All this time the vegetation underneath them had been growing steadily larger. From tiny broken twigs it grew to sticks bigger than their fingers, then to the thickness of their arms. They moved slightly from time to time, letting it spread out from under them, or brushing it aside and clearing a space in which they could sit more comfortably. Still larger it grew until the tree-trunks, thick now almost as their bodies, were lying broken and twisted, all about them. Over to one side they could see, half a mile away, a place where the trees were still standing—slender saplings, they seemed, growing densely together.
In half an hour more the Very Young Man announced he had stopped getting smaller. The action of the drug ceased in the others a few minutes later. They were still not quite in their relative sizes, but a few grains of the powder quickly adjusted that.
They now found themselves near the edge of what once was a great forest. Huge trees, whose trunks measured six feet or more in diameter, lay scattered about upon the ground; not a single one was left standing. In the distance they could see, some miles away, where the untrodden forest began.
They had replaced the food in their belts some time before, and now again they were ready to start. Suddenly the Very Young Man spied a huge, round, whitish-brown object lying beside a tree-trunk near by. He went over and stood beside it. Then he called his friends excitedly. It was irregularly spherical in shape and stood higher than his knees—a great jagged ball. The Very Young Man bent down, broke off a piece of the ball, and, stuffing it into his mouth, began chewing with enthusiasm.
"Now, what do you think of that?" he remarked with a grin. "A cracker crumb I must have dropped when we first began lunch!"
They decided now to make for the nearest part of the unbroken forest. It was two hours before they reached it, for among the tangled mass of broken, fallen trees their progress was extremely difficult and slow. Once inside, among the standing trees, they felt more lost than ever. They had followed implicitly the Chemist's directions, and in general had encountered the sort of country they expected. Nevertheless, they all three realized that it was probable the route they had followed coming in was quite different from that taken by the Chemist; and in what direction lay their destination, and how far, they had not even the vaguest idea, but they were determined to go on.
"If ever we find this city of Arite, it'll be a miracle sure," the Very Young Man remarked as they were walking along in silence.
They had gone only a short distance farther when the Big Business Man, who was walking in front, stopped abruptly.
"What's that?" he asked in a startled undertone.
They followed the direction of his hand, and saw, standing rigid against a tree-trunk ahead, the figure of a man little more than half as tall as themselves, his grayish body very nearly the color of the blue-gray tree behind him.