le entered Van Deventer came
over to greet them.

"We've got to do something," he said in a low voice. "A wave of
homesickness has swept over the whole place. Look at those men. Every
one is thinking about his family and contrasting his cozy fireside
with all that wilderness outside."

"You don't seem to be worried," Arthur observed with a smile.

Van Deventer's eyes twinkled.

"I'm a bachelor," he said cheerfully, "and I live in a hotel. I've
been longing for a chance to see some real excitement for thirty
years. Business has kept me from it up to now, but I'm enjoying
myself hugely."

Estelle looked at the group of dispirited men.

"We'll simply have to do something," she said with a shaky smile. "I
feel just as they do. This morning I hated the thought of having
to go back to my boarding-house to-night, but right now I feel as
if the odor of cabbage in the hallway would seem like heaven."

Arthur led the way to the flat-topped desk in the middle of the room.

"Let's settle a few of the more important matters," he said in
a businesslike tone. "None of us has any authority to act for
the rest of the people in the tower, but so many of us are in a
state of blue funk that those who are here must have charge for a
while. Anybody any suggestions?"

"Housing," answered Van Deventer promptly. "I suggest that we draft
a gang of men to haul all the upholstered settees and rugs that
are to be found to one floor, for the women to sleep on."

"M--m. Yes. That's a good idea. Anybody a better plan?"

No one spoke. They all still looked much too homesick to take any
great interest in anything, but they began to listen more or less
half-heartedly.

"I've been thinking about coal," said Arthur. "There's undoubtedly
a supply in the basement, but I wonder if it wouldn't be well to
cut the lights off most of the floors, only lighting up the ones
we're using."

"That might be a good idea later," Estelle said quietly, "but light
is cheering, somehow, and every one feels so blue that I wouldn't
do it to-night. To-morrow they'll begin to get up their resolution
again, and you can ask them to do things."

"If we're going to starve to death," one of the other men said
gloomily, "we might as well have plenty of light to do it by."

"We aren't going to starve to death," retorted Arthur sharply. "Just
before I came down I saw a great cloud of birds, greater than I
had ever seen before. When we get at those birds--"

"When,"