"It's real coal," Stevens announced after a series of tests. "I've seen better, but on the other hand, there's lots worse. It'll make good gas, and a kind of a coke. Not so hot, but it'll do. Now we'd better get organized old partner, for a long campaign." "Go ahead and organize--I'm only the cheap help in this enterprise." "Cheap help! You're apt to be the life of the party. Can you make and shoot a bow and arrow?" "I'll say I can--I've belonged to an archery club for five years." "What did I tell you? You're a life saver! Here's the dope--we've got to save our own supplies as much as possible until we know exactly what we're up against, and to do that, we've got to live off the country. I'll fake up something to knock over some of those birds and small game, then we can make real bow-strings and feathered arrows and I'll forge some steel arrow-heads while you're making yourself a real bow. We'd better make me about a hundred-pound war bow, too...." "A _hundred_!" interrupted Nadia. "That's a lot of bow, big boy--think you can bend it?" "You'd be surprised," he grinned. "I'm not quite like Robin Hood--I've been known to miss a finger-thick wand at a hundred paces--but I'm not exactly a beginner." "Oh, of course--I should have known by your language that you're an archer, otherwise you'd never have used such an old-fashioned word as 'pounds.' I shoot a thirty-five-pound bow ordinarily, but for game I should have the heaviest one I can hold accurately--about a forty-five, probably." "All x. And as soon as I can I'll make us a couple of suits of fairly heavy steel armor, so that we'll have real protection if we should need it. You see, we don't know what we are apt to run up against out here. Then, with that much done, it'll be up to you to provide, since I'll have to work tooth and nail at the forges. You'll have to bring home the bacon, do the cooking and so on, and see what you can find along the line of edible roots, grains, fruits, and what-not. Sort of reverse the Indian idea--you be the hunter and I'll keep the home fires burning. Can do?" "What it takes to do that, I've got," Nadia assured him, her eyes sparkling. "Have you your job planned out as well and as fittingly as you have mine?" "And then some. We've got just two methods of getting away from here--one is to get in touch with Brandon, so that he'll come after us; the other is to recharge our accumulators and try to make it under our own power. Either course will need power and lots of it...." "I never thought of going back in the 'Hope.' Suppose we could?"