The Runaway Skyscraper | Page 6

to gather together their belongings, nor pausing for even a
second glance at the weird strangers who invaded their domain.
Arthur took two or three deep breaths of the fresh air and found himself
even then comparing its quality with that of the city. Estelle stared
about her with unbelieving eyes. She turned and saw the great bulk of
the office building behind her, then faced this small clearing with a
virgin forest on its farther side.
She found herself trembling from some undefined cause. Arthur
glanced at her. He saw the trembling and knew she would have a fit of
nerves in a moment if something did not come up demanding instant
attention.
"We'd better take a look at this village," he said in an off-hand voice.
"We can probably find out how long ago it is from the weapons and so
on."
He grasped her arm firmly and led her in the direction of 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,"