--no others," he answered. "I knew Meydon thirty
years ago."

There was a moment's hesitation, then Varley said hoarsely, "Tell
me--tell me all."

When all was told, he turned his horse towards the wide waste of the
prairie, and galloped away. Finden watched him till he was lost to view
beyond the bluff.

"Now, a man like that, you can't guess what he'll do," he said
reflectively. "He's a high-stepper, and there's no telling what
foolishness will get hold of him. It'd be safer if he got lost on
the prairie for twenty-four hours. He said that Meydon's only got
twenty-four hours, if the trick isn't done! Well--"

He took a penny from his pocket. "I'll toss for it. Heads he does it,
and tails he doesn't."

He tossed. It came down heads. "Well, there's one more fool in the world
than I thought," he said philosophically, as though he had settled the
question; as though the man riding away into the prairie with a dark
problem to be solved had told the penny what he meant to do.

Mrs. Meydon, Father Bourassa, and Finden stood in the little
waiting-room of the hospital at Jansen, one at each window, and watched
the wild thunderstorm which had broken over the prairie. The white
heliographs of the elements flashed their warnings across the black sky,
and the roaring artillery of the thunder came after, making the circle
of prairie and tree and stream a theatre of anger and conflict. The
streets of Jansen were washed with flood, and the green and gold things
of garden and field and harvest crumbled beneath the sheets of rain.

The faces at the window of the little room of the hospital, however,
were but half-conscious of the storm; it seemed only an accompaniment of
their thoughts, to typify the elements of tragedy surrounding them.

For Varley there had been but one thing to do. A life might be saved,
and it was his duty to save it. He had ridden back from the prairie as
the sun was setting the night before, and had made all arrangements at
the hospital, giving orders that Meydon should have no food whatever
till the operation was performed the next afternoon, and nothing to
drink except a little brandy-and-water.

The operation was performed successfully, and Varley had issued from
the operating-room with the look of a man who had gone through an ordeal
which had taxed his nerve to the utmost, to find Valerie Meydon waiting,
with a piteous, dazed look in her eyes. But this look passed when she
heard him say, "All righ