"The rest, splendid hardwood. Call this a forest? It's a truck farm!"

"Good thing to have a botanist on hand," I agreed.
"Sure there are no medicinal ones? Or any for pure ornament?"

As a matter of fact they were quite right. These towering trees
were under as careful cultivation as so many cabbages. In other
conditions we should have found those woods full of fair foresters
and fruit gatherers; but an airship is a conspicuous object, and
by no means quiet--and women are cautious.

All we found moving in those woods, as we started through
them, were birds, some gorgeous, some musical, all so tame that
it seemed almost to contradict our theory of cultivation--at least
until we came upon occasional little glades, where carved stone
seats and tables stood in the shade beside clear fountains, with
shallow bird baths always added.

"They don't kill birds, and apparently they do kill cats,"
Terry declared. "MUST be men here. Hark!"

We had heard something: something not in the least like a
birdsong, and very much like a suppressed whisper of laughter
--a little happy sound, instantly smothered. We stood like so
many pointers, and then used our glasses, swiftly, carefully.

"It couldn't have been far off," said Terry excitedly.
"How about this big tree?"

There was a very large and beautiful tree in the glade we had