Then the whole party began scrambling up through the trees. They had not gone very far before they came to a road. They crossed that and then the forest became much steeper. Sometimes it was a wonder how the little trees themselves clung on among the rocks. There were all sorts of trees. Here and there was a tall pine, but most of the trees were oaks and beeches and hazels and mountain ash. There was no path and the brambles on the ground and the long strings of honeysuckle twisting from branch to branch made it hard work pushing through the undergrowth.
“We’d better keep together,” said Mate Susan, when Titty tried to take a line of her own.
“It’s a real forest,” said Roger.
“A jungle almost,” said Titty.
“We ought to have an axe to blaze the trees so that we can be sure of finding our way back,” said John, “but we can’t go far wrong if we keep going straight down on the way back. That will bring us to the lake, anyhow, and once we’re on the shore it’ll be easy.”
“What if we don’t find the charcoal-burners?” asked Titty.
“Listen,” said Captain John. They listened and could hear the steady plunk, plunk of an axe somewhere far above them. “We can’t very well miss them, so long as they are making a noise like that.”
They climbed on and on through the wood. Captain John went first, then Roger and Titty, then Mate Susan, to see that there were no stragglers. Rabbits showed their white scuts as they scampered away among the bushes. A squirrel chattered at them out of a pine tree. Roger chattered back at it.
“It’s almost as good as a monkey,” said Titty. “If only there were some parrots.”