e city's. I'm
going to put Wilson on it, and I expect him to clear it all up in
short order."

She could not hold back a sudden uprush of resentment.

"So then it's to be a battle between us, is it?" she demanded, looking
him straight in the face.

"A battle? How?"

"To see which one gets the evidence."

"We've got to get it--that's all," he answered grimly.

In an instant she had resumed control of herself.

"I hope you succeed," she said calmly. "Good afternoon." And with a
crisp nod she turned away.

Bruce's action in calmly taking the case out of her hands, which was
in effect an iteration of his statement that he had no confidence in
her ability, stung her bitterly and for a space her wrath flamed
high. But there were too many things to be done to give much time to
mere resentment. She wrote the letter to the Chicago advertising
agency, mailed it, then set out to find her father. At the jail she
was told that he had been released and had left for Blake's. There she
found him. He came out into the hall, kissed her warmly, then hurried
back into the bedroom. Katherine, glancing through the open door, saw
him move swiftly about the old gray-haired woman, while Blake stood in
strained silence looking on.

When her father had done all for Mrs. Blake he could do at that time,
Katherine hurried him away to Elsie Sherman. He replaced the very
willing Doctor Woods, who knew little about typhoid, and assumed
charge of Elsie with all his unerring mastery of what to do. He gave
her his very best skill, and he hovered about her with all the concern
that the illness of his own child might have evoked, for she had been
a warm favourite with him and the charges of her husband had in no
degree lessened his regard. Whatever science and care and love could
do for her, it all was certain to be done.

Within two hours after Blake had received Doctor Brenholtz's telegram
its contents had flashed about the town. Doctor West was besieged. The
next day found him treating not only as many individual cases as his
strength and the hours of the day allowed, but found him in command of
the Board of Health's fight against the plague, with all the rest of
the city's doctors accepting orders from him. All his long life of
incessant study and experiment, all those long years when he had been
laughed at for a fool and jeered at for a failure--all that time had
been but an unconscious preparation for this great fight to save a
stricken