Mr. Norris hesitated a moment. "Do you realize," he asked, "that if your yacht brings back a single yellow-fever patient it may never be safe to use her again?"
"My dear sir!" cried Rollo, "if she were all that I had in the world she would still be at the service of my dearest friend."
So Mr. Norris thankfully accepted the young millionaire's offer, and sailed the very next day for Santiago.
A week later a Red Cross nurse, worn and wearied almost to the point of exhaustion by her days and nights of caring for sick and dying soldiers, sat in a Santiago hospital beside one of her patients, gently fanning him. His eyes were closed, and she hoped that he slept. As she watched him her own eyes slowly filled with tears; for she did not believe he would ever gain sufficient strength to bear removal from that house of sorrow. The air of the ward was hot, damp, and lifeless. Sickening odors rising from the streets of the filthy city drifted in through its open windows. The whole atmosphere of the place was depressing, and suggestive of suffering that could only end with death.
"Poor Ridge!" she murmured bitterly to herself. "After all your splendid work, it is cruel to leave you here to die, deserted and forgotten!"
Just then the patient opened wide his eyes, and an expression of eager anticipation flitted across his white face. "Dad is coming," he whispered. "I hear his footstep. Oh, Spence, he is here, and will take us home!"
The nurse listened, but heard only the moans of other sufferers, and thinking that this one had dreamed of his father's coming, tried to soothe him with hopeful promises. Then, all at once, she uttered a little cry of joy, for at the far end of the long white ward she saw one of the house surgeons escorting a familiar figure. In another minute Mr. Norris, seeming to bring with him a breath of bracing northern air, stood beside his son's cot.
"I thank God and you, Spence Cuthbert, that my boy is still alive!" he cried. "And now, how soon can we take him north? I have Van Kyp's yacht waiting out here in the harbor, and we can start at a moment's notice."
"I believe I could go this very minute, dad," said Ridge, his voice already strengthened with hope and happiness. "But, father," he added, anxiously, "we must take Spence with us; for she has promised to stay with me as long as I need her, and I know I couldn't travel without her."
"Of course we will take her, son, and keep her, too, just as long as we can."