'Not so far,' I said. 'We used to live here a long time ago.'

'Danged if I recognize you.' He pushed back his old black felt hat and scratched his head. 'And I thought I knew everybody that ever lived around here. You wouldn't be Jake Smith's boys, would you?'

'Doesn't look like many people are living here any more,' said Herb.

'Matter of fact, there ain't,' said Daniel Boone. 'The old woman was just telling me the other day we'd have to move so we'd be nearer neighbors. It gets mighty lonesome for her. Nearest folks is about ten miles up thataway.'

He gestured to the north, where the skyline of the city loomed like a distant mountain range, with gleaming marble ramparts and spires of mocking stone.

'Look here,' I asked him. 'Do you mean to say your nearest neighbor is ten miles away?'

'Sure,' he told me. 'The Smiths lived over a couple of miles to the west, but they moved out this spring. Went down to the south. Claimed the hunting was better there.'

He shook his head sadly. 'Maybe hunting is all right. I do a lot of it. But I like to do a little farming, too, And it's mighty hard to break new ground. I had a right handsome bunch of squashes and carrots this year. 'Taters did well, too.'

'But at one time a lot of people lived here.' I insisted. 'Thousands and thousands of people. Probably millions of them.'

'I heard tell of that,' agreed the old man, 'but I can't rightfully say there's any truth in it. Must've been a long time ago. Somebody must have built all them buildings –although what for I just can't figure out.'

The Globe editorial rooms were ghostly. Dust lay everywhere, and a silence that was almost as heavy as the dust.

There had been some changes, but it was still a newspaper office. All it needed was the blur of voices, the murmur of the speeding presses to bring it to life again.