Everywhere, on the porch, and on the scrubby lawn, and within the open door, stood packing boxes. The leap of alarm which Lory felt at sight of them was not allayed by the unknown woman in blue calico, with swathed head, who bent over the box in the hall. At Lory’s question, the woman stared. “You mean the family that’s just went out of here?” she asked. “Well, they’ve moved to Washington, D.C.” “What’s that?” cried the Inger, suddenly. “If you mean the family that’s just went out of here—” the woman was beginning. The Inger struck his hand sharply on the post. “We mean Mr. and Mrs. Hiram Folts,” he shouted. “And if you’re trying to be insulting—” The woman looked at him, open-mouthed. “Why, my land,” she said, “I never heard their names in my life. I just happened to know the family moved to Washington. You better ask next door—mebbe they knew ’em.” Lory interposed, thanked her, got back to the street. “S’posin’ she _was_ puttin’ on,” she urged. “It don’t hurt us any.” “Puttin’ on,” raged the Inger. “Well, I should say. Pretendin’ not to know the name of whoever moved out of the same house she’s movin’ into!” 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. ... He looked at her bright fallen hair, at the white curve of her throat, at the strong brown hand with which she held her pack that she steadfastly refused to let him carry. Here she was, remote from all the places and people that she had ever known. Here she was, almost penniless. He thought of her bright insolence as she had sat his horse that morning on the desert, of her breathless appeal to him in the dark of his hut, of her self-sufficiency in the night of his cowardice and failure.... Now here she was, haunted by another fear.