"No, it's really slow, compared to what we're used to. Remember that one-half gravity stuff!"
"Oh, that's right, but it certainly does look funny. It gives me the creeps."
"You'll get used to it pretty quick—just as you'll get used to all the rest of the things having only half their earthly weight and falling only half as fast as they ought to when you drop them. Well, I don't see anything that looks dangerous yet—let's go up toward the falls a few meters and prospect that outcrop."
With a few brisk strokes of an improvised shovel he cleared the outcrop of detritus and broke off several samples of the black substance, with which they went back to the "Forlorn Hope."
"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?"