“Hi!  Stop your shoving!” he exclaimed.  “Do you want to have the thing roll over me, Jack?”

“I’m not shoving!” replied Jack.

“Some one is!” Mark went on.  He dodged around the far side of the immense fruit and what he saw made him cry out in astonishment.

Two grasshoppers, each one standing about three feet high, were standing on their hind legs, and with their fore feet were pushing the peach along the ground.  They had been attracted to the fruit by some juice which escaped from a bruise on that side, which was the ripest, and, being fond of sweets had, evidently decided to take their find to some safe place where they could eat it at their leisure.  Or perhaps they wanted to provide for their families if grasshoppers have them.

“Did you ever see such monsters?” asked Jack.  “They’re as big as dogs!”

At the sound of his voice the two grasshoppers, becoming alarmed, ceased their endeavors to roll the peach along, and, assuming a crouching attitude seemed to be waiting.

“They certainly are remarkable specimens,” Mr. Henderson said.  “If the other animals are in proportion, and if there are persons in this new world, we are likely to have a hard time of it.”

This time the immense insects concluded the strangers were not to their liking.  With a snapping of their big muscular legs and a whirr of their wings that was like the starting of an automobile, the grasshoppers rose into the air and sailed away over the heads of the adventurers.  Their flight was more than an eighth of a mile in extent, and they came down in a patch of the very tall grass.

“Let’s go after them!” exclaimed old Andy.  “I was so excited I forgot to take a shot at them.  Come on!”

“I think we’d better not,” counseled the professor.  “In the first place we don’t need them.  They would be no good for food.  Then we don’t know but what they might attack us, and it would be no joke to be bitten by a grasshopper of that size.  Let them alone.  We may find other game which will need your attention, Andy.  Better save your ammunition.”

Somewhat against his will, Andy had to submit to the professor’s ruling.  The old hunter consoled himself with the reflection that if insects grew to that size he would have some excellent sport hunting even the birds of the inner world.

“I wonder what sort of a tree that peach grew on,” Jack remarked, as he cut off another slice, when the excitement caused by the discovery of the grasshoppers had subsided.  “It must be taller than a church steeple.  I wonder how the fruit got here, for there are no trees around.”

“I fancy those insects rolled it along for a good distance,” Mr. Henderson put in.  “You can see the marks on the ground, where they pushed it.  They are wonderful creatures.”

“Are we going any farther?” asked Mark.  “Perhaps we can find the peach tree, and, likely there are other fruit trees near it.”