it and the mainland constantly; the
distance was too far for windborne seeds. The tenuous hypothesis that
gulls had acted as carriers was accepted simply for want of a better.

But the World Congress wasted no time looking backward. Although between
Juan Fernandez and the next land westward the distance was three times
greater than between it and South America, the Congress seized upon the
only island to which it could possibly spread, Sala-y-Gomez, and made of
it a veritable fortress against the Grass. Not only did ships guard its
waters by day and keep it brilliantly lit with their searchlights at
night, but swift pursuitplanes bristling with machineguns brought down
every bird in flight within a thousand miles.

The island itself was sown with salt a halfmile thick after being mined
with enough explosives to blow it into the sea. The world, or that
portion of it which had not fully accepted all the implications of the
doctrine of submission, watched eagerly. But the ships patrolled an
empty sea, the searchlights reflected only the glittering saline
crystals, the migrant birds never reached their destination. The outpost
held, impregnable. Again everyone breathed easier.

Five hundred miles beyond this focalpoint, its convict settlement long
abandoned, was Easter Island, Rapa Nui, home of the great monoliths
whose origin had ever been a puzzle. Erect or supine, these colossal
statues were strewn all over the island. Anthropologists and
archaeologists still came to give them cursory inspection and it was on
such a visit an unmistakable clump of Grass was found.

Immediately the ships were rushed from Sala-y-Gomez, planes carrying
tons of salt took off from Australia and the whole machinery of the
World Congress was swiftly put in operation. But it was too late; Easter
Island was swamped, uninhabited Ducie went next, and Pitcairn, home of
the descendants of the _Bounty_ mutineers followed before even the
slightest precautions could be taken. The Grass was jumping gaps of
thousands of miles in a breathless steeplechase.

On Pitcairn there was nothing to do but rescue the inhabitants. Vessels
stood by to carry them and their livestock off. The palebrown men and
women left for the most part docilely, but the last Adams and the last
McCoy refused to go. "Once before, our people were forced to leave
Pitcairn and found nothing but unhappiness. We will stay on the island
to which our fathers brought their wives."

There