Arthur caught at Estelle's arm and the two made a dash for the
elevators. Fortunately one was standing still, the door open, on
their floor. The elevator-boy had deserted his post and was looking
with all the rest of the occupants of the building at the strange
landscape that surrounded them.
No sooner had the pair reached the car, however, than the boy came
hurrying along the corridor, three or four other people following
him also at a run. Without a word the boy rushed inside, the others
crowded after him, and the car shot downward, all of the newcomers
panting from their sprint.
Theirs was the first car to reach the bottom. They rushed out and
to the western door.
Here, where they had been accustomed to see Madison Square spread
out before them, a clearing of perhaps half an acre in extent showed
itself. Where their eyes instinctively looked for the dark bronze
fountain, near which soap-box orators aforetime held sway, they saw
a tent, a wigwam of hides and bark gaily painted. And before the
wigwam were two or three brown-skinned Indians, utterly petrified
with astonishment.
Behind the first wigwam were others, painted like the first with
daubs of brightly colored clay. From them, too, Indians issued,
and stared in incredulous amazement, their eyes growing wider
and wider. When the group of white people confronted the Indians
there was a moment's deathlike silence. Then, with a wild yell,
the redskins broke and ran, not stopping 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," 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 climbed up on the counter
and shouted:
"People, listen to me! I'm going to tell you what's happened!"
In an instant there was dead silence. He found himself the center
of a sea of white faces, every one contorted with fear and anxiety.
"To begin with," he said confidently, "there's nothing to be afraid
of. We're going to get back to where we started from! I don't
know how, yet, but we'll do it. Don't get frightened. Now I'll
tell you what's happened."
He rapidly sketched out for them, in words as simple as he could make
them, his theory that a flaw in the rock on which the foundations
rested had developed and let the skyscraper sink, not downward,
but into the Fourth Dimension.
"I'm an engineer," he finished. "What nature can do, we can
imitate. Nature let us into this hole. We'll climb out. In the
mean time, matters are serious. We needn't be afraid of not getting
back. We'll do that. What we've got to fight is--starvation!"