The train she had taken was not as speedy as the one which had taken her to New York. Darkness of another day had fallen when at last she recognized the welcome sound of the train rumbling over hollow spaces at regular intervals and knew that she was passing over the streets of her own city. Florence would be there to meet her. Lucile had wired her the time of her arrival. It certainly would seem good to meet someone she knew once more.
As the train at last rattled into the heart of the city, she caught an unusual red glow against the sky.
“Fire somewhere,” she told herself without giving it much thought, for in a city of millions one thinks little of a single blaze.
It was only after she and Florence had left the depot that she noted again that red glow with a start.
The first indication that something unusual was happening in that section of the city was the large amount of traffic which passed the street car they had taken. Automobiles, trucks and delivery cars rattled rapidly past them.
“That’s strange!” she told herself. “The street is usually deserted at this time of night. I wonder if the fire could be over this way; but surely it would be out by now.”
At last the traffic became so crowded that their car, like a bit of debris in a clogged stream, was caught and held in the middle of it all.
“What’s the trouble?” she asked the conductor.
“Bad fire up ahead, just across the river.”
“Across the river? Why—that’s where Tyler street is.”