The bare, smooth trunks extended twenty feet in the air before a branch appeared. The branches were broad, stout leaves, among which hung the bunches of fruit.
"I hate to ruin a perfectly good tree," declared Orissa, picking up the hatchet, "but self-preservation is the first law of nature."
"Goodness me! You're not thinking of chopping it down, I hope," exclaimed Sybil.
"No; that would be too great a task to undertake. I've a better way, I think."
She selected a tree that had three large bunches of bananas on it. One bunch was quite ripe, the next just showing color and the third yet an emerald green. Each bunch consisted of from sixty to eighty bananas.
First Orissa chopped notches on either side of the trunk, at such distances as would afford support for her feet. When these notches rose as high as she could reach, she brought two broad straps from the Aircraft, buckled them together around the tree-trunk, and then passed the slack around her body and beneath her arms. Thus supported she began the ascent, placing her feet in the notches she had already cut and chopping more notches as she advanced.
In this manner the girl reached the lower branches and after climbing into them removed the strap and crept along until she reached the first bunch of bananas.
"Stand from under!" she cried to Sybil and began chopping at the stem. Presently the huge bunch fell with a thud and Sybil gleefully applauded by clapping her hands.
"The lower ones are a bit mushy, I fear," she called to her chum, "but that can't be helped."