ove him the instant he opens his mouth, and kill any
quarantine. Merritt will be discredited in all the papers--unless the
'Clarion' backs him. Will it?"

Ellis dropped his head in his hand. "I don't know," he said finally.

"Not running an honest paper this week?" sneered the physician lightly.
"By the way, where's Young Hopeful?"

"See here, Dr. Elliot," said Ellis. "You're a good old scout. If you
hadn't poked me in the stomach I believe I'd tell you something."

"Try it," encouraged the other.

"All right. Here it is. They've put it up to Hal Surtaine pretty stiff,
this gang of perfectly honorable business men, leading citizens, pillars
of the church, porch-climbers, and pickpockets who run the city. I guess
you know who I mean."

Dr. Elliot permitted himself a reserved grin.

"All right. They've got him in a clove hitch. At least it looks so. And
one of the conditions for letting up on him is that he suppresses all
news of the epidemic. Then they'll have the 'Clarion' right where
they've got every other local paper."

"Nice town, Worthington," observed Dr. Elliot, with easy but apparently
irrelevant affability.

But McGuire Ellis went red. "It's easy enough for you to sit there and
be righteous," he said. "But get this straight. If the young Boss plays
straight and tells 'em all to go to hell, it'll be a close call of life
or death for the paper."

"And if he doesn't?"

"Easy going. Advertising'll roll in on us. Money'll come so fast we
can't dodge it. Are you so blame sure what _you'd_ do in those
conditions?"

"Mac," said the brusque physician, for the first time using the familiar
name: "between man and man, now: _what_ about the boy?"

From the ancient loyalty of his race sprang McGuire Ellis's swift word,
"My hand in the fire for any that loves him."

"But--stanch, do you think?" persisted the other.

"I hope it."

"Well, I wish it was you owned the 'Clarion.'"

"Do you, now? I don't. How do _I_ know what I'd do?"

"Human lives, Mac: human lives, on this issue."

"Who else knows it's typhus, Doc?"

"Nobody but Merritt and me. You bound me in confidence, you know."

"Good man!"

"There's one other ought to know, though."

"Who's that?"

"Norman Hale."

"The Reverend Norman's all right. We could do with a few more ministers
like him around the place. But why, in particular, should he know?"

"For one thing, he suspects, anyway. Then, he's down in the slums there
most of the tim