Finden smiled to himself. "Is it a difficult case?" he asked.
"Critical and delicate; but it has been my specialty."
"One of the local doctors couldn't do it, I suppose?"
"They would be foolish to try."
"And you are going away at sunrise to-morrow?"
"Who told you that?" Varley's voice was abrupt, impatient.
"I heard you say so--everybody knows it.... That's a bad man yonder,
Varley." He jerked his thumb toward the hospital. "A terrible bad man,
he's been. A gentleman once, and fell down--fell down hard. He's done more
harm than most men. He's broken a woman's heart and spoiled her life, and,
if he lives, there's no chance for her, none at all. He killed a man, and
the law wants him; and she can't free herself without ruining him; and she
can't marry the man she loves because of that villain yonder, crying for
his life to be saved. By Josh and by Joan, but it's a shame, a dirty
shame, it is!"
Suddenly Varley turned and gripped his arm with fingers of steel.
"His name--his real name?"
"His name's Meydon--and a dirty shame it is, Varley."
Varley was white. He had been leading his horse and talking to Finden. He
mounted quickly now, and was about to ride away, but stopped short again.
"Who knows--who knows the truth?" he asked.
"Father Bourassa and me--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 toward 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 right!"
The words brought a sense of relief, for if he had failed, it would have
seemed almost unbearable in the circumstances--the cup of trembling must
be drunk to the dregs.
Few words had passed between them, and he had gone, while she remained
behind with Father Bourassa, till the patient should wake from the sleep
into which he had fallen when Varley left.
But within two hours they sent for Varley again, for Meydon was in evident
danger. Varley had come, and had now been with the patient for some time.
At last the door opened and Varley came in quickly. He beckoned to Mrs.
Meydon and to Father Bourassa. "He wishes to speak with you," he said to
her. "There is little time."
Her eyes scarcely saw him, as she left the room and passed to where Meydon
lay nerveless, but with wide-open eyes, waiting for her. The eyes closed,
however, before she reached the bed. Presently they opened again, but the
lids remained fixed. He did not hear what she said.
* * * * *