The Runaway Skyscraper | Page 6

the tents. The other people, left behind, displayed their emotions in different ways. Two or three of them--women--sat frankly down on the steps and indulged in tears of bewilderment, fright and relief in a peculiar combination defying analysis. Two or three of the men swore, in shaken voices.
Meantime, the elevators inside the building were rushing and clanging, and the hall filled with a white-faced mob, desperately anxious to find out what had happened and why. The people poured out of the door and stared about blankly. There was a peculiar expression of doubt on every one of their faces. Each one was asking himself if he were awake, and having proved that by pinches, openly administered, the next query was whether they had gone mad.
Arthur led Estelle cautiously among the tents.
The village contained about a dozen wigwams. Most of them were made of strips of birch-bark, cleverly overlapping each other, the seams cemented with gum. All had hide flaps for doors, and one or two were built almost entirely of hides, sewed together with strips of sinew.
Arthur made only a cursory examination of the village. His principal motive in taking Estelle there was to give her some mental occupation to ward off the reaction from the excitement of the cataclysm.
He looked into one or two of the tents and found merely couches of hides, with minor domestic utensils scattered about. He brought from one tent a bow and quiver of arrows. The workmanship was good, but very evidently the maker had no knowledge of metal tools.
Arthur's acquaintance with archeological subjects was very slight, but he observed that the arrow-heads were chipped, and not rubbed smooth. They were attached to the shafts with strips of gut or tendon.
Arthur was still pursuing his investigation when a sob from Estelle made him stop and look at her.
"Oh, what are we going to do?" she asked tearfully. "What are we going to do? Where are we?"
"You mean, when are we," Arthur corrected with a grim smile. "I don't know. Way back before the discovery of America, though. You can see in everything in the village that there isn't a trace of European civilization. I suspect that we are several thousand years back. I can't tell, of course, but this pottery makes me think so. See this bowl?"
He pointed to a bowl of red clay lying on the ground before one of the wigwams.
"If you'll look, you'll see that it isn't really pottery at all. It's a basket that was woven of reeds and then smeared with clay to make it fire-resisting. The people who made that didn't know about baking clay to make it stay put. When America was discovered nearly all the tribes knew something about pottery."
"But what are we going to do?" Estelle tearfully insisted.
"We're going to muddle along as well as we can," answered Arthur cheerfully, "until we can get back to where we started from. Maybe the people back in the twentieth century can send a relief party after us. When the skyscraper vanished it must have left a hole of some sort, and it may be possible for them to follow us down."
"If that's so," said Estelle quickly, "why can't we climb up it without waiting for them to come after us?"
Arthur scratched his head. He looked across the clearing at the skyscraper. It seemed to rest very solidly on the ground. He looked up. The sky seemed normal.
"To tell the truth," he admitted, "there doesn't seem to be any hole. I said that more to cheer you up than anything else."
Estelle clenched her hands tightly and took a grip on herself.
"Just tell me the truth," she said quietly. "I was rather foolish, but tell me what you honestly think."
Arthur eyed her keenly.
"In that case," he said reluctantly, "I'll admit we're in a pretty bad fix. I don't know what has happened, how it happened, or anything about it. I'm just going to keep on going until I see a way clear to get out of this mess. There are two thousand of us people, more or less, and among all of us we must be able to find a way out."
Estelle had turned very pale.
"We're in no great danger from Indians," went on Arthur thoughtfully, "or from anything else that I know of--except one thing."
"What is that?" asked Estelle quickly.
Arthur shook his head and led her back toward the skyscraper, which was now thronged with the people from all the floors who had come down to the ground and were standing excitedly about the concourse asking each other what had happened.
Arthur led Estelle to one of the corners.
"Wait for me here," he ordered. "I'm going to talk to this crowd."
He pushed his way through until he could reach the confectionery and news-stand in the main hallway. Here he