Then, Larry's memory skipping forward a few hours, a vision of the small hospital's antiseptic white-walled corridor flashed across Larry's brain. He'd been nervously sipping at his third cup of wax-flavored coffee from the hall vending machine when a plump, white-frocked doctor who looked more like an extra in a low-budget television western than a surgeon had approached him.

"Lucky to be alive… doubt if he'll ever walk again, though we did save his legs… but paralysis has set in… no life at all below the waist… but no brain damage, luckily… yeah, he was pretty lucky."

Just the recollection brought back a flash of the horror and disbelief he'd felt at that moment. Lucky? When he'd never again be able to walk or even make love to a woman, much less dazzle the crowds with his stunt-rider skills? Larry wondered if Verne wouldn't have been better off if his brain had died along with his body. And what about the Motorcycle Circus, into which they had both thrown their entire savings, counting on Verne's extraordinary prowess as a rider? He himself was ruined too, financially if not physically.

When the grey-faced, weary-looking doctor had thrown out a grain of hope, he'd grasped at it like a drowning man catching hold of a chance bit of driftwood.

"… no facilities here in Kansas, but there is an operation… very expensive… 50% chance of success… very delicate, intricate… know of a specialist in Indianapolis…"

Now, as he stood in his partner's living room trying to comfort his buddy's tearful wife he wondered why he'd not told her the truth. On the drive from the airport, he'd been full of schemes to raise money for the operation, and he'd fully intended to discuss this with Mrs. Smith. She'd have to get a full-time job, of course, and he'd put on some special benefit shows or something along that line. Anything at all, just so that Verne got the best possible medical care and recovered at least in time for next summer's opening of the real money-maker – the opening of the permanent Cycle Circus here in Indiana.