. It's altogether too
perfect a day for a killing of any sort, seems to me."

"Oh, you're getting sentimental all at once, aren't you, Harry?"
asked Captain Gerry Poland, with just the trace of a covert sneer in
his voice. "I suppose you wouldn't have even a fish-hawk get a much
needed meal on a bright, sunshiny day, when, if ever, he must have
a whale of an appetite. You'd have him wait until it was dark and
gloomy and rainy, with a north-east wind blowing, and all that sort
of thing. Now for me, a kill is a kill, no matter what the weather."

"The better the day the worse the deed, I suppose," and Harry Bartlett
smiled as he leaned forward preparatory to throwing the switch of his
machine's self-starter, for both automobiles had come to a stop to
watch the osprey.

"Oh, well, I don't know that the day has anything to do with it," said