The Washington times., 1912-04-14
CHAPTER XII.
Drawing Together.

4
Drawing Together.
r., AVS passed, busy days, full of
hard labor and achievement.
rich In experience and learning,
in happiness, In dreams of what
the. future might yet bring.
Beatrice made and finished a consid-
erable wardrobe of garments for them
both. These. when the fur had been
clipped close with the scissors. We're not
oppressively warm, and even though on
some days bit uncomfortable the man
and woman tolerated them because they
had no others.
Plenty Of bathing and good food put
them In splendid physical condition, to
which their plentiful exercise contrib
uted much. And thus, judging partly
by the state OF the foliage, partly by
the height of the sun--which Stern de-
termined with considerable accuracy by
means of o simple. homemade quadrant
they knew mid May was past and June
was drawing near.
The housekeeping by no means took
up all the girls time. Often she went
out with him on what he called his
plrating expeditions" that now some
times led them as far afield as the sad
ruins of the wharves and piers, or to
the dark desolation and wreckaRe Of
lower Broadway, and the one time busy
hives OF newspaperdom. or UP to Gem
the two railroad terminals.
gates of the city,s life, Impressed Stern
mSst ta9S pa painfully OF anything, The disiA-
OF locomotives and luxurious Pullmans
with weeds growing rank upon them.
The sunlight beating down through
tne caved-in roof Of the Pennsylvania
human beings once had trod in all the
haste of mems paltry, futile AFFAIRS
nLed him with melancholy, and he was
glad to get away again leaving the place
now laid claim to 1t.
Sic transit gloria mundil'" he mur-
/ INJURED. as with sad eyes he mused upon
the downtumbled columns along the ia
| cade, the overgrown entrance-way, the
cracked and falling arches and archi.
traves. ;"And this, they said, was
builded for all time"
It was on one Of these expeditions
that the engineer found and pocketed-
relic.
This was a bone. broken and splint-
& ersd' and OF no very great age, gnaGed
picked Il up by chance. near the west
side Of the ruins Of the old City Hall.
Stern recognized the manner in which
the bone had been cracked open with a
l
The sight of this gruesome relic revived
| all his fears, tenfold more acute than
ever, and filed him with a sense OF
vague, impending peril, of peril deadly
This was the more acute. because
the engineer knew at a glance that the
bone was the upper end Of human
femur-human, or. at the very least
animal. And OF apes or gorillas he had
as yet, found no trace In the forests OF
Manhattan. arr',.,
Long he unused over this find. But
Beatrice, concerning 1t or the flint spear.
point. Only he kept his eyes and ears
well open for other bits Of co-robora-
tive evidence
the building unless his rifle and re-
volyer were with him, their magazines
full Of high power, shells, r.g..3,E
The. girl always went armed. too, and
soon grew to be such an expert shot
that she could drop q squirrel from the
flight.
Once her quick eye spisd deer In
Park. now no longer neatly bedged with
fusion that toined the riot OF tn,
SR At the instant she fired. wcunding tn.
Stern's shot nchoing hers. missed. Al.
ready ths deer was away, cut Of range
Guilty they pursued down a gIeniik,
strip OF woods that mus. once hav'
they sighted the animal again. And
crashing to- earth. ~.
.Rrayo; Diana "a ,,,, hurrahsd !. stern. run ,
.'d deer fever was % on him. as Strong al al
I'm his old daYs In the Hudson hay coun
try. Hot was the pleasure Of the xii
when that meant food. As he ran b.
the girl had made for him.. Thus the.
had fresh venison to their hearts con
tent-vsnison broiled over whitehot coal
IN the ,efnnS rsT'nSs S ts1iGyy sTiiGy and sevory
A good deal Of the meat they smokaC
and salted down for future use. Sterl
ngdertoHk to tar the he, hide with strip
neap the bark spr,a ad He II adSea as
some oak-bark. nut-salls and a goo,
Quantity Of young sumac shoots,
" ANYTHING viii" remarked he, as h
Immersed the skin and weighed 1t dow
with rocks.
Its like tha. old shotgun prescrip
everything. bound to do the trick. on
The great variety of Iabors now i'm
posed upon him began to try his in
/
wealth of practical knowledge and nj
scientific skill, he was astounded at tn
huge demands of even the simplest hu
man life.
} The girl and he now faced these, with
r out the social cooperation which the
! had formerly taken entirely for granted
and the change of conditions had begu
to alter Sterns concepts Of almost ev
erything.
He was already beginning to reaIiz
: to the full how true the old saying was
! "One man Is no man." and how tn
world had been the world merely be
cause of the interrelations, the interde
peudencies of human beings III vas
! numbers.
He was commencing to get a glimpa
of the vanished social problems that hn
enmeshed civilization, In their true light
now that all he confronted and had I
struggle with was the unlntellIgent an
overbearing dominance OF nature.
All this was of huge value To the en-
gtneer. And the strong individualisi
a Essentially anarchistic) on which h
q had prided himself 800 years ago, wa
beginning to receive some mortal blows
!, even during these first days Of the new
. solitary, unsocialized life