ving vehicles the first day," Jeff reminded
us. "If they've got motors, they ARE civilized."

"Civilized or not, we've got our work cut out for us to get away from
here. I don't propose to make a rope of bedclothes and try those walls
till I'm sure there is no better way."

We all concurred on this point, and returned to our discussion as to the
women.

Jeff continued thoughtful. "All the same, there's something funny about
it," he urged. "It isn't just that we don't see any men--but we don't
see any signs of them. The--the--reaction of these women is different
from any that I've ever met."

"There is something in what you say, Jeff," I agreed. "There is a
different--atmosphere."

"They don't seem to notice our being men," he went on. "They treat
us--well--just as they do one another. It's as if our being men was a
minor incident."

I nodded. I'd noticed it myself. But Terry broke in rudely.

"Fiddlesticks!" he said. "It's because of their advanced age. They're
all grandmas, I tell you--or ought to be. Great aunts, anyhow. Those
girls were girls all right, weren't they?"

"Yes--" Jeff agreed, still slowly. "But they weren't afraid--they flew
up that tree and hid, like schoolboys caught out of bounds--not like shy
girls."

"And they ran like marathon winners--you'll admit that, Terry," he
added.

Terry was moody as the days passed. He seemed to mind our confinement
more than Jeff or I did; and he harped on Alima, and how near he'd come
to catching her. "If I had--" he would say, rather savagely, "we'd have
had a hostage and could have made terms."

But Jeff was getting on excellent terms with his tutor, and even his
guards, and so was I. It interested me profoundly to note and study
the subtle difference between these women and other women, and try to
account for them. In the matter of personal appearance, there was a
great difference. They all wore short hair, some few inches at most;
some curly, some not; all light and clean and fresh-looking.

"If their hair was only long," Jeff would complain, "they would look so
much more feminine."

I rather liked it myself, after I got used to it. Why we should so
admire "a woman's crown of hair" and not admire a Chinaman's queue is
hard to explain, except that we are so convinced that the long hair
"belongs" to a woman. Whereas the "mane" in horses is on both, and in
lions, buffalos, and such creatures only on the male. But I did miss
it--at first.

Our time w