It seemed to me that it would be difficult to make roads across such a terrain, the bridges would be innumerable. I wondered how the natives got around. I had seen no sign of animals as yet, but that was not to be considered surprising if there were a city so near. There were plants, a large number scattered here and there in clumps, reddish and greenish masses somewhat like the vegetation of our American Western deserts.
After walking and jumping and still more walking and leaping I became tired after about an hour. The city was still a distance away but it could now be seen with greater distinctness. It was indeed what I had thought, a cluster of buildings obviously constructed for intelligent beings and there were indeed columns of smoke rising from them. More than that I could not distinguish.
I had come across no roads as yet which was odd if this were a city though comprehensible considering the nature of the ground.
At last I saw a building of some sort in my path. It was a small structure, hardly more than a frame-work construction of clay. I made my way to it and looked at it. The building itself was nothing, just a frame-work as I had said. It was what was propped up beside it that puzzled and amazed me.
It was a nine-foot cylinder of shining metal. About the middle of this metal shaft was fixed a circular frame. There were a number of what might be controls set in the cylinder just above this central railwork and a large mass like a doughnut running underneath the metal hoop which might have held an engine of some sort. The bottom of the shaft was capped by a large rubbery mass.
I could not figure out what this was. I stood it upright (it was not too heavy) and looked at it from all directions. It was a puzzle. Then I climbed on to the hoop affixed to its middle and sat down. The central shaft ran between my legs, the engine was under me and the controls faced me. It occurred to me that here was a machine designed to be operated by someone in my position and of my general size.
Because I am afraid of nothing, I touched the controls and pressed them. Below me there was a sort of murmuring and rumbling. Then the cylinder seemed to vibrate slightly, to grow more tense. I grasped the metal bar tightly.
There was a terrifying hiss and then a terrific crash and the cylinder suddenly hurtled into the air. I held on for dear life, my composure dreadfully shaken. The whole machine bounced upwards into the air and then came down on its rubber-capped bottom. I held on. It hit, a shaft within the cylinder contracted and absorbed the shock and suddenly flicked out again and up we went.
As I grasped the main tube for dear life I realized what it was. A pogo stick! A giant, mechanically controlled, powered pogo stick!