d
valley or tableland up there, and their primeval customs have survived.
That's all there is to it."

"How about the boys?" Jeff asked.

"Oh, the men take them away as soon as they are five or six, you see."

"And how about this danger theory all our guides were so sure of?"

"Danger enough, Terry, and we'll have to be mighty careful. Women of
that stage of culture are quite able to defend themselves and have no
welcome for unseasonable visitors."

We talked and talked.

And with all my airs of sociological superiority I was no nearer than
any of them.

It was funny though, in the light of what we did find, those extremely
clear ideas of ours as to what a country of women would be like. It
was no use to tell ourselves and one another that all this was idle
speculation. We were idle and we did speculate, on the ocean voyage and
the river voyage, too.

"Admitting the improbability," we'd begin solemnly, and then launch out
again.

"They would fight among themselves," Terry insisted. "Women always do.
We mustn't look to find any sort of order and organization."

"You're dead wrong," Jeff told him. "It will be like a nunnery under an
abbess--a peaceful, harmonious sisterhood."

I snorted derision at this idea.

"Nuns, indeed! Your peaceful sisterhoods were all celibate, Jeff, and
under vows of obedience. These are just women, and mothers, and where
there's motherhood you don't find sisterhood--not much."

"No, sir--they'll scrap," agreed Terry. "Also we mustn't look for
inventions and progress; it'll be awfully primitive."

"How about that cloth mill?" Jeff suggested.

"Oh, cloth! Women have always been spinsters. But there they
stop--you'll see."

We joked Terry about his modest impression that he would be warmly
received, but he held his ground.

"You'll see," he insisted. "I'll get solid with them all--and play one
bunch against another. I'll get myself elected king in no time--whew!
Solomon will have to take a back seat!"

"Where do we come in on that deal?" I demanded. "Aren't we Viziers or
anything?"

"Couldn't risk it," he asserted solemnly. "You might start a
revolution--probably would. No, you'll have to be beheaded, or
bowstrung--or whatever the popular method of execution is."

"You'd have to do it yourself, remember," grinned Jeff. "No husky black
slaves and mamelukes! And there'd be two of us and only one of you--eh,
Van?"

Jeff's ideas and Terry's were so far apart that sometimes