"Why, a blundering great hawk swooped in through the window there, circled around, pounced on the last of our beef and tried to fly away with it." Stern heaved a sigh of relief. "So that was all?" asked he. "But the shots? And your absence?" "I struck at him. He showed fight. I blocked the window. He was determined to get away with the food. I was determined he _shouldn't_. So I snatched the revolver and opened fire." "And then?" "That confused him. He flapped out into the hall. I chased him. Away up the stairs he circled. I shot again. Then I pursued. Went up two stories. But he must have got away through some opening or other. Our beef's all gone!" And Beatrice looked very sober. "Never mind, I've got a lot more stuff down-stairs. But tell me, did you wing him?" "I'm afraid not," she admitted. "There's a feather or two on the stairs, though." "Good work!" cried he laughing, his fear all swallowed in the joy of having found her again, safe and unhurt. "But please don't give me another such panic, will you? It's all right this time, however. "And now if you'll just wait here and not get fighting with any more wild creatures, I'll go down and bring my latest finds. I like your pluck," he added slowly, gazing earnestly at her. "But I don't want you chasing things in this old shell of a building. No telling what crevice you might fall into or what accident might happen. Au revoir!" Her smile as he left her was inscrutable, but her eyes, strangely bright, followed him till he had vanished once more down the stairs. * * * * * Broad strokes, a line here, one there, with much left to the imagining--such will serve best for the painting of a picture like this--a picture wherein every ordinary bond of human life, the nexus of man's society, is shattered. Where everything must strive to reconstruct itself from the dust. Where the future, if any such there may be, must rise from the ashes of a crumbling past. Broad strokes, for detailed ones would fill too vast a canvas. Impossible to describe a tenth of the activities of Beatrice and Stern the next four days. Even to make a list of their hard-won possessions would turn this chapter into a mere catalogue. So let these pass for the most part. Day by day the man, issuing forth sometimes alone, sometimes with Beatrice, labored like a Titan among the ruins of New York. Though more than ninety per cent. of the city's one-time wealth had long since vanished, and though all standards of worth had wholly changed, yet much remained to harvest. Infinitudes of things, more or less damaged, they bore up to their shelter, up the stairs which here and there Stern had repaired with rough-hewn logs. For now he had an ax, found in that treasure-house of Currier & Brown's, brought to a sharp edge on a wet, flat stone by the spring, and hefted with a sapling. This implement was of incredible use, and greatly enheartened the engineer. More valuable it was than a thousand tons of solid gold.