emed gloomy and impatient but by no means
inclined to give up.

"Jip," he said, "couldn't you SMELL anything like an Indian anywhere?"

"No," said Jip. "I sniffed at every crack on the mountainside. But I am
afraid my nose will be of no use to you here, Doctor. The trouble is,
the whole air is so saturated with the smell of spider-monkeys that it
drowns every other scent--And besides, it's too cold and dry for good
smelling."

"It is certainly that," said the Doctor--"and getting colder all the
time. I'm afraid the island is still drifting to the southward. Let's
hope it stops before long, or we won't be able to get even nuts and
fruit to eat--everything in the island will perish--Chee-Chee, what luck
did you have?"

"None, Doctor. I climbed to every peak and pinnacle I could see. I
searched every hollow and cleft. But not one place could I find where
men might be hidden."

"And Polynesia," asked the Doctor, "did you see nothing that might put
us on the right track?"

"Not a thing, Doctor--But I have a plan."

"Oh good!" cried John Dolittle, full of hope renewed. "What is it? Let's
hear it."

"You still have that beetle with you," she asked--"the Biz-biz, or
whatever it is you call the wretched insect?"

"Yes," said the Doctor, producing the glass-topped box from his pocket,
"here it is."

"All right. Now listen," said she. "If what you have supposed is
true--that is, that Long Arrow had been trapped inside the mountain by
falling rock, he probably found that beetle inside the cave--perhaps
many other different beetles too, eh? He wouldn't have been likely to
take the Biz-biz in with him, would he?--He was hunting plants, you say,
not beetles. Isn't that right?"

"Yes," said the Doctor, "that's probably so."

"Very well. It is fair to suppose then that the beetle's home, or his
hole, is in that place--the part of the mountain where Long Arrow and
his party are imprisoned, isn't it?"

"Quite, quite."

"All right. Then the thing to do is to let the beetle go--and watch him;
and sooner or later he'll return to his home in Long Arrow's cave. And
there we will follow him--Or at all events," she added smoothing down
her wing-feathers with a very superior air, "we will follow him till the
miserable bug starts nosing under the earth. But at least he will show
us what part of the mountain Long Arrow is hidden in."

"But he may fly, if I let him out," said the Doctor. "Then we shall just
lose him and be no be