he lantern's light, and glancing at the little frosted window-pane,
he saw the ghosts of the Drowned Lands standing out plainly against the
dawn. Gilbert drew a deep breath. The night had ended, and with it
the struggle. The doctor bent over his patient, pale and worn-looking,
but his eyes aglow with the light of conquest. For he had won the
battle. John McIntyre lay there, spent and white, but he was saved.

When he had made his patient as comfortable as possible with his
inadequate means, Gilbert prepared to go home. He left reluctantly,
but he promised himself he would send Harwood back immediately. He
hurried out to the cutter, and sent Speed spinning up the road toward
the village. As he faced the brightening horizon it came to him with a
leap of his heart that it was New Year's Day! He would barely have
time to catch the train! He drove swiftly into his own yard and dashed
in at the kitchen door.

"Is Dr. Harwood up?" he demanded, coming suddenly upon Mrs. Munn, and
paralyzing her preparations for breakfast.

Had he not been in such a hurry he would have known it was too much to
expect his silent housekeeper to vouchsafe, all at once, the amount of
information required to answer that question.

"Dear! dear!" she cried, in consternation, standing with the dripping
porridge-stick held over the hot stove. "I dunno. There's a letter on
your desk," she added reluctantly.

Gilbert darted into his office and tore open the note. Harwood had
been called out in the night to an urgent case, fifteen miles away, and
would not be back till the afternoon.

The young doctor walked slowly to the frosty window and looked out upon
the white lawn, the paper crushed in his hand. He stood there,
motionless, for fully a minute, and when he turned away his face was
very stern. He walked upstairs and knocked peremptorily on the door of
Davy's room.

The high, falsetto squeak of a gramophone was coming gaily through the
portal, and without waiting for an answer Gilbert impatiently put his
head through the doorway. Since the lawnmower had gone to its
well-earned rest Mr. Munn lived only for this other instrument, the
sound of whose music he found similar to that of his lost treasure.

He was sitting up in bed now, shrouded in blankets, a smile of content
illuminating his face, while the buzzing little machine on the table at
his side was grinding out a Sousa march.

The stern look on the doctor's face startled the