Here the Doctor’s experience with the Singing Trees came in very helpfully. I noticed as I watched him go to work with what small apparatus he had brought with him that he now seemed much surer of how to begin. And it was indeed a surprisingly short time before he was actually in conversation with them, as though he had almost been talking with them all his life. [Illustration: “_It was a rocky gulch_”] Presently he turned to me and spoke almost the thought that was in my mind. “Stubbins,” he said, “the ease with which these plants answer me would almost make me think _they have spoken with a man before_! Look, I can actually make responses with the lips, like ordinary human speech.” He dropped the little contrivance he held in his hands and hissing softly through his teeth he gave out a sort of whispered cadence. It was a curious combination between some one humming a tune and hissing a conversational sentence. Usually it had taken John Dolittle some hours, occasionally some days, to establish a communication with these strange almost human moon trees good enough to exchange ideas with them. But both Chee-Chee and I grunted with astonishment at the way they instantly responded to his whispered speech. Swinging their leafy tendrils around to meet the breeze at a certain angle, they instantly gave back a humming, hissing message that might have been a repetition of that made by the Doctor himself. “They say they are glad to see us, Stubbins,” he jerked out over his shoulder. “Why, Doctor,” I said, “this is marvelous! You got results right away. I never saw anything like it.” “They have spoken with a man before,” he repeated. “Not a doubt of it. I can tell by the way they—Good gracious, what’s this?” He turned and found Chee-Chee tugging at his left sleeve. I have never seen the poor monkey so overcome with fright. He stuttered and jibbered but no intelligible sounds came through his chattering teeth. “Why, Chee-Chee!” said the Doctor. “What is it?—What’s wrong?” “Look!”—was all he finally managed to gulp. He pointed down to the margin of the pond lying at the foot of the cliff. We had scaled up to a shelf of rock to get nearer to the vines for convenience. Where the monkey now pointed there was clearly visible in the yellow sand of the pool’s beach two enormous foot-prints such as we had seen by the shores of the lake. “_The Moon Man!_” the Doctor whispered.—“Well, I was sure of it—that these vines had spoken with a man before. I wonder—” “Sh!” Polynesia interrupted. “Don’t let them see you looking. But when you get a chance glance up towards the left-hand shoulder of the gulch.” Both the Doctor and I behaved as though we were proceeding with our business of conversing with the vines. Then pretending I was scratching my ear I looked up in the direction the parrot had indicated. There I saw several birds. They were trying to keep themselves hidden among the leaves. But there was no doubt that they were there on the watch.