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
towards 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
farmhand.

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 favourite, its great man
as well as its friend, he was nowhere to be found. He had been seen