to the far-off white-crowned peaks in the distance, themselves
probably inaccessible.

"Let's make the first trip geographical," I suggested.
"Spy out the land, and drop back here for more gasoline.
With your tremendous speed we can reach that range and
back all right. Then we can leave a sort of map on board--
for that relief expedition."

"There's sense in that," Terry agreed. "I'll put off being
king of Ladyland for one more day."

So we made a long skirting voyage, turned the point of the cape
which was close by, ran up one side of the triangle at our best speed,
crossed over the base where it left the higher mountains, and so back
to our lake by moonlight.

"That's not a bad little kingdom," we agreed when it was
roughly drawn and measured. We could tell the size fairly by our
speed. And from what we could see of the sides--and that icy
ridge at the back end--"It's a pretty enterprising savage who
would manage to get into it," Jeff said.

Of course we had looked at the land itself--eagerly, but we
were too high and going too fast to see much. It appeared to be
well forested about the edges, but in the interior there were wide
plains, and everywhere parklike meadows and open places.

There were cities, too; that I insisted. It looked--well, it
looked like any other country--a civilized one, I mean.