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“Perhaps Orion will rise again–you think so?” She laughed in satire; for Dicky Fergus had made love to her during the last three months with unsuppressed activity, and she knew him in his sentimental moments; which is fatal. It is fatal if, in a duet, one breathes fire and the other frost.

“If you want my opinion,” he said, in a lower voice, as they moved toward the door, while people tried to listen to them–“if you want it straight, I think Orion has risen–right up where shines the evening star–Oh, say, now,” he broke off, “haven’t you had enough fun out of me? I tell you, it was touch and go. He nearly broke my arm–would have done it, if I hadn’t gone limp to him; and your cousin Conny Jopp, little Conny Jopp, was as near Kingdom Come as a man wants at his age. I saw an elephant go must once in India, and it was as like O’Ryan as putty is to dough. It isn’t all over, either, for O’Ryan will forget and forgive, and Jopp won’t. He’s your cousin, but he’s a sulker. If he has to sit up nights to do it, he’ll try to get back on O’Ryan. He’ll sit up nights, but he’ll do it, if he can. And, whatever it is, it won’t be pretty.”

Outside the door they met Gow Johnson, excitement in his eyes. He heard Fergus’ last words.

“He’ll see Orion rising if he sits up nights,” Gow Johnson said. “The game is with Terry–at last.”

Then he called to the dispersing, gossiping crowd: “Hold on–hold on, you people! I’ve got news for you. Folks, this is O’Ryan’s night. It’s his in the starry firmament. Look at him shine!” he cried, stretching out his arm toward the heavens, where the glittering galaxy hung near the zenith. “Terry O’Ryan–our O’Ryan–he’s struck oil–on his ranch it’s been struck. Old Vigon found it. Terry’s got his own at last. O’Ryan’s in it–in it alone. Now, let’s hear the prairie-whisper!” he shouted, in a great, raucous voice. “Let’s hear the prairie-whisper! What is it?”

The crowd responded in a hoarse shout for O’Ryan and his fortune. Even the women shouted–all except Molly Mackinder. She was wondering if O’Ryan risen would be the same to her as O’Ryan rising. She got into her carriage with a sigh, though she said to the few friends with her:

“If it’s true, it’s splendid. He deserves it, too. Oh, I’m glad–I’m so glad!” She laughed; but the laugh was a little hysterical.

She was both glad and sorry. Yet as she drove home over the prairie she was silent. Far off in the east was a bright light. It was a bonfire built on O’Ryan’s ranch, near where he had struck oil–struck it rich. The light grew and grew, and the prairie was alive with people hurrying toward it. La Touche should have had the news hours earlier, but the half-breed French-Canadian, Vigon, who had made the discovery, and had started for La Touche with the news, went suddenly off his head with excitement, and had ridden away into the prairie fiercely shouting his joy to an invisible world. The news had been brought in later by a farm-hand.

* * * * *

Terry O’Ryan had really struck oil, and his ranch was a scene of decent revelry, of which Gow Johnson was master. But the central figure of it all, the man who had, in truth, risen like a star, had become to La Touche all at once its notoriety as well as its favorite, its great man as well as its friend, he was nowhere to be found. He had been seen riding full speed into the prairie toward the Kourmash Wood, and the starlit night had swallowed him. Constantine Jopp had also disappeared; but at first no one gave that thought or consideration.