we had a good deal in common. All of us were interested in science. Terry was rich enough to do as he pleased. His great aim was exploration. He used to make all kinds of a row because there was nothing left to explore now, only patchwork and filling in, he said. He filled in well enough--he had a lot of talents--great on mechanics and electricity. Had all kinds of boats and motorcars, and was one of the best of our airmen. We never could have done the thing at all without Terry. Jeff Margrave was born to be a poet, a botanist--or both--but his folks persuaded him to be a doctor instead. He was a good one, for his age, but his real interest was in what he loved to call “the wonders of science.” As for me, sociology’s my major. You have to back that up with a lot of other sciences, of course. I’m interested in them all. Terry was strong on facts--geography and meteorology and those; Jeff could beat him any time on biology, and I didn’t care what it was they talked about, so long as it connected with human life, somehow. There are few things that don’t. We three had a chance to join a big scientific expedition. They needed a doctor, and that gave Jeff an excuse for dropping his just opening practice; they needed Terry’s experience, his machine, and his money; and as for me, I got in through Terry’s influence. The expedition was up among the thousand tributaries and enormous hinterland of a great river, up where the maps had to be made, savage dialects studied, and all manner of strange flora and fauna expected. But this story is not about that expedition. That was only the merest starter for ours. My interest was first roused by talk among our guides. I’m quick at languages, know a good many, and pick them up readily. What with that and a really good interpreter we took with us, I made out quite a few legends and folk myths of these scattered tribes. And as we got farther and farther upstream, in a dark tangle of rivers, lakes, morasses, and dense forests, with here and there an unexpected long spur running out from the big mountains beyond, I noticed that more and more of these savages had a story about a strange and terrible Woman Land in the high distance. “Up yonder,” “Over there,” “Way up”--was all the direction they could offer, but their legends all agreed on the main point--that there was this strange country where no men lived--only women and girl children. None of them had ever seen it. It was dangerous, deadly, they said, for any man to go there. But there were tales of long ago, when some brave investigator had seen it--a Big Country, Big Houses, Plenty People--All Women. Had no one else gone? Yes--a good many--but they never came back. It was no place for men--of that they seemed sure. I told the boys about these stories, and they laughed at them. Naturally I did myself. I knew the stuff that savage dreams are made of. But when we had reached our farthest point, just the day before we all had to turn around and start for home again, as the best of expeditions must in time, we three made a discovery. The main encampment was on a spit of land running out into the main stream, or what we thought was the main stream. It had the same muddy color we had been seeing for weeks past,...