“There’s no other way,” responded Jerry, quietly. “No railroad will take us there any quicker. And we must start at once. Here is the note Dr. Brown told me to give you.”
The great surgeon stretched out his hand for the paper. As he read it a different look came over his face. It was as though he were a general receiving news that he was about to take part in some important engagement.
“Ah,” he murmured, “the DeVerne operation,” for it was so named after its discoverer, and Dr. Wright was a pupil of that famous French surgeon. “Yes, that is the only hope in a case like that. Dr. Brown was fortunate in so quickly recognizing the necessity for it. Ah, yes, indeed,” and Dr. Wright seemed lost in a pleasant professional revery.
“Then you’ll come?” asked Jerry. “We want to save his life, doctor—save the life of Professor Snodgrass.”
“Yes, I’ll come!” exclaimed the great surgeon. “I have heard of your Professor Snodgrass. I honor him as a true disciple of science. I would do anything in my power to aid him, but,” and his voice grew more solemn, “I do not promise to save his life.”
He shrugged his shoulders to express his doubt. And then the spirit of the soldier—of the fighter—came back to him. Indeed it had not deserted him. He merely did not wish to raise false hopes.
“Come!” he cried. “We will go. I will get ready at once. I will need—let me see——” and he began to go over in his mind the things he would need, as a general might before undertaking a decisive engagement.
Unseen by the boys, Miss Payson, the nurse, came down. She saw the doctor, and she must have known what his attitude, and his words, meant.
“Doctor! You’re not going out to-night—on a case!” she exclaimed. “You forget you came here for rest. You——”
“I forget nothing, my dear Miss Payson,” he interrupted, with a smile. “I only know that I am a doctor, and that a friend—a patient—needs me. You will please get my case ready, and prepare yourself. We are about to perform the DeVerne operation.”