"I'll have to make some inspections in the cellar," he went on
happily, "but I'm nearly sure I'm on the right track and can figure
out a corrective."

"How soon can we hope to start back?" asked Estelle eagerly.

Arthur hesitated, then a great deal of the excitement ebbed from
his face, leaving it rather worried and stern.

"It may be a month, or two months, or a year," he answered
gravely. "I don't know. If the first thing I try will work, it
won't be long. If we have to experiment, I daren't guess how long
we may be. But"--his chin set firmly--"we're going to get back."

Estelle looked at him speculatively. Her own expression grew a
little worried, too.

"But in a month," she said dubiously, "we--there is hardly any hope
of our finding food for two thousand people for a month, is there?"

"We've got to," Arthur declared. "We can't hope to get that much
food from the Indians. It will be days before they'll dare to come
back to their village, if they ever come. It will be weeks before
we can hope to have them earnestly at work to feed us, and that's
leaving aside the question of how we'll communicate with them, and
how we'll manage to trade with them. Frankly, I think everybody is
going to have to draw his belt tight before we get through--if we
do. Some of us will get along, anyway."