There came a day late in April when, knee deep in palmetto scrub, the Dryad and Jones stood leaning upon their nets and scanning the wilderness for the swift-winged forest phantom they had sought so long. Ajax was on the wing; glimpse after glimpse they had of him, a pale shadow in the sun, a misty spot in the shadow, then nothing but miles of palmetto scrub and the pink stems of tall pines.
Suddenly an Ajax darted into the sunny glade where they stood, and a ragged, faded brother Ajax fluttered up from the ground and, Ajax-like, defied the living lightning.
Wing beating wing they closed in battle, whirling round and round one another above the palmetto thicket. The ragged and battered butterfly won, the other darted away with the speed of a panic-stricken jacksnipe, and his shabby opponent quietly settled down on a sun-warmed twig.
Then it was that inspiration seized the Dryad: "Mr. Jones, you trick wild ducks into gunshot range by setting painted wooden ducks afloat close to the shore where you lie hidden. Catch that ragged Ajax, place him upon a leaf, and who knows?"
Decoy a butterfly? Decoy the forest phantom drunk with the exhilaration of his own mad flight! It was the invention of a new sport.
Scarcely appearing to move at all, so cautious was his progress, Jones slowly drew near the basking and battle-tattered creature that had once been Ajax. There was a swift drop of the silken net, a flutter, and all was over. In the palm of Jones's hand, dead, lay the faded and torn insect with scarce a vestige of former beauty on the motionless wings.
Doubting, yet stirred to hope, he placed the dead butterfly on a palmetto frond, wings expanded to catch the sun; and then, standing within easy net-stroke, the excited Dryad and Jones strained their eyes to catch the first far glimpse of Ajax in the wilderness.
What was that distant flash of light? A dragon-fly sailing? There it is again! And there again! Nearer, nearer, following the same invisible aërial path.
"Quick!" whispered the Dryad. A magnificent Ajax flashed across the glade, turned an acute angle in mid-air, and in an instant hung hovering over the lifeless insect on the palm leaf.