“Wasn’t he the man you told me of who had a bad nervous breakdown a few years ago?  The one Red had stay with you here until he got back his nerve?”

“Yes; and he has been even a more brilliant operator ever since.”

“I remember the whole story; there was a lot of thrill in it as you told it.  How Red made him rest and build up and then fairly forced him to operate, against his will, to prove to him that he had got his nerve back?  Jove!  Do you think that man wouldn’t cross the ocean in a hurry if he thought he could lift his finger to help our poor boy?”

King’s speech had taken on such a fatherly tone of late that Ellen was not surprised to hear him thus allude to his senior.

“Yes, Jack Leaver would do anything for Red, but I know Red would never let us summon him from so far.”

“Summon him from the antipodes—­I would.  And we don’t have to consult Red.  His wish is enough.  Leave it to me, Mrs. Burns; I’ll take all the responsibility.”

She smiled at him, feeling that she must not express the very natural and unwelcome thought that to call a friend from so far away was to admit that the situation was desperate.  Burns had said many times that Doctor Van Horn was using the very latest and most acceptable methods for his relief, and that his confidence in him was absolute.  None the less she knew that the very sight of John Leaver’s face would be like that of a shore light to a ship groping in a heavy fog.

Within twenty-four hours Jordan King came dashing in to wave a cable message before her.  “Read that, and thank heaven that you have such friends in the world.”

At a glance her eyes took in the pregnant line, and the first tears she had shed leaped to her eyes and misted them, so that she had to wipe them away to read the welcome words again.

     We sail Saturday.  Love to Doctor and Mrs. Burns.

     LEAVER.

A week later, Burns, waking from an uneasy slumber, opened his eyes upon a new figure at his bedside.  For a moment he stared uncomprehending into the dark, distinguished face of his old friend, then put out his uninjured hand with a weak clutch.

“Are you real, Jack?” he demanded in a whisper.

“As real as that bedpost.  And mighty glad to see you, my dear boy.  They tell me the worst is over, and that you’re improving.  That’s worth the journey to see.”

“You didn’t come from—­England?”

“Of course I did.  I’d come from the end of the world, and you know it!  Why in the name of friendship didn’t somebody send me word before?”

“Who sent it now?”

“That’s a secret.  I hoped to be able to do something for you, Red, just to even up the score a little, but the thing that’s really been done has been by yourself.  You put your own clean blood into this tussle and it’s brought you through.”

“I don’t feel so very far through yet, but I suppose I’m not quite so much of a dead fish as I was a week ago.  There’s only one thing that bothers me.”