There in the railway sheds this Chicago dawn had no red, no white, no gray. It was merely a thinning of the dark, so that the station lamps began to be unnecessary. In this strange chill air of day, the men and women dropped from the Overland, and streamed steadfastly away, each in an incredible faith of destination. And from invisible sources there came those creeping gases which are slaves to man, but fasten upon his throat like hands, and press and twist, and take their toll of him.
Lory looked up at the Inger questioningly:
“Had it ought to be like this,” she asked, “or is something happening?”
“Seems as if something must be happening,” he answered.
They went into the street, and the Inger took from her the slip of paper on which was written her aunt’s address. He held it out to the first man he saw, to the second, to the third, and each one answered him with much pointing, in a broken tongue which was indistinguishable, and hurried on. Lory looked at the stream of absorbed, leaden faces of those tramping to their work, heard their speech as they passed, and turned a startled face to the Inger:
“I never thought of it,” she said. “Mebbe they don’t talk American, East?”
“They won’t stop for us,” said the Inger. “That’s all.”
From one or two others they caught “South,” “Kedzie,” “Indiana Avenue.” Some frankly shook their heads with “From th’ old country.” No officer was in sight, and it occurred to neither of them to look for one. They merely instinctively threw themselves on the stream of those others whom they took to be like themselves.
Abruptly the Inger set down his pack in the middle of the walk, and advanced upon the first man whom he saw. On both shoulders of this one he brought down his hands with the grasp of a Titan. Also he shook him slightly:
“You tell me how to get to where I’m goin’ or I’ll lamm the lights out of you!” he roared.
The man—a young timekeeper whose work took him out earlier, so to speak, than his station—regarded the Inger in alarm.
“Lord Heavens,” the young timekeeper said, “how do I know where you’re goin’?”
Still grasping him with one hand, the Inger opened the other and shook Lory’s paper in the man’s face.
“That’s where,” he said. “Now do you know?”