It was true, the neighbor told them. Mr. and Mrs. Hiram Folts had been gone for almost a month. She found the Washington address for them, and in a moment they were back on the Illinois prairie again, with grass-grown sidewalks leading them nowhere.
“I must look for a job,” Lory said, only. “I must begin now and look for a job.”
The Inger’s look travelled over the waste stretches, cut by neat real estate signs. The sun was struggling through a high fog, the sky was murky, and on the horizon where Chicago lay, the black smoke hung like storm clouds.
“What a devil of a hole,” he said. “It looks like something had swelled up big, and bust, and scattered all over the place.”
“I donno how to look for a job,” Lory said only, staring toward that black horizon cloud where lay the city.
“Don’t you want to go on to Washington?” the Inger asked casually.
Lory shook her head.
“I can’t,” she said. “An’ I ain’t goin’ to come down on to you again.”
He looked down at her, and for the first time since they had boarded the Overland, he saw the hunted look in her eyes. She was turning toward the City with exactly the look with which she had turned, over shoulder, toward Inch and Bunchy.