ng Ground, Doctor," said the
nurse. "Everything is all right and you're doing splendidly. Just
don't excite yourself and you'll get well in no time. Captain Murdock
will be here in a few minutes."

"How long have I been here?" he asked.

"Oh, quite a while, Doctor. Now don't ask any more questions. You must
rest and get well and strong, you know."

Strength seemed to be surging slowly back into the doctor's wasted
frame. His voice came clearer and stronger.

"How long have I been here?" he demanded.

* * * * *

The nurse hesitated, but her face suddenly cleared as Captain Murdock
entered the ward.

"Oh, Captain," she cried, "come here and take care of your patient. He
won't keep quiet."

"Out of his head again?" asked Captain Murdock as he hastened forward.

"No more than you are," came in a husky whisper from Dr. Bird's lips.

Captain Murdock looked quickly down and smiled in relief. "You'll
live, Dr. Bird," he said. "Just take it easy for a few days and then
you can talk all you want to."

"I'll talk now," came in stronger tones from the doctor's lips. "How
long have I been here?"

Captain Murdock hesitated, but a glance at the doctor's flushed face
warned him that it was better to give in than to fight him.

"You were brought in here two weeks ago yesterday," he said. "It was
touch and go for a while, and, but for the treatment you devised, you
would have been a goner. We fed you X-rays until I was afraid we would
burn you up, but they did the business. It will cheer you up to learn
that every man who got your treatment is either well or on the high
road to recovery."

"The plague?" asked the doctor faintly.

"Oh, that's all over, thanks to you. It reached the post that night
but under the influence of the daylight blue bulbs you had installed,
it lost most of its virulence. We had a lot of sore throats in the
morning but there wasn't a man dangerously sick. It all faded when the
sun hit it."

An orderly entered and spoke in an undertone to Captain Murdock. The
surgeon hesitated for a moment, his eyes on Dr. Bird, and then nodded.

"Bring him in," he said quietly.

* * * * *

A small, unobtrusively dressed man entered the room and stepped to the
bedside. Dr. Bird's face lighted up in one of its rare smiles and he
strove to raise his hand in greeting.

"Carnesy, old dear, I'm glad to see you got out all right," he
whispered. "I wa