d over it all flowed the warm, soft air that seemed vibrant with a
life-force pulsing strongly through this virgin world.

Diane called from where she and Harkness had wandered through the lush
grass. Kreiss had thrown himself upon a strip of warm sand and was
oblivious to the beauties that surrounded him. Towahg was squatted like
a half-human frog, binding new heads on his arrows.

"Chet," she called, "come over here and help me to exclaim over this
beautiful place. Walter talks only of building a house and arranging a
place that we can defend. He is so very practical."

"Practical!" exclaimed Chet. "Why, Walt's a dreamer and a poet compared
to me. I'm thinking of food. Hey, Towahg," he called to the black,
"let's eat!" He amplified this with unmistakable pointings at his mouth
and suggestive rubbing of his stomach, and Towahg started off at a run
toward trees that were heavy with strange fruit.

* * * * *

By night there were unmistakable signs that the hand of man had been at
work. A band of savages would have accepted the place as they found it;
for them the shelter of a rock would have sufficed. They would have
passed on to other hunting grounds and only a handful of ashes and a
broken branch, perhaps, would have marked where they had been. But your
civilized man is never satisfied.

Along the mile of shore was open ground. Here the trees approached the
water: again their solid rampart of ghostly trunks was held back some
hundreds of yards. And the open ground was vividly green where the soft
grass waved; and it was matted, too, with crimson and gold of countless
flowers. A beautiful carpet, flung down by the edge of a crystal lake,
and the flowered covering swept up and over the one high knoll that
touched the shore.... And on the knoll, near an outcrop of limestone
rocks, was a house.

"Not exactly pretentious," Chet had admitted, "but we'll do better later
on."

"It will keep Diane under cover," argued Harkness; "these leaves are
like leather."

He helped Diane put another strip of leaf in place on the roof; a twist
of green vine tied around the stem held it loosely.

The leaves were huge, as much as ten feet in diameter: great circles of
leathery green that they cut with a pocket knife and "tailored" as Diane
called it to fit the rough framework of the hut. Towahg had found them
and had given them a name that they did not trouble to learn. "Towahg's
grunts sound so muc