ke Van Horn, hasn't his
place just as much as a rough rider like me. Anyhow, the thing now is to
pull him through his operation, and if I can do it--well, Van and I
will be on a new basis, and a mighty comfortable one it will be."

His voice was eager and his wife understood just how his pulses were
thrilling, as do those of the born surgeon, at the approach of a great
opportunity.

"I'm very, very glad, dear," Ellen said warmly. "It's a real triumph of
faith over jealousy, and I don't wonder you are proud of such a
commission. I know you will bring him through."

"If I don't--but that's not to be thought of. It's a case that calls for
extremely delicate surgery and a sure hand, but the ground is plainly
mapped out and only some absolutely unforeseen complication is to be
dreaded. And when it comes to those complications--well, Len, sometimes
I think it must be the good Lord who works a man's brain for him at such
crises, and makes it pretty nearly superhuman. It's hard to account any
other way, sometimes, for the success of the quick decisions you make
under necessity that would take a lot of time to work out if you had the
time. Oh, it's a great game, Len, no doubt of that--when you win. And
when you lose"--he stopped short, staring into the shadows where a row
of dark-leaved laurel bushes shut away the garden in a soft
seclusion--"well, that's another story, a heartbreaking story."

He was silent for a minute, then, in another tone, he spoke
confidently: "But--this isn't going to be a story of that kind. Van Horn
has a big place in the city and he's going to keep it. And I'm going to
spend the rest of this evening making a bit of a tool I've had in mind
for some time--that there's a remote chance I shall need in this case.
But if that remote chance should come--well, there's nothing like a
state of preparedness, as the military men say."

"That's why you succeed, Red; you always are prepared."

"Not always. And it's in the emergency you can't foresee that heaven
comes to the rescue. You can't expect it to come to the rescue when you
might have foreseen. 'Trust the Lord and keep your powder dry' is a
pretty good maxim for the surgical firing line, too--eh?"

With his arm through his wife's he paced several times up and down the
flowery borders, then went away into the small laboratory and machine
shop where he was accustomed to do much of the work which showed only in
its final results. Through the rest of the