"Well—er—no. Frankly, I would not take the risk."
"Then you consider his condition alarming?"
"Alarming enough to know that unless things take a sudden turn for the better, blood-poisoning will set in. We shall then have to amputate. These cases sometimes prove fatal."
"Then I will not hear of your going," Thayor said in a decisive tone—"at least not until Le Boeuf is out of danger. You have set his arm and are thoroughly in touch with the case. You must stay here and pull him through."
Sperry raised his arms in hopeless protest.
"Really, my dear Mr. Thayor, it is impossible," he said.
"No—nothing is impossible where a man's life is at stake," Thayor continued, lapsing into his old business-like manner. "As to your practice, you know me well enough to know I would not for a moment put you to any personal loss."
"But my dear Thayor—"
"I won't listen to you, Dr. Sperry. It is a matter of the life or death of one of my men—a man who, Holcomb tells me, has been most faithful in his work. I will not hear of your going, and that ends it!"
Sperry rose, and for some moments regarded intently the blue spiral of smoke from his cigar curl lazily past his nose; then with a smile of ill-concealed triumph and a slight shrug of acquiescence, he replied: