ants at his age.
I saw an elephant go 'must' once in India, and it was as like O'Ryan as
putty is to dough. It isn't all over either, for O'Ryan will forget and
forgive, and Jopp won't. He's your cousin, but he's a sulker. If he has
to sit up nights to do it, he'll try to get back on O'Ryan. He'll sit
up nights, but he'll do it, if he can. And whatever it is, it won't be
pretty."

Outside the door they met Gow Johnson, excitement in his eyes. He heard
Fergus's last words.

"He'll see Orion rising if he sits up nights," Gow Johnson said. "The
game is with Terry--at last." Then he called to the dispersing gossiping
crowd: "Hold on--hold on, you people. I've got news for you. Folks, this
is O'Ryan's night. It's his in the starry firmament. Look at him
shine," he cried, stretching out his arm towards the heavens, where the
glittering galaxy hung near the zenith. "Terry O'Ryan, our O'Ryan--he's
struck oil--on his ranch it's been struck. Old Vigon found it. Terry's
got his own at last. O'Ryan's in it--in it alone. Now, let's hear the
prairie-whisper," he shouted, in a great raucous voice. "Let's hear the
prairie-whisper. What is it?"

The crowd responded in a hoarse shout for O'Ryan and his fortune. Even
the women shouted--all except Molly Mackinder. She was wondering if
O'Ryan risen would be the same to her as O'Ryan rising. She got into her
carriage with a sigh, though she said to the few friends with her:

"If it's true, it's splendid. He deserves it too. Oh, I'm glad--I'm so
glad." She laughed; but the laugh was a little hysterical.

She was both glad and sorry. Yet as she drove home over the prairie she
was silent. Far off in the east was a bright light. It was a bonfire
built on O'Ryan's ranch, near where he had struck oil--struck it rich.
The light grew and grew, and the prairie was alive with people hurrying
towards it. La Touche should have had the news hours earlier, but the
half-breed French-Canadian, Vigon, who had made the discovery, and had
started for La Touche with the news, went suddenly off his head with
excitement, and had ridden away into the prairie fiercely shouting
his joy to an invisible world. The news had been brought in later by a
farmhand.

Terry O'Ryan had really struck oil, and his ranch was a scene of decent
revelry, of which Gow Johnson was master. But the central figure of
it all, the man who had, in truth, risen like a star, had become to La
Touche all at once its notoriety as well as