pendicular,
she fell like a plummet to the earth.

[Illustration: She fell like a plummet to the earth 132]

"And from that day to this I have not seen another airship. Often and
often, during the next few years, I scanned the sky for them, hoping
against hope that somewhere in the world civilization had survived. But
it was not to be. What happened with us in California must have happened
with everybody everywhere.

"Another day, and at Niles there were three of us. Beyond Niles, in the
middle of the highway, we found Wathope. The motor car had broken down,
and there, on the rugs which they had spread on the ground, lay the
bodies of his sister, his mother, and himself.

"Wearied by the unusual exercise of continual walking, that night I
slept heavily. In the morning I was alone in the world. Canfield and
Parsons, my last companions, were dead of the plague. Of the four
hundred that sought shelter in the Chemistry Building, and of the
forty-seven that began the march, I alone remained--I and the Shetland
pony. Why this should be so there is no explaining. I did not catch the
plague, that is all. I was immune. I was merely the one lucky man in
a million--just as every survivor was one in a million, or, rather, in
several millions, for the proportion was at least that."

V

"FOR two days I sheltered in a pleasant grove where there had been no
deaths. In those two days, while badly depressed and believing that my
turn would come at any moment, nevertheless I rested and recuperated. So
did the pony. And on the third day, putting what small store of tinned
provisions I possessed on the pony's back, I started on across a very
lonely land. Not a live man, woman, or child, did I encounter, though
the dead were everywhere. Food, however, was abundant. The land then
was not as it is now. It was all cleared of trees and brush, and it was
cultivated. The food for millions of mouths was growing, ripening, and
going to waste. From the fields and orchards I gathered vegetables,
fruits, and berries. Around the deserted farmhouses I got eggs and
caught chickens. And frequently I found supplies of tinned provisions in
the store-rooms.

"A strange thing was what was taking place with all the domestic
animals. Everywhere they were going wild and preying on one another. The
chickens and ducks were the first to be destroyed, while the pigs were
the first to go wild, followed by the cats. Nor were the dogs long in
adapting the