Natalie and the children have been there for a week. Maybe I haven’t had a hard time arranging things here so I could leave! It seems all the doctors want to get away for Christmas this year. But I’ve got it fixed at last. I wired Natalie last night I was coming. And now having this deed to take along is going to make my Christmas perfect!”

Suddenly the telephone interrupted.

“Just a minute, Alan.” The doctor turned with an annoyed glance and took down the receiver.

Alan watched the keen, sensitive face as the doctor listened.

“Yes! Yes?” His tone growing sharper. “You say she is worse? Broken? What is broken? Oh, the bottle of medicine I brought you last night? You don’t say! That’s bad! Wasn’t there any of it saved? Not even a few drops? What a pity!”

The doctor’s voice had grown exceedingly grave.

“What’s that? Do without it? No! Not on any account! I would not answer for the consequences if you tried that. But isn’t there any of the first bottle left? It wasn’t quite gone when I was there yesterday. Let me speak to the nurse a moment. Hello! Hello! Is that you, nurse? How is the patient? Yes? Yes? Temperature? No! Not on any account. She must have the medicine! How much have you left? Let’s see! That would carry you through till six o’clock! Well, isn’t there someone there you could trust to come down and get it? I don’t see how I could possibly come up. I’m leaving on the noon train, and my man is off on a three-day vacation. Just left. No, you couldn’t get that at the ordinary drugstore, it’s not a common drug. You say you haven’t even a servant to send? Oh, not one who can drive. Where’s the chauffeur? Gone on his vacation, too, has he? That’s bad! Well, I’ll see what I can do. I’ll try to get somebody to go, or I’ll come myself. Yes, you can depend on having it by six o’clock. What do you say? Snowing? Oh, well, I’ll find somebody to come.”

The doctor hung up the receiver and turned dazed, hurt eyes on his friend, the radiant look all gone from his face.

“Now can you beat that?” he said blankly. “I ask you, can you beat it? Everything all planned to go off on the noon train, even that deed here in time, and now this has to happen. I might have known things were going too slick to last. They let a fool pet dog get into the sick room where my patient is desperately ill, and he jumps up on the bed and backs against the bedside table and knocks off a bottle of very important medicine that I took the trouble to go all the way up into the mountains to take to them last night so they would have enough to last while I am away. Isn’t that the limit? And it is absolutely necessary that medicine not be interrupted. They have only enough left from the first bottle to last till six o’clock. And of course I won’t be able to hire anybody for love or money to take some more to them, not today! Not the day before Christmas!”

“Well, but surely you can hire a messenger boy,” said Alan.

“It’s seventy miles away, man, and up a mountain! How would a messenger boy on a bicycle make out? They say it’s snowing up there, too. And the woman is in a critical condition. There isn’t a chance for her life if she doesn’t get the medicine in time. I couldn’t expect anybody I hired to realize that, or care enough to carry them through difficulties.

“The woman is one of my best patients. Why they ever went up to that forsaken place at this time of year is more than I can tell, but her daughter is married and lives up there and they went to visit her three weeks ago. Then Mrs. Watt was taken sick.