here and there appeared glade-like openings.

Seaton glanced at the faces about him. Tense interest marked them all.
Dorothy's cheeks were flushed, her eyes shone. She looked at him with
awe and pride.

"A strange world, Dorothy," he said gravely. "You are not afraid?"

"Not with you," she answered. "I am only thrilled with wonder."

"Columbus at San Salvador," said Margaret, her dark eyes paying their
tribute of admiration.

A dark flush mounted swiftly into Seaton's brown face and he sought to
throw most of the burden upon Crane, but catching upon his face also a
look of praise, almost of tenderness, he quickly turned to the controls.

"Man the boats!" he ordered an imaginary crew, and the Skylark descended
rapidly.

Landing upon one of the open spaces, they found the ground solid and
stepped out. What had appeared to be a glade was in reality a rock, or
rather, a ledge of apparently solid metal, with scarcely a loose
fragment to be seen. At one end of the ledge rose a giant tree
wonderfully symmetrical, but of a peculiar form. Its branches were
longer at the top than at the bottom, and it possessed broad, dark-green
leaves, long thorns, and odd, flexible, shoot-like tendrils. It stood as
an outpost of the dense vegetation beyond. Totally unlike the forests of
Earth were those fern-like trees, towering two hundred feet into the
air. They were of an intensely vivid green and stood motionless in the
still, hot air of noonday. Not a sign of animal life was to be seen; the
whole landscape seemed asleep.

The five strangers stood near their vessel, conversing in low tones and
enjoying the sensation of solid ground beneath their feet. After a few
minutes DuQuesne remarked:

"This is undoubtedly a newer planet than ours. I should say that it was
in the Carboniferous age. Aren't those trees like those in the
coal-measures, Seaton?"

"True as time, Blackie--there probably won't be a human race here for
ages, unless we bring out some colonists."

Seaton kicked at one of the loose lumps of metal questioningly with his
heavy shoe, finding that it was as immovable as though it were part of
the ledge. Bending over, he found that it required all his great
strength to lift it and he stared at it with an expression of surprise,
which turned to amazement as he peered closer.

"DuQuesne! Look at this!"

* * * * *

DuQuesne studied the metal, and was shaken out of his habitual
taciturnity.