"It must have been a cyclone, nothing less," judged the engineer, as he finished his meal and reached for his comforting pipe. "And God knows where it's driven us to! So far as judging distances goes, in a hurricane like that it's impossible. This may be any one of the Great Lakes; and, again, it may not. For all we know, we may be up in the Hudson Bay region somewhere. This may be Winnipeg, Athabasca, or Great Slave. With the kind of storms that happen nowadays, anything's possible." "Nothing matters, after all," the girl assured him, "except that we're alive and unhurt; and the machine can still travel, for--" "Travel!" cried Stern. "With about a quart of fuel or less! How far, I'd like to know?" "That's so; I never thought of that!" the girl replied, dismayed. "Oh, dear, what shall we do now?" Stern laughed. "Hunt for a town, of course," he reassured her. "There, there, don't worry! If we find alcohol, we're all right, anyhow. If not, we're better off than we were after the maelstrom almost got us, at any rate. Then we had no arms, ammunition, tools, or means to make fire, while now we've got them all. Forgive my speaking as I did, little girl. Don't worry--everything will come right in the end." Reassured, she sat before the fire, and for an hour or more they drew maps and diagrams in the sand, made plans, and laid out their next step in this long campaign against the savage power of a deserted world. At last, their minds made up, they wheeled the plane back to the forest, where Stern cut out among the trees a space for its protection. And, leaving it here, covered with branches of the thick-topped fern-tree, they took provisions and once more set out on their exploration. But this time they had an ax and their two rifles, and as they strode northward along the shore they felt a match for any peril. An hour's walk brought them to the ruins of a steel recreation-pier, with numerous traces of a town along the lake behind it. "That settles the Hudson Bay theory," Stern rejoiced, as they wandered among the debris. "This is certainly one of the Great Lakes, though which one, of course, we can't tell as yet. And now if we can round up some alcohol we'll be on our way before very long." They found no alcohol, for the only ruin where drugs or liquors had evidently been sold had caved in, a mass of shattered brickwork, smashing every bottle in the place. Stern found many splintered shards of glass; but that was all, so far as fuel was concerned. He discovered something else, however, that proved of tremendous value--the wreck of a printing-office. Presses and iron of all kind had gone to pieces, but some of the larger lead types and quads still were recognizable. And, the crucial thing, he turned up a jagged bit of stereotype-sheet from under the protection of a concrete plinth that had fallen into the cellar. All corroded and discolored though it was, he still could make out a few letters.