Page:The Indian Drum (1917 original).pdf/43

Rh went to the uniformed attendant and engaged a taxicab—itself no small experience; there would be no one at the station to meet him, the letter had said. He gave the Astor Street address and got into the cab. Leaning forward in his seat, looking to the right and then to the left as he was driven through the city, his first sensation was only disappointment.

Except that it was larger, with more and bigger buildings and with more people upon its streets, Chicago apparently did not differ from Kansas City. If it was, in reality, the city of his birth, or if ever he had seen these streets before, they now aroused no memories in him.

It had begun to snow again. For a few blocks the taxicab drove north past more or less ordinary buildings, then turned east on a broad boulevard where tall tile and brick and stone structures towered till their roofs were hidden in the snowfall. The large, light flakes, falling lazily, were thick enough so that, when the taxicab swung to the north again, there seemed to Alan only a great vague void to his right. For the hundred yards which he could view clearly, the space appeared to be a park; now a huge granite building, guarded by stone lions, went by; then more park; but beyond— A strange stir and tingle, quite distinct from the excitement of the arrival at the station, pricked in Alan's veins, and hastily he dropped the window to his right and gazed out again. The lake, as he had known since his geography days, lay to the east of Chicago; therefore that void out there beyond the park was the lake or, at least, the harbor. A different air seemed to come from it; sounds. . . Suddenly it all was shut off; the taxicab, swerving a little, was dash-