Stella reached for the telephone receiver. The night clerk at the C.P.R. depot told her the first train she could take left at six in the morning. That meant reaching the Springs at nine-thirty. Nine and a half hours to sit with idle hands, in suspense. She did not knew what tragic dénouement awaited there, what she could do once she reached there. She knew only that a fever of impatience burned in her. The message had strung her suddenly taut, as if a crisis had arisen in which willy-nilly she must take a hand.
So, groping for the relief of action, some method of spanning that nine hours' wait, her eye fell upon a card tucked beside the telephone case. She held it between, finger and thumb, her brows puckered.
TAXIS AND TOURING CARS
Anywhere . . . Anytime
She took down the receiver again and asked for Seymour 9X.
"Western Taxi," a man's voice drawled.
"I want to reach Roaring Hot Springs in the shortest time possible," she told him rather breathlessly. "Can you furnish me a machine and a reliable chauffeur?"
"Roaring Springs?" he repeated. "How many passengers?"
"One. Myself."
"Just a minute."
She heard a faint burble of talk away at the other end of the wire. Then the same voice speaking crisply.