Part 5 (2/2)

”You hear a rumble?” Arthur asked, puzzled. ”I can't hear anything.”

”It isn't as loud as it was, but I hear it,” Estelle insisted. ”It's very deep, like the lowest possible ba.s.s note of an organ.”

”You couldn't hear the shrill whistle when we were coming here,”

Arthur exclaimed suddenly, ”and you can't hear the squeak of a bat. Of course your ears are pitched lower than usual, and you can hear sounds that are lower than I can hear. Listen carefully. Does it sound in the least like a liquid rus.h.i.+ng through somewhere?”

”Y-yes,” said Estelle hesitatingly. ”Somehow, I don't quite understand how, it gives me the impression of a tidal flow or something of that sort.”

Arthur rushed indoors. When Estelle followed him she found him excitedly examining the marble floor about the base of the vault.

”It's cracked,” he said excitedly. ”It's cracked! The vault rose all of an inch!”

Estelle looked and saw the cracks.

”What does that mean?”

”It means we're going to get back where we belong,” Arthur cried jubilantly. ”It means I'm on the track of the whole trouble.

It means everything's going to be all right.”

He prowled about the vault exultantly, noting exactly how the cracks in the flooring ran and seeing in each a corroboration of his theory.

”I'll have to make some inspections in the cellar,” he went on happily, ”but I'm nearly sure I'm on the right track and can figure out a corrective.”

”How soon can we hope to start back?” asked Estelle eagerly.

Arthur hesitated, then a great deal of the excitement ebbed from his face, leaving it rather worried and stern.

”It may be a month, or two months, or a year,” he answered gravely. ”I don't know. If the first thing I try will work, it won't be long. If we have to experiment, I daren't guess how long we may be. But”--his chin set firmly--”we're going to get back.”

Estelle looked at him speculatively. Her own expression grew a little worried, too.

”But in a month,” she said dubiously, ”we--there is hardly any hope of our finding food for two thousand people for a month, is there?”

”We've got to,” Arthur declared. ”We can't hope to get that much food from the Indians. It will be days before they'll dare to come back to their village, if they ever come. It will be weeks before we can hope to have them earnestly at work to feed us, and that's leaving aside the question of how we'll communicate with them, and how we'll manage to trade with them. Frankly, I think everybody is going to have to draw his belt tight before we get through--if we do. Some of us will get along, anyway.”

Estelle's eyes opened wide as the meaning of his last sentence penetrated her mind.

”You mean--that all of us won't--”

”I'm going to take care of you,” Arthur said gravely, ”but there are liable to be lively doings around here when people begin to realize they're really in a tight fix for food. I'm going to get Van Deventer to help me organize a police band to enforce martial law. We mustn't have any disorder, that's certain, and I don't trust a city-bred man in a pinch unless I know him.”

He stooped and picked up a revolver from the floor, left there by one of the bank watchmen when he fled, in the belief that the building was falling.

VII.

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