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diff --git a/old/1348-0.txt b/old/1348-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bd18a81 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/1348-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6724 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Master's Degree, by Margaret Hill McCarter + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Master's Degree + +Author: Margaret Hill McCarter + +Posting Date: August 13, 2008 [EBook #1348] +Release Date: June, 1998 +Last Updated: March 16, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A MASTER'S DEGREE *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Keller + + + + + +A MASTER'S DEGREE + +By Margaret Hill McCarter + + + + + TO THE KANSAS BOYS AND GIRLS + WHO HAVE NOT YET EARNED THEIR DEGREES; + AND TO THOSE OLDER IN YEARS, EVERYWHERE, + “CAPTAINS OVER HUNDREDS,” + WHO WOULD WIN TO THE LARGER MASTERY. + + + + + In the old days there were angels who came and + took men by the hand and led them away from the + city of destruction. We see no white-winged angels + now. But yet men are led away from threatening + destruction: a hand is put into theirs, which leads + them gently forth toward a calm and bright land, so + that they look no more backward; and the hand may + be a little child's. + + GEORGE ELIOT + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER + + THE MEETING + I. “DEAN FUNNYBONE” + II. POTTER'S CLAY + III. PIGEON PLACE + IV. THE KICKAPOO CORRAL + V. THE STORM + VI. THE GAME + VII. THE DAY OF RECKONING + VIII. LOSS, OR GAIN? + IX. GAIN, OR LOSS? + X. THE THIEF IN THE MOUTH + XI. THE SINS OF THE FATHERS + XII. THE SILVER PITCHER + XIII. THE MAN BELOW THE SMOKE + XIV. THE DERELICTS + XV. THE MASTERY + THE PARTING + + + + + +A MASTER'S DEGREE + + + + +THE MEETING + + ...There is neither East nor West, Border, nor + Breed, nor Birth, + When two strong men stand face to face, tho' they + come from the ends of the earth! + KIPLING + +IT happened by mere chance that the September day on which Professor +Vincent Burgess, A.B., from Boston, first entered Sunrise College as +instructor in Greek, was the same day on which Vic Burleigh, overgrown +country boy from a Kansas claim out beyond the Walnut River, signed up +with the secretary of the College Board and paid the entrance fee for +his freshman year. And further, by chance, it happened that the two +young men had first met at the gateway to the campus, one coming +from the East and the other from the West, and having exchanged the +courtesies of stranger greeting, they had walked, side by side, up the +long avenue to the foot of the slope. Together, they had climbed the +broad flight of steps leading up to the imposing doorway of Sunrise, +with the great letter S carved in stone relief above it; and, after +pausing a moment to take in the matchless wonder of the landscape over +which old Sunrise keeps watch, the college portal had swung open, and +the two had entered at the same time. + +Inside the doorway the Professor and the country boy were impressed, +though in differing degrees, with the massive beauty of the rotunda over +which the stained glass of the dome hangs a halo of mellow radiance. +Involuntarily they lifted their eyes toward this crown of light and +saw far above them, wrought in dainty coloring, the design of the great +State Seal of Kansas, with its inscription They saw something more in +that upward glance. On the stairway of the rotunda, Elinor Wream, +the niece of the president of Sunrise College, was leaning over the +balustrade, looking at them with curious eyes. Her smile of recognition +as she caught sight of Professor Burgess, gave place to an expression of +half-concealed ridicule, as she glanced down at Vic Burleigh, the big, +heavy-boned young fellow, so grotesquely impossible to the harmony of +the place. + +As the two men dropped their eyes, they encountered the upturned face +of a plainly dressed girl coming up the stairs from the basement, with a +big feather duster in her hand. It was old Bond Saxon's daughter Dennie, +who was earning her tuition by keeping the library and offices in +order. As if to even matters, it was Vic Burleigh who caught a token of +recognition now, while the young Professor was surveyed with fearless +disapproval. + +All this took only a moment of time. Long afterward these two men knew +that in that moment an antagonism was born between them that must fight +itself out through the length of days. But now, Dr. Lloyd Fenneben, Dean +of Sunrise, known to students and alumni alike as “Dean Funnybone,” was +grasping each man's hand with a cordial grip and measuring each with a +keen glance from piercing black eyes, as he bade them equal welcome. + +And here all likeness of conditions ends for these two. Days come and +go, moons wax and wane, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and +winter glide fourfold through their appointed seasons, before the two +young men stand side by side on a common level again. And the events +of these changing seasons ring in so rapidly, and in so inevitable a +fashion, that the whole cycle runs like a real story along the page. + + + +STRIFE + + _With the first faint note out of distance flung, + From the moment man hears the siren call + Of Victory's bugle, which sounds for all, + To his inner self the promise is made + To weary not, rest not, but all unafraid + Press on--till for him the paean be sung. + + The song for the victor is sweet, is sweet-- + Yet to the music a memory clings + Of trampled nestlings, of broken wings, + And of faces white with defeat!_ + --ELIZABETH D. PRESTON + + + + +CHAPTER I. “DEAN FUNNYBONE” + + _Nature they say, doth dote, + And cannot make a man + Save on some worn-out plan, + Repeating us by rote: + For him her Old-World moulds aside she threw, + ............................. + With stuff untainted, + shaped a hero new_.--LOWELL + +DR. LLOYD FENNEBEN, Dean of Sunrise College, had migrated to the Walnut +Valley with the founding of the school here. In fact, he had brought the +college with him when he came hither, and had set it, as a light not to +be hidden, on the crest of that high ridge that runs east of the little +town of Lagonda Ledge. And the town eagerly took the new school to +itself; at once its pride and profit. Yea, the town rises and sets with +Sunrise. When the first gleam of morning, hidden by the east ridge from +the Walnut Valley, glints redly from the south windows of the college +dome in the winter time, and from the north windows in the summer time, +the town bestirs; itself, and the factory whistles blow. And when the +last crimson glory of evening puts a halo of flame about the brow of +Sunrise, the people know that out beyond the Walnut River the day is +passing, and the pearl-gray mantle of twilight is deepening to velvety +darkness on the wide, quiet prairie lands. + +Lagonda Ledge was a better place after the college settled permanently +above it. Some improvident citizens took a new hold on life, while some +undesirables who had lived in lawless infamy skulked across the Walnut +and disappeared in that rough picturesque region full of uncertainties +that lies behind the west bluffs of the stream. All this, after the +college had found an abiding place on the limestone ridge. For Sunrise +had been a migratory bird before reaching the outskirts of Lagonda +Ledge. As a fulfillment of prophecy, it had arisen from the visions and +pockets of some Boston scholars, and it had come to the West and was +made flesh--or stone--and dwelt among men on the outskirts of a booming +young Kansas town. + +Lloyd Fenneben was just out of Harvard when Dr. Joshua Wream, his +step-brother, many years his senior, professor of all the dead languages +ever left unburied, had put a considerable fortune into his hands, and +into his brain the dream of a life-work--even the building of a great +university in the West. For the Wreams were a stubborn, self-willed, +bookish breed, who held that salvation of souls could come only through +possession of a college diploma. Young Fenneben had come to Kansas with +all his youth and health and money, with high ideals and culture and +ambition for success and dreams of honor--and, hidden deep down, the +memory of some sort of love affair, but that was his own business. With +this dream of a new Harvard on the western prairies, he had burned his +bridges behind him, and in an unbusiness-like way, relying too much upon +a board of trustees whom he had interested in his plans he had eagerly +begun his task, struggling to adapt the West to his university model, +measuring all men and means by the scholarly rule of his Alma Mater. +Being a young man, he took himself full seriously, and it was a +tremendous blow to his sense of dignity when the youthful Jayhawkers at +the outset dubbed him “Dean Funnybone”--a name he was never to lose. + +His college flourished so amazingly that another boom town, farther +inland, came across the prairie one day, and before the eyes of the +young dean bought it of the money-loving trustees--body and soul and +dean--and packed it off as the Plains Indians would carry off a white +captive, miles away to the westward. Plumped down in a big frame +barracks in the public square of twenty acres in the middle of this new +town, at once real estate dealers advertised the place as the literary +center of Kansas; while lots in straggling additions far away across the +prairie draws were boomed as “college flats within walking distance of +the university.” + +In this new setting Lloyd Fenneben started again to build up what had +been so recklessly torn down. But it was slow doing, and in a downcast +hour the head of the board of trustees took council with the young dean. + +“Funnybone, that's what the boys call you, ain't it?” The name had come +along over the prairie with the school. “Funnybone, you are as likely +a man as ever escaped from Boston. But you're never going to build the +East into the West, no more'n you could ram the West into the Atlantic +seaboard states. My advice to you is to get yourself into the West for +good and drop your higher learnin' notions, and be one of us, or beat it +back to where you came from quick.” + +Dean Fenneben listened as a man who hears the reading of his own +obituary. + +“You've come out to Kansas with beautiful dreams,” the bluff trustee +continued. “Drop 'em! You're too late for the New England pioneers who +come West. They've had their day and passed on. The thing for you to do +is to commercialize yourself right away. Go to buyin' and sellin' dirt. +It's all a man can do for Kansas now. Just boom her real estate.” + +“All a man can do for Kansas!” Fenneben repeated slowly. + +“Sure, and I'll tell you something more. This town is busted, absolutely +busted. I, and a few others, brought this college here as an investment +for ourselves. It ain't paid us, and we've throwed the thing over. I've +just closed a deal with a New Jersey syndicate that gets me rid of every +foot of ground I own here. The county-seat's goin' to be eighteen +miles south, and it will be kingdom come, a'most, before the railroad +extension is any nearer 'n that. Let your university go, and come with +me. I can make you rich in six months. In six weeks the coyotes will be +howlin' through your college halls, and the prairie dogs layin' out +a townsite on the campus, and the rattlesnakes coilin' round the +doorsteps. Will you come, Funnybone?” + +The trustee waited for an answer. While he waited, the soul of the young +dean found itself. + +“Funnybone!” Lloyd repeated. “I guess that's just what I need--a funny +bone in my anatomy to help me to see the humor of this thing. Go with +you and give up my college? Build up the prosperity of a commonwealth +by starving its mind! No, no; I'll go on with the thing I came here to +do--so help me God!” + +“You'll soon go to the devil, you and your old school. Good-by!” And the +trustee left him. + +A month later, Dean Fenneben sat alone in his university barracks and +saw the prairie dogs making the dust fly as they digged about what had +been intended for a flower bed on the campus. Then he packed up his +meager library and other college equipments and walked ten miles across +the plains to hire a man with a team to haul them away. The teamster had +much ado to drive his half-bridle-wise Indian ponies near enough to +the university doorway to load his wagon. Before the threshold a huge +rattlesnake lay coiled, already disputing any human claim to this +kingdom of the wild. + +Discouraging as all this must have been to Fenneben, when he started +away from the deserted town he smiled joyously as a man who sees his +road fair before him. + +“I might go back to Cambridge and poke about after the dead languages +until my brother passes on, and then drop into his chair in the +university,” he said to himself, “but the trustee was right. I can never +build the East into the West. But I can learn from the East how to bring +the West into its own kingdom. I can make the dead languages serve me +the better to speak the living words here. And if I can do that, I +may earn a Master's Degree from my Alma Mater without the writing of a +learned thesis to clinch it. But whether I win honor or I am forgotten, +this shall be my life-work--out on these Kansas prairies, to till a soil +that shall grow MEN AND WOMEN.” + +For the next three years Dean Fenneben and his college flourished on +the borders of a little frontier town, if that can be called flourishing +which uses up time, and money, and energy, Christian patience, and +dogged persistence. Then an August prairie fire, sweeping up from the +southwest, leaped the narrow fire-guard about the one building and +burned up everything there, except Dean Fenneben. Six years, and nothing +to show for his work on the outside. Inside, the six years' stay +in Kansas had seen the making over of a scholarly dreamer into a +hard-headed, far-seeing, masterful man, who took the West as he found +it, but did not leave it so. Not he! All the power of higher learning he +still held supreme. But by days of hard work in the college halls, and +nights of meditation out in the silent sanctuary spaces of the prairies +round about him, he had been learning how to compute the needs of men as +the angel with the golden reed computed the walls and gates of the New +Jerusalem--_according to the measure of a man_. + +Such was Dean Fenneben who came after six years of service to the little +town of Lagonda Ledge to plant Sunrise on the crest above the Walnut +Valley beyond reach of prairie fire or bursting boom. Firm set as the +limestone of its foundations, he reared here a college that should live, +for that its builder himself with his feet on the ground and his face +toward the light had learned the secret of living. + +Miles away across the valley, the dome of Sunrise could be seen by day. +By night, the old college lantern at first, and later the studding of +electric lights, made a beacon for all the open countryside. But if +the wayfarer, by chance or choice, turned his footsteps to those rocky +bluffs and glens beyond the Walnut River, wherefrom the town of Lagonda +Ledge takes its name, he lost the guiding ray from the hilltop and +groped in black and dangerous ways where darkness rules. + +Above the south turret hung the Sunrise bell, whose resonant voice +filled the whole valley, and what the sight of Sunrise failed to do for +Lagonda Ledge, the sound of the bell accomplished. The first class to +enter the school nicknamed its head “Dean Funnybone,” but this gave him +no shock any more. He had learned the humor of life now, the spirit of +the open land where the view is broad to broadening souls. + +And it was to the hand of Dean Fenneben that Professor Vincent Burgess, +A.B., Greek instructor from Boston, and Vic Burleigh, the big country +boy from a claim beyond the Walnut, came on a September day; albeit, the +one had his head in the clouds, while the other's feet were clogged with +the grass roots. + + + +CHAPTER II. POTTER'S CLAY + + _This clay, well mixed with marl and sand, + Follows the motion of my hand, + For some must follow and some command, + Though all are made of clay_. + --LONGFELLOW + +THE afternoon sunshine was flooding the September landscape with molten +gold, filling the valley with intense heat, and rippling back in warm +waves from the crest of the ridge. Dean Fenneben's study in the south +tower of Sunrise looked out on the new heaven and the new earth, every +day-dawn created afresh for his eyes; for truly, the Walnut Valley in +any mood needs only eyes that see to be called a goodly land. And it +was because of the magnificent vista, unfolding in woodland, and winding +river, and fertile field, and far golden prairie--it was because of the +unconscious power of all this upon the student mind, that Dr. Fenneben +had set his college up here. + +On this September afternoon, the Dean sat looking out on this land of +pure delight a-quiver in the late summer sunshine. Nature had done well +by Lloyd Fenneben. His height was commanding, and he was slender, rather +than heavy, with ease of movement as if the play of every muscle was +nerved to harmony. His heavy black hair was worn a trifle long on the +upper part of his head and fell in masses above his forehead. His eyes +were black and keen under heavy black brows. Every feature was strong +and massive, but saved from sternness by a genial kindliness and sense +of humor. Whoever came into his presence felt that magnetic power only a +king of his kind can possess. + +Long the Dean sat gazing at the gleaming landscape and the sleepy town +beyond the campus and the pigeons circling gracefully above a little +cottage, hidden by trees, up the river. + +“A wonderful region!” he murmured. “If that old white-haired brother of +mine digging about the roots of Greek and Sanscrit back in Harvard could +only see all this, maybe he might understand why I choose to stay here +with my college instead of tying up with a university back East. But, +maybe not. We are only step-brothers. He is old enough to be my father, +and with all his knowledge of books he could never read men. However, he +sent me West with a fat pocketbook in the interest of higher education. +I hope I've invested well. And our magnificent group of buildings up +here and our broad-acred campus, together with our splendid enrollment +of students justify my hope. Strange, I have never known whose money +I was using. Not Joshua Wream's, I know that. Money is nothing to the +Wreams except as it endows libraries, builds colleges, and extends +universities. Too scholarly for these prairies, all of them! Too +scholarly!” + +The Dean's eyes were fixed on a tiny shaft of blue smoke rising steadily +from the rough country in the valley beyond Lagonda Ledge, but his mind +was still on his brother. + +“Dr. Joshua Wream, D.D., Litt.D., LL.D., etc.! He has taken all the +degrees conferable, except the degree of human insight.” Something +behind the strong face sent a line of pathos into it with the thought. +“He has piled up enough for me to look after this fall, anyhow. It was +bad enough for that niece of ours to be left a penniless orphan with +only the two uncles to look after her and both of us bachelors. And now, +after he has been shaping Elinor Wream's life until she is ready for +college, he sends her out here to me, frankly declaring that she is too +much for him. She always was.” + +He turned to a letter lying on the table beside him, a smile playing +about the frown on his countenance. + +“He hopes I can do better by Elinor than he has been able to do, because +he's never had a wife nor child to teach him,” he continued, giving word +to his thought. “A fine time for me to begin! No wife nor child has ever +taught me anything. He says she is a good girl, a beautiful girl with +only two great faults. Only two! She's lucky. 'One'”--Fenneben glanced +more closely at the letter--“'is her self-will.' I never knew a Wream +that didn't have that fault. 'And the other'”--the frown drove back the +smile now--“'is her notion of wealth. Nobody but a rich man could ever +win her hand.' She who has been simply reared, with all the Wream creed +that higher education is the final end of man, is set with a Wream-like +firmness in her hatred of poverty, her eagerness for riches and luxury. +And to add to all this responsibility he must send me his pet Greek +scholar, Vincent Burgess, to try out as a professor in Sunrise. A +Burgess, of all men in the world, to be sent to me! Of course this +young man knows nothing of my affairs but is my brother too old and +too scholarly to remember what I've tried a thousand times to forget? I +thought the old wound had healed by this time.” + +A wave of sadness swept the strong man's face. “I've asked Burgess to +come up at three. I must find out what material is sent here for my +shaping. It is a president's business to shape well, and I must do my +best, God help me!” + +A shadow darkened Lloyd Fenneben's face, and his black eyes held a +strange light. He stared vacantly at the landscape until he suddenly +noted the slender wavering pillar of smoke beyond the Walnut. + +“There are no houses in those glens and hidden places,” he thought. “I +wonder what fire is under that smoke on a day like this. It is a far cry +from the top of this ridge to the bottom of that half-tamed region down +there. One may see into three counties here, but it is rough traveling +across the river by day, and worse by night.” + +The bell above the south turret chimed the hour of three as Vincent +Burgess entered the study. + +“Take this seat by the window,” Dr. Fenneben said with a genial smile +and a handclasp worth remembering. “You can see an Empire from this +point, if you care to look out.” + +Vincent Burgess sat at ease in any presence. He had the face of a +scholar, and the manners of a gentleman. But he gave no sign that he +cared to view the empire that lay beyond the window. + +“We are to be co-workers for some time, Burgess. May I ask you why you +chose to come to Kansas?” + +Fenneben came straight to the purpose of the interview. This keen-eyed, +business-like man seemed to Burgess very unlike old Dr. Wream, whom +everybody at Harvard loved and anybody could deceive. But to the direct +question he answered directly and concisely. + +“I came to study types, to acquire geographical breadth, to have +seclusion, that I may pursue more profound research.” + +There was a play of light in Dr. Fenneben's eyes. + +“You must judge for yourself of the value of Sunrise and Lagonda Ledge +for seclusion. But we make a specialty of geographical breadth out here. +As to types, they assay fairly well to the ton, these Jayhawkers do.” + +“What are Jayhawkers, Doctor?” Burgess queried. + +“Yonder is one specimen,” Fenneben answered, pointing toward the window. + +Vincent Burgess, looking out, saw Vic Burleigh leaping up the broad +steps from the level campus, a giant fellow, fully six feet tall. +The swing of strength, void of grace, was in his motion. His face was +gypsy-brown under a crop of sunburned auburn hair. A stiff new derby +hat was set bashfully on a head set unabashed on broad shoulders. The +store-mark of the ready-made was on his clothing, and it was clear that +he was less accustomed to cut stone steps than to springing prairie sod. +Clearly he was a real product of the soil. + +“Why, that is the young bumpkin I came in with this morning. I thought +I was striding alongside an elephant in bulk and wild horse in speed,” + Burgess said with a smile. + +“You will have a share in taming him, doubtless,” Dr. Fenneben replied. +“He looks hardly bridle-wise yet. Enter him among your types. I didn't +get his name this morning, but he interested me at once, as a fellow of +good blood if not of good manners, and I have asked him to come in here +later. Some boys must be met on the very threshold of a college if they +are to run safely along the four years.” + +“His name is Burleigh, Victor Burleigh. I remember it because it is not +a new name to me. Picture him in a cap and gown at home in a library, +or standing up to receive a Master's Degree from a university! His kind +leave about the middle of the second semester and revert to the soil, +don't they?” + +Burgess laughed pleasantly, and leaned forward to get one more look at +the country boy, disappearing behind a group of evergreens in the north +angle of the building. + +“They do not always leave so soon as that. You can't tell the grade of +timber every time by the bark outside.” There was a deeper tone in Dr. +Fenneben's voice now. “But as to yourself, you had a motive in coming to +Kansas, I judge. You can study types anywhere.” + +Whether the young man liked this or not, he answered evenly: + +“I am to give instruction in Greek here at Lagonda Ledge. Beastly name, +isn't it? Suggestive of rattlesnakes, somehow! I shall spend much time +in study, for I am preparing a comprehensive thesis for my Master's +Degree. The very barrenness of these dull prairies will keep me close to +my library for a couple of years.” + +“Oh, you will do your work well anywhere,” Dr. Fenneben declared. “You +need not put walls of distances about you for that. I thought you might +have a more definite purpose in choosing this state, of all places.” + +Fenneben's mind was running back to the days of his own first struggle +for existence in the West, and his heart went out in sympathy to the +undisciplined young professor. + +“I have a reason, but it is entirely a personal matter.” Burgess was +looking at the floor now. “Did you know I had a sister once?” + +“Yes, I know,” Dr. Fenneben said. + +“She was married and came to Kansas. That was after you left Cambridge, +I suppose. She and her husband are both dead, leaving no children. My +father was bitterly opposed to her coming out here, and never forgave +her for it. He died recently, making me his heir. I've always thought +I'd like to see the state where my sister lived. She died young. She +could not have been as old as you are, and you are a young man yet, +Doctor. In addition, my father left in my care some trust funds for a +claimant who also lived in Kansas. He is dead now, but I want to find +out something more definite concerning him. Outside of this, I hope to +do well here and to succeed to higher places elsewhere, soon. All this +personal to myself, and worthy, I hope.” + +He looked at Fenneben, who was leaning forward with his elbow on the +table and his head bowed. His face was hidden and his white fingers were +thrust through the heavy masses of black hair. + +“You will find a great field here in which to work out your success,” + the Dean said at length. “But I must give a word of warning. I tried +once to reproduce the eastern university here. I learned better. If +Kansas is to be your training ground, may I say that the man who opens +his front door for the first time on the green prairies of the West has +no less to learn than the man who first pitches his tent beside the blue +Atlantic? Don't say I didn't show you where to find the blazed trail if +you get lost from it for a little while.” + +Dr. Fenneben's face was charming when he smiled. + +“One other thing I may mention. You know my niece, Elinor? I've been out +here so long, I may need your help in making her feel at home at first.” + +There was a new light in Burgess's eyes at the mention of Elinor Wream's +name. + +“Oh, yes, I know Miss Elinor very well. I shall need her more to make me +feel at home than she will need me.” + +Somehow the answer was a trifle too quick and smooth to ring right. Dr. +Fenneben forgot it in an instant, however, for Elinor Wream herself came +suddenly into the room, a tall, slender girl, with a face so full of +sunshiny charm that no great defect of character had yet made its mark +there. + +“I beg your pardon, Uncle Lloyd; I thought you were alone. How do you +do, Professor Burgess.” She came forward smilingly and offered her hand. +“Makes me homesick for old Cambridge and Uncle Joshua when I see you. I +want to go down to Lagonda Ledge, and I don't know the streets at all. +Don't you want to show me the way?” + +“Can't you wait for me to do that, Norrie? I have only one more +engagement for the afternoon, and Miss Saxon will be wanting to dust in +here soon.” Dr. Fenneben looked fondly at his niece, a man to make other +men jealous, if occasion offered. + +“Please don't, Miss Elinor,” Vincent Burgess urged. “I shall be +delighted to explore darkest Kansas with you at any time.” + +“There is no mistaking that look in a man's eyes,” Dr. Fenneben thought +as he watched the two pass through the rotunda and out of the great +front door. “I have guessed Joshua's plan easily enough, but I've only +half guessed him out. Why did he mention his money matters to me? There +is enough merit in him worth the shaping Sunrise will give him, however, +and I must do a man's part, anyhow. As for Elinor, there's a ready-made +missionary field in her, so Joshua warns me. But he is a poor judge +sometimes. I wish I might have begun with her sooner. I cannot think she +is quite as mercenary as he represents her to be.” + +Through the window he saw a pretty picture. Outlined against the dark +green cedars of the north angle was Professor Burgess, tall, slender, +fair of face, faultless in dress. Beside him was Elinor Wream, all +dainty and sweet and white, from the broad-brimmed hat set jauntily on +her dark hair to the white bows on the instep of her neat little canvas +shoes. A wave of loneliness swept over Dr. Fenneben's soul as he looked. + +“It must have been a thousand years ago that I was in love and walked in +my Eden. There are no serpents here as there were in mine.” + +Just then his eyes fell upon the wide stone landing of the campus steps. +At the same moment Elinor gave a scream of fright. A bull snake, big +and ugly, had crawled half out of the burned grasses of the slope and +stretched itself lazily in the sunshine along the warm stone. It roused +itself at the scream, emitting its hoarse hiss, after the manner of bull +snakes. Elinor clutched at her companion's arm, pale with fear. + +“Kill it! Kill it!” she cried, trying to force her slender white parasol +into his hand. + +Before he could move, Vic Burleigh leaped out from behind the cedars, +and, picking up a sharp-edged bit of limestone, tipped his hand +dexterously and sent it clean as a knife cut across the space. It struck +the snake just below the head, half severing it from the body. Another +leap and Burleigh had kicked the whole writhing mass--it would have +measured five feet--off the stone into the sunflower stalks and long +grasses of the steep slope. + +“How did you ever dare?” Elinor asked. + +“Oh, he's not poison; he just doesn't belong up here.” + +The bluntness of timidity was in Vic's answer, but the strength and +musical depth of his resonant voice was almost startling. + +“There is no Eden without a serpent, Miss Elinor,” Professor Burgess +said lightly. + +“Nor a serpent without some sort of Eden built around it. The thing's +mate will be along after it pretty soon. Look out for it down there. The +best place to catch it is right behind its ears,” came the boy's quick +response. + +Burleigh looked back defiantly at Burgess as he disappeared indoors. And +the antagonism born in the meeting of these two men in the morning took +on a tiny degree of strength in the afternoon. + +“What a wonderful voice, Vincent. It makes one want to hear it again,” + Elinor exclaimed. + +“Yes, and what an overgrown pile of awkwardness. It makes one hope never +to see it again,” her companion responded. + +“But he killed that snake in a way that looked expert to me,” Elinor +insisted. + +“My dear Miss Elinor, he was probably born in some Kansas cabin and has +practiced killing snakes all his life. Not a very elevating feat. Let's +go down and explore Lagonda Ledge now before the other snake comes in +for the coroner's inquest.” + +And the two passed down the stone steps to the shady level campus and on +to the town beyond it. + +“You are hard on snakes, Burleigh,” Dr. Fenneben said as he welcomed the +country boy into his study. “A bull snake is a harmless creature, and he +is the farmer's friend.” + +“Let him stay on the farm then. I hate him. He's no friend of mine,” Vic +replied. + +He was overflowing the chair recently graced by Professor Burgess and +clutching his derby as if it might escape and leave him bareheaded +forever. His face had a dogged expression and his glance was stern. Yet +his direct words and the deep richness of his voice put him outside of +the class of commonplace beginners. + +“Are you fond of killing things?” the Dean asked. + +The ruddy color deepened in Vic Burleigh's brown cheek, but the +steadfast gaze of his eyes and the firm lines of his mouth told the +head of Sunrise something of what he would find in the sturdy young +Jayhawker. + +“Sometimes,” came the blunt answer. “I've always lived on a Kansas +claim. Unless you know what that means you might not understand--how +hard a life”--Vic stopped abruptly and squeezed the rim of his derby. + +“Never mind. We take only face value here. Fine view from that window,” + and Lloyd Fenneben's genial smile began to win the heart of the country +boy as most young hearts were won to him. + +Burleigh leaned toward the window, forgetful of the chair arms he had +striven to subdue, the late afternoon sunlight falling on his brown face +and glinting in his auburn hair. + +“It's as pretty as paradise,” he said, simply. “There's nothing like our +Kansas prairies.” + +“You come from the plains out west, I hear. How long do you plan to stay +here, Burleigh?” Dr. Fenneben asked. + +“Four years if I can make it go. I've got a little schooling and I know +how to herd cattle. I need more than this, if I am only a country boy.” + +“Who pays for your schooling, yourself, or your father?” Fenneben +queried. + +“I have no father nor mother now.” + +“You are willing to work four years to get a diploma from Sunrise? It is +hard work; all the harder if you have not had much schooling before it.” + +“I'm willing to work, and I'd like to have the diploma for it,” Vic +answered. + +“Burleigh, did you notice the letter S carved in the stone above the +door?” + +“Yes, sir; I suppose it stands for Sunrise?” + +“It does. But with the years it will take on new meanings for you. +When you have learned all these meanings you will be ready for your +diploma--and more. You will be far on your way to the winning of a +Master's Degree.” + +Vic's eyes widened with a sort of child-like simplicity. He forgot his +hat and the chair arms, and Dr. Fenneben noted for the first time that +his golden-brown eyes matching his auburn hair were shaded by long black +lashes, the kind artists rave about, and arched over with black brows. + +“His eyes and voice are all right,” was the Dean's mental comment. +“There's good blood in his veins, I'll wager.” + +But before he could speak further the shrill scream of a frightened +child came from the campus below the ridge. At the cry Vic Burleigh +sprang to his feet, upsetting his chair, and without stopping to pick it +up, he rushed from the building. + +As he tore down the long flight of steps, Lloyd Fenneben caught sight of +a child on the level campus running toward him as fast as its fat little +legs could toddle. Two minutes later Vic Burleigh was back in the study, +panting and hot, with the little one clinging to his neck. + +“Excuse me, please,” Vic said as he lifted the fallen chair. “I +forgot all about Bug down there, and the widow Bull”--he gave a +half-smile--“was wriggling around trying to find her mate, and scared +him. He's too little to be left alone, anyhow.” + +Bug was a sturdy, stubby three-year-old, or less, dimpled and brown, +with big dark eyes and a tangle of soft little red-brown ringlets. As +Vic seated himself, Bug perched on the arm of the chair inside of the +big boy's encircling arm. + +“Who is your friend? Is he your brother?” asked the Dean. + +“No. He's no relation. I don't know anything about him, except that his +name is Buler. Bug Buler, he says.” + +Little Bug put up a chubby brown hand loving-wise to Vic Burleigh's +brown cheek, and, looking straight at Dr. Fenneben with wide serious +eyes, he asked, + +“Is you dood to Vic?” + +“Yes, indeed,” replied the Dean. + +“Nen, I like you fornever,” Bug declared, shutting his lips so tightly +that his checks puffed. + +“How do you happen to have this child here, Burleigh?” questioned +Fenneben. + +“Because he's got nobody else to look after him,” answered Vic. + +“How about an orphan asylum?” + +Vic looked down at the little fellow cuddled against his arm, and every +feature of his stern face softened. + +“Will it make any difference about him if I get my lessons, sir? I +can't let Bug go now. We are the limit for each other--neither of us +got anybody else. I take care of him, but he keeps me from getting too +coarse and rough. Every fellow needs something innocent and good about +him sometimes.” + +“Oh, no! Keep him if you want him. But would you mind telling me about +him?” + +“I'd rather not now,” Burleigh said, quietly, and Lloyd Fenneben knew +when to drop a subject. + +“Then I'm through with you for today, Burleigh. I must let Miss Saxon +have my room now. Come here whenever you like, and bring Bug if you care +to.” + +Sunrise students always left Dr. Fenneben's study with a little more +of self-respect than when they entered it; richer, not so much from the +word as from the spirit of the head of Sunrise. Victor Burleigh with +little Bug Buler's fat fist clasped in his big, hard hand walked out +of the college door that afternoon with the unconscious baptism of the +student upon him, the dim sense of a fellowship with a scholarly master +of books and of men. + +Back in his study Lloyd Fenneben sat looking out once more at the Empire +that meant nothing but dreary distances to the scholarly professor of +Greek, and seemed a paradise to the untrained young fellow from the +prairies. + +“I see my stint of cloth for the day,” he murmured. “A college professor +in the making who has much to unlearn; a crude young giant who is fond +of killing things, and cares for helpless children; and a beautiful, +wilful, characterless girl to be shown into her womanly heritage. The +clay is ready. It is the potter whose hands need skill. Victor Burleigh! +Victor Burleigh! There's my greatest problem of all three. He has the +strength of a Titan in those arms, and the passion of a tiger behind +those innocent yellow eyes. God keep me on the hilltop nor let my feet +once get into the dark and dangerous ways!” + +He looked long at the landscape radiant under the level rays of splendor +streaming from the low afternoon sun. + +“I wonder who built that fire, and what that pillar of smoke meant this +afternoon. The mystery of our lives hangs some token in each day.” + +The shadows were gathering in the Walnut Valley, the pigeons about the +cottage up the river, were in their cotes now, the heat of the day was +over, and with one more look at the far peaceful prairies Dr. Lloyd +Fenneben closed his study door and passed out into the cool September +air. + + + +CHAPTER III. PIGEON PLACE + + _Strange is the wind and the tide, + The heavens eternally wide; + Less fathomed, this life at my side_. + --W. H. SIMPSON + +THE Sunrise rotunda was ringing with a chorus from three hundred throats +as three hundred students poured out of doors, and over-flowed the ridge +and spilled down the broad steps, making a babel of musical tongues; +while fitting itself to every catchy college air known to Sunrise came +the noisy refrain: + + + Rah for Funnybone! + Rah for Funnybone! + Rah for Funnybone! + _Rah!_ RAH! RAH!!! + + +Again it was repeated, swelling along the ridge and floating wide away +over the Walnut Valley. Nor was there a climax of exuberance until +the appearance of Dr. Lloyd Fenneben himself, with his tall figure +and striking presence outlined against the gray stone columns of the +veranda. All this because it was mid-October, a heaven-made autumn day +in Kansas, with its gracious warmth and bracing breath; with the Indian +summer haze in shimmering amethyst and gold overhanging the land; and +the Walnut Valley, gorgeous in the glow of the October frost-fires, +winding down between broad seas of rainbow-radiant prairies. And all +this gladness and grandeur, by the decree of Dr. Fenneben, was given +in fee simple to these three hundred young people for the hours of one +perfect day--their annual autumn holiday. No wonder they filled the +air with shouts. And before the singing had ceased the crowd broke into +groups by natural selection, and the holiday was begun. + +Whatever bounds of time Nature may give to the seed in which to become +a plant, or to the grub to become a butterfly, there is no set limit +wherein the country-bred boy may bloom into a full-fledged college +student. + +Seven weeks after Vic Burleigh had come alongside the Greek Professor +into Sunrise, found the quick marvelous change from the timid, +untrained, overgrown young giant into a leader of his clan, the pride of +the Freshman, the terror of the Sophomores, the dramatic interest of +the classroom, and the hope of Sunrise on the football gridiron. His +store-made clothes had a jaunty carelessness of fit. The tan had left +his cheek. His auburn hair had lost its sun-burn. His powerful physique, +the charm of his deep voice, the singular beauty of his wide open +golden-brown eyes, with their long black lashes lighting up his rugged +face, gave to him an attractive personality. + +Yet to Lloyd Fenneben, who saw below the surface, Victor Burleigh was +only at the beginning of things. Something of the tiger light in the +brown eyes, the pride in brute strength, the blunt justice lacking the +finer sense of mercy, showed how wide yet was the distance between the +man and the gentleman. + +When Dr. Fenneben returned to his study after the hilarious +demonstration he found Dennie Saxon busy with the little film of dust +that comes in overnight. Old Bond Saxon, Dennie's father, had been one +of the improvident of Lagonda Ledge who took a new lease on a livelihood +with the advent of Sunrise. From being a dissipated old fellow drifting +toward pauperism, he became the proprietor of a respectable boarding +house for students, doing average well. At rare intervals, however, he +lapsed into his old ways. During such occasions he kept to the river +side of the town. Sober, he was good-natured and obliging; drunken, he +was sullen, with a disposition to skulk out of sight and be alone. His +daughter Dennie had her father's good-nature combined with a will power +all her own. + +As Dr. Fenneben watched her about her work this morning, he noted +how comfortably she took hold of it. He noted, too, that her heavy +yellow-brown hair was full of ripples just where ripples helped, that +her arms were plump, that she was short and nothing willowy, and that +she had a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. + +“Why don't you take a holiday, Miss Dennie?” he asked, presently. + +“I wanted this done so I wouldn't be seeing dusty books in my +daydreams,” Dennie answered. + +“Where do you do your dreaming today?” + +“A crowd of us are going down the river to the Kickapoo Corral. I must +make the cakes yet this morning,” she answered. + +“Good enough Can't I do something for you? Do you need a chaperon?” the +Dean queried, smilingly. + +“Professor Burgess is to be our chaperon. He is all we can look after.” + Dennie's gray eyes danced, but she was serious a moment later. + +“Dr. Fenneben, you can do something, maybe, that's none of your +business, nor mine.” Dennie wondered afterward how she could have had +the courage to speak these words. + +“That's generally the easy thing. What is it?” the Dean smiled. + +The girl hung her feather brush in its place and sat down opposite to +him. + +“Do you know anything about Pigeon Place?” she began. + +“The little place up the river where a queer, half-crazy woman lives +alone with a fierce dog?” he asked. + +“Yes, you never heard anything more?” Dennie queried. + +“Only that the house is hidden from the road and has many pigeons about +it, and that the woman sees few callers. I've never located the place. +Tell me about it,” he replied. + +“Bug Buler and I were up there after eggs this morning. Bug is Victor +Burleigh's little boy. They board at our house,” Dennie explained. +“Pigeon Place is a little cottage all covered with vines and with +flowers everywhere. It's hidden away from the road just outside of town. +Mrs. Marian isn't crazy nor queer, only she seldom leaves home, never +goes to church, nor visits anywhere. She doesn't care for anybody, nor +take any interest in Lagonda Ledge, and she keeps a Great Dane dog, as +big as a calf, that is friendly to women and children, but won't let a +man come near, unless Mrs. Marian says so.” Dennie paused. + +“Very interesting, Miss Dennie, but what can I do?” Fenneben asked. +“Shall I kill the dog and carry off the woman like the regulation grim +ogre of the fairy tales?” + +Dennie hesitated. Few girls would have come to a college president on +such a mission as hers. But then few college presidents are like Lloyd +Fenneben. + +“Of course nobody likes Mrs. Marian, and my father--when he's not quite +himself--says dreadful things if I mention her name.” Dennie's checks +were crimson as she thought of her father. “It's none of my business, +but I've felt sorry for Mrs. Marian ever since she came here. She seems +like an innocent outcast.” + +“That is very pitiful.” Lloyd Fenneben's voice was sympathetic. + +“This morning,” continued Dennie, “Bug was playing with the dog outside, +and I went into the house for the first time. Mrs. Marian is very +pleasant. She asked me about my work here and I told her about Sunrise +and you, and your niece, Miss Elinor, being here.” + +“All the interesting features. Did you mention Professor Burgess?” The +query was innocently meant, but it brought the color to Dennie Saxon's +cheek. + +“No, I didn't think he was in that class,” she replied, quickly. “But +what surprised me was her interest in things. She is a pretty, refined, +young-looking woman, with gray hair. When I was leaving I turned back +to ask about some eggs for Saturday. She thought I was gone, and she had +dropped her head on the table and was crying, so I slipped out without +her knowing.” Dennie's gray eyes were full of tears now. “Dr. Fenneben, +if talking about Sunrise made her do that, maybe you might do something +for her. I pity her so. Nobody seems to care about her. My father is +set against her when he is not responsible, and he might--” She stopped +abruptly and did not finish the sentence. + +The Dean looked out of the window at the purple mist melting along the +horizon line. Down in the valley pigeons were circling above a wooded +spot at a bend in the Walnut River. Fenneben remembered now that he had +seen them there many times. He had a boyhood memory of a country home +with pigeons flying about it. + +“I wish, too, that I might do something,” he said at last. “You say she +will not let men inside her gate now. I'll keep her in mind, though. The +gate may open some time.” + +It was mid-afternoon when Lloyd Fenneben left his study for a stroll. As +he approached the Saxon House, he saw old Bond Saxon slipping out of the +side gate and with uncertain steps skulk down the alley. + +“Poor old sinner! What a slave and a fool whisky can make of a man!” he +thought. Then he remembered Dennie's anxiety of the morning. “There must +be some cause for his prejudice against this strange hermit woman when +he is drunk. Bond Saxon is not a man to hate anybody when he is sober.” + +“Is you Don Fonnybone?” Bug Buler's little piping voice from the +doorstep haled the Dean. “I finked Vic would turn, and he don't turn, +and I 's hungry for somebody. May I go wis you, Don Fonnybone?” The baby +lips quivered. + +Lloyd Fenneben held out his hand and Bug put his little fist into it. + +“Where shall we go, Bug? I 'm hungry for somebody, too.” + +“Let's do find the bunny the bid dod ist scared away this morning. Turn +on!” + +Lloyd Fenneben was hardly conscious that Bug was choosing their path +as the two strolled away together. Everywhere there was the pathos of a +waning autumn day, and a soft haze creeping out of the west was making a +blood-red carbuncle of the sun, set as a jewel on the amber-veiled bosom +of the sky. The air was soft, wooing the spirit to a still, sweet peace. +The two were at the outskirts of Lagonda Ledge now. The last board walk +was three blocks back, and the cinder-made way had dwindled to a bare +hard path by the roadside. A bend in the river cutting close to the road +shows a long vista of the Walnut bordered by vine-draped shrubbery and +overhung with trees. A slab of limestone beside a huge elm tree had +been placed at this bend to prevent the bank from breaking, or a chance +misdriving into the water. + +“I 's pitty tired,” Bug said as the two reached the stone. “Will we tum +to the bunny's house pitty soon?” + +“We'll rest here a while and maybe the bunny will come out to meet us,” + Dr. Fenneben said, and they sat down on the broad stone. + +“It was somewhere here the bunny runned.” Little Bug studied the +roadside with a quaint puzzled face. “Is you 'faid of snakes?” + +“Not very much.” The Dean's eyes were on the graceful flight of pigeons +circling about the trees beyond the bend. + +“Vic isn't 'faid. He killed bid one, two, five, free wattle, wattle +snakes--” Bug caught his breath suddenly--“He told me not to tell that. +I fordot. I don't 'member. He didn't do it--he didn't killed no snakes +fornever.” + +Dr. Fenneben gave little heed to this prattle. His eyes were on the +pigeons cleaving the air with short, graceful flights. Presently he felt +the soft touch of baby curls against his hand, and little Bug had fallen +asleep with his drooping head on Fenneben's lap. + +The Dean gently placed the tired little one in an easy position, and +rested his shoulder against the tree. + +“That must be Pigeon Place,” he mused. “Every town has its odd +characters. This is one of Lagonda Ledge's little mysteries. Dennie +finds it a pathetic one. How graceful those pigeons are!” And his +thoughts drifted to a far New England homestead where pigeons used to +sweep about an old barn roof. + +A fuzzy gray rabbit flashed across the road, followed by a Great Dane +dog in hot chase. + +“Bug's bunny! I hope the big murderer will miss it,” Fenneben thought. + +The roadside bushes half hid him. As the crashing sound of the huge dog +through the underbrush ceased he noticed a woman coming leisurely toward +him. Her arms were full of bitter-sweet berries and flaming autumn +leaves. She wore no hat and Fenneben saw that her gray hair was wound +like a coronal about her head. Before he could catch sight of her face a +heavy staggering step was beside him, and old Bond Saxon, muttering and +shaking his clenched fists, passed beyond him toward the woman. Lloyd +Fenneben's own fists clenched, but he sat stone still. The woman seemed +to melt into the bushes and obliterate herself entirely, while the +drunken man stalked unsteadily on toward where she had been. Then +shaking his fists vehemently at the pigeons, he skulked around the bend +in the road. + +As soon as he was out of sight the woman emerged from the bushes, with +autumn leaves hiding her crown of hair. She hastened a few rods toward +the man watching her, then disappeared through a vine-covered gateway +into a wilderness of shrubbery, beyond which the pigeons were cooing +about their cotes. + +As she closed the gate, she caught sight of Lloyd Fenneben, leaning +motionless against the gray bole of the elm tree. But she was looking +through a tangle of purple oak leaves and twining bitter-sweet branches, +and Fenneben was unconscious of being discovered. + +“A woman never could whistle,” he smiled, as he listened, “but that call +seems to do for the dog, all right.” + +The Great Dane was tearing across lots in answer to the trill of a +woman's voice. + +“She is safe now. But what does it all mean? Is there a wayside tragedy +here that calls for my unraveling?” + +Attracted by some subtle force beyond his power to check, he turned +toward the river and looked steadily at the still overhanging shrubbery. +Just below him, where the current turns, the quiet waters were lapping +about a ledge of rock. Between that ledge and himself a tangle of bushes +clutched the steep bank. He looked straight into the tangle, just plain +twig and brown leaf, giving place as he stared, for two still black +human eyes looking balefully at him as a snake at its prey. Lloyd +Fenneben could not withdraw his gaze. The two eyes--no other human token +visible--just two cruel human eyes full of human hate were fixed on him. +And the fascination of the thing was paralyzing, horrible. He could not +move nor utter a sound. Bug Buler woke with a little cry. The bushes by +the riverside just rippled--one quiver of motion--and the eyes were not +there. Then Fenneben knew that his heart, which had been still for an +age, had begun to beat again. Bug stared up into his face, dazed from +sleep. + +“Where's my Vic? Who's dot me?” he cried. + +“We came to hunt the bunny. He's gone away again. Shall we go back +home?” The gentle voice and strong hand soothed the little one. + +“It's dettin' told. Let's wun home.” Bug cuddled against Fenneben's side +and hugged his hand. “I love you lots,” he said, looking up with eyes of +innocent trust. + +“Yes, let's run home. There is a storm in the air and the sun is hidden +from the valley.” He stooped and kissed the little upturned face. “Thank +heaven for children!” he murmured. “Amid skulking, drunken men and +strange, lonely women, and cruel eyes of unknown beings, they lead us +loving-wise back home again.” + +Behind the vine-covered gate a gray-haired, fair-faced woman watched the +two as they disappeared down the road. + +And the blood-red sun out on the west prairie sank swiftly into a blue +cloudbank, presaging the coming of a storm. + + + +CHAPTER IV. THE KICKAPOO CORRAL + + _And even now, as the night comes, and the shadows + gather round, + And you tell the old-time story, I can almost hear + the sound + Of the horses' hoofs in the silence, and the voices of + struggling men; + For the night is the same forever, and the time + comes back again_. + --JAMES W. STEELE + +FROM the beginning of things in the Walnut Valley, the Kickapoo Corral +had its uses. Nature built it to this end. The river course follows the +pattern of the letter S faced westward instead of eastward. The upper +half of the letter is properly shaped, but the sharpened curve at the +middle leaves only a narrow distance across the lower space. In this +outline runs the Walnut, its upper curve almost surrounding a little +wooded peninsula that slopes gently on its side to the water's edge. But +the farther bank stands up in a straight limestone bluff forming a high +wall of protection about the river-encircled ground. A less severe bluff +crosses the open part of the peninsula, reaching the hither side of +the river below the sharp bend. The space inside, stone-walled and +water-bound, made an ideal shelter for the wild life that should inhabit +it. And Nature saw that it was good and went away and left it, not +forgetting to lock the door upon it. For the enemy who would enter this +protecting shelter must come through the gateway of the river. There +was only one right place to do this. Deceivingly near to the shallow +rock-based ford before the Corral, so near that only the wise ones knew +how to miss it, Nature placed the cruelest whirlpool that ever swung an +even surface up stream, its gentle motion telling nothing of the +fatal suction underneath that level stretch of steady, slow moving, +irresistible water. + +What use the primitive tribes made of this spot the river has +never told. But in the day of the Kickapoo supremacy it came to its +christening. Here the tribe found a refuge and harbored its stolen +plunder. From this wooded covert it sent its death-singing arrows +through the heart of its enemy who dared to stand in relief on that +stone bluff. Here it laughed at the drowning cries of those who were +caught in the fatal whirlpool beyond the curve in the river wall, and +here it endured siege and slaughter when foes were valiant enough, and +numerous enough to storm into its stronghold over the dead bodies of +their own vanguard. + +Weird and tragical are the legends of the Kickapoo Corral, left for a +stronger race to marvel over. For, with the swing of time, the white man +cut a road down the steep bluff at the sharpest bend and made a ford +in the shallow place between the whirlpool and the old Corral, and the +Nature-built stockade became a peaceful spot, specially ordained by +Providence, the Sunrise Freshmen claimed, as a picnic ground for their +autumn holiday. At least the young folk for whom Professor Burgess was +acting as chaperon took it so, and reveled in the right. + +Interest in Greek had greatly increased in Sunrise with the advent of +the handsome young Harvard man, and his desired seclusion for profound +research had not yet been fully realized. Types for study were +plentiful, however, especially the type of the presumptuous young fellow +who dared to admire Elinor Wream. By divine right she was the most +popular girl in Sunrise, which pleased Professor Burgess up to a certain +point. That point was Victor Burleigh. The silent antagonism between +these two daily grew stronger; why, neither one could have told up to +this holiday. + +The day had been perfect--the weather, the dinner, the company, the +woodland--even the amber light in the sky softening the glow as the +afternoon slipped down toward twilight in the sheltered old Corral. + +“Come, Vic Burleigh, help me to start this fire for supper,” Dennie +Saxon called. “We won't get our coffee and ham and eggs ready before +midnight.” + +“Here, Trench, or some of you fellows, get busy,” Vic called back to the +big right guard of the Sunrise football squad. “Elinor and I are going +to climb the west bluff to see what's the matter with the sun. It looks +sick. I've been hired man all day; carried nineteen girls across the +shallows, packed all the lunch-baskets, toted all the wood, built all +the fires, washed all the dishes--” + +“Ate all the dinner, drank all the grape juice, stepped on all the +custard pies, upset all the cream bottles. Oh, you piker, get out!” + Trench aimed an empty lunch-basket at Vic's head with the words. + +Being a chaperon was a pleasant office to Professor Burgess today but +for the task of throwing a barrier about Elinor every time Vic Burleigh +came near. And Burleigh, lacking many other things more than insight, +kept him busy at barrier building. + +“Miss Wream, you can't think of climbing that rough place,” Burgess +protested, with a sharp glance of resentment at the big young fellow who +dared to call her Elinor. + +The tiger-light blazed in the eyes that flashed back at him, as Vic +cried daringly. + +“Oh, come on, Elinor; be a good Indian!” + +“Don't do it, Miss Wream,” Vincent Burgess pleaded. + +Elinor looked from the one to the other, and the very magnetism of power +called her. + +“I mean to try, anyhow,” she declared. “Will you pick me up if I fall, +Victor?” + +“Well, I wouldn't hardly go away and leave you to perish miserably,” Vic +assured her, and they were off together. + +The Wream men were slender, and all of them, except Lloyd Fenneben, the +stepbrother, wore nose glasses and drank hot water at breakfast, and ate +predigested foods, and talked of acids and carbons, and took prescribed +gestures for exercise. The joyousness of perfect health was in every +motion of this young man. His brown sweater showed a hard white throat. +He planted his feet firmly. And he leaped up the bluffside easily. If +Elinor slipped, the strength of his grip on her arm reassured her, until +climbing beside him became a joy. + +The bluff was less surly than it appeared to be down in the Corral, and +the benediction of autumn was in the view from its crest. They sat +down on the stone ledge crowning it, and Elinor threw aside her jaunty +scarlet outing cap. The breezes played in her dark hair, and her cheeks +were pink from the exercise. Victor Burleigh looked at her with frank, +wide-open eyes. + +“What's the matter? Is my hair a fright?” she murmured. + +“A fright!” Burleigh flung off his cap and ran his fingers through his +own hair. “Not what I call a fright,” he asserted in an even tone. + +“What's that scar on your left arm? It looks like a little hole dug +out,” Elinor declared. + +Vic's brown sweater sleeve was pushed up to the elbow. + +“It is a little hole I put in where I dug out the flesh with a pocket +knife,” he replied, carelessly. + +“Did you do that yourself?” Elinor cried. “What made you be so cruel?” + +“I wasn't so cruel. 'I seen my duty and I done it noble,' as the essay +runs. I made that vacancy to get ahead of a rattlesnake that got me +there, a venomous big one with nine police calls on its tail, and that's +no snake story, either. I cut the flesh out to get rid of the poison. +I was n't in a college laboratory and I had to work fast and use what +tools I had with me. I killed the gentleman that did the mischief, +though,” Vic added carelessly, deftly slipping down his sleeve as if to +change the subject. + +“Oh, tell me about it, do,” Elinor urged. “You were killing a snake the +first time I saw you.” + +How dainty and sweet she was sitting there in her neat-fitting outing +suit of dark gray with scarlet pipings and buttons and pocket flaps, +and the scarlet of her full lips, and the coral tint of her cheeks, the +white hands and white throat and brow, the dark eyes and finely shaped +head with abundant beautiful hair. + +Vic Burleigh sat looking straight at her and the light in his own eyes +told nothing of the glitter that had flashed in them when he glared at +Professor Burgess down in the Corral. + +“I wasn't killing snakes. I was looking up at a girl on the rotunda +stairs the first time,” he said, “and I don't want to tell about this +scar, because I've wished a thousand times to forget it. See how much +darker it is down there than it is up here.” + +The shadows were lengthening in the Corral where the supper fires were +gleaming. Across the low bluff the imprisoned sun was sending a dull red +glow along the waters of the Walnut. + +“Look at that still place in the river, Victor. The ripples are all on +the farther side,” Elinor said, looking pensively downstream. + +“Watch it a minute. Do you see that bit of drift coming upstream in the +still water?” Vic asked. + +“Why, the water does move; toward us, too, instead of down the river. +I'd like to boat around in that quiet place.” + +She was leaning forward, resting her chin in her hand. In outline +against the misty background shot through with the crimson light from +the storm-smothered sun, with the gray shadows of the old Kickapoo +Corral below them, hemmed in by the silver gleaming waters of the +Walnut, a picture grew up before Victor Burleigh's eyes that he was +never to forget. Like the cleft of the lightning through the cloud, like +the flash of the swallow's wing, the careless-hearted boy leaped to +the stature of a man, into whose soul the love of a lifetime is born. +Unconsciously, he drew away from her, and long afterward she recalled +the sweetness of his deep voice when he spoke again. + +“Elinor Wream, I'd rather see you helpless up here with the hungriest +wild beast between us that ever tore a human form to pieces than to see +you in that quiet water below the shallows.” + +“Why?” Elinor looked up into his face. + +“Because I could save your life here, maybe, even if I lost mine. Down +there I could drown for you, but that would n't save you. Nobody +ever swam that whirlpool and lived to tell about it. There's a ledge +underneath that holds down what the infernal slow suction swallows. But +it's dead sure.” + +“Why, that's awful,” Elinor said, lightly, for she had no picture of him +engulfed in the slow-moving treachery below them. + +“There's an old Indian legend about that pool,” Vic said, staring down +at the water. + +“Tell me about it.” Elinor was breaking the twigs from a branch of +buck-berry growing beside her. + +“Oh, it's a tragical one, like everything else about that place,” Vic +responded, grimly. “Old Lagonda, Chief of the Wahoos, I reckon, I don't +know his tribe, did n't want to give up this valley to the sons and +heirs of Sunrise to desecrate with salmon cans and pop bottles and +Harvard-turned chaperons. He held out against putting his multiplication +sign to the treaty, claiming that land was like water and air and could +n't be bought and sold. But the white men with true missionary courtesy +held his head under water till he burbled 'Nuff,' and signed up with +a piece of charcoal. Then he went down the river to this smooth-faced +whirlpool, and laid a curse on the sons of men who had taken his own +from him.” + +The twilight had deepened. The sun was lost in the cloudbank out of +which a hot wind was sweeping eastward. Vic was telling the story well, +and the magnetism of his voice was compelling. Elinor drew nearer to +him. + +“What was the curse? I would n't want to go near that place, unless you +were with me.” + +The very innocence of the words put a thrill in Vic Burleigh's every +pulse beat. + +“Don't ever do it, if you can help it.” Vic could not keep back the +words. “Old Lagonda decreed a tribute to the river for the wrong done to +him, a life a year in that pool. And the Walnut has been exacting in its +rights. Life after life has gone out down there until sometimes it seems +like the old chief's curse would never be lifted.” + +“I hope it may be, while I am at Sunrise, anyhow,” Elinor said. “I don't +like real tragedies about me. I like an easy, comfortable life, and +everybody good and happy. I hope the curse will be staid until I go back +home.” + +Vic hadn't thought of this. Of course, she would leave Sunrise +some time. Her home was in Cambridge-by-the-Sea, not on the +Prairie-by-the-Walnut. She belonged to the dead-language scholars, not +to crude red-blooded creatures like himself. He turned his face to the +west and the threatening sky seemed in harmony with his storm-riven +soul. He was so young--less than half an hour older than the big +whole-hearted fellow who started up the bluff in picnic frolic with a +pretty girl whom Professor Burgess adored. That was one reason why he +had brought her up. He wanted to tease the Professor then. He hated +Burgess now, and the white teeth clinched at the thought of him. + +A sudden shouting and beating of tom-toms down in the Corral, and the +call in crude rhyme to straggling couples to close in, announced supper. +High above other whooping the voice of Trench, the big right guard, +reached the top of the bluff: + + Victor Burleigh and Elinor Wream, + Better wake from Love's Young Dream, + Before the ants get into the cream. + +The beating of a dishpan drowned the chorus. Then down by the river +Dennie's soprano streamed out, + + The sun is sot, + The coffee's hot, + The supper's got. + What? + Yes! Got! + + +Answering this call from the north end of the Corral, a heavy base +growled, + + Dennie is sad, + The eggs are bad; + The Professor's mad + At a College lad. + Burleigh! Burly! Burlee! + Come home! Come home! Come home! + + +“The Kickapoos are on the warpath. Let's go down and get into the +running.” + +Vic lifted Elinor to her feet with a sort of reverence in his touch. But +she did not note that it was otherwise than the good-natured grip of the +comrade who had helped her up the steep places half an hour ago. + +Descent was more difficult, and it was growing dark rapidly. Vic held +her arm to keep her from falling, and once on a sliding rock, he had to +catch both of her hands, and half-lift her to solid footing. Her shining +eyes, starbright in the gloom, the dainty rose hue of her cheeks, the +touch of her soft white hands, and her need for his strength, made the +shadowy path delicious for her companion. + +The call of the wild was in that evening camp in the autumn woodland, +in the charm of the deepening twilight warmed with the red glow of the +fires, in the appetizing odor of coffee, the unconventional freedom, +the carelessness of youth, the jolly good-fellowship of comrades. To +Professor Burgess it had the added charm of newness. All the pleasures +of popularity were his this evening, for he was young himself, he +dressed well, and he had the grace of a gentleman. The enjoyment of the +day gave him a thrill of surprise. He was already dropping the viewpoint +of Dr. Joshua Wream for Dean Fenneben's angle of vision. And in these +picturesque surroundings he forgot about the weather and the prudence of +getting home early. + +“Throw that log on the fire, Vic. It begins to look spooky back +here. I've just had my ear to the ground and I heard an awful roaring +somewhere.” Trench, who had been sprawling lazily in the shadows, now +declared, “Say, I'd hate to be penned into this place so I couldn't get +out. There's no skinning up that rock wall even if a fellow could swim +the river, and I can't,” and the big guard stretched himself on the +ground again. + +“What's that old story about the Kickapoos here?” somebody asked. +“Dennie Saxon knows it. Tell us about it, Dennie, AND THEN WE'LL ALL GO +HOME.” The last words were half-sung. + +“Be swift, Dennie, be quite swift. I heard that noise again. I'm afraid +it's a stampede of wild horses.” Trench, who had had his ear to the +ground, sat up suddenly. But nobody paid any attention to him. + +“Come, Denmark Saxon, let's close the day in song and story. You tell +the story and then I'll sing the song,” somebody declared. + +“Aw-w-w!” a prolonged chorus. “Make your story long, Dennie; make it +lengthy.” + +“Don't you do it, Dennie. I tell you this ground is shaking. I feel it,” + Trench insisted. + +“Say, who's got the bromo-seltzer? The right guard's supper is n't +treating him right. Go ahead, Dennie,” the crowd urged. + +They were all in a circle about the fire. Its flickering glow lighted +Vic Burleigh's rugged face, and gleamed in his auburn hair. Elinor sat +between him and Vincent Burgess. Dennie was just beyond Vincent, who +noted incidentally the play of light and shadow on the blowsy ripples of +her hair that night and remembered it all on a day long afterward. + +“Once upon a time,” Dennie began, + +there was a beautiful Kickapoo Indian maiden--” + +“Yep, any Kickapoo's a beaut. Hurry up, Dennie. I hear something +coming.” It was the big lazy guard again. + +“Oh! Vic Burleigh, sit on his prostrate form. Go on, Dennie,” the +company insisted, and she continued. + +“Her name was The Fawn of the Morning Light, her best lover was Swift +Elk.” + +“You be Mrs. Swift Elk--” but Vic Burleigh's arm about Trench's throat +choked his words. + +“And there was a wily Sioux, named Red Fox, who loved the Fawn and +wanted her to marry him. She wouldn't do it. The Kickapoos were heap-big +grafters, and they had this old Corral full of ponies and junk they had +relieved other tribes of caring for. And the only way to get in here, +besides falling over the bluff and becoming a pin-cushion for poisoned +arrows, was to come in by the shallows in the river where the ford is +now above old Lagonda's pool, and most Indians needed a diagram for +that.” Although Dennie spoke lightly, she shuddered a little at the +thought, and the whole company grew graver. + +“An Indian doesn't forget. So, Red Fox, who had sworn to have The +Fawn, came down here with hundreds of Sioux who wanted the ponies the +Kickapoos had stolen, as Red Fox wanted Swift Elk's girl. The Kickapoos +wouldn't give up the ponies and Swift Elk wouldn't give up The Fawn. So +the siege began. Right where we are so safe and peaceful tonight those +Kickapoos fought, and starved, and died, while the Sioux kept cruel +watch on the top of that old stone ledge, never letting one escape. At +last, after hours and hours of siege, The Fawn and Swift Elk decided to +escape by the river in the night. A storm had come on suddenly, and +a cloudburst up the Walnut was sending a perfect surge of water down +around the bend. The two lovers were caught in its sweep and carried +beyond the shallows when a flash of lightning showed them to Red Fox +watching on the bluff up there. At the next flash he sent an arrow +straight through Swift Elk's body and into The Fawn's shoulder, pinning +the two together. The Sioux leaped into the stream to save the girl he +loved, but the heavy current swept them toward the whirlpool, and before +they could prevent the dying and wounded and rescuing were all caught +by the fatal suction. Then the Sioux warriors rushed in from all sides, +upstream, down the bluff from west prairie, and over the Corral, and +slaughtered every Kickapoo here. Their fierce yells and the shrieks of +the squaws and pappooses, the pounding of horses' hoofs in the stampede +of hundreds of ponies, the roar of the river, the wrath of the storm +made a scene this old Corral will never see again.” Dennie paused. + +“I think I hear something like it, right now,” came Trench's +irrepressible voice from the shadows in the edge of the circle. But +nobody heeded it. + +And all the while from far across the west prairie the stormcloud was +rolling in, black and angry, blowing its hot breath before it, while +from a cloudburst upstream an hour before a great surge of water was +rushing down the Walnut, turning the quiet river to a murderous flood. +But the high walls hid all this from the valley and the heedless young +folk took the full time limit of their holiday in the sheltering gloom +of the old Kickapoo Corral. + + + +CHAPTER V. THE STORM + + _Rock and moan, and roar alone, + And the dread of some nameless thing unknown_. + --LOWELL + +THE silence following Dennie's story was broken by a sudden peal of +thunder overhead. At the same instant the blackness of midnight +lifted itself above the stone ledges and dropped down upon the Corral, +smothering everything in darkness. A rushing whirlwind, a lurid blaze +of lightning, and a second peal of thunder threw the camp into blind +disorder. In the minute's lull following the first storm herald, there +was a wild scrambling for wraps and lunch baskets. Then the darkness +thickened and the storm's fury burst upon the crowd--a mad lashing +of bending tree tops, a blinding whirl of dust filling the air, the +thunder's terrific cannonade, the incessant blaze of lightning, the +rattling of the distant rain; and above all these, unlike them all, a +steady, dreadful roaring, coming nearer each moment. + +Professor Burgess was no coward, but he had little power of generalship. +As the crowd huddled together under the swaying trees, Trench called to +Burleigh: + +“There's been a cloudburst up stream. The roar I've been hearing is a +wall of water coming down. We've got to get out of this.” + +Then above all the crashing and booming they heard Vic Burleigh's voice: + +“Every fellow take a girl and run for the ford. Come on!” + +In the darkness, each boy caught the arm of the girl nearest him and +made a dash for the ford. A flash of lightning showed Burleigh that the +white-faced girl clinging to his arm was Elinor Wream. After that, the +storm was a plaything for him. + +The first to reach the ford were Vincent Burgess and Dennie Saxon. +Dennie was sure-footed and she knew by instinct where to find the +shallows. But the river was rising rapidly and the waters were black and +angry under the lightning's glitter. As the crowd held back Vic shouted: + +“You'll have to wade. It's not very deep yet. Professor, you must cross +first, and count 'em as they come. Go quick! One at a time. The way +is narrow. And for God's sake, keep to the upper side of the shallows. +Stand in the middle, Trench, and don't let them get down stream below +you.” + +They were all safely across except Vic and Elinor, when Trench cried +out: + +“Send your girl in quick, Burleigh, and you run west. The flood is at +the bend now. Hurry!” + +“Run in, Elinor. Trench will take you through, and I'll follow, for I +can swim and he can't. I'll be right behind you. Run!” + +A vision of the whirlpool and of Swift Elk and The Fawn flashed into +Elinor's mind, filling her with terror. Before Vic could push her +forward, Trench shouted: + +“It's too late. Don't try it. I've got to run.” + +He was strong and sure-footed and he fought his way gallantly to the +further side as a great wave swirled around the curve of the river, +engulfing the shallows in its mad surge. When he reached the east bank +the count of the company numbered all but two. + +“It's Vic and Elinor,” Trench declared. “Vic wouldn't come till the +last, and Elinor was too dead scared to trust anybody else, I guess. +Nobody could cross there now, Professor. But Vic is as strong as an +ox and he's not afraid of the devil. He'll keep both their heads above +water. He wants to win out in the Thanksgiving game too much to get lost +now. Trust him to get up the bluff some way, and back to town by the +Main street bridge like as not, before we get there. There's no shelter +between here and Lagonda Ledge. Let's all cut for it before the rain +beats us into the mud.” + +The deluge was just beginning, so, safe, but wet, and mud-smeared, +fighting wind and rain and darkness, taking it all as a jolly lark, +although they had slidden into safety but a hand's breadth in front of +death, the couples straggled back to town. + +Vincent Burgess, anxious, angry, and jealous, found an unconscious +comfort in Dennie Saxon in that homeward struggle. She was so capable +and cheery that he forgot a little the girl who had as surely drawn him +Kansas-ward as his interest in types and geographical breadth had done. +It dimly entered his consciousness, as he told Dennie good-bye, that +maybe she had been the most desirable companion of the crowd on such a +night as this. He knew, at least, that he would have shown Elinor much +more attention than he had shown to Dennie, and he knew that Elinor +would have required it of him. + +The light from the hall was streaming across the veranda of the Saxon +House, a beam as faithful and friendly at the border of the lower campus +as the bigger beacon in the college turret up on the lime-stone ridge. +As Burgess started away the worst deluge of the night fell out of the +sky, so he dropped down on a seat to wait for the downpour to weaken. +He was very tired and his mind was feverishly busy. Where could Burleigh +and Elinor be now? What dangers might threaten them? What ill might +befall Elinor from exposure to this beating storm? He was frantic with +the thought. Then he recalled Dennie, the girl who was working her +way through college, whom he--Professor Vincent Burgess, A.B., from +Harvard--had escorted home. How cheap Kansas was making him. The boys +and girls had taken Dennie as one of them today; and truly, she did add +to the comfort and pleasure of the outing. It seemed all right down in +the woods where all was unconventional. But now, alone, in how common a +grade he seemed to have placed himself, to be forced to pay attention to +the poorest girl in school. His cheeks grew hot at the very thought of +it. + +In the shadows, beyond him, a form straightened up stupidly: + +“Shay, Profesh Burgush, that you?” + +Dennie's father, half-drunken still! Oh, Shades of classic culture! To +what depths in social contact may a college man fall in this wretched +land! + +“Shay! Is't you, or ain't it you? You gonna tell me?” Old Bond queried. + +“This is Vincent Burgess,” the young man replied. + +“Dennie home?” the father asked. + +“Yes, sir,” came the curt answer. + +“Who? Who bring her home? Vic Burleigh?” + +“I brought her home. She is a good girl, too.” + +In spite of himself, Burgess resented the shame of such a father for the +capable, happy-spirited daughter. + +“Yesh, Dennie's good girl, all right.” + +Then a silence fell. + +Presently, the old man spoke again. + +“Shay, Prof esh, 'd ye mind doin' somethin' for me?” + +“What is it?” Burgess was by nature courteous. + +“If anything sh'd ever happen to me, 'd you take care of Dennie? Shay, +would you?” + +“If I could do anything for her, I would do it,” the young man replied. + +“Somethin' gonna happen to me. I ain't shafe. I know I'll go that way. +But you'll be good to Dennie. Now, wouldn't you? I'd ask Funnybone, but +he's no shafer 'n I am. No shafer! You'll be good to Dennie, you said +so. Shay it again!” + +Bond was standing now bending threateningly toward Burgess, who had also +risen. + +“I'll do all that a gentleman ought to do.” He had only one thought--to +pacify the drunken man and get away. And the old man understood. + +“Shwear it, I tell you! Lif' up your right hand an'--an' shwear to take +care of Dennie, or I'll kill you!” Bond insisted. + +He was a large, muscular man, towering over the slender young professor +like a very giant, and in his eyes there was a cruel gleam. Vincent +Burgess was at the limit of mental resistance. Lifting his shapely right +hand in the shadowy light, he said wearily: + +“I swear it!” + +“One more question, and you may go. You know that little boy Vic +Burleigh takes care of here?” + +The Professor had heard of him. + +“Vic keeps that little boy all right. He don't complain none. S'pose you +help me watch um, Profesh.” Then as an afterthought, Saxon added: “Young +woman livin' out north of town. Pretty woman. She don't know nothing +'bout that little boy. Now, honest, she don't. Lives all by herself with +a big dog.” + +Jealousy is an ugly, suspicious beast. Vincent Burgess was no worse than +many other men would have been, because his mind leaped to the meaning +old Saxon's words might carry. And this was the man with Elinor in the +darkness and the storm. Before Burgess could think clearly, Saxon came a +step nearer. + +“Shay, where's Vic tonight?” + +“Across the river with Miss Wream. They were cut off by the deep water,” + Vincent answered. + +A quick change from drunkenness to sober sense leaped into Bond Saxon's +eyes. + +“Across the river! Great God!” Then sternly, with a grim set of jaw, he +commanded: “You go home! If you dare to say a word, I'll kill you. If +you try to follow me, he'll kill you. Go home! I 'm going over there, if +I die for it.” And the darkness and rain swallowed him as he leaped away +to the westward! + +Burgess gazed into the blackness into which Bond Saxon had gone until a +soft hand touched his, and he looked down to see little Bug Buler, clad +in his nightgown, standing barefoot beside him. + +“Where's Vic?” Bug demanded. + +“I don't know,” Burgess answered. + +“Take me up, I'se told.” Bug stretched up his arms appealingly, and +Burgess, who knew nothing of babies, awkwardly lifted him up. + +“Tuddle me tlose like Vic do,” and the little one snuggled lovingly in +the Professor's embrace. “Your toat's wet. Is Vic wet, too?” + +“Yes, little boy. We are all in trouble tonight.” Burgess had to say +something. + +“In twouble? Umph--humph!” Bug shut his lips tightly, puffing out his +cheeks, as was his habit. “I was in twouble, and I ist wented to Don +Fonnybone. He's dood for twouble-ness. You go see him. Poor man!” and +the little hand stroked Professor Burgess' feverish cheek. + +“If you'll run right back to bed, I'll do it,” Burgess declared. “We +can learn even from children sometimes,” he thought, as Bug climbed down +obediently and toddled away. + +Vincent Burgess went directly to Dr. Lloyd Fenneben, to whom he told the +story of the day's events, including the interview with Bond Saxon. +He did not repeat Bond's words regarding Vic, but only hinted at the +suspicion that there was something questionable in the situation in +which Vic was placed. Nor did he refer to the old man's maudlin demand +that he should take care of Dennie if she were left fatherless, and of +his sworn promise to do so. + +Burgess felt as, if the Dean's black eyes would burn through him, +so steady was their gaze while the story was being told. When he had +finished, Lloyd Fenneben said quietly: + +“You are worn out with the excitement of the day and night. Go home and +rest now. I've learned through many a struggle, that what I cannot +fight to a finish in the darkness, I can safely leave with God till the +daylight comes.” + +The smile that lighted up the stern face and the firm handclasp with +which Lloyd Fenneben dismissed the young man were things he remembered +long afterward. And above all, he recalled many times a sense of secret +shame that he should have felt degraded because of his association with +Dennie Saxon on this day. But of this last, the memory was stronger than +the present realization. + + +Meanwhile, as the mad waters surged around the bend in the river, and +swept over the shallows, Victor Burleigh flung his arm around Elinor +Wream and leaped back from the very edge of doom. + +“We must climb the bluff again. Be a good Indian!” he cried, groping for +a footing. + +Climbing the west bluff by daylight for the sake of adventure was very +unlike this struggle in the darkness to escape the widening river, with +a wind-driven torrent of rain sweeping down the land behind the first +storm-fury, and Elinor Wream clung to her companion's arm almost +helpless with fear. + +“Do you think you can ever get us out? she asked, as the limestone ledge +blocked the way. + +“Do you know what my mother named me?” The carelessness of the tone was +surprising. + +“Victor!” she replied. + +“Then don't forget it,” Burleigh said. “It's a dreadfully rough way +before us, little girl, but we'll soon be safe from the river. Don't +mind this little bit of a storm, and you'll get personally conducted +into Lagonda Ledge before midnight.” + +In her sheltered life, Elinor had never known anything half so dreadful +as this storm and darkness and booming flood, but the fearlessness of +the strong man beside her inspired her to do her best. It was only two +hours since they were here before. How could she know that these two +hours had marked the crisis of a lifetime for Victor Burleigh. With a +friendly little pressure on his arm, she said bravely: + +“I'd rather be here with you than over the river with anybody else. I +feel safer here.” + +Vic knew she meant only to be courteous, but the words were comforting. +On the crest of the ledge the fierceness of the storm was revealed. +Great sheets of wind-blown rain were flung athwart the landscape, and +the utter blackness that followed the lightning's glare, and the roaring +of the wind and river were appalling. + +In all this tumult, away to the northeast, the beacon light above the +Sunrise dome was cutting the darkness with a steady beam. + +“See that light, Elinor? We are not lost. We must get up stream a little +way. Then we'll find the bridge, all right. The crowd will get home +ahead of us, because this is the rough side of the river.” + +“Oh, what a comfort a light can be!” Elinor murmured as she looked up +and caught the welcome gleam. + +As they hurried along, the Sunrise light suddenly disappeared and they +found themselves descending a rough downward way. Presently there +were rock walls on either side hemming them in a narrow crevice in the +ledges. Then the rain ceased and Vic knew they had slidden down into a +rock-covered fissure, that they were getting underground. They tried +to turn back, but the up-climb was impossible, and in the darkness they +could reach nothing but the sharp ledge of the cliff sheer above the +raging river. Entrapped and bewildered, Vic felt cautiously about; but +the only certain things were the straight bluff overhanging the flood, +and the cavernous way leading downward; while the same deluge that was +keeping Vincent Burgess storm-staid on the veranda of the Saxon House, +was beating mercilessly down on Elinor Wream. + +“We can't stay here and be threshed to pieces,” Vic cried. “This crack +is drier, anyhow, and it must lead to somewhere.” + +It did lead to what seemed to Elinor an endless length of hideous +uncertainty, until Vic suddenly lost his footing and plunged headlong +down somewhere into the blackness of darkness. Elinor shrieked in terror +and sank down limply on the stone floor of the crevice. + +“All a bluff,” Vic called up cheerily, in the same startlingly deep +sweet voice that had caught Elinor's ear on the September afternoon +before the door of Sunrise, and out in the edge of her consciousness +the thought played in again, “I'd rather be here with you than over the +river with anybody else. I feel safer here.” + +“Slide down, Elinor. I'll catch you. It is n't very far, and there's a +little light somewhere.” + +Elinor slipped blindly down the side of the rock into Vic Burleigh's +outstretched arms. As he set her on her feet, somehow, the little light +failed. In all their struggle, this part of the way seemed the darkest, +the chillest, the most dangerous, and a sudden sense of a presence +hidden nearby possessed them both, as they came against a blind wall. A +stouter heart than Vic Burleigh's might well have quailed now. The two +were lost underground. What deeper cavern might yawn beyond them? What +length of dead wall might bar their way? And more terrifying still, +was the growing sense of a human presence, a human menace, an unseen +treachery. As Vic felt his way along the stone, his hand closed over +something thrust into a little niche, shoulder-high in the wall. It +seemed to be a small pitcher of unique pattern, solid silver by its +weight. Was it the booty of some dead and forgotten robber chief, the +buried treasure of some old Kickapoo raiding tragedy, or the loot of a +living outlaw? + +Vic thought he felt the outline of a letter graven in heavy relief +on the smooth side, and, for a reason of his own, dropped the thing. +Mercifully, he did not cry out at the discovery, but Elinor felt his +hand on her arm grow chill. + +A dazzling glare, token of the passing of the storm's fireworks, +outlined an irregular opening in the wall before them, revealing at the +same time a large room beyond the wall. + +“Here's the hole where we get out of this trap, Elinor Wream. If such a +big lightning like that can get in, we can get out,” Vic cried. + +He crawled through the opening, and pulled her as gently as possible +after him. Presently, another blaze lit up the night outside, showing +a cavern-like space thirty feet in dimensions, with a rock roof above +their heads, and a low doorway through which the light from the outside +had come in, and beyond which the rain was beating tremendously. +Evidently they had found a rear entrance to this cavern. + +“We are past our troubles now, Elinor,” Vic said. “There's the real +out-of-doors, and I feel sure of the rest of the way. This seems to be +a sort of cave, and we have come in kind of irregularly by the back door +or down the chimney. But here we are at the real front door. Shall we go +on?” + +Elinor leaned wearily against the wall, wet and cold, and almost +exhausted. + +“Let's wait a little, till this shower passes,” she pleaded. + +“You poor girl! This has been an awful night,” Vic said gently. + +Their eyes were getting accustomed to the darkness and they saw more +clearly the outline of the opening to the outside world. Suddenly Elinor +shivered as again the nearness of a presence somewhere possessed them +both. + +“Let's go! Let's go!” she whispered, huddling close to her companion, +whose grip on her arm tightened. + +He was conscious of a light behind him. Glancing over his shoulder, he +caught a gleam beyond the opening in the rear wall through which they +had just crept; and in that gleam, a villainous face, with still black +eyes, looking straight at him. The light disappeared, and he heard the +faint sound of something creeping toward them. Vic could fight any man +living. Nature built him for that. He had no fear for himself. But here +was Elinor, and he must think of her first. At that instant, the doorway +darkened, and a form slipped into the cavern somewhere. Oh, wind and +rain, and forked blue lightning and the thunder's roar, the river's +mad floods, the steep, slippery rocks, and jagged ledges, all were kind +beside this secret human presence, cruelly silent and treacherous. + +Victor Burleigh drew Elinor closer to him, and whispered low: + +“Don't be afraid with me to guard you.” + +Even in that deep gloom, he caught the outline of a white face with +star-bright eyes lifted toward his face. + +“I'm not afraid with you,” she whispered. + +Behind them stealthy movements somewhere. Between them and the doorway, +stealthy movements somewhere; but all so still and slow, they stretched +the listening nerve almost to the breaking point. Suddenly, a big, hard +hand gripped Burleigh's shoulder, and a dead still voice, that Vic could +not recognize, breathed into his ear, “Go quick and quiet! I'll stand +for it. Go!” + +It was old Bond Saxon. + +Vic caught Elinor's arm, and with one stride they sprang from the cave's +mouth up to the open ground beyond it. Something behind them, it might +have been a groan or a smothered oath, reached their ears, as they sped +away down a narrow ravine. The rain had ceased and overhead the stars +were peeping from the edges of feathery flying clouds; and all the +sodden autumn night was still at last, save for the gurgling waters of a +little stream down the rocky glen. + +The Sunrise bell was striking eleven when they reached the bridge +across the Walnut, and the beacon light from the dome began to twinkle +a welcome now and then through the dripping branches of the leafless +trees. A few minutes later, Victor Burleigh brought Elinor safely to +Lloyd Fenneben's door. + +“We made it in before midnight, anyhow,” he said carelessly. + +Elinor looked up in surprise. The terrors of the night still possessed +her. + +“What a horrible nightmare it has all been. The storm, the river, the +rocks, and the darkness, and that dreadful something behind us in the +cave. Was there really anything, or did we just imagine it all? It will +seem impossible when the daylight comes.” + +Victor looked at her with a wonderful light in his wide-open brown eyes. + +“Yes,” he said in a deep voice. “It will seem impossible when daylight +comes. But will it all be as a horrible nightmare?” + +“No, no; not all.” Elinor's face was winsomely sweet. “Not all,” she +repeated. “It is fine to feel one's self so safeguarded as I have been. +I shall always remember you as one with whom I could never again be +afraid.” + +Burleigh turned hastily toward the door, and, having delivered her to +the care of her uncle, he bade them both good night. + +Dr. Fenneben looked keenly after the young man striding away from the +light. His clothes were torn and bedraggled, his cap was gone, and his +heavy hair was a mass of rough waves about his forehead. The direct +gaze of his golden-brown eyes took away distrust, and yet the face had +changed somehow in this day. A hint of a new purpose had crept into it, +a purpose not possible for Dr. Fenneben to read. + +But he did note the set of the head, the erect form and broad shoulders, +and the easy swinging step as the boy went whistling away into the +shadows of the night. + +“A splendid animal, anyhow,” the Dean thought. “Will the soul measure +up to that princely body? And what can be the purport of this maudlin +mouthing of old Bond Saxon? Bond is really a lovable man when he's +sober; but he's vindictive and ugly when he's drunk. I can wait for +developments. Whatever the boy's history may have been, like the courts, +it's my business to hold every man innocent till he's proven guilty; +to build up character, not to undermine and destroy it. And destruction +begins in suspicion.” + + + +CHAPTER VI. THE GAME + + _Truly ye come of The Blood; slower to bless than + to ban; + Little used to lie down at the bidding of any man_. + --KIPLING + +BITTER weather followed the night of the storm. Biting winds beat all +the autumn beauty from tree and shrub. Cold gray skies hung over a +cold gray land, and a heavy snowfall and a penetrating chill seemed to +destroy all hope for the Indian Summer that makes the Kansas Novembers +glorious. + +Dennie Saxon was the only girl of the party who was not affected by the +storm at the Kickapoo Corral. Professor Burgess, who narrowly escaped +pneumonia himself, and who disliked irregular class attendance, took +comfort in the sight of Dennie. She was so fresh-checked and wholesome, +and she went about her work promptly, forgetful of storm and rain and +muddy ways. + +“You seem immune from sickness, Miss Dennie,” Burgess said one day as +she was putting the library in order. + +Under her little blue dusting cap, the sunny ripples of her hair framed +a face glowing with health. She smiled up at him comfortably--a smile +that played about the edges of his consciousness all that day. + +“I've never been sick,” she said. “It 's a good thing, too, for our +house is a regular hospital this week. Little Bug Buler is the worst +of all. He took cold on the night of the storm. That's why Victor +Burleigh's out of school so much. He won't leave Bug.” + +Vincent Burgess despised the name of Burleigh now. While Vic's safe +escort of Elinor Wream had increased his popularity with the students, +Burgess honestly believed that old Bond Saxon's drunken speech hinted at +some disgrace the big freshman would not long be able to conceal, and he +resented the high place given to such a low grade of character. To a man +like himself it was galling to look upon such a fellow as a rival. So, +he tightened the rules and exacted the last mental farthing of Vic in +the classroom. And Vic, easily understanding all this, because he was +frankly and foolishly in love with the same girl whom Vincent Burgess +seemed to claim, contrived in a thousand ways to make life a burden +to the Harvard man. Of course, Burgess showed no mercy toward Vic for +absence from the classroom while he was caring for little Bug, and the +black marks multiplied against him. + +Elinor Wream had been ill after the night of the storm. Vic had not +seen her since the hour when he left her at Lloyd Fenneben's door. He +knew he was a fool to think of her at all. He knew she must sometime be +won by Burgess, and that she was born to gentle culture which his hard +life had never known. Besides, he was poor. Not a pauper, but poor, +and luxuries belonged naturally to a girl like Elinor. The storm of the +holiday was a balmy zephyr compared to the storm that raged every day +in him. For with all the hopelessness of things, he was in love. +Poor fellow! The strength of his spirit was like the strength of his +body--unbreakable. + +He had no fear of pneumonia after the stormy night, for he was used to +hard knocks. And he meant to go again by daylight and explore the rocky +glen and hidden ways, and to find out, if possible, whose face it was +that was behind that cavern wall, whose voice had whispered in his ear, +and what loot was hidden there. For reasons of his own, he had mentioned +this matter to nobody. But the cold, wet days, little Bug's illness, +and the hard study to keep up his class standing, took all of his +time. Especially, the study, that he might not be shut out of the great +football game of the year on Thanksgiving day. Sunrise was stiff in +its scholastic requirements, and conscientious to the last degree. The +football team stood on mental ability and moral honor, no less than on +scientific skill and muscular weight and cunning. Dr. Fenneben watched +Burleigh carefully, for the boy seemed to be always on his heart. The +Dean knew how to mix common sense and justice into his rulings, so the +word was sent quietly from the head office--the suggestion of leniency +in the matter of Burleigh's absence. Burleigh was good for it. It +lay with his professors, of course, to grant or withhold scholarship +ranking, but the Dean would be pleased to have all latitude given in +Burleigh's case. + +Bug was better now, and Vic was burning midnight oil in study, for the +hours of practice for the game were doubled. + +On the evening before Thanksgiving the coach called Vic aside. + +“Everything is safe. Only one report not in, but it will be in +tomorrow.” the coach declared. “I asked Professor Burgess about your +standing, and he says your grades are away above average. He's got +to reckon up your absent marks, but that's easy. All the teachers +understand about that. I guess Dean Funnybone fixed 'em. And now, Vic, +the honor of Sunrise rests on you. If you fail us, we're lost. Can I +count on you?” + +The tiger light was behind the long black lashes under the heavy black +brows, as Vic shut his white teeth tightly. + +“Count on me!” he said, and turning, he left the coach abruptly. + +“Hey, there, Burleigh, hold on a minute,” Trench, the right guard, +called, as Vic was striding up the steep south slope of the limestone +ridge. “Say, wind a fellow, will you! You infernal, never-wear-out, +human steam engine. I'm on to some things you ought to know. Even a lazy +old scout like I am gets a crack at things once in a while.” + +“Well, get rid of it once in a while, if you really do know anything,” + Vic responded. + +“Say, you're nervous. Coach says you spend too much time in your +nursery; says you'd better get rid of that little kid.” + +“Tell the coach to go to the devil!” Vic spoke savagely. + +“Say, Coach,” Trench roared down from the hillslope, “Vic says for you +to go to the devil.” + +“Wait till after tomorrow,” the coach shouted back, “and I'll take you +fellows along if you don't do your best.” + +“Now, that's settled, I'll tell you what I know,” Trench drawled lazily. +“First, Elinor Wream, what Dean Funnybone calls 'Norrie,' is heading the +bunch that's going to shower us with roses tomorrow, if we win. And +you know blamed well we'll win. They came in from Kansas City on the +limited, just now, the roses did. The shower's predicted for tomorrow P. +M.” + +A sudden glow lighted Vic's stern face, and there was no savage gleam in +his eyes now. + +“Is Elinor well enough to come out tomorrow?” + +He had been caught unawares. Trench stared at him deliberately. + +“Say, Victor Burleigh.” He spoke slowly. “Don't do it! DON'T DO IT! +It will kill a man like you to get in love. Lord pity you! and”--more +slowly still--“Lord pity the fool girl who can't see the solid gold in +the rough old nugget you are.” + +“What's the rest of your news?” Vic asked. + +“I gave the best first. Coach tells me ab-so-lute-lee, you are our only +hope. The hope of Sunrise, tomorrow. You've got the beef, the wind, the +speed, the head, and the will. Oh, you angel child!” + +“The coach is clever,” Vic said carelessly. + +“Burleigh, here's the rub as well as the Rub-i-con. Dennie Saxon's wise, +and she tells me--on the side; inside, not outside--that your absent +marks on Burgess' map are going to cut you out at the last minute. Don't +let Burgess do that, Vic, if you have to kill him. Couldn't we kidnap +him and drop him into the whirlpool? Old Lagonda's interest is about +due. Dennie just stood her ground today like a cherub, and asked the +Hahvahd Univusity man right out about it. I don't know how she got the +hint, only she's in all the offices and the library out of hours, you +know, and when the slim one from Boston, yuh know, said as how he had +to stand firm on the right, yuh know, old Dennie just says straight and +flat, 'Professor Burgess, I'm ashamed of you.' Dennie's a brick. And do +you know, Burgess, spite of his cussed thin hide, we've got to toughen +for him out here in Kansas; spite of all that, HE LIKES DENNIE SAXON. +The oracle hath orked, the sibyl hath sibbed. But say, Vic, if he does +come down hard on you, what will you do?” + +“Come down hard on him, and play anyhow.” + +The grim jaw and black frown left no doubt as to Vic's purpose. + + +Late November is idyllic in the Walnut Valley. Autumn's gold has all +been burned in Nature's great crucible, refining the landscape to a wide +range from frosted silver to richest Purple. Heliotrope and rose +and amethyst blend with misty pink and dainty gray, and the faint, +indefinable blue-green hue of the robin's egg, and outlined all in +delicate black tracery of leafless boughs and darkened waterways. Every +sunrise is a revelation of Infinite Beauty. Every midday, a shadowy soft +picture of Peace. Every sunset a dream of Omnipotent Splendor. + +On such a November Thanksgiving day, the great game of the season was +played on the Sunrise football field, which all the Walnut Valley folks +came forth to see. + +By one o'clock Lagonda Ledge was deserted, save for old Bond Saxon, who +sat on his veranda, watching the crowds stream by. At two o'clock the +bleachers were packed, and the side lines were broad and black with +a good-natured, jostling crowd. And every minute the numbers were +increasing. Truly Sunrise had never before known such an auspicious day, +such record-breaking gate receipts, nor such sure promise of success. +The game was called for half-past two. It was three o'clock now and the +line-up had not been formed. Even the gentle wrangle over details and +eligibility could hardly have spun out so much time as seemed to the +waiting throng to be uselessly wasted now. Evidently, something was +wrong. The crowd grew impatient and demanded the cause. Out in the open, +the two squads were warming up for the fray, while the officials hung +fire in a group by the goal posts and talked threateningly. + +“What's the matter?” + +“When will the freight be in?” + +“Merry Christmas!” + +So the crowd shouted. The songs were worn out, the yell-leaders were +exhausted, and the rooters were hoarse. + +“Where's Vic Burleigh?” somebody called, and a chorus followed: + +“Burleigh! Burly! Burlee! Come home! Come home! Come home!” + +But Burleigh did not come. + +“Maybe they are shutting him out,” somebody else suggested, and the +Sunrise bleachers took fire. Calls for Burleigh rent the air, roars and +yells that threatened to turn this most auspicious college event into +pandemonium, and the jolly company into a veritable mob. + + +Meantime, as the teams were leaving their quarters early in the +afternoon, the coach said to Vic: + +“Run up to Burgess and get your grades, Burleigh. It's a mere form, but +it will save that gang of game-cocks from getting one over us.” + +In the rotunda Vic and Vincent met face to face, the country boy in +his football suit and brown sweater, and the slender young college +professor, with faultless tailoring and immaculate linen. Ten minutes +before, Burgess had been in Dr. Fenneben's office, where Elinor Wream +and a group of fair college girls were chattering excitedly. + +“See these roses, Uncle Lloyd.” Elinor was holding up a gorgeous bunch +of American Beauties. “These go to Vic Burleigh when he gets behind +the goal posts. Cost lots of my Uncle Lloyd's money, but we had to have +them.” + +Small wonder that the very odor of roses was hateful to Burgess at that +moment. + +“May I speak to you a minute?” Vic said as the two men met in the +rotunda. + +Burgess halted in silence. + +“The coach sent me after your statement of my standing. We've got a +bunch of sticklers to fight today.” + +“I have turned in my report,” Burgess responded coldly. + +“So the coach said, all but mine. I'm late. May I have my report now?” + Vic urged, trying to be composed. + +“I have no further report for you.” It was a cold-blooded thing to say, +but Burgess, though filled with jealousy, was conscientious now in +his belief that Burleigh was really a low grade fellow, deserving no +leniency nor recognition. + +“But you haven't given me any standing yet, the coach says.” Vic's voice +was dead calm. + +“I have no standing to give you. You are below grade.” + +Vic's eyes blazed. “You dog!” was all he could say. + +“Now, see here, Burleigh, there's no need to act any ruder than you can +help.” Burleigh did not move, nor did he take his yellow brown eyes from +his instructor's face. “What have you to say further? I thought you were +in a hurry.” Burgess did not really mean a taunt in the last words. + +“I have this to say.” Victor Burleigh's voice had a menace in its depth +and power. “You have done this infamous thing, not because I deserve it, +but because you hate me on account of a girl--Elinor Wream.” + +“Stop!” Vincent Burgess commanded. + +“I forbid you to mention her name. You, who come in here from some +barren, poverty-stricken prairie home, where good breeding is unknown. +You, to presume to think of such a girl as Dr. Fenneben's beautiful +niece, whose reputation was barely saved by old Bond Saxon on the stormy +night after the holiday. You, who are forced for some reason to care +for an unknown child. You, whose true character will soon be fully known +here--if this is what you have to say, you may go,” he added with an +imperious wave of the hand. + +The meanness of anger is in its mastery. Burgess had meant only to +discipline Burleigh, but it was too late for that now. The rotunda was +very quiet. Everybody was down on the field waiting impatiently for the +game to begin. Burgess was also impatient. There was a seat waiting for +him beside Elinor Wream. + +“I'm not quite ready to go”--Vic's fierce voice filled the +rotunda--“because you are going to write my credentials for this game, +and you'll do it quick, or beg for mercy.” + +“I refuse to consider a word you say.” Burgess was furious now, and the +white face and burning eyes of his opponent were unbearable. “I will not +grant you any credentials, you low-born prize-fighter--” + +A sudden grip of steel held him fast as Vic towered over him. The +softened light of the dome of the rotunda, where the Kansas motto, “_Ad +Astra per Aspera_.” adorned the stained glass panes, had never fallen on +such a scene as this. + +“See here, Burleigh, you'll repent this unwarranted attack,” Burgess +cried, trying to free himself. “Brute force will win only among brutes.” + +“That's the only place I expect to use it,” Vic retorted, tightening his +grip. “No time for words now. The honor of Sunrise as well as my honor +is at stake, and it's my right to play in this game, because I have +broken no laws. I may have no culture except that of a prairie claim; +and I may be poor, and, therefore, presumptuous in daring to mention +Elinor Wream's name to you. But”--the brown eyes were a blazing +fire--“nobody can tell me that any man must rescue a girl from me to +save her reputation, nor that any dishonor belongs to me because of +little Bug Buler. Uncultured, as I am, I have the culture of a +courage that guards the helpless; and ill-bred, as I may be, I have a +gentleman's honor wherever a woman's need calls for my protection.” + +Vic's face was ashy, for his anger matched his love, and both were +parallel to his wonderful physique and endurance. In his fury, the +temptation to throttle the man who had wronged him was gaining the +mastery. + +“Vic, oh, Vic, they're waiting for you. Turn on! Don't hurt him, Vic.” + Bug Buler's pleading little voice broke the momentary stillness. + +Vic's hand fell nerveless, and Burgess staggered back. + +“Was n't you dood to Vic? He would n't hurted you. He never hurted +me.” The innocent face and gentle words held a strange power over each +passion-fired man before him. + + +Five minutes later, Vic Burleigh walked across the gridiron with full +credentials for his place on the team. + +The last man to enter the grounds was evidently a tramp, whose slouched +hat half-concealed a dark bearded face. + +As Vic Burleigh, with Bug clinging to his finger, hurried by the ticket +window, the crippled student who sold tickets inside the little roofed +box called out: + +“Come, stay with me, Bug, till I can go in, too, and I'll buy you +peanuts.” + +Bug studied a moment. Then with a comfortable little “Umph-humph,” + puffing out his pudgy cheeks with tightly tucked-in lips, he let go of +Vic's finger and trotted over to the ticket box. + +The boy let him inside and turned to the window to see the face of the +tramp close to it. The man paid for a ticket, then, leaning forward, +stared eagerly at the open money box. At the same time, the cripple +caught sight of a revolver handle in a belt under the shabby coat. +Trust a college boy for headwork. Instantly he seized little Bug by the +shoulders and set him up on the shelf between the window and the money +box. Bug's hair was a mop of soft ringlets, and his brown eyes and +innocent baby face were appealing. The stranger stared hard at the +child, and with a sort of frightened expression, shot through the gate +and mingled with the crowd. + +“Great protection for a cripple,” the student thought, as he locked the +money box. “How strong a baby's hand may be sometimes! Vic Burleigh's +beef can win the game out there, but Bug has saved the day at this end +of the line. That tramp seemed scared at the sight of him.” + +“Funny folks turns to dames,” Bug observed. + +“Yes, Buggie, the last one in before you came was a young woman with +gray hair, and she had a big dog with her. They don't let in dogs, so +he's waiting outside somewhere.” + +The last man who did not go in was Bond Saxon, who came late and found +the gates deserted. But lying watchful in the open way, was a Great Dane +dog. Old Bond hesitated. It was his lifetime fault to hesitate. Then +he trotted back home. And, behold, a bottle of whisky was beside his +doorstep. But to his credit for once, he resisted and smashed the bottle +to bits on the stone step. + +The day was made for such a game. There was no wind. The glare of the +sun was tempered by a gray mist creeping up the afternoon skies. The +air was crisp enough to prevent languor. The crowded bleachers were +inspiring; the season was rounding out in a blaze of glory for Sunrise. +The two teams were evenly matched, And the stern joy that warriors feel + In foemen worthy of their steel, + spurred each to its best efforts. It was a battle royal, with all the +turns of strategy, and quickness, and straight physical weight, and +sudden shifting of signals, fake plays, forward passes, line bucks, and +splendid interference, flying tackles, speedy end runs, and magnificent +defense of goals with lines of invincible strength and spirit. + +With the kick-off the enemy's goal was endangered by a fumbled ball, +and within three minutes Trench had torn a hole in the defense, through +which the Sunrise team were sending Vic Burleigh for a touchdown. The +bleachers went wild and the grandstand was almost shipwrecked in the +noise. + +“Burleigh! Burly! Burlee!” shrieked the yell-leader as Vic leaped over +the goal line and the rooters roared: + + The Sunrise hope! + And that's the dope! + Never quails! + Never fails! + Burleigh! Burly! Burlee! + + +A difficult kick from a sharp angle sent the ball through the air one +inch wide of the goal post, and the bleachers counted five. + +And then, came the forward swing again, the struggle for downs, the +gain and loss of territory, until Trench, too heavy for speed, failed +to break through the interference quickly enough to hold a swift little +quarterback, who slipped around the end of the line, and, shaking off +the tackles, swooped toward the Sunrise goal. The last defense was +thrown headlong, and the field was wide open for the run; and the +quarterback was running for the honor of his team, his school, his +undying fame in the college world. Three yards to the goal line, and +victory would be his. All Lagonda Ledge held its breath as Vic +Burleigh tore through a tangle of tackles and sprang forward with long, +space-eating bounds. He seemed to leap through ten feet of air, straight +over the quarterback's head and land four feet from the goal with the +quarterback in his grip, while a Sunrise halfback out beyond him was +lying on the lost ball. + +The bleachers now went entirely mad, for from the very edge of disaster, +the tide of battle was turned into the enemy's territory. Before the +Sunrise rooters had time to cease rejoicing, however, the invincible +quarterback was away again, and with two guards and a center on top of +Burleigh, now the plucky runner broke across the Sunrise line, and a +minute later missed a pretty goal. And the opposing bleachers counted +five. + +The second half of the game was filled with a tense, fruitless strife. +Five points to five points, and four minutes of time to play. The +struggle had ceased to be a turning of tricks and test of speed. +Henceforth, it was man against man, pound for pound. Suddenly, the +opposing team braced itself and began a steady drive down the gridiron. +With desperate energy, the Sunrise eleven fought for ground, giving way +slowly, defending their goal like true Spartans, dying by inches, +until only three yards of space were left on which to die. The rooters +shrieked, and the girls sang of courage. Then a silence fell. Three +yards, and the Sunrise team turned to a rock ledge as invincible as the +limestone foundation of their beloved college halls. The center from +which all strength radiated was Victor Burleigh. Against him the weight +of the line-bucking plunged. If he wavered the line must crumble. The +crowd hardly breathed, so tense was the strain. But he did not waver. +The ball was lost and the last struggle of the day began. Two minutes +more, the score tied, and only one chance was left. + +Since the night of the storm, Vic had known little rest. His days had +been spent in hard study, or continuous practice on the field; his +nights in the sick room. And what was more destructive to strength +than all of this was the newness and grief of a blind, overmastering +adoration for the one girl of all the school impossible to him. The +strain of this day's game, as the strain of all the preparation for it, +had fallen upon him, and the half hour in the rotunda had sapped his +energy beyond every other force. Love, loss, a reputation attacked, +possible expulsion for assaulting a professor, injustice, anger--oh, it +was more than a burden of wearied muscles and wracked nerves that he had +to lift in these two minutes! + +In a second's pause before the offense began, Vic, who never saw the +bleachers, nor heard a sound when he was in the thick of the game, +caught sight now of a great splash of glowing red color in the +grandstand. In a dim way, like a dream of a dream, he thought of +American Beauty roses of which something had been said once--so long +ago, it seemed now. And in that moment, Elinor Wream's sweet face, +with damp dark hair which the lamplight from Dr. Fenneben's door was +illumining, and the softly spoken words, “I shall always remember you as +one with whom I could never be afraid again”--all this came swiftly +in an instant's vision, as the team caught its breath for the last +onslaught. + +“Victor, for victory. Lead out Burleigh,” Trench cried to his mates, and +the sweep of the field was on; and Lagonda Ledge and the whole Walnut +Valley remembers that final charge yet. Steady, swift, invincible, it +drove its strong foe down the white-crossed sod--so like a whirlwind, +that the watching crowds gazed in bewilderment. Almost before they +could comprehend the truth, the enemy's goal was just before the Sunrise +warriors, and half a minute of time remained in which to play. One more +line plunge with Burleigh holding the ball! A film came before his eyes. +A sudden blankness of failure and despair seized him. In the grandstand, +Elinor Wream stood clutching a pennant in both hands, her dark eyes +luminous with proud hope. Amid all the yells and cheers, her sweet voice +rang out: + +“Victor, Victor! Don't forget the name your mother gave you!” + +Vic neither saw nor heard. Yet in that moment, strength and pride +and indomitable will power came sweeping back to him. One last plunge +against this wall of defense upreared before him, and Burleigh, with +half the enemy's eleven clinched to drag him back, had hurled himself +across the goal line and lay half-conscious under a perfect shower of +fragrant crimson roses, while the song of victory in swelling chorus +pealed out on the November air. Half a minute later, Trench had kicked +goal. The bleachers chanted eleven counts, the referee's whistle blew, +and the game was done! + + + +SACRIFICE + + _The air for the wing of the sparrow, + The bush for the robin and wren, + But always the path that is narrow + And straight for the children of men_. + --ALICE CARY + + +CHAPTER VII. THE DAY OF RECKONING + + _Oh, it is excellent + To have a giant's strength, but tyrannous + To use it like a giant_. + --SHAKESPEARE + +OF course, there came a day of reckoning for Victor Burleigh, now the +idol of the Walnut Valley football fans, the pride of Lagonda Ledge, the +hero of Sunrise. But the reckoning was not brought to him; he brought +himself deliberately to it. + +The jollification following the game threatened to wreck the chapel and +crack the limestone ledge beneath it. + +“Dust off your halo and wrap it up in cotton till next fall, Vic,” + Trench whispered in the closing minutes. “We've got to face the real +thing now. We're civilians in citizens' clothes, amenable to law +henceforth; not a lot of athletic brigands, privileged outlaws, whose +glory dazzles all common sense. Quit bumping your head against the +Kansas motto up in the dome, get your hob-nailers down on the sod, +and trot off and tackle your Greek verbs awhile. And say, Vic, tackle +yourself first and forget the pretty girl who covered you with roses +down yonder five days ago. It was n't you, it was just the day's hero. +She'd have decorated old Bond Saxon just the same if he had waddled +across the last goal line then. You're a plug and she's a lady born, and +as good as engaged to Burgess besides. I had that straight from Dennie +Saxon, and you know Dennie's no gossip. They were far gone before they +came West--the Wream-Burgess folk were--stiffen up, Burleigh. You look +like a dead man.” + +“I was never more alive in my life.” Vic's voice and eyes were alive +enough. + +“By heck! I believe it,” Trench exclaimed. “Say, you got away with +Burgess about the game. If you want the girl, go after her, too. But +gently, Sweet Afton, go gently. Most girls want to do the pursuing +themselves, I believe. I'll block the interference, if necessary, and +you'll be the sought-after yet, not the seeking, dear child.” + +A circular stairway winds from the Sunrise chapel down the south turret +to Dean Fenneben's study, intended originally as a sort of fire escape. +Some enterprising janitor later fixed a spring lock on the upper door +to this stairway (surprises had been sprung through this door upon the +chapel stage by prankish students at inopportune moments), so that +now it was only an exit, and was called by the students “the road to +perdition,” easy to descend but barred from retreat. + +In the confusion following the chapel exercises Vic slipped into the +south turret, and the lock clicked behind him as he hurried down “the +road to perdition.” + +The door to Dean Fenneben's study was slightly open and Vic heard his +own name spoken as he reached it. He hesitated, for a group of girls was +surrounding Elinor Wream, discussing him. There was no escape. The upper +door was locked, and he would rather have met that unknown villainous +face in the dark cave than to face this group of pretty girls. So he +waited. + +“Oh, Elinor, you mercenary creature!” + +“What if he is a bit crude?” + +“I don't blame you. I'm daffy about Professor Burgess myself.” + +“He's got the grandest voice, Vic has!” + +“I just adore Greek!” + +“I think Vic is splendid!” + +So the exclamations ran. + +“Now, Norrie Wream, cross your heart, hope you may die, if big, handsome +Victor Burleigh had his corners knocked off, and he was sandpapered down +a little, and had money, wouldn't you feel a whole lot different about +him, Norrie?” + +“I certainly would. I couldn't help it.” + +Norrie's eyes were shining and her cheeks were pink as peach blossoms. +To Vic she seemed exquisitely beautiful. + +“But now?” somebody queried. + +“Oh, now, she'll be sensible, and the Professor will take advantage +of 'now.' He won't wait till it's too late. Great hat! there goes the +bell.” + +And the girls scuttled away. + +Vic came in and sat down by the window through which one may find an +empire for the looking. + +“Burgess was right,” he said to himself. + +“I'm not only ill-bred on the outside, I'm that way clear through. A +disreputable eavesdropper! That's my size. But I didn't mean it. Fine +excuse!” He frowned in disgust, and turned to the window. + +The Thanksgiving weather was still blessing the Walnut Valley. Wide away +beyond Lagonda Ledge rolled the free open prairies, swept by the free +air of heaven under a beneficent sky. + +As Vic gazed his stern face softened, and the bulldog look, that he had +worn since the night of the storm, relaxed before some gentler mood. The +brown eyes held a strange glow under the long black lashes, as if a new +purpose were growing up in the soul behind them. + +“No limit out there. It's a FREE LAND,” he murmured. “There shall be +no limit in here.” Unconsciously he struck his breast with his fist. +“There's freedom for such as I am somewhere.” + +“Hello, Burleigh, what can I do for you?” As Dr. Fenneben came into the +study he recalled how awkwardly the same boy had filled the same chair +only a few months before. + +“I've come in to be sentenced,” Vic replied. + +“Well, plead your case first.” + +If ever a father-heart beat in a bachelor's breast, Lloyd Fenneben had +such a heart. + +“I want to settle about Thanksgiving Day,” Vic said. “I had a moral +right to play on the team in that game, but I had to get the legal right +by force. Professor Burgess refused to permit me to play until I MADE +him do it.” + +Fenneben's eyes were smiling. “Why didn't you knock him down and fight +it out with him?” + +“Because he's not in my class. When I fight I fight men. And, besides, I +was in a hurry. If I'm expected to apologize to Professor Burgess or be +expelled, I want to know it,” Vic added, hotly. + +He knew he would not apologize, and he wanted the sentence of expulsion +to come quickly if it must come. + +“We never expel boys from Sunrise. They have done it themselves +sometimes. Nor do we ever exact an apology. They offer it themselves +sometimes. In either case, the choice lies with the boy.” + +“What do you do with a fellow like me?” Vic looked curiously at the +Dean. + +“If a boy of your build wants to meet only men when he fights, we take +it he is something of a man himself, and therefore worth too much for +Sunrise to lose.” + +Oh! blessed power of the college man to lead the half-tamed boy into the +stronger places of life; nor shove him to the dangerous ground where his +feet must sink in the quicksand or the mire! + +Vic sat looking thoughtfully at the man before him. + +“Your confession here is all right. Your claim to a place on the team in +Thursday's game was just.” The simple fairness of Fenneben's words made +their appeal, yet, it was so unlike what Vic had counted on he could +hardly accept it as genuine. + +“You have made a great name for yourself as an athlete. I paid for the +roses. I know something of the degree of that greatness.” Dr. Fenneben +smiled genially. “You played a marvelous game and I am proud of you.” + +Vic did not look proud of himself just then, and Lloyd Fenneben knew it +was one of life's crucial moments for the boy. + +“The big letter S cut over the doorway out there stands for more than +Sunrise, you remember I told you.” Fenneben spoke earnestly. “It means +also the strife which you have already met and must expect to meet +all along the way. But, Burleigh”--Lloyd Fenneben stood up to his full +height, an ideal of grace and power--“if you expect to make your way +through college with your fists, come to me.” + +“You?” Vic's eyes widened. + +“Yes, I'll meet you on any grounds. And if you ever try to coerce a +professor here again, I'll meet you anyhow, and we'll have it out.” + Fenneben was stern now. + +“I wouldn't want to scrap with you, Dr. Fenneben,” Vic stammered. + +“Why not?” + +“I am too much of a gentleman for that.” + +“When I fight, I fight men. You are in my class,” Fenneben quoted with a +smile in his eyes, which faded away with the next words. + +“You are right, Burleigh. A gentleman does n't want to use his strength +like a beast to destroy. The only legitimate battle is when a man must +fight with a man as he would fight with a beast, to save himself, or +something dearer to him than himself, from beastly destruction. Get into +the bigger game, my boy, where the strife is for larger scores, and +add to a proud athletic record, the prouder record of self-control. The +prairies have given you a noble heritage, but culture comes most from +contact with cultured men. Don't take on airs because you have more +red blood than our Harvard man. The influence of the great universities, +directly or indirectly, on a life like yours is essential to your +usefulness and power. You may educate your conscience to choose the +right before the wrong, but, remember, an educated conscience does not +always save a man from being a fool now and then. He needs an educated +brain sometimes by which to save his soul. Meantime, settle with your +conscience, if you owe it anything. It is a troublesome creditor. I'll +leave you now to square yourself with that fellow you must live with +every day--Victor Burleigh. We'll drop everything else henceforth and +face toward tomorrow, not yesterday.” + +Lloyd Fenneben grasped the boy's hand in a firm, assuring grip and left +him. + +“If Sunrise means Strife, I'll face it,” Vic said to himself. “As to +money, I have only my two hands and that old mortgaged quadrangle of +prairie sod out West. But if culture like Fenneben's might win Elinor +Wream, God help me to win it.” + +Up in the library a week later Professor Burgess came in while Dennie +Saxon was putting the books in order. Burgess was often to be found +where Dennie was, but Burgess himself had not noted it, and nobody else +knew it, except Trench. Trench was a lazy fellow, who always lived in +the middle of his pasture, where the feeding was good. That gave him +time to study mankind as it worried about the outer edges. + +“Don't you get tired sometimes, Miss Dennie?” the Professor asked. He +was not happy himself for many reasons, and two of them were Elinor and +Vic, who separately, and differently, seemed to wear out his energy. +Dennie Saxon never wore on anybody's nerves. + +“Yes, I do, often,” Dennie answered. + +“Why do you do this?” he queried. + +“To get my college education.” Dennie smiled, hopefully. “I like the +nice things and nice ways of life. So I'm working for them.” + +“Elinor has all these without working for them,” Vincent thought. + +Then for no reason at all his mind leaped to Dennie's father and his own +vow on the stormy night in October. + +“What would you do if your father were taken from you, Miss Dennie?” he +asked. + +“I've always had to depend on myself somewhat. I would keep on, I +suppose.” Dennie looked up bravely. Her father was her joy and her +shame. + +Well, what had Burgess expected? That she would depend on him? He was in +love with Elinor Wream. Why should he feel disappointed? And why should +his eye follow the soft little ripples of her sunny hair, giving a +pretty outline to her face and neck. + +“Could you really take care of yourself? He was talking at random. + +“I might do like that woman out at Pigeon Place.” Burgess did n't catch +the pathos in Dennie's tone. He was only a man. + +“How's that?” he asked. + +“Oh, live alone and keep a big dog, and sell chickens. That's what Mrs. +Marian does. By the way, she looks just a little bit like you.” + +“Thank you!” + +“She was at the game on Thanksgiving Day, strange to say, for she seldom +leaves home. Did you see a pretty white-haired woman, right south of +where we were?” + +“Is that how I look? No, I didn't see her. I was n't at the game.” + +“You weren't? Why not? You missed a wonderful thing.” + +And Burgess told her the whole story from his viewpoint, of course. What +he was too proud to mention to Dr. Fenneben or Elinor he spoke of freely +to Dennie, and he felt as if the weight of the limestone ledge was +lifted from him with the telling. + +“Don't you think the young ruffian was pretty hard on me?” he asked. + +“No, I don't,” Dennie said, frankly. “I think you were pretty hard on +him.” + +A sudden resolve seized Burgess. He came around to Dennie's side of the +table. + +“Miss Dennie, I want to tell you something, unimportant in itself, but +better shared than kept. On the night of our picnic in October your +father, who was not quite himself--” + +“Yes, I understand,” Dennie said, with downcast eyes. + +“Pardon me, Dennie, I would not hurt your feelings.” His voice was very +gentle, and Dennie looked up gratefully. “On that night your father made +me promise--made me hold up my hand and swear--I'm easily forced, you +will think--to look after you if he were taken away. I did it to pacify +him, not to ever embarrass you. He also told me enough about young +Burleigh to make me wish, in the office of protector, to warn you.” + +“Was my father quite himself then?” Dennie asked. + +“Not quite,” Burgess replied. + +“Listen to him some day when he is. He is another man then. But,” she +added, “I know you mean well.” + +In spite of her courage her eyes were full of tears, and for the first +time in his sheltered pleasant life the real spirit of sympathy woke in +the soul of Vincent Burgess. + +“You are a brave, good girl, Dennie. If I can ever serve you in any way, +it will be a privilege to me to do it.” + +Ten minutes after they had left the library Trench, who had been +stationary in the north alcove, slowly came to life. He had been posing +as a statue, Winged Victory with a head on, he declared afterward to Vic +Burleigh, to whom he told the whole story. + +“Let me sing my swan song,” he declared. “Then me for Lagonda's +whirlpool. I'm not fit to live in a decent community, a blithering idiot +and rascally villain, who lies in wait to hear and see like a fool. +I thought Dennie knew I was there and would be in to dust me out in +a minute. And when it was too late I turned to a pillar of salt and +waited. But I believe I'll change my mind, after all. I'll live; and if +Professor Burgess, A.B. of Cambridge-by-the-bean-patch, dares to make +love to Dennie Saxon--on the side--he'll go head foremost into the +whirlpool to feed Lagonda's rapacious spirit. I've said it.” + + + +CHAPTER VIII. LOSS, OR GAIN? + + _We cannot make bargains for blisses, + Nor catch them like fishes in nets, + And sometimes the thing our life misses + Helps more than the thing which it gets_. + --CARY + +ELINOR WREAM spent the holidays in the East and was two weeks late +in entering school again. Then her Uncle Lloyd tightened the rules, +exacting full measure for lost time, until she bewailed to her girl +friends that she had no opportunity even to make fudge or wash her hair. + +“Were you sorry to come back, then, Norrie?” her uncle asked one evening +when they were alone in their library, and Elinor was lamenting her hard +lot. + +“No, I want to be with you, Uncle Lloyd.” + +She was sitting on the arm of his morris chair, softly stroking his +heavy hair away from his forehead. + +“Looks like it, the way you hurried back,” Dr. Fenneben said, smiling. + +“But Uncle Joshua is n't well, although, to be honest, he didn't seem +a bit anxious to have me stay. He's so wrapped up in Sanscrit he has no +time to live in the present. Why didn't he ever marry?” + +“You have just said why,” her uncle answered her. + +“Why did n't you ever marry. Were you ever in love?” + +The library lamp cast only a shaded light over Lloyd Fenneben lounging +comfortably in his chair. To a woman's eye he would have seemed the +picture of an ideal husband. + +“Yes, I was in love once. I did n't marry because--because--I didn't.” + +“How romantic! Was it unrequited, or money, or what?” Norrie asked, +eagerly. + +“Or what,” he answered, and her finer sense made her change the subject. + +“Say, Uncle Lloyd, Uncle Joshua says he wants me to marry.” + +“What's he up to now? Tell me about it.” + +Norrie was charming tonight in a dainty red evening gown that set off +her pretty face, crowned with beautiful dark hair. Somehow the sight of +her made deeper the void in Fenneben's life--since that love affair of +his own long ago. + +“Well,” Norrie went on, “Uncle says I'm to marry rich, because my papa +expected me to. He said papa had money which was mamma's and he used it +for college endowments, because the Wreams love colleges best, and that +it was his wish, and it's Uncle Joshua's too, that I should marry well. +I knew I came honestly by my love of spending. I inherited it from my +mother. Aren't the Wreams all funny men to just see nothing in money, +but a cap and gown and a Master's Degree? But you are a human being, +Uncle Lloyd. You wouldn't leave a daughter dependent on her uncles and +use her money to endow colleges, would you?” The white arm stole round +his neck affectionately, as Elinor added softly, “I'm going to tell you +something else. Uncle Joshua wants me to marry Professor Burgess.” + +“Do you want to marry him?” Fenneben asked. + +“He hasn't asked me to yet. But he is such a gentleman and he has a +fortune in his own name, or in trust, or something like that. It would +please the Cambridge folks, and Uncle Joshua expects me to consent, +and I've never disobeyed uncle's wishes, so I couldn't refuse now. And, +well, if he'll wait till I'm ready, I guess it will suit me.” + +“He'll wait all right, if he wants you, Norrie. He must wait until you +graduate,” the Dean declared. + +“Oh, yes; a Wream without a college diploma is like a ship without a +compass, a mere derelict on life's sea. I'm in no hurry anyhow,” and she +began to talk of other things. + +In the months that followed Trench had no need to watch Professor +Burgess in his relation to Dennie Saxon, for Burgess had no thought of +her other than of kindly sympathy. That is, Burgess thought he had no +thought. He knew he was in love with Elinor, knew that back in Cambridge +before he was graduated from the university. He had been told that +Elinor liked luxurious living, and he had money--he had told Fenneben as +much in their first interview. Everything seemed to be settled now, for +Joshua Wream had written Burgess the kind of letter only a very old man, +and an abstract scholar, and a bachelor would ever write, telling all +that he had said to Norrie. He made it obligatory that Fenneben should +first give his sanction to the union. He requested also that Burgess +would never mention this letter to his dear young niece, and he +expressly stipulated that Norrie should graduate at Sunrise first. He +ended with an old man's blessing and with the assurance that with Elinor +safely provided for his conscience (why his conscience?) would be at +rest, and he could die in peace. So there was smooth sailing at Sunrise +for many months. Elinor was always charming, and Dr. Fenneben seemed +oblivious to the situation, least of all to putting up any objection, +which, according to brother Joshua, would have blocked the game of love. +There was time now for profound research, the study of types, seclusion, +and the advantage of geographical breath which had brought the Professor +to Kansas, and which he heeded less and less with the passing days. For +he found himself more and more living in the lives of the students. He +had been ashamed, once, of having been Dennie Saxon's escort; and he +never knew when she came to be the one person in Lagonda Ledge to whom +he turned for confidence and aid in many things. + +Meanwhile the big boy from the western claim was as surely going up the +rounds of culture as the Professor was coming down to the common needs +of common minds, and both were unconscious then that back of each was +Dr. Fenneben, “dear old Funnybone” to the student body, playing each +man for his king row in the great game of life fought out in +Sunrise-by-the-Walnut. + +Toward Elinor, Victor Burleigh seemed utterly indifferent. Even Lloyd +Fenneben, who had caught an insight into things on the night of the +October storm, and had begun to read that new line in the boy's face, +failed to grasp what lay back of those innocent-looking, wide-open eyes, +whose tiger-golden gleam showed but rarely now. Vic was easily the +most popular fellow in his class, and the year at Sunrise had worked a +marvelous change in him. + +“You are a darned smooth citizen,” Trench drawled, as he and Burleigh +stood in the shade by the campus gate on the closing day of their +freshman year. + +A group of girls had been bidding the two good-bye for the summer. As +Elinor Wream, who was the last one of the company, offered her hand to +Vic there was a look of expectancy in her glance which found no response +in his own eyes. As he turned away with indifferent courtesy to Trench, +the big right guard stared hard at him. + +“You are a--well, any kind of a smooth citizen, I say,” he repeated. + +“What's troubling your liver now?” Vic asked. + +Trench did not heed the question, but said, slowly: “And-the-big-noble- +hearted-young-fellow-walked-in-and-out-beside-how-the-touch-of-her-hand- +thrilled-his-every-pulse-beat,-and-how-her-smile-was-the-light-of-his- +soul. And-he-grew-handsomer-and-more-beloved-with-the-passing-manhood--” + +A sudden clutch on Trench's arm, the blaze of the old-time fury in +burning eyes, as Vic's hoarse voice cried: + +“For God's sake, Trench, get out of my sight!” + +“I will,” drawled Trench. “The only friend you ever had. I'll carry my +troubles up to Big Chief Funnybone. Like as not he'll sentence me to +tumble you through the chapel door of the south turret down the 'road to +perdition.' No use though, you go that road every day. Better treat me +right and tell me all your troubles. If there is any cool handle to take +hold of Gehanna by next to Funnybone, I'm the one fellow in Sunrise to +grab onto it.” + +But Vic was out of hearing. + +And the days of a long, hot Kansas summer, a glorious autumn, and a +short, nippy winter swung by in their appointed seasons. And now the +springtime was unrolling in dainty beauty of tender green leaf, and +growing grass, and warm, sweet air, and trill of song bird. College +students philosophize little in the springtime of their sophomore year. +Having learned all that books can teach, and a little more, they seek +other pastime. Nobody in Sunrise except Dr. Fenneben took the time to +remember how stiff and ungenial Professor Burgess was when he first came +West; nor what an awkward gosling Victor Burleigh was the day he entered +Sunrise; nor that once it could have seemed just a little odd to invite +Dennie Saxon, a poor student, daughter of a half-reformed drunkard, to +the class parties; nor that even Elinor Wream, “Norrie the beloved,” was +not supposed to be engaged to Vincent Burgess. Supposed! And that, when +her senior year was well along, the engagement would be openly spoken of +as now in her sophomore year, it was quietly accepted, even if Professor +Burgess was often Dennie Saxon's escort. That was because he was such a +gentleman. Nor that with all these changes Trench had remained the same +old lazy Trench, the comfortable idol of the girls, for he was right +guard to all of them, and cared for none. And they never knew till +afterward that for all the four years he was faithful to a little +sweetheart out in the sandy Cimarron River country, to whom he took +back clean hands and a pure heart, when he went home after four years of +college life. + +None of these things were noted especially, save by Dr. Lloyd Fenneben, +and he wasn't a sophomore nor a professor in love with a pretty girl; a +professor learning for the first time that sympathy has also its culture +value, as well as perfectly translated Horace, and that the growth of +a human soul means something as beautiful as the growth of a complete +conjugation on an old Greek stem from an older Greek root. Fenneben had +learned all this while he was chasing about the Kansas prairies with a +college in his vest pocket. + +There were some unchanged things, however, which Fenneben only guessed +at. Victor Burleigh had never apologized to Professor Burgess for his +rude attack, unless a certain strained dignified courtesy be the mark of +a tacit apology. And Burgess could give only cold recognition to the big +fellow who had choked him into submission and had gone unpunished by the +college authorities. + +Between these two Fenneben guessed there was no change. But he did not +grieve deeply. There must be a personal phase in this grudge that no +third person could handle. It might be a girl--but the face of the +returns indicated otherwise. Meanwhile the college was doing its perfect +work for Burleigh, whose strength of mind, and self-control, and growing +graciousness of manner betokened the splendid manhood that should rest +on this foundation. While the spirit of the prairie sod, the benediction +of the broad-sweeping air of heaven, and the sturdy, wholesome life +of the sons and daughters of freedom-loving, broad-spirited men and +women--all were giving to Vincent Burgess a new happiness in his work +unlike any pleasure he had ever known before. + +Little Bug Buler, now four years of age, had changed least of all among +changing things about Lagonda Ledge. A sweet-faced, quaint little fellow +he was, with big appealing eyes, a baby lisp to his words, and innocent +ways. He was a sturdy, pudgy, self-reliant youngster, however, who took +long rambles alone and turned up safe at the right moment. All Lagonda +Ledge petted him, even to Burgess, who never forgot the day in the +rotunda when Bug's pitying voice had broken Burleigh's grip on his neck. + +Bond Saxon had not changed, nor the white-haired woman of Pigeon +Place--nor the reputation of the ravines and rocky coverts for hiding +law breakers across the Walnut River. And Fenneben noted often the +slender blue smoke rising where nobody had a house. + +It was an April day in the Walnut Valley, with all the freshness of the +earth just washed and perfumed by April showers. The sunshine was pale +gold. There was a gray-green filmy light from budding trees, and the +old-time miracle of the grass was wrought out once more before the eyes +of men. The orchards along the Walnut were faintly pink, and the eggs in +the robin's nest, the south winds purring through the wooded spaces, the +odor of far-plowed furrows on the prairie farms, all gave assurance +of the year's gladdest days. From the Sunrise ledge the beauty of the +landscape was exquisite. There was no haze overhanging the earth now, +and the Walnut Valley was a picture beyond a Master's dream. Victor +Burleigh sat on the top of the flight of steps leading from the lower +campus, looking lazily out with dreamy eyes on all that the earth had to +give on this sweet April afternoon. + +Presently Elinor Wream came around the north angle of the building, +hesitated a little, then walked straight to the steps. + +“Good afternoon, Victor,” she said. + +Burleigh looked up, glad then of his months of discipline and +self-control. A sight good for anybody on a day like this was this +college girl with beautiful dark hair and laughing dark eyes, a satiny +pink and white complexion, and a slender form, clad just now in dainty +pink gingham with faint little edgings of white and pale green, all +stylishly put together to reveal rounded arms, and white neck, and +dimpled chin. + +“Hello, Elinor,” Vic said, calmly, making room for her on the stone +steps. “Take a seat.” + +Elinor sat down beside him, throwing her hat on the ground. + +“Whither away?” Vic asked. + +“I'll tell you presently. I want to get over my stage fright first.” + +“All right, look at this view. I'll give it to you if you like it.” + Vic had turned to the west again and was looking away toward the dreamy +prairies beyond the valley. + +Elinor recalled the September day when the bull snake lay sunning itself +on this very stone. How shy and awkward he seemed then, with only a deep +sweet voice to attract favorable attention. And now, big, and graceful, +and handsome, and reserved--any girl might be proud to have his regard. +Of course, for herself, there was Vincent Burgess in the pleasant +inevitable sometime. She gave little thought to that. She was living in +the present. And in the wooing spirit of the April afternoon Elinor was +glad to sit here beside Victor Burleigh. + +“What time next month do we have the big baseball game?” she asked. “The +game that is to make Sunrise the champion college in Kansas, and you our +college champion?” Vic's lips suddenly grew gray. + +“Friday, the thirteenth--auspicious date!” he answered. “But I may not +play in it. I might fail.” + +“Oh, we must win this game, anyhow, and you never do fail. Don't forget +the name your mother gave you. Do you remember when you told me that?” + +“A couple of thousand years ago, wasn't it?” Vic asked, smiling down +on her. “If I don't play Sunrise needn't fail, even for Friday, the +thirteenth.” + +“But it will fail without you. You pulled us to victory a year ago +at the Thanksgiving game, and last fall the Sunrise goal line wasn't +crossed the whole season with 'Burleigh! Burly! Burlee!' for a slogan. +We must win this year. Then it will be a complete championship: +football, basket-ball, and baseball. We won't do it though unless we +have 'Burleigh at the bat'.” + +A shadow crossed his face and he looked away to where a tiny film of +blue smoke was rising above the rough ledges beyond the river. + +“I'm getting over my stage fright now,” Elinor said, the pink deepening +on her fair cheek, “and I'll tell you what I want.” + +“Command me!” he said, gallantly. + +“Well, it's awful, and the girls are too mean to live. But they are +getting even with me, they say, for something I did last fall.” + +“All right.” Vic was waiting, graciously. + +“A lot of us have broken some of the rules of the Sorority and it's +decreed that I must go over the route we came home by on the night of +the storm down in the Kickapoo Corral. They are having a 'spread' down +there at five o'clock and we are to get there in time for it, going +by the west side of the river, and they'll bring us home. They said I +should ask you to go with me, and if you would n't go for me to ask Mr. +Trench to go. They are too silly for anything.” + +“Trench was executed for manslaughter at two forty-five today. It's +three o'clock now. Let's go.” He lifted her to her feet and stooped to +pick up her hat. + +“Do you really mind going with me, Victor?” Elinor asked. + +“Do I mind? I've been waiting two years for you to ask me to go.” His +voice was very deep and there was a soft light in his brown eyes. + +Elinor's pulse beat felt a thrill. A sudden sense of the sweetness of +the day and of a joy unlike any other joy of her life possessed her. + +Down on the bridge they stopped to watch the sunlit waters of the Walnut +rippling below them. + +“Are we the same two who crept up on this bridge, wet, and muddy and +tired, and scared one stormy October night eighteen months ago?” Elinor +asked. + +“I've had no reincarnation that I know of,” Vic replied. + +“I have,” Elinor declared, and Vic thought of Burgess. + +Up the narrow hidden glen they made their way, clambering about broken +ledges, crossing and recrossing the little stream, hugging the dry +footing under overhanging rock shelves, laughing at missteps and +rejoicing in the springtime joy, until they came suddenly upon a grassy +open space, cliff-walled and hidden, even from the rest of the glen. +At the farther end was the low doorway-like entrance to the cave. The +song-birds were twittering in the trees above them, the waters of the +little stream gurgled at their feet, the woodsy odor of growing things +was in the air, and all the little glen was restful and quiet. + +“Isn't it beautiful and romantic--and everything nice?” Elinor cried. +“I don't mind this sentence to hard service. It is worth it. Do you mind +the loss of time, Victor?” + +“I counted it gain to be here with you, even in the storm and terror. +How can this be loss?” he answered her. His voice was low and musical. + +Elinor looked up quickly. And quickly as the thing had come to Victor +Burleigh on the west bluff above the old Kickapoo Corral two Octobers +ago, so to Elinor Wream came the vision of what the love of such a man +would be to the woman who could win it. + +“Do you really mean it, Victor? Was n't I a lump of lead? A dead weight +to your strength that night? You have never once spoken of it.” + +She looked up with shining eyes and put out her hand. What could he do +but keep it in his own for a moment, firm-held, as something he would +keep forever. + +“I have never once forgotten it,” he murmured. + +The cave by daylight was as the lightning had shown it, a big chamber, +rock-walled, rock-floored, rock-roofed, in the side of the bluff, but +little below the level of the ground and easy of entrance. It was cool +and damp, but, with the daylight through the doorway, it was merely +shadowy inside. In the farther wall yawned the ragged opening to the +black spaces leading off underground. Through this opening these two +had crept once, feeling that behind the wall somebody was crouching +with evil intent. They peered through the opening now, trying to see the +miraculous way by which they had come into the cave from the rear. +But they stared only into blackness and caught the breath of the damp +underground air with a faint odor of wood smoke somewhere. + +“Elinor, it's a good thing we came through here in the night. It would +have been maddening to be forced in here by daylight. We must have +slipped down through a hole somewhere in our stumbles and hit a passage +leading out of here only to the river, a sort of fire escape by way of +the waters. You remember we couldn't get anywhere on the back track, +except to the cliff above the Walnut. It's all very fine if the escaper +gets out of the river before he reaches Lagonda's whirlpool.” + +He was leaning far through the opening in the wall, gazing into the +darkness and seeing nothing. + +“Somewhere back in there, while I was pawing around that night, I found +something up in a chink that felt like the odd-shaped little silver +pitcher my mother had once--an old family heirloom, lost or stolen some +time ago. I came back and hunted for it later, but it was winter time +and cold as the grave outside and darker in here, and I couldn't find +anything, so I concluded maybe I was mistaken altogether about its being +like that old pitcher of ours. It was a bad night for 'seein' things'; +it might have been for 'feelin' things' as well. There's nothing here +but damp air and darkness.” + +And even while he was speaking close beside the wall, so near that a +hand could have reached him, a man was crouching; the same man whose +cruel eyes had stared through the bushes at Lloyd Fenneben as he sat by +the river before Pigeon Place; the same man whose eyes had leered at Vic +Burleigh in this same place eighteen months before; the same man whom +little Bug Buler's innocent face had startled as he was about to seize +the money box at the gateway to the Sunrise football field; and this +same man was crouching now to spring at Vic Burleigh's throat in the +darkness. + +“It's a good thing a fellow has a guardian angel once in a while,” Vic +said, as he hastily withdrew his head and shoulders. “We get pretty +close to the edge of things sometimes and never know how near we are to +destruction.” + +“We were pretty close that night,” Elinor replied. + +“Shall we rest here a little while, or do your savage sorority sisters +require you to do time in so many minutes?” Vic asked, as they left +the cave and came again into the sunlight, and all the sweetness of the +April woodland, and the rugged beauty of the glen. + +“I'm glad to rest,” Elinor said, dropping down on a stone. Her cheeks +were blooming from the exercise of the tramp, and her pretty hair was in +disorder. + +Far away from the west prairie came the faint note of a child's voice in +song. + +“Victor,” Elinor said, as they listened, “do you know that the Sunrise +girls envy Bug Buler? They say you would have more time for the girls +if it wasn't for him. What you spend for him you could spend on light +refreshments for them, don't you see?” + +“I know I'm a stingy cuss,” Vic said, carelessly, but a deeper red +touched his cheek. + +“You know you are not,” Elinor insisted, “and I've always thought it +was a beautiful thing for a big grown man like you to care for a little +orphan boy. All the girls think so, too.” + +Burleigh looked down at her gratefully. + +“I thought once--in fact, I was told once--that my care for him was +sufficient reason why I should let all the girls alone, most of all why +I should not think of Elinor Wream.” + +“How strange!” Elinor's face had a womanly expression. “I've never had +a little child to love me. I've been brought up with only AEneas's +small son Ascanius, and other classical children, on Uncle Joshua's Dead +Language book shelves. I feel sometimes as if I'd been robbed.” + +“You? I didn't know you had ever wanted anything you did n't get.” + +Victor had thought all things were due to her and came as duly. The +womanly look on her face now was a revelation to him. But then he had +not dared to study her face for months, and he did not yet realize what +life in Dr. Fenneben's home must mean to her character-building. + +“I'll tell you some time about something I ought to have had, a +sacrifice I was forced to make; but not now, Tell me about Bug.” + +There was no bitterness in Elinor's tone, yet the idea of her having the +capacity to endure gave her a newer charm to the man beside her. + +“I have never known whose child Bug is,” he began. “The way in which +he came to me is full of terrible memories, and it all happened on +the blackest day of my life--the hard life of a lonely boy on a Kansas +claim. That's why I never speak of it and try always to forget it. I +found him by mere accident, helpless and in awful danger. He was about +two years old then and all he could say was 'bad man' and his name, 'Bug +Buler.' I've wondered if Bug is his name, or if he could not speak his +real name plainly then.” + +Burleigh paused, and a sense of Elinor's interest brought a thrill of +joy to him. + +“Where was he?” she asked. + +Vic slowly unfastened his cuff and slipped his coat sleeve up to his +elbow. + +“Do you remember that scar?” he asked. “It is not the only one I have. +I fought with death for that baby boy and I shall always carry the scars +of that day. Bug was alone in a lonely little deserted dugout. Somebody +had left him there to perish. He was on a low chair, the only furniture +in the room, and on the earth floor between him and me were five of the +ugliest rattlesnakes that ever coiled for a deadly blow. Little Bug held +out his arms to me, and I'll never forget his baby face--and--I killed +them all and carried him away. It was a dangerous, hard job, but the boy +I saved has been the blessing of my life ever since. I could not have +endured the days that followed without his need for care and his love +and innocence. He's kept me good, Elinor. When I got back home with +him my mother, who had been very sick, was dead, and our house had been +robbed of every valuable by some thief--a wayside tragedy of western +Kansas. That was the day the pitcher was stolen. A note was left warning +me not to follow nor try to find out who had done the stealing, but I +thought I knew anyhow. That's why I killed that bull snake the first day +I came to Sunrise and that's why I must have looked like a bulldog to +you, soft-sheltered Cambridge folks. Life has been mostly a fist fight +for me, but Dr. Fenneben has taught me that there are other powers +beside physical strength. That the knock-down game doesn't bring the +real victory always. I hope I've learned a little here.” + +A little! Could this be the big awkward freshman of a September day gone +by? Then college culture is surely worth the cost. + +Elinor leaned forward, eagerly. + +“Tell me about your father,” she said. + +“My father lost his life because he dared to tell the truth,” Victor +replied. + +“Oh, glorious!” Elinor cried, earnestly. + +“I have always loved my father's memory for his courage,” Victor +continued. “He was a believer in law enforcement and he was a terror +to the bootleggers who carried whisky into our settlement. A man named +Gresh was notorious for selling whisky to the claim holders. He gave it, +Elinor, gave it, to a boy, a widow's son, made him drunk, robbed him, +and left him to freeze to death in a blizzard. The boy lived long enough +to tell my father who did it, and it was his testimony that helped to +convict Gresh and start him to the penitentiary. He escaped from the +sheriff on the way--and, so far as I know, there's one bad man still at +large, a fugitive before the law. Whisky is the devil's own best tool, +whether a man drinks it himself or gets other people to drink it.” + +“That's a bad name,” Elinor said. “My grandfather adopted a boy named +Gresh, who turned out bad. I think he was killed in a saloon row in +Chicago. Did this Gresh ever trouble you again?” + +Burleigh's face was grim as he answered: + +“My father was waylaid and murdered with a club by this man. He escaped +afterward into Indian Territory. He left his own name, Gresh, scrawled +on a piece of paper pinned to my father's coat to show whose revenge +was worked out. He was a volcano of human hate--that man Gresh. After +my father's name was written--'The same club for every Burleigh who ever +crosses my path.' I expect to cross his path some day, and if I ever lay +my eyes on that fiend it will go hard with one of us.” The yellow +glow burned again in Victor Burleigh's eyes and his fists clinched +involuntarily. They were silent a while, until the sweetness of the +day and the joy of being together wooed them to happier thoughts. Then +Elinor remembered her disordered hair and, throwing aside her hat, she +deftly put it into place. + +“Am I presentable for the supper at the Kickapoo Corral?” she asked, as +she picked up her hat again. + +“You suit me,” Burleigh replied. “What are the Kickapoo requirements?” + +“That Victor Burleigh shall be satisfied,” she answered, roguishly. +“Really, that's right. Four girls offered to substitute for me in this +penitential pilgrimage and write some long translations for me beside.” + +“Four, individually or collectively?” he asked. + +“Either way,” she answered. + +“Why did n't you let them do it? + +“Which way?” + +“Either way,” he replied. + +“Would you rather have had the four either way, than me?” she +questioned, with pretty vanity. + +“Much rather.” His voice was stern. + +“Why?” She was stung by the answer. + +The glen was all a dreamy gray-green ruggedness of shelving rock with +mossy crevices and ferny nooks. The sunlight filtering through the +young leaves fell about them in a shadow-flecked softness. There was a +crooning song of some bird on its nest, the murmur of waters rippling +down the stony shallows, and a beautiful girl in a dainty pink dress +with her fingers just touching her fluffy masses of hair. + +“Why?” + +With the question Elinor looked up and saw why. Saw in Victor Burleigh's +golden-brown eyes a look she had never read in eyes before; saw the +whole face, the rugged, manly face lighted with a man's overmastering +love. And the joy of it thrilled her soul. + +“Do you know why?” + +He leaned toward her ever so little. And Elinor Wream, forgetful of +the Wream family rank, forgetful of her tacit consent to Uncle Joshua's +wishes, forgetful of Vincent Burgess and his heritage of culture, +beautiful Elinor Wream, with her starry eyes, and cheeks of +peach-blossom pink, put out her hands to Victor Burleigh, who took them +eagerly. + +“Let me hold them a minute,” he said, softly. “There are sixty years to +remember, but only one hour like this.” + +Then, forgetful of the world and the demands of the world, keeping her +hands in his, he bent and kissed her, as from the foundation of the +world it was his right to do. And Love's Young Dream, not bought +with pain, as mother love is bought, nor wrought out with prayer and +sacrificial service, as love for all humanity is won, came again on this +April day to the little, rock-sheltered glen beside the bright waters +of the Walnut, and briefly there rebuilt in rainbow hues the old, old +paradise of joy for these two alone. + +And into the new Eden came the new serpent also for to destroy. Before +Elinor and Victor was the sunlit valley. Behind them was the cave's +mouth with its shadowy gloom deepening back to dense darkness. And +creeping stealthily through that blackness, like a serpent warming its +venom and writhing slowly toward the light, a human form was slowly, +stealthily crawling outward, with head upreared and cruel eyes alert. +The brutal face was void of pity, as if the conscience behind it had +long been bound and gagged to human sympathy. + +While Burleigh was speaking the caveman had reached the doorway and +reared up just beside it in the shadow. Clutching a brutal-looking club +in his hairy, rough hand, he stood listening to the story of the murder +that had left Victor fatherless. The face of the listener made clear the +need for guardian angels. One leap, one blow, and Victor Burleigh would +carry only one more scar to his grave. + +Suddenly a faint piping voice floated in upon the glen: + + Little childwen pwessing near + To the feet of Thwist, the Ting, + Have you neiver doubt nor fear + Or some twibute do you bwing? + + +And Bug Buler, flushed and splashed, and generally muddy and happy, came +around the fallen ledges and debauched into the grassy sunshiny space +before the cavern. Only a tiny, tumbled-up, joyous child, with no power +in his pudgy little arm; and Victor Burleigh, tall, muscular and agile. +Against this man of tremendous strength the caveman's club was lifted. +But with the sound of the child's voice and the sight of the innocent +face the club fell harmless. A look of fright, deepening to a maniac's +terror, seized the creature, and noiselessly and swiftly as a serpent +would escape he crawled back into the darkness and burrowed deep from +the eyes of men. So strength that day was ruled by weakness. + +“I ist followed you, Vic,” Bug said, clutching Vic's hand. + +“This is n't a safe place to come, Bug. You must n't follow me here.” + +“Nen you must n't go into is n't safe places, so I won't follow. Little +folks don't know,” Bug said, with cunning gravity. + +“He is right,” Elinor said. “I think we'd better leave now.” + +They knew that henceforth this spot would be holy ground for them, but +they did not dare to think further than that. They only wished that the +moments would stay, that the sun would loiter slowly down the afternoon +sky. + +“I know a way out,” Bug declared. Turn, “I'll show you.” + +Then, with a child's sense of direction, he led away from the cave out +to where the deep ravine headed in a rough mass of broken rock. + +“Tlimb up that and you're out,” Bug declared. + +They climbed up to the high level prairie that sweeps westward from the +Walnut bluffs. + +“Doodby, folks. I want to Botany wiv urn over there. I turn wiv Limpy +out here.” + +Bug pointed to a group of students wandering about in search of dogtooth +violets and other botanical plunder from Nature's springtime treasury. +Among the group was Bug's chum, the crippled student. + +“Well, stay with them this time, you little wandering Jew,” Vic +admonished, nor dreamed how his guardian angel had come to him this day +in the guise of this same little wanderer. + +When Victor and Elinor had come at last to the west bluff above the +Walnut River, the late afternoon was already casting long shadows across +the grassy level of the old Kickapoo Corral. And again the camp fires +were glowing where a Sorority “spread” was merrily in the making. + +They must go down soon and join in the hilarity. But a golden half hour +yet hung in the west--and the going down meant the going back to all +that had been. + +“Look at the foam on the whirlpool, Elinor. See how deliberately it +swings upstream. Isn't that a most deceiving bit of treachery?” Vic said +as he watched the river. + +Elinor looked thoughtfully at the slow-moving water. + +“I cannot endure deceit,” she said at last. “I like honesty in +everything. I said I would tell you sometime about a sacrifice I was +forced to make. I'll tell you now if you will not speak of what I say.” + +How delicious to have her confidence in anything. Vic smiled assent. + +“My father had a fortune from my mother. When he died he left me to +the care of my two uncles, and gave all his money to endow chairs in +universities. He thought a woman could marry money, and that he was +doing mankind a service in this endowment. Maybe he was, but I've always +rebelled against being dependent. I've always wanted my own. Uncle +Joshua thinks I am frivolous, and he has told Uncle Lloyd that it's just +my love of spending and extravagant notions that makes me rebel against +conditions. It is n't. It's the sense of being robbed, as it were. It +was n't right and honest toward me, even in a great cause, to leave +me dependent. Uncle Lloyd would never have done it. I hope he does n't +think I'm as bad as Uncle Joshua does. You won't mind my telling you +this, nor think me ungrateful to my relatives for their care of me. +Nobody quite understands me but you.” + +The time had come for them to join the jolly picnic crowd in the +Corral. She would go back to Vincent Burgess in a little while, and this +glorious day would be only a memory. And yet, down in the pretty glen, +Victor had held her hands and kissed her red lips. And she had been +glad down there. The void in his life seemed blacker than the blackness +behind the cavern. + +“Elinor,” he asked, suddenly, “are you bound by any promise--has +Professor Burgess--?” He hesitated. + +“No,” she answered, turning her face away. + +“Pardon my rudeness. You know I am not well-bred,” he said, gently. + +“Victor Burleigh, you ill-bred, of all the gentle, manly fellows in +Sunrise! You know you are not.” + +A great hope leaped to life now, as Vic recalled the query, “If Victor +Burleigh had his corners knocked off and was sandpapered down and +had money?”--and of Elinor's blushing confession that it would make a +difference she could not help if these things were. The corners were +knocked off now, and Dean Fenneben had gently but persistently applied +the sandpaper. The money must be henceforth the one condition. + +“Elinor.” Vic's voice was sweet as low bars of music. + +“Oh, Victor, there's something I can't prevent.” + +She was thinking of Uncle Joshua, whose money had supported her all +these years and of her obligation to heed his wishes. It was all settled +for her now. And all the while Victor was thinking of his own limited +means as the rock that was wrecking him with her. + +For all his life afterward he never forgot the sorrow of that moment. He +looked into Elinor's face, and all the longing, all the heart-hunger +of the days gone by, and of the days to come seemed to lie in those +wide-open eyes shaded by long black lashes. + +“Elinor, my father's cruel murder and my mother dying alone were one +kind of grief. My fight with those deadly poison things to rescue little +Bug was another kind. My days of hardship and poverty on the claim, with +only Bug and me in that desolate loneliness, was still another. But none +of these seem a sorrow beside what I must face henceforth. And yet I +have one joy mine now. You did care down in the glen. May I keep that +one gracious joy--mine always?” + +“You have always won in every game. You will in this struggle. Don't +forget the name your mother gave you.” Her eyes were luminous with +tears. “We must go down to the Corral now. Tomorrow will make things all +right. I shall be proud of you and your success everywhere, for you will +succeed.” + +“I may not be worthy of victory,” he said, sadly. + +“You have never been unworthy. Don't be now.” She smiled bravely. + +They turned from the west prairie and the sunset, and slowly they passed +out of its passing radiance down to the darkening spaces of the old +Kickapoo Corral. + +And the day with its gladness and sorrow, whether for loss or gain, +slipped into the shadowy beauty of an April twilight. + + + +CHAPTER IX. GAIN, OR LOSS? + + _Ye know how hard an Idol dies, an' what that meant + to me--E'en take it for a sacrifice, acceptable to Thee_. + --KIPLING +THE ball game on Friday, the thirteenth, was a great event this year. +The Sunrise football eleven had held the championship record with an +uncrossed goal line in the autumn. The basket-ball team had had no +defeat this year. Debating tests had given Sunrise the victory. That +came through Trench and the crippled student. And the state oratorical +struggle repeated the story, a conquest, all the greater because Victor +Burleigh, the athlete, wore also the laurels of oratory. And why should +he not, with that fine presence and magnificent voice? As Dr. Fenneben +listened to his forceful logic he saw clearly the line for the boy's +future, a line, he thought, that could end at last only in the pulpit. + +One more battle to fight now and Lagonda Ledge and the whole Walnut +Valley would go down in history as famous soil. It was a banner year for +Sunrise, and enthusiasm was at fever pitch, which in college is the only +healthy temperature. In this last battle Sunrise turned again to Victor +Burleigh as its highest hope. Although this was his first game for the +season, he had never failed to bring victory to the Sunrise banners, and +in all his base-ball practice he was as unerring as he was speedy. And +then success was his habit anyhow. So “Burleigh at the bat” was the +slogan now from the summit of the college ridge to the farthest corners +of Lagonda Ledge; and idol worship were insignificant compared to the +adulation poured out on him. And Burleigh, being young and very human, +had all the pleasure the adoration of a community can bring to its local +hero. For truly, few triumphs in life's later years can be fraught with +half the keen joy these school day victories bring. And the applause of +listening senates means less than good old comrades' yells. + +Vincent Burgess, A.B., Greek Professor from Boston, seemed to have +forgotten entirely about types and geographical breadths and seclusion +for profound research amid barren prairies. He was faculty member on the +Athletic board now and enthusiastic about all college sports. Sunrise +had done this much for him anyhow. In addition, the young educator was +taking on a little roundness, suggestive of a stout form in middle life. + +But Vincent Burgess had not forgotten all of the motives that had +pulled him Kansas-ward, although unknown to Dr. Fenneben, he had already +refused to consider a position higher up in an eastern college. He was +not quite ready to leave the West yet. Of course, not. Elinor Wream was +only half through school and growing more popular as she was growing +more womanly and more beautiful each year. His salvation lay in keeping +on the grounds if he would hold his claim undisturbed. + +Burgess had come to Kansas, he had told Fenneben, in order to know +something of the state where his only sister had lived. He did not know +yet all he wished to know about her life and death here. Her name was +never spoken in his father's presence after she came West, so great was +that father's anger over her leaving the East. And deep in Vincent's +mind he fixed the impression that his daughter had died as unreconciled +to her brother as to her father himself. + +This was all his own business, however, and hidden deep, almost out of +sight of himself, was a selfish motive that had not yet put a visible +mark on the surface. + +Burgess wanted to marry Norrie Wream, and he wanted her to have all the +good things of life which in her simple rearing had been denied her. +The heritage from his father's estate included certain trust funds +ambiguously bestowed by an eccentric English ancestor upon someone who +had come West not long before his death. These funds Vincent held by his +father's will--to which will Joshua Wream was witness--on condition that +no heir to these funds was living. If there were such person or persons +living--but Burgess knew there were none. Joshua Wream had made sure of +that for him before he left Cambridge. And yet it might be well to +stay in Kansas for a year or two--much better to settle any possible +difficulty here than to have anything follow him East later. For Burgess +had his eye on Dr. Wream's chair in Harvard when the old man should +give it up. That was a part of the contract between the two men, the old +doctor and the young professor. Until the night when Bond Saxon forced +him to take an unwilling oath, Burgess had had a comfortable conscience, +sure that his financial future was settled, and confident that this +assured him the hand of Elinor Wream when the time was ripe. With that +October night, however, a weight of anxiety began that increased with +the passing days. For as he grew nearer to the student life and took on +flesh and good will and a broader knowledge of the worth of humanity, so +he grew nearer to this smoothly hidden inner care. And, outside and in, +he wanted to stay in Kansas for the time. + +In the weeks before the big ball game, Victor Burleigh seemed to have +forgotten the glen and the west bluff above the Kickapoo Corral. The +girls who would have substituted for Elinor in the afternoon ramble took +up much of the big sophomore's time, and he never seemed more gay nor +care free. And Elinor, if she had a heartache, did not show it in her +happy manner. + +On the afternoon before the ball game, a May thunderstorm swept the +Walnut Valley and the darkness fell early. As Dennie Saxon waited on +the Sunrise portico before starting out in the rain, Professor Burgess +locked the front door and joined her. Victor Burleigh was also waiting +beside a stone column for the shower to lighten. Burgess did not see +him in the darkening twilight and Burleigh never spoke to the young +instructor when it was not necessary. + +“I must be nervous,” Professor Burgess said, trying to manage Dennie's +umbrella and catching it in her hair. “I had a letter today that worried +me.” + +“Too bad!” Dennie said sympathetically. + +“I'll tell you all about it sometime.” + +He was trying to loose the wire rib-joint from Dennie's hair, which +the dampness was rolling in soft little ringlets about her forehead and +neck. Half-consciously, he remembered the same outline of rippling +hair, as it had looked in the glow of the October camp fire down in the +Kickapoo Corral when she was telling the old legend of Swift Elk and The +Fawn of the Morning Light. She smiled up at him consolingly. Dennie was +level-headed, and life was always worth living where she was. + +“I'll be your rain beau.” He took her arm to assist her down the steps. + +So courteous was his action, she might have been a lady of rank instead +of old Bond Saxon's daughter carrying her own weight of a sorrow greater +than Lagonda Ledge dreamed of. As the two walked slowly homeward under +the dripping shelter of the trees, Vincent Burgess felt a sense of +comfort and pleasure out of all keeping for a man in love elsewhere. +Victor Burleigh watched them from the shadow of the portico column. + +“I believe Trench is right. He insists that Burgess likes Dennie, or +that he is mean enough to deceive Dennie into liking him. A man like +that ought to be killed--a scholar, and a rich man, and Dennie such a +brave little poor girl with a kind, weak-kneed, old father on her heart. +Norrie ought to know this, but who am I to say a word?” + +“Victor Burleigh, won't you release the fair princess from the tower?” a +girl's voice called. + +Vic turned to see Elinor framed in the half-way window of the south +turret. And in that dripping shadowy light, no frame could want a rarer +picture. + +“I've fallen into the pit and am far on the road to perdition,” Elinor +said. “I hurried down this way from choir practice and Uncle Lloyd's +gone and left the lower door locked. It thundered so, and Dennie didn't +come into the study, and nobody heard my screams. But if I perish, I +perish,” she added with mock resignation. + +“If you'll let up on perishing for half a minute, Rapunzel, I'll to +the rescue,” Vic cried, “if I have to climb the dome and knock the _per +aspera_ out of the State Seal and come down through the hole, _per astra +ad aspera_.” And then he rushed off to find an unlocked exit to the +building. + +From the Chapel end of the circular stairs, he called presently. + +“Curfew must not ring for a couple of seconds. Rise to the surface, fair +mermaid.” + +Elinor came up the winding stair into the dimly lighted chapel at his +call. The two had avoided each other since the April day in the glen. +They were not to blame for this chance meeting now. + +“When you are in trouble and the nights are dark and rainy, call me, +Elinor,” Vic said as they were crossing the rotunda. + +“If I show you sometimes how to look up and find the light, as you +showed me the Sunrise beacon on the night of the storm out on West +Bluff, you may be glad you heard me. See that glow on the dome! You +would have missed that down in Lagonda Ledge.” + +A level ray from a momentary cloudrift in the western sky smote the +stained glass of the dome, lighting its gleaming inscription with a +fleeting radiance. + +“But the light comes rarely and is so far away, and between times, only +the cave, and the dark ways behind it leading to the river,” he said +gravely. The sorrow of hopelessness was his tone. + +“Not unless one chooses to burrow downward,” she replied softly. “Let's +hurry home. Tomorrow you will be 'Victor the Famous' again. I hope this +shower won't spoil the ball game.” + +As night deepened, the rain fell steadily. Up in Victor Burleigh's room +Bug Buler grew drowsy early. + +“I want to say my pwayers now, Vic,” he said. + +The big fellow put down his book and took the child in his arms. Bug +had a genius for praying briefly and for others rather than for himself. +Tonight he merely clasped his chubby hands and said, reverently: + +“Dear Dod, please ist make Vic dood as folks finks he is, for Thwist's +sake. Amen-n-n.” + +When he fell asleep, Victor sat a long while staring at the window where +the May rain was beating heavily. At length, he bent over little Bug and +pushed back the curls from his brow. Bug smiled up drowsily and went on +sleeping. + +“As good as folks think I am, Bug!” he mused. “You have gotten between +me and the rattlesnakes that were after my soul a good many times, +little brother-of-mine. As good as folks think I am! Do you know what it +costs to be that good?” + +Ten minutes later he sat in Lloyd Fenneben's library. + +“I have come for help,” he said in reply to the Dean's questioning face. + +“I hope I can give it,” Fenneben responded. + +“It's about tomorrow's game. There are sure to be some professional +players on the other team. I want Sunrise to win. I want to win myself.” + Vic's voice was harsh tonight. And the Dean caught the hard tone. + +“I want Sunrise to win. I want you to win. There will probably be some +professionals to play against, but we have no way of proving this,” + Fenneben said. + +“What do you think of such playing, Doctor?” Vic asked. + +“I think the rule about professionalism is often a strained piece of +foolishness. It is violated persistently and persistently winked at, but +so long as it is the rule there is only one square thing to do, and that +is to live up to the law. You should not dread any professionalism in +the game tomorrow, however. You'll bring us through anyhow, and keep the +Sunrise name and fame untarnished.” The Dean smiled genially. + +Burleigh's face was very pale and a strange fire burned in his eyes. + +“Dr. Fenneben”--his musical voice rang clear--“I'm only a poor devil +from the short-grass country where life each year depends on that year's +crop. Three years out of four, the wind and drouth bring only failure +at harvest time. Then we starve our bodies and grip onto hope and +determination with our souls till seedtime comes again. I want a college +education. Last summer burned us out as usual within a month of harvest. +Then the mortgage got in its work on my claim and I had to give it up. +I had barely enough to get through here at pauper rates this year--but +I could n't do it and keep Bug, too. I went into Colorado and played +baseball for pay, so I could come here and bring him with me. That's why +I can out-bat our team, and could win dead easy for Sunrise tomorrow. +Nobody in Kansas knows it. Now, what shall I do?” + +The words were shot out like bullets. + +“What shall you do?” Lloyd Fenneben's black eyes held Burleigh. “There +is only one thing to do. When you ranked high in grades with only the +trivial matter of excusable absence against you--no broken law--you took +Professor Burgess gently by the throat and told him you meant to play +anyhow. You stood your ground like a man, for your own sake and for the +honor of Sunrise. Stand like a man for your own sake and the honor of +Sunrise, now. Go to Professor Burgess and take him gently--by the hand, +this time--and tell him you do not mean to play, and why you cannot.” + +Burleigh sat still as stone, his face white as marble, his wide-open +eyes under his black brows seeing nothing. + +“But our proud record--the glorious honor of this college,” he said at +length, and back of his words was the thought of Victor Burleigh, the +idol of Sunrise, dethroned, where he had been adored. + +“There is no honor for a college like the honesty of its students. There +is no prouder record than the record of daring to do the right. You +could get into the game once by a brute's strength. Get out of it now by +a gentleman's honor.” + +Behind the speech was Lloyd Fenneben himself, sympathetic, firm, +upright, before whom the harshness of Victor Burleigh's face slowly gave +place to an expression of sorrow. + +“My boy,” Fenneben said gently, “Nature gave us the Walnut Valley with +its limestone ledges and fine forest trees. But before our Sunrise could +be builded the ledge had to be shapen into the hewn stone, the green +tree to the seasoned lumber, quarter-sawed oak--quarter-sawed, mind you. +Mill, forge and try-pit, ax and saw and chisel, with cleft and blow +and furnace heat, shaped them all for Service. Over our doorway is +the Sunrise initial. It stands also for Strife, part of which you know +already; but it stands for Sacrifice as well. You are in the shaping. +God grant you may be turned out a man fitted by Sacrifice for Service +when the shaping is done.” + +Burleigh rose, silent still, and the two went out together. At the +doorway, he turned to Fenneben, who grasped his hand without a word. And +once again, the firm hand clasp of the Dean of Sunrise seemed to bind +the country boy to the finer things of life. It had done the same on +that day after the Thanksgiving game when he sat in Fenneben's study, +and understood for the first time what gives the right to pride in +brawny arm and steel-spring nerve. + +After Burleigh left him, Lloyd Fenneben stood for a long time on his +veranda in the light of the doorway watching the steady downpour of the +warm May rain. As he turned at length to enter the house a rough-looking +man with rain-soaked clothing and slouched hat, sprang out of the +shadows. + +“Stranger,” he called hastily. “There's a little child fell in the river +round the bend, and his mother got hold of him, but she can't pull him +out, and can't hold on much longer. Will you come help me, quick? I've +only got one arm or I would n't have had to ask for help.” + +An empty sleeve was flapping in the rain, and Fenneben did not notice +then that the man kept that side of himself all the time in the shadows. +Fenneben had only one thought as he hurried away in the darkness, to +save the woman and child. His companion said little, directing the +course toward the bend in the river before the gateway of Pigeon Place. +As they pushed on with all speed through rain and mud, Fenneben was +hardly conscious that Dennie Saxon's words about the lonely gray-haired +hermit woman were recurring curiously to his mind. + +“If talking about Sunrise made her cry like that, maybe you might do +something for her,” Dennie had said. He had never tried to do anything +for her. Somehow she seemed to be the woman who was in peril now, and +he was half-consciously blaming himself that he had never tried to help +her, had not even thought of her for months. Women were not in his line, +except the kindly impersonal interest he felt for all the Sunrise +girls, and his sense of responsibility for Norrie, and the memory of a +girl--oh, the hungry haunting memory! + +All this in a semi-conscious fleetness swept across his mind, that was +bent on reaching the river, and on that woman holding a drowning child. +At the bend in the river, the man halted suddenly. + +“Look out! There's a stone; don't stumble!” he said hoarsely, dodging +back as he spoke. + +Then Fenneben was conscious of his own feet striking the slab of stone +by the roadside, of a sudden shove from somebody behind him, a two-armed +man it must have been, of stumbling blindly, trying to catch at the elm +tree that stood there, of falling through the underbrush, headforemost, +into the river, even of striking the water. As he fell, he was very +faintly conscious of a sense of pity for Victor Burleigh fighting out a +battle with his own honor tonight, and then he must have heard a dog's +fierce yelp, and a woman's scream. Somehow, it seemed to come through +distance of time, as out of past years, and not through length of +space--and then of a brutal laugh and an oath with the words: + +“Now for Josh Wream, and--” + +But Fenneben's head had struck the stone ledge against which the Walnut +ripples at low tide, and for a long time he knew no more. + +It was raining still when Victor Burleigh reached the Saxon House. +At the door he met Professor Burgess, who was just leaving. Strangely +enough, the memory of their first meeting at the campus gate on a +September day flashed into the mind of each as they came face to face +now. They never spoke to each other except when it was necessary. And +yet tonight, something made them greet each other courteously. + +“Professor, will you be kind enough to come up to my room a few +minutes?” Burleigh asked, lifting his cap to his instructor with the +words. + +“Certainly,” Vincent Burgess said with equal grace. + +Bug Buler had kicked off the bed covering and lay fast asleep on his +little cot with his stubby arms bare, and his little fat hands, dimpled +in each knuckle, thrown wide apart. + +“I saw a picture like this once for the sign of the cross,” Vic said as +he drew the covering over the little form. “Bug has been a cross to me +sometimes, but he's oftener my salvation.” + +Professor Burgess wondered again, why a boy like Burleigh should have +been given a voice of such rare charm. + +“I will not keep you long,” Vic said, turning from Bug. “I cannot play +in tomorrow's game, and be a man.” + +Then, briefly, he explained the reason. + +“It is raining still. Take my umbrella,” he said at the close of his +simply told story. “But tomorrow's sunshine will dry the field for the +game, all right. Good night.” + +“Good night,” Vincent Burgess said hoarsely, and plunged into the +darkness and the rain. + +Ten steps from the Saxon House, he came plump into Bond Saxon, who +staggered a little to avoid him. + +“My luck on rainy nights,” Vincent thought. “The old fellow's sprees +seem to run with the storms. He hasn't been 'off' for a long time.” + +But Bond Saxon was never more sober in his life, and he clutched the +young man's arm eagerly. + +“Professor Burgess, won't you help me!” he cried. + +“What do you want to do on a night like this?” Burgess asked, +remembering the vow he had been forced to make, by this same man. + +“Come help me save a man's life!” Bond urged. + +“Look here, Saxon. You've got some wild notion out of a boot-legger's +bottle. Straighten up now. It's an infamous thing in a college town like +Lagonda Ledge, where neither a saloon nor a joint would be allowed, that +some imp of Satan should forever be bringing you whisky. Who does it, +anyhow?” + +“I'm not drunk and haven't been for six months. Come on, for God's sake, +and help me to save a life, maybe two lives, from the very man that's +done the boot-leggin' and robbin' in this town for months and months.” + Saxon's words were convincing enough. + +“What can I do?” Burgess asked. “I'm not a policeman.” + +“Come on! Come on!” Saxon urged, tugging at the professor's arm. “It 's +a life, I tell you.” + +Vincent yielded unwillingly, the night, the beating rain, the man who +asked it of him, the purpose, his own unfitness--all holding him back. +Before they had gone far, Bond Saxon suddenly exclaimed: + +“Say, Professor, do you remember the night I asked you to take care of +Dennie if anything should happen to me?” + +“Do YOU remember it?” Burgess responded. “You didn't ask; you demanded.” + +“I was drunk then. I'm sober now. Burgess, if anything should happen to +me now, would you still be willing?” Bond Saxon asked in tense anxiety. + +“I've already taken oath,” Burgess said. “I think your daughter may need +somebody's care before anything happens if you keep up this gait.” + +They hurried on through the rain until they had left the board walk and +the town lights, and were staggering along the cinder-made path, when +Burgess halted. + +“Saxon, who's the man, or two men, you want to save? I believe you are +drunk.” + +Bond Saxon grasped his arm, and said hoarsely: + +“Don't shriek here. We are in danger, now. It's not two men. It's a man +and a woman, maybe. It's Dean Funnybone. Come on!” + + + +CHAPTER X. THE THIEF IN THE MOUTH + + _O, thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no, + name to be known by, let us call thee, devil!_ + --SHAKESPEARE + +WHEN Lloyd Fenneben could think again, the waters had receded, the +rock ledge had turned to a pillow under his head, the river bank was a +straight white hospital wall, sunlight and sweet air for the darkness +and the rain, and Norrie Wream was beside him instead of the brutal +stranger. His heavy black hair was shorn away and his head was bound +with much soft cotton stuffs. His left arm was full of prickles, as if +the blood had just resumed circulation. + +“And meantime?” he said, looking up at Elinor. + +“Yes, meantime, it's June time,” Elinor replied. + +“Well, and what of Sunrise? Did we--” + +“Oh, yes, we did. The college first. The ruling passion, strong in the +hospital. When a Wream gets to kingdom-come, he always asks Saint +Peter first for a mortar board and gown instead of a crown and wings.” + Norrie's eyes were shining. “And he's a little particular about the +lining of the wings, too--Purple, for Law; White, for Letters; Blue, +for Philosophy; Red, for Divinity. Take this quieting powder. College +presidents should be seen and not heard.” She smilingly silenced him. + +Under her gentle ministrations, Dr. Fenneben could picture what comfort +might be in store for Vincent Burgess in a day, doubtless only two years +away. He resented Joshua Wream's estimate of Elinor. Surely Joshua had +never seen her in the place of nurse. + +“Now, meantime, Uncle Lloyd,” Elinor was saying, “commencement passed +off beautifully under Acting-Dean Burgess, considering how sad and +heavy-hearted everybody was. The trustees want to raise Professor +Burgess's salary next year--he's so competent.” + +Lloyd Fenneben's eyes were not bandaged, and as he looked at Elinor he +wondered at her utter lack of reserve and sentiment, when she spoke of +Burgess in such a frank, matter-of-fact way. When he was in love years +ago--but times must have changed. + +“The arrangements for next year are all looked after. Everything will be +done exactly as you would have it done. There's not one thing to put a +worry into that cotton round your head.” + +“Good! Now, tell me of 'beforehand.'” His smile was as charming as ever. + +“In your fever you've been telling us about a one-armed man who had +two arms to push people into the river, of his wanting you to save some +child's life, and of your stumbling over the stone. That's all we know +about that. Bond Saxon and Professor Burgess found you in the water at +the north bend in the Walnut close to that hermit woman's house. Either +you fell in, or somebody pushed you down the bank, headforemost, and +you struck a ledge of rock.” Elinor's eyes were full of tears now. “You +would have been drowned, if that white-haired woman had n't jumped in +and held your head above water while she clung to the bushes with one +hand. Her dog helped, too, like a real hero. It stood on the bank and +held to her shawl that she had fastened round you to hold you. And the +river was rising so fast, too. It was awful. I don't know just how it +was all managed, Uncle Lloyd, but it was managed between the woman and +her dog at first, and Professor Burgess and Bond Saxon at last, and +you are safe now, and on the high road, the very elevated tracks, to +recovery. When your fever was the highest, the doctors kept telling me +about your splendid constitution and your temperate life. You must get +well now.” + +She bent over him and softly caressed his hand. + +“Where is that woman now? Dennie Saxon asked me once to do something for +her in her loneliness. She got ahead of my negligence and did something +for me, it seems.” + +“She left Lagonda Ledge the very day they rushed us up here to the +hospital. Is n't she strange? And she is so gentle and sweet, but so +sad. I never saw such apathetic face as hers, Uncle Lloyd.” + +“When did you see her?” Fenneben asked. + +“She came to ask after you. Nobody thought you would get over it.” + Elinor's voice trembled. “The fever was burning you up and it took three +doctors to hold you. I saw her face when Dennie Saxon said they thought +you wouldn't pull through. Your own sister couldn't have turned whiter, +Uncle Lloyd.” + +“And the one-armed man I seemed to remember?” + +“I don't know. I've been too busy to ask many questions. Lagonda Ledge +is in mourning for you. It will run up the flag above half-mast when I +write how much better you are. Bond Saxon has a theory that some thief +wanted to rob you and decoyed you away on pretense of helping somebody +out of the river. You are an easy mark, Uncle.” + +“Why should Bond Saxon have a theory? And how did he know where to find +me? And how did that gray-haired woman and her dog happen in on the +scene just then? This is a grim sort of dime novel business, Norrie. +Things don't fall out this way in real life unless there is some reason +back of them. I think I'll bear investigating.” + +“I think so myself--you or your romantic rescuing squad. You might call +the dog to the witness stand first, for he was the first on the scene. +I forgot though that the dog is dead. They found him down the river +with his throat cut. The plot thickens.” Elinor's frivolous spirit was +returning with the lessening of care. + +“Tell me about the ball game,” Fenneben said next. + +“Oh, it rained for hours and hours, and there wasn't any train service +for Lagonda Ledge for a week, and all the Inter-Collegiate Athletic +events for the season were called off for Sun rise-by-the-Walnut.” + +“And the students, generally?” Dr. Fenneben questioned. + +“Mr. Trench will be back,” Elinor exclaimed, “and folks have just found +out that it's old Trench who's keeping that crippled boy in school, the +one they call 'Limpy.' Trench rustles jobs for him and divides his own +income for college expenses with the boy for the rest of the cost. I +don't know how the story got out, but I asked him about it when he was +up here to see you. He just grinned and drawled lazily, 'I can save a +little on shoe leather, that some fellows wear out hurrying so, and I +don't burst up so many hats with a swelled head as some do. So I keep a +little extra change on these accounts. We're going down to Oklahoma when +we graduate. Limpy's going to be a Methodist preacher and I a stockman. +I'll keep him in raw material for converts out of the cowboys I'll have +to handle.' Isn't old Trenchy a hero? He says Dean Funnybone showed him +how to think about somebody else beside Trench a little bit.” + +“Oh, yes; Trench is a hero and I've known about that whole thing for a +long while,” the Dean asserted. “And Victor Burleigh?” + +A shadow in the beautiful dark eyes, a half-tone lowering of the voice, +and a general indifference of manner, as Elinor answered: + +“I'm sure I don't know anything about him, except that he's coming back +next year.” + +Dr. Fenneben read the whole story in the words and manner of the answer, +and he smiled grimly as he thought of Burgess and of the conflict of +Wream against Wream if Elinor and his brother Joshua ever came to the +clash of arms. But he was too weak now to direct matters. + + +And meantime, while Lagonda Ledge was holding its breath in anxiety and +dread, and all the churches were joining in union prayer service for the +life of their beloved Dean Fenneben, and the college year was ending +in a halting between hope and dread--meantime, the same queries of Dr. +Fenneben as to motives were also queries in Professor Burgess' mind. + +To the school and the town Dr. Fenneben's recovery was the only thing +asked for. There was as yet no clew regarding the cause of the assault. +Bond Saxon had avoided Burgess since the event, so the young man himself +made occasion to get Bond up into Dr. Fenneben's study one June day just +before commencement. + +“Saxon,” he said gravely, “you are a man of sense, and you know that +there's something wrong about this Fenneben assault. You've put up some +smooth stories about our happening to be out at the bend of the river +that night, so I guess suspicion will be turned from us all right when +Lagonda Ledge gets time to think about causes; but I must be let into +the truth now.” Burgess was adamant now. + +For a little while the old man looked away through the study window at +the prairie empire to be found for the looking. + +“Do you see that little twist of blue smoke over west?” he queried +presently. + +“What of it?” Burgess asked. + +“Nothing, only the man huddlin' down round the fire makin' that smoke +way down where it's cold and dark, that's the man who--say, Professor!” + +Old Bond looked up appealingly, and the pitiful face touched Burgess' +heart. + +“What is it, Saxon? Be frank now, but be fair, too. Sooner or later, +this thing must be run down. Fenneben will do it himself, anyhow, as +soon as he's well enough.” + +“Professor, I have asked you twice if you'd be good to Dennie--” + +“Yes, yes; you always come back to that. Anybody would be good to her, +and she's a capable girl who does n't need anybody's care, anyhow. Now, +go on.” + +“I will”--it seemed an heroic resolve--“I asked this for Dennie, because +my own life is never safe.” + +“So you have said. Why not?” Burgess insisted. There was no way to evade +the question now. + +“That's my own business--just a little longer,” Bond answered slowly. +“One thing more; I want your promise not to tell what I say--yet awhile. +It can't hurt anyone to keep still, and it will help some folks.” + +“Oh, I'll help you all I can.” Burgess's kindly patience now was +strangely unlike the aristocratic, resentful man to whom old Bond Saxon +had appealed one stormy October night. + +“I'm a failure, Professor. I've spoiled my life by my infernal weak will +and appetite for whisky. I know it as well as you do. But I'm not meant +for a bad man.” There was unspeakable pathos in Saxon's face and words. + +“Nobody would call you bad. You are a lovable man when you--keep +straight,” Burgess declared cordially. + +“I graduated from the university back in the sixties,” Bond went on. + +“You!” Burgess exclaimed. + +“Yes, I'm one of your alumni brothers from Harvard. It takes more 'n a +college diploma to make a man sometimes, although this would mighty soon +get to be a cheap, destructible nation, if we should pull the colleges +out of it. The boys I've seen Sunrise make into men does an old man's +heart good to think about! But there's more than book-learning in a +Master's Degree. There must be MASTERY in it. I never got farther 'n +an A.B., partly because Nature made me easy going, but mostly because +whisky ruined me. I finally came to Kansas. I'd have had tremens long +ago but for that. But even here a man's got to keep the law inside, or +no human law can prevent his making a beast of himself.” + +Saxon paused, and the professor waited. + +“The man that sets the cussed trap for me is a law breaker, an escaped +convict, and a murderer. That's what drinking did for him; drinking and +injustice in money matters together.” + +Burgess started and his face grew pale. + +“Oh, it's a fact, Professor. There are several roads to ruin. One by +the route I've taken. One may be too much love of money, of women, or +of having your own way. You can ruin your soul by getting it set on one +thing above everything else. Education, for instance, like the Wreams +back there in Cambridge.” + +“The Wreams!” Burgess exclaimed. + +“Yes, old Joshua Wream sold himself to an appetite for musty old +Sanscrit till he'd sacrifice anybody's comfort and joy for it, same as I +sold out to a fool's craving for drink. You'll know the Wreams sometime +as I know 'em now. Fenneben's only a stepbrother and the West made a man +of him. He was always a gentleman.” + +“Go on!” Vincent's voice was hardly audible. + +“This outlaw, boot-legger, thief, and murderer was a respectable fellow +once, the adopted son of a wealthy family back East, who began by +spoiling him, lavished money on him, and let him have his own way in +everything. He was a gay youngster on the side, given to drinking and +fast company. He fell in love with a pretty girl, but when she found him +out, she cut him. Then he went to the dogs, blaming her because she had +sense enough to throw him over where he belonged. She fell in love--the +right kind of love--with another man. And this young fool who had no +claim on her at all, swore vengeance. Her family wanted her to marry the +young sport because he had money. They were long on money--her father +was, anyhow. But she would n't do it.” + +“Did she marry the one she really cared for?” Burgess asked eagerly. + +“No; but that's another story. Meantime this fellow's father died, +leaving the boy he, himself, had started on the wrong road, entirely out +of his will. The boy went to the devil--and he's still there.” + +Saxon paused and looked once more at the tiny wavering smoke column, +hardly visible now. + +“He's over yonder hiding away from the light of day under the bluffs by +the fire that sends that curl of smoke up through the crevices in the +rock, an outlaw thief.” + +Saxon gazed long at the landscape beyond the Walnut. When he spoke +again, it was with an effort. + +“Professor, this outlaw got a hold on me once when I was drunk, drunk +by his making. It would do no good to tell you about that. You could n't +help me, nor harm him. You'll trust me in this?” + +A picture of Dennie down in the Kickapoo Corral, with the flickering +firelight on her rippling hair, the weird, shadowy woodland, and the old +Indian legend all came back to the young man now, though why he could +not say. + +“I certainly would never bring harm to you nor yours,” he said kindly. + +“I can't inform on the scoundrel. I can only watch him. The woman he was +in love with years ago, who would n't stand for his wild ways--that's +the gray-haired woman at Pigeon Place. Her life's been one long tragedy, +though she is not forty yet.” + +The anguish on the old man's face was pitiful as he spoke. + +“She has a reason of her own for living here, and she is the soul of +courage. On the night of the Fenneben accident, I was out her way--yes, +running away from Bond Saxon. I knew if I stayed in town, I'd get drunk +on a bottle left at my door. So I tore out in the rain and the dark to +fight it out with the devil inside of me. And out at Pigeon Place I run +onto this fiend. When I ordered him back to his hiding place, he vowed +he'd get Fenneben and put him in the river. There's one or two human +things about him still. One is his fear of little children, and one is +his love for that woman. He really did adore her years ago. I tracked +home after him, and you know the rest. He put up some story to the Dean +to entice him out there.” + +He hesitated, then ceased to speak. + +“Why the Dean?” Burgess asked. + +“Because Lloyd Fenneben's the man she loved years ago, and her folks +wouldn't let her marry,” Bond Saxon said sadly. + +Burgess felt as if the limestone ridge was giving way beneath him. + +“Where is she now?” + +“She's gone, nobody knows where. I hope to heaven she will never come +back,” the old man replied. + +“And it was she who saved Dr. Fenneben's life? Does he know who she is?” + +“No, no. She's never let him know, and if she does n't want him to know, +whose business is it to tell him?” Saxon urged. “I have hung about and +protected her when she never knew I was near. But when I'm drunk, I'm +an idiot and my mind is bent against her. I'd die to save her, and yet +I may kill her some day when I don't know it.” Bond Saxon's head was +drooping pitifully low. + +“But why live in such slavery? Why not tell all you know about this man +and let the law protect a helpless woman?” Burgess urged. + +Old Bond Saxon looked up and uttered only one word--“Dennie!” + +Vincent Burgess turned away a moment. Dennie! Yes, there was Dennie. + +“This woman had a husband, you say?” he asked presently. + +Bond Saxon stared straight at him and slowly nodded his head. + +“What became of him? Do you know?” Vincent questioned. + +Saxon leaned forward, and, clutching Vincent Burgess by the arm, +whispered hoarsely, “He's dead. I killed him. But I was drunk when I did +it. And this man knows it and holds me bound.” + + + +SERVICE + + _If you were born to honor, show + it now; + if put upon you, make the judgment + good that thought you + worthy of it_. + --SHAKESPEARE + + +CHAPTER XI. THE SINS OF THE FATHERS + + _They enslave their children's children who make + compromise with sin_. + --LOWELL + +IT was mid-December before Lloyd Fenneben saw Lagonda Ledge again. In +the murderous attempt upon his life, he had been hurled, head-downward, +upon the hidden rock-ledge with such force that even his strong nervous +system could barely overcome the shock. Hours of unconsciousness were +followed by a raging brain fever, and paralysis, insanity, and death +strove together against him. His final complete recovery was slow, and +he was wise enough to let nature have ample time for rebuilding what +had been so cruelly wrenched out of line. It was this very patience +and willingness to take life calmly, when most men would have been in a +fever of anxiety about neglected business, that brought Lloyd Fenneben +back to Lagonda Ledge in December, a perfectly well man; and aside from +the holiday given in honor of the event, aside from the display of +flags and the big “Welcome” done in electric lights awaiting him at the +railroad station, where all the portable population of Lagonda Ledge and +most of the Walnut Valley, headed by the Sunrise contingent, en masse, +seemed to be waiting also--aside from the demonstration and general +hilarity and thanksgiving and rejoicing, there seemed no difference +between the Dean of the days that followed and the Dean of the years +before. His black hair was as long and heavy as ever. His black eyes had +lost nothing of their keenness. His smile was just the same old, genial +outbreak of good will, as he heard the wildly enthusiastic refrain: + + Rah for Funnybone! + Rah for Funnybone! + Rah for Funnybone! + _Rah!_ RAH!! RAH!!! + + +It was twilight when the train pulled up to the station. The December +evening was clear and crisp as southern Kansas Decembers usually are. +The lights of the town were twinkling in the dusk. Out beyond the river +a gorgeous purple and scarlet after-sunset glow was filling the west +with that magnificence of coloring only the hand of Nature dares to +paint. + +Several passengers left the train, but the company had eyes only for the +Pullman car where Fenneben was riding. Nobody, except Bond Saxon, and +a cab driver on the edge of the crowd, noticed a gray-haired woman +who alighted so quietly and slipped to the cab so quickly that she was +almost out to Pigeon Place before Fenneben had been able to clear the +platform. + +Behind the Dean was his niece, who halted on the car steps while her +uncle went into the outstretched arms of Lagonda Ledge. At sight of her, +the hats went high in air, as she stood there smiling above the crowd. +It was Maytime when she went away. They had remembered her in dainty +Maytime gowns. They were not prepared for her in her handsome traveling +costume of golden brown, her brown beaver hat, and pretty furs. A +beautiful girl can be so charming in her winter feathers. She had +expected that Burgess would be first to meet her, and she was ready, she +thought, to greet him, becomingly. But as the porter helped her to the +platform, the crowd closed in, shutting him away momentarily, and a hand +caught hers, a big, strong hand whose clasp, so close and warm, seemed +to hold her hand by right of eternal possession. And Victor Burleigh's +brown eyes full of a joyous light were looking down at her. It was all +such a sweet, shadowy time that nobody crowding about them could see +clearly how Elinor, with shining face, nestled involuntarily close to +his arm for just one instant, and her low murmured words, “I am glad +you were first,” were lost to all but the big fellow before her, and +a bigger, vastly lazy fellow, Trench, just behind her. It was Trench's +bulk that had blocked the way for the professor a moment before. Then +she was swallowed in the jolly greetings of goodfellowship, and Vincent +Burgess carried her away to the carriage where her uncle waited. + +“The thing is settled now,” the young folks thought. But Dennie Saxon +and Trench, who walked home together, knew that many things were +hopelessly unsettled. By the law of natural fitness, Dennie and Trench +should have fallen in love with each other. They were so alike in +goodness of heart. But such mating of like with like, is rare, and under +its ruling the world would grow so monotonously good, on the one hand, +and bad, on the other, that life would be uninteresting. + +During Dr. Fenneben's absence, Professor Burgess was acting-dean. For a +man who, two years before, had never heard of a Jayhawker, who hoped +the barren prairies would furnish seclusion for profound research in his +library, and whose interest in the student body lay in its material to +furnish “types,” Dean Burgess, on the outside, certainly measured +up well toward the stature of the real Dean--broad-minded, beloved +“Funnybone.” + +And as Vincent Burgess grew in breadth of view and human interest, his +popularity increased and his opportunities multiplied. Sunrise forgot +that it had ever regarded him as a walking Greek textbook in paper +binding. Next to Dr. Lloyd Fenneben, his place at Sunrise would be the +hardest to fill now; and withal, sometime in the near future, there was +waiting for him the prettiest girl that ever climbed the steps from the +lower campus to the Sunrise door. Burgess had never dreamed that life in +Kansas could be so full of pleasure for him. + +And all the while, on the inside, another Burgess was growing up who +quarreled daily with this happy outer Burgess. This inner man it was who +held the secret of Bond Saxon's awful crime; the man who knew the life +story of the would-be assassin of Lloyd Fenneben, and who knew the +tragedy that had turned a fair-faced girl to a gray-haired woman, yet +young in years. He knew the tragedy, but the woman herself he had never +seen, save in the darkness and rain of that awful night when she had +held Lloyd Fenneben's head above the fast rising waters of the Walnut. +He had never even heard her voice, for he had sustained the limp body of +Dr. Fenneben while Saxon helped the woman from the river and as far +as to her own gate. But these were secret things outside of his own +conscience. Inside of his conscience the real battle was fought and won, +and lost, only to be won and lost over and over. So long as Elinor +Wream was away, he could stay execution on himself. The same train that +brought her home to Lagonda Ledge, brought a letter to Professor Vincent +Burgess, A.B. The letter heading bore as many of Dr. Joshua Wream's +titles as space would permit, but the cramped, old-fashioned handwriting +belonged to a man of more than fourscore years, and it was signed just +“J. R.” + +Burgess read this letter many times that night after he returned from +dinner at the Fenneben home. And sometimes his fists were clinched and +sometimes his blue eyes were full of tears. Then he remembered +little Bug, who had declared once that “Don Fonnybone was dood for +twoubleness.” + +“I can't take this to Fenneben,” he mused, as he read Joshua Wream's +letter for the tenth time. “Nor can I go to Saxon. He's never sure of +himself and when he's drunk, he reverses himself and turns against +his best friends. And who am I to turn to a man like Bond Saxon for my +confidences?” + +“What about Elinor?” came a voice from somewhere. “The woman you would +make your wife should be the one to whose loving sympathy you could turn +at any of life's angles, else that were no real marriage.” + +“Elinor, of all people in the world, the very last. She shall never +know, never!” So he answered the inward questioner. + +Dimly then rose up before him the picture of Victor Burleigh on the +rainy May night when he stood beside little Bug Buler's bed--Victor +Burleigh, with his white, sorrowful face, and burning brown eyes, +telling in a voice like music the reason why he must renounce athletic +honors in Sunrise. + +Burgess had been unconsciously exultant over the boy's confession. It +would put the confessor out of reach of any claim to Elinor's friendship +when the truth was known about his poverty and his professional playing. +And yet he had followed Bond Saxon's lead the more willingly that night +that he was hating himself for rejoicing with himself. + +On this December night, with Elinor once more in Lagonda Ledge, Victor +Burleigh must come again to trouble him. What a price that boy must +have paid for his honesty! But he paid it, aye, he paid it! And then +the rains put out the game and nobody knew except Burleigh and himself. +Burgess almost resented the kindness of Fate to the heroic boy. But all +this solved no problems for Vincent Burgess, except the realization +that here was one fellow who had a soul of courage. Could he confide in +Burleigh? Not in a thousand years! + +In utter loneliness, Vincent Burgess put out his light and stared at the +window. The street lamps glowed in lonely fashion, for it was very late, +and nobody was abroad. Up on the limestone ridge, the Sunrise beacon +shone bravely. Down in town beside the campus gate--he could just +catch a glimpse of one steady beam. It was the faithful old lamp in the +hallway of the Saxon House, and beyond that unwavering light was Dennie. + +“Dennie! Why have I not thought of her? The only one in the world whom I +can fully trust. That ought to be a man's sweetheart, I suppose, but she +is not mine. She is just Dennie. Heaven bless her! I've sworn to care +for her. She must help me now.” And with the comforting thought, he fell +asleep beside the window. + + +The December sunset was superb in a glory of endless purple mists and +rose-tinted splendor of far-reaching skies. The evening drops down early +at this season and the lights were gleaming here and there in the town +where the shadows fall soonest before the day's work is finished up in +Sunrise. + +Victor Burleigh, who had been called to Dr. Fenneben's study, found only +Elinor there, looking out at the radiant beauty of the sunset sky beyond +the homey shadows studded with the twinkling lights of Lagonda Ledge at +the foot of the slope. The young man hesitated a little before entering. +All day the school had been busy settling affairs for Professor Burgess +and “Norrie, the beloved.” Gossip has swift feet and from surmise to +fact is a short course. Twenty-four hours had quite completely “fixed +things” for Elinor Wream and Vincent Burgess, so far as Sunrise and +Lagonda Ledge were able to fix them. So Burleigh, whose strong face +carried no hint of grief, held back a minute now, before entering the +study. + +“I beg your pardon, Elinor. Dr. Fenneben sent for me.” + +Somehow the deep musical voice and her name pronounced as nobody else +ever could pronounce it, and the big manly form and brave face, all +seemed to complete the spell of the sunset hour. Elinor did not speak, +but with a smile made room for him beside her at the window, and the +two looked long at the deepening grandeur of the heavens and the misty +shadows of heliotrope and silver darkening softly to the twilight below +them. + +“And God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the +fourth day,” Victor said at last. + +“Your voice grows richer with the passing years, Victor,” Elinor said +softly. “I wanted to hear it again the first time I heard you speak out +there one September day.” + +“It is well to grow rich in something,” Victor said, half-earnestly, +half-carelessly. + +Before Elinor could say more, they caught sight of Professor Burgess +and Dennie Saxon, leaving the front portico as they had done on the May +evening before the assault on Dr. Fenneben. Burgess and Dennie usually +left the building together this year. + +“Is n't Dennie a darling? Elinor said calmly. + +“I guess so,” he replied. “I don't just know what makes a girl a darling +to another girl. I only know”--he was on thin ice now--“and I don't even +know that very well.” + +They turned to the landscape again. The whole building was growing +quiet. Footsteps were fading away down the halls. Doors clicked faintly +here and there. Somebody was singing softly in the basement laboratory, +and the sunset sky was exquisitely lovely above the quiet gray December +prairies. + +“It is too beautiful to last,” Elinor said, turning to the young man +beside her. “The joy of it is too deep for us to hold.” + +She did not mean to stay a moment longer, for all the scene could be +hers forever in memory--imperishable!--and Victor did not mean to detain +her. But her face as she turned from the window, the hallowed setting +of time and opportunity, and a heart-love hungering through hopeless, +slow-dragging months, all had their own way with him. He put out his +arms to her and she nestled within them, lifting a face to his own +transfigured with love's sweetness. And he bent and kissed her red lips, +holding her close in his arms. And in the shadowy twilight, with the +faintly roseate banners of the sunset's after-glow trailing through it, +for just one minute, heaven and earth came very near together for these +two. And then they remembered, and Elinor put her hand in Victor's, who +held it in his without a word. + +Out in the hall, Trench with soft lazy step had just come to the study +door in time to see and turn away unseen, and slowly pass out of the big +front door, whistling low the while: + + My sweetheart lives on the prairies wide + By the sandy Cimarron, + In a day to come she will be my bride, + By the sandy Cimarron. + + +Out by the big stone pillars of the portico, he looked toward the south +turret and saw Dr. Fenneben as Vic had seen Elinor on the evening of +the May storm. He did not call, but with a twist of the fingers as of +unlocking a door, he dodged back into the building and up to the chapel +end of the turret stairs to release the Dean. + +Dr. Fenneben had started down to the study by the same old “road to +perdition” stairs and paused at the window as Dennie and Burgess were +passing out, unconscious of three pairs of eyes on them. Then the Dean +saw down through the half-open study door the two young people by the +window, and he knew he was not needed there. What that look in his black +eyes meant, as he turned to the half-way window of the turret, it would +have been hard to read. And the picture of a fair-faced girl came back +to his own hungry memory. He was trying to calculate the distance from +the turret window to the ground when Trench wig-wagged a rescue signal. + +“You are a brick, Trench,” he said, as the upper stairway door swung +open to release him. + +“You've the whole chimney,” Trench responded, as he swung himself away. + +Dr. Fenneben met Elinor in the rotunda. + +“Wait a minute, Norrie, and I'll walk home with you.” + +In the study he met Burleigh, whose stern face was tender with a +pathetic sadness, but there was no embarrassment in his glance. And +Fenneben, being a man himself, knew what power for sacrifice lay back of +those beautiful eyes. + +“I can't give him the message I meant to give now. The man said there +was no hurry. A veritable tramp he looked to be. I hope there is no harm +to the boy in it. Why should a girl like Norrie love the pocketbook, and +the things of the pocketbook, when a heart like Victor Burleigh's calls +to her? I know men. I never shall know women.” So he thought. Aloud he +said: “I was detained, Burleigh, and I'll have to see you again. I have +some matters to consider with you soon.” + +And Burleigh wondered much what “some matters” might be. + +When Professor Burgess left Dennie he said, lightly: + +“Miss Dennie, I need a little help in my work. Would you let me call +this evening and talk it over with you? I don't believe anybody else +would get hold of it quite so well.” + +Dennie had supposed this first evening after Elinor's return would +find her lover making use of it. Why should Dennie not feel a thrill of +pleasure that her services out-weighed everything else? Poor Dennie! She +was no flirt, but much association with Vincent Burgess had given her +insight to know that Norrie Wream would never understand him. + +When Burgess returned to the Saxon House later in the evening, he met +Bond Saxon at the door. + +“Say, Professor, the devil will be to pay again. That Mrs. Marian is +back. Got here on the same train Funnybone came on. And,” lowering his +voice, “he will be over there again,” pointing toward the west bluffs. +“He'll hound Funnybone to his doom yet. And she--she'll stand between +'em to the last. I told you one of the two human traits left in that +beast is his fool fondness for that woman who wouldn't let him set foot +on her ground if she knew it. It's a grim tragedy being played out here +with nobody knowing but you and me.” + +“Saxon, I'm in no mood for all this tonight,” Burgess said, “but for +your daughter's sake keep away from the man's bottle now.” + +“Yes, for Dennie's sake--” Bond looked imploringly at Burgess. + +“Yes, yes, I'll do my duty as I promised. But why not do it yourself +toward her? Why not be a man and a father?” + +“Me! A criminal! Do you know what that kind of slavery is?” Saxon +whispered. + +“Almost,” Burgess answered, but the old man did not catch his meaning. + +Dennie was waiting in the parlor, a cosy little room but without the +luxurious appointments of Norrie Wream's home. Yet tonight Dennie seemed +beautiful to Burgess, and this quiet little room, a haven of safety. + +“Dennie,” he said, plunging into his purpose at once. “I come to you +because I need a friend and you are tempered steel.” + +Tonight Dennie's gray eyes were dark and shining. The rippling waves of +yellow brown hair gave a sort of Madonna outline to her face, and there +was about her something indefinably pleasant. + +“What can I do for you, Professor Burgess?” she asked. + +“Listen to me, Dennie, and then advise me.” + +Was this the acting-dean of Sunrise, a second Fenneben, already +declared? His face was full of pathos, yet even in his feverish grief +it seemed a better face to Dennie than the cold scholarly countenance of +two years ago. + +“My troubles go back a long way. My father was given to greed. He sold +himself and my sister's happiness and mine for money. You think your +father is a slave, Dennie, because he has a craving for whisky. Less +than half a dozen times a year the demon inside gets him down.” + +Dennie looked up with a sorrowful face. + +“Yes, but think of what he might do. You don't know what dreadful things +he has done--” + +“Yes, I do. He told me himself the very worst. I'll never betray him, +Dennie. His punishment is heavy enough.” + +Burgess laid his hand on her dimpled hand in token of sincerity. + +“But that's only rarely, little girl. My father every day in the year +gave himself to an appetite for money till he cared for nothing else. +My sister, who died believing that I also had turned against her, was +forced to marry a man she did not love because he had money. I never +knew the man she did love. It was a romance of her girlhood. I was away +from home the most of my boyhood years, and she never mentioned his name +after the affair was broken off. All I know is that she was deceived and +made to believe some cruel story against him. She and her husband came +West, where they died. My father never forgave them for going West, nor +permitted me to speak her name to him. I never knew why until yesterday. +My sister's husband had a brother out here with whom he meant to divide +some possessions he had inherited. That settled him with my father +forever. There was no DIVISION of property in his creed.” + +Burgess paused. Dennie's interest and sympathy made her silent company a +comfort. + +“I was heir to my father's estate, and heir also to some funds he held +in trust. I was a scholar with ambition for honors--a Master's Degree +and a high professional place in a great university. I trusted my whole +life plans to the man who knew my father best--Dr. Joshua Wream.” + +Dennie looked up, questioningly. + +“Yes, to Elinor's uncle, as unlike Dr. Fenneben as night and day.” + +“Do not blame me, Dennie, if two men have helped to misshape my life. +My father believed that money is absolute. Dr. Wream holds scholarly +achievement as the greatest life work. It has been Dr. Fenneben's part +to show me the danger and the power in each.” + +It was dimly dawning on Burgess that the presence of Dennie, good, +sensible Dennie, was a blessing outside of these things that could go +far toward making life successful. But he did not grasp it clearly yet. + +“Dr. Wream and I made a compact before I came West. It seemed fair to me +then. By its terms I was assured, first, of my right to certain funds +my father held in trust. It was Wream who secured these rights for me. +Second, I was to succeed to his chair in Harvard if I proved worthy in +Sunrise. In return I promised to marry Elinor Wream and to provide for +her comfort and luxury with these trust funds my father and Wream had +somehow been manipulating.” + +Oh, yes! Dennie was level-headed. And because she did not look up nor +cry out Vincent Burgess did not see nor guess anything. His life had +been a sheltered one. How could he measure Dennie's life-discipline in +self-control and loving bravery? + +“Elinor was heavy on Wream's conscience,” Vincent went on, “because he +and her father, Dr. Nathan Wream, took the fortune to endow colleges and +university chairs that should have been hers from her mother's estate. +You see, Dennie, there was no wrong in the plan. Elinor would be +provided for by me. I would get up in my chosen profession. Nobody was +robbed or defrauded. Joshua Wream's last years would be peaceful with +his conscience at rest regarding Elinor's property. And, Dennie, who +would n't want to marry Elinor Wream?” + +“Yes, who wouldn't?” Dennie looked up with a smile. And if there were +tears in her eyes Burgess knew they were born of Dennie's sweet spirit +of sympathy. + +“What is wrong, then?” she asked. “Is Elinor unwilling?” + +“Elinor and I are bound by promises to each other, although no word has +ever been spoken between us. It is impossible to make any change now. We +are very happy, of course.” + +“Of course,” Dennie echoed. + +“I had a letter from Dr. Wream last night. A pitiful letter, for he's +getting near the brink. Dennie--these funds I hold--I have never quite +understood, but I had felt sure there was no other claimant. There was +a clause in the strangely-worded bequest: 'for V. B. and his heirs. +Failing in that, to the nearest related V. B.' It was a thing for +lawyers, not Greek professors, to settle, and I came to be the nearest +related V. B., Vincent Burgess, for I find the money belonged to my +sister's husband, and I thought he left no heirs and I am the nearest +related V. B. by marriage, you see?” + +“Well?” Dennie's mind was jumping to the end. + +“My sister married a Victor Burleigh, who came to Kansas to find his +brother. Both men are dead now. The only one of the two families living +is this brother's son, young Victor Burleigh, junior in Sunrise College. +He knows nothing of his Uncle Victor, my brother-in-law--nor of money +that he might claim. He belongs to the soil out here. Nobody has any +claims on him, nor has he any ambition for a chair in Harvard, nor any +promise to marry and provide for a beautiful girl who looks upon him as +her future guardian.” + +Vincent Burgess suddenly ceased speaking and looked at Dennie. + +“I cannot break an old man's heart. He implores me not to reveal all +this, but I had to tell somebody, and you are the best friend a man +could ever have, Dennie Saxon, so I come to you,” he added presently. + +“When did this Dr. Wream find out about Vic?” Dennie asked. + +“A month ago. Some strange-looking tramp of a fellow brought him proofs +that are incontestable,” Burgess replied. + +“And it is for an old man's peace you would keep this secret?” Dennie +questioned. + +“For him and for Elinor--and for myself. Don't hate me, Dennie. Elinor +looks upon me as her future husband. I have promised to provide for +her with the comforts denied her by her father, and I have lived in the +ambition of holding that Harvard chair--Oh, it is all a hopeless tangle. +I could never go to Victor Burleigh now. He would not believe that I had +been ignorant of his claim all this time. He was never wrapped up in the +pursuit of a career--Oh, Dennie, Dennie, what shall I do?” + +He rose to his feet and Dennie stood up before him. He gently rested his +hands on her shoulders and looked down at her. + +“What shall you do?” Dennie repeated, slowly. “Whisky, Money, +Ambition--the appetite that destroys! Vincent Burgess, if you want to +win a Master's Degree, win to the Mastery of Manhood first. The sins of +the fathers, yours and mine, we cannot undo. But you can be a man.” + +She had put her dimpled hands on his arms as they stood there, and +the brave courage of her upturned face called back again the rainy May +night, and the face of Victor Burleigh beside Bug Buler's cot, and his +low voice as he said: + +“I cannot play in tomorrow's game and be a man.” + + + +CHAPTER XII. THE SILVER PITCHER + + _A picket frozen on duty-- + A mother starved for her brood-- + Socrates drinking the hemlock, + And Jesus on the rood. + And millions who, humble and nameless, + The straight hard pathway trod-- + Some call it Consecration, + And others call it God_. + --WILLIAM HERBERT CARRUTH + +“DR. FENNEBEN, I should like much to dismiss my classes for the +afternoon,” Professor Burgess said to the Dean in his study the next +day. + +“Very well, Professor, I am afraid you are overworked with all my duties +added to yours here. But you don't look it,” Fenneben said, smiling. + +Burgess was growing almost stalwart in this gracious climate. + +“I am very well, Doctor. What a beautiful view this is.” He was looking +intently now at the Empire that had failed to interest him once. + +“Yes; it is my inspiration. 'Each man's chimney is his golden +milestone,'” Fenneben quoted. “I've watched the smoke from many +chimneys up and down the Walnut Valley during my years here, and later +I've hunted out the people of each hearthstone and made friends with +them. So when I look away from my work here I see friendly tokens of +those I know out there.” He waved his hand toward the whole valley. +“And maybe, when they look up here and see the dome by day, or catch +our beacon light by night, they think of 'Funnybone,' too. It is well to +live close to the folks of your valley always.” + +“You are a wonderful man, Doctor,” Burgess said. + +“There are two 'milestones' I've never reached,” the Doctor went on. +“One is that place by the bend in the river. See the pigeons rising +above it now. I wonder if that strange white-haired woman ever came back +again. Elinor said she left Lagonda Ledge last summer.” + +“Where's the other place?” Burgess would change the subject. + +“It i's a little shaft of blue smoke from a wood fire rising above +those rocky places across the river. I've seen it so often, at irregular +times, that I've grown interested in it, but I have missed it since I +came back. It's like losing a friend. Every man has his vagaries. One of +mine is this friendship with the symbols of human homes.” + +Burgess offered no comment in response. He could not see that the time +had come to tell Fenneben what Bond Saxon had confided to him about the +man below the smoke. So he left the hilltop and went down to the Saxon +House. He wanted to see Dennie, but found her father instead. + +“That woman's left Pigeon Place again,” Saxon said. “Went early this +morning. It's freedom for me when I don't have to think of them two. +Thinking of myself is slavery enough.” + +Burgess loitered aimlessly about the doorway for a while. It was a mild +afternoon, with no hint of winter, nor Christmas glitter of ice and snow +about it. Just a glorious finishing of an idyllic Kansas autumn rounding +out in the beauty of a sunshiny mid-December day. But to the man who +stood there, waiting for nothing at all, the day was a mockery. Behind +the fine scholarly face a storm was raging and there was only one friend +whom he could trust--Dennie. + +“Let's go walking, you and me!” + +Bug Buler put up one hand to Burgess, while he clutched a little red +ball in the other. Bug had an irresistible child voice and child touch, +and Burgess yielded to their leading. He had not realized until now +how lonely he was, and Bug was companionable by intuition and a stanch +little stroller. + +North of town the river lay glistening between its vine-draped banks. +The two paused at the bend where Fenneben had been hurled almost to his +doom, and Burgess remembered the darkness, and the rain, and the limp +body he had held. He thought Fenneben was dead then, and even in that +moment he had felt a sense of disloyalty to Dennie as he realized that +he must think of Elinor entirely now. But why not? He had come to Kansas +for this very thinking. It must be his life purpose now. + +Today Burgess began to wonder why Elinor must have a life of ease +provided for her and Dennie Saxon ask for nothing. Why should Joshua +Wream's conscience be his burden, too? Then he hated himself a little +more than ever, and duty and manly honor began their wrestle within him +again. + +“Let's we go see the pigeons,” Bug suggested, tossing his ball in his +hands. + +Burgess remembered what Bond had said of the woman's leaving. There +could be no harm in going inside, he thought. The leafless trees +and shrubbery revealed the neat little home that the summer foliage +concealed. Bug ran forward with childish curiosity and tiptoed up to a +low window, dropping his little red ball in his eagerness. + +“Oh, tum! tum!” he cried. “Such a pretty picture frame and vase on the +table.” + +He was nearly five years old now, but in his excitement he still used +baby language, as he pulled eagerly at Vincent Burgess' coat. + +“It isn't nice to peep, Bug,” Burgess insisted, but he shaded his eyes +and glanced in to please the boy. He did not note the pretty gilt frame +nor the vase beside it on the table. But the face looking out of that +frame made him turn almost as cold and limp as Fenneben had been when +he was dragged from the river. Catching the little one by the hand he +hurried away. + +At the gateway he lifted Bug in his arms. + +He was not yet at ease with children. + +“I dropped my ball,” Bug said. “Let me det it.” + +“Oh, no; I'll get you another one. Don't go back,” Burgess urged. “Do +you know it is very rude to look into windows. Let's never tell anybody +we did it; nor ever, ever do it again. Will you remember?” + +“Umph humph! I mean, yes, sir! I won't fornever do it again, nor tell +nobody.” Bug buttoned up his lips for a sphinx-like secrecy. “Nobody but +Dennie. And I may fordet it for her.” + +“Yes, forget it, and we'll go away up the river and see other things. +Bug, what do you say when you want to keep from doing wrong?” + +Bug looked up confidingly. + +“I ist say, 'Dod, be merciless to me, a sinner'.” + +“Why not merciful, Bug?” + +“Tause! If He's merciful it's too easy and I'm no dooder,” Bug said, +wisely. + +“Who told you the difference?” Burgess asked. + +“Vic. He knows a lot. I wish I had my ball, but let's go up the river.” + +“Out of the mouths of babes,” Burgess murmured and hugged the little one +close to him. + + +Victor Burleigh was in the little balcony of the dome late that +afternoon fixing a defective wiring. Through the open windows he could +see the skyline in every direction. The far-reaching gray prairie, +overhung by its dome of amethyst bordered round with opal and rimmed +with jasper, seemed in every blending tint and tone to call him back to +Norrie. The west bluff above the old Kickapoo Corral in the autumn, the +glen full of shadow-flecked light under the tender young April +leaves, the December landscape as it lay beyond Dr. Fenneben's study +windows--these belonged to Elinor. And all of them were blended in this +vision of inexpressible grandeur, unfolded to him now from the dome's +high vantage place. + +“Twice Norrie has let me hold her in my arms and kiss her,” he mused. +“When I do that the third time it must be when there will be no remorse +to hound me afterward.” He looked down the winding Walnut toward the +whirlpool. “I'd rather swim that water than flounder here.” + +The sound of footsteps on the rotunda stairs made him turn to see +Vincent Burgess just reaching the little balcony of the dome. + +“I've come to have a word with you up here,” he said. “We met once +before in this rotunda.” + +“Yes, down there in the arena,” Vic replied, recalling how like a beast +he had felt then. “I was a young hyena that day. Bug Buler came just +in time to save both of us. There is a comfort in feeling we can learn +something. I've needed books and college professors to temper me to +courtesy.” + +It was the only apology Vic had ever offered to Burgess, who accepted it +as all that he deserved. + +“We learn more from men than from books sometimes. I've learned from +them how courageous a man may be when the need for sacrifice comes. Sit +down, Burleigh, and let me tell you something.” + +They sat down on the low seat beside the dome windows. Overhead gleamed +the message of high courage, _Ad Astra Per Aspera_. Below was the +artistic beauty of the rotunda, where the evening shadows were +deepening. + +“We are higher than we were that other day. We care less for fighting as +we get farther up, maybe,” Burgess said, pleasantly. + +“The only place to fight a man is in a cave, anyhow,” Burleigh replied, +looking at his brawny arms, nor dreaming how prophetic his words might +be. + +“We don't belong to that class of men now, whatever our far off +ancestors may have been, but we are the sons of our fathers, Burleigh, +and it is left to the living to right the wrongs the dead have begun.” + +Then, briefly, Vincent Burgess, A.B., Greek Professor from Harvard, told +to Vic Burleigh from a prairie claim out beyond the Walnut, a part of +what he had already told to Dennie Saxon, of the funds withheld from him +so long. Told it in general terms, however, not shielding his father +at all, but giving no hint that the first Victor Burleigh was his own +brother-in-law. And of the compact with Joshua Wream and of Norrie he +told nothing. + +“Three days ago I did not know that you could be heir to this property,” + he concluded. “I've been interested in books and have left legal matters +to those who controlled them for me.” + +He rose hastily, for Burleigh, saying nothing, was looking at him with +wide-open brown eyes that seemed to look straight into his soul. + +“I can restore your property to you. I cannot change the past. You have +all the future in which to use it better than my father did, or I might +have done. Goodnight.” + +He turned away and passed slowly down the rotunda stairs. + +When he was gone Victor Burleigh turned to the open window of the +dome. He was not to blame that the beautiful earth under a magnificent +December sunset sky seemed all his own now. + +“'If big, handsome Victor Burleigh had his corners knocked off and was +sandpapered down,'” he mused. “Well, what corners I haven't knocked off +myself have been knocked off for me and I've been sandpapered--Lord, +I've been sandpapered down all right. I'm at home on a carpet now. 'And +if he had money'.” Vic's face was triumphant. “It has come at last--the +money. And what of Elinor?” + +The sacred memories of brief fleeting moments with her told him “what of +Elinor.” + +“The barriers are down now. It is a glorious old world. I must hunt up +Trench and then--” + +He closed the dome window, looked a moment at the brave Kansas motto, +radiant in the sunset light, and then, picking up his tools, he went +downstairs. + +“Hello, Trench I he called as he reached the rotunda floor. I must see +you a minute.” + +“Hello, you Angel-face! Case of necessity. Well, look a minute,” Trench +drawled. “But that's the limit, and twice as long as I'd care to see +you, although, I was hunting you. Funnybone wants to see you in there.” + +Victor's eyes were glowing with a golden light as he entered Fenneben's +study, and the Dean noted the wonderful change from the big, awkward +fellow with a bulldog countenance to this self-poised gentleman whose +fine face it was a joy to see. + +“I have a message for you, Burleigh. No hurry about it I was told, but +I am called away on important business and I must get it out of my mind. +An odd-looking fellow called at my door on the night I came home and +left a package for you. He said he had tried to find you and failed, +that he was a stranger here, and that you would understand the message +inside. He insisted on not giving this in any hurry, and as my coming +home has brought me a mass of things to consider, I have not been prompt +about it.” + +Fenneben put a small package into Burleigh's hands. + +“Examine it here, if you care to. You can fasten the door when you +leave. Goodby!” and he was gone. + +Victor sat down and opened the package. Inside was a quaint little +silver pitcher, much ornamented, with the initial B embossed on the +smooth side. + +“The lost pitcher--stolen the day my mother died--and I was warned never +to try to find who stole it.” He turned to the light of the west window. + +“It is the very thing I found in the cave that night. The man who took +it may have been over there.” He glanced out of the window and saw a +thin twist of blue smoke rising above the ledges across the river. + +“Who can have had it all this time, and why return it now?” he +questioned. As he turned the pitcher in his hands a paper fell out. + +“The message inside!” He spread out the paper and read “the message +inside.” + +Well for him that Dr. Fenneben had left him alone. The shining face and +eyes aglow changed suddenly to a white, hard countenance as he read this +message inside. It ran: + + +“Victor Burleigh. First, don't ever try to follow me. The day you do +I'll send you where I sent your father. No Burleigh can stay near me and +live. Now be wise. + +“Second. You saved the baby I left in the old dugout. Before God I never +meant to kill it then. The thought of it has cursed my soul night and +day till I found out you had saved him. + +“Third. The girl you want to marry--go and marry. Do anything, good or +bad, to destroy Burgess. + +“Fourth. The money Burgess had is yours, only because I'm giving it to +you. It belongs to Bug Buler. He couldn't talk plain when you saved him. +He's not Bug Buler; he's Bug Burleigh, son of Victor Burleigh, heir to +V. B.'s money in the law. I've got all the proofs. You see why you can +have that money. Nobody will ever know but me. Don't hunt for me and +I'll never tell. TOM GRESH.” + +The paper fell from Victor Burleigh's hands. The world, that ten minutes +ago was a rose-hued sunset land, was a dreary midnight waste now. The +one barrier between himself and Elinor had fallen only to rise up again. + +Then came Satan into the game. “Nobody knew this but Gresh! Who had +saved Bug's life? Who had cared for him and would always care for him? +Why should Bug, little, loving Bug, come now to spoil his hopes? If Bug +knew he would be first to give it all to his beloved Vic.” + +And then came Satan's ten strike. “No need to settle things now. Wait +and think it over.” And Vic decided in a blind way to think it over. + +In the rotunda he met Trench, old Trench, slow of step but a lightning +calculator. + +“Where are you going?” he exclaimed, as he saw Vic's face. + +“I'm going to the whirlpool before I'm through,” Vic said, hoarsely. + +Trench caught him in a powerful grip and shoved him to the foot of the +rotunda stairs. + +“No,-you re-not-going-to-the-whirlpool,”' he said, slowly. “You're +going up to the top of the dome right against that _Ad Astra per Aspera_ +business up there, and open the west window and look out at the world +the Lord made to heal hurt souls by looking at. And you are going to +stay up there until you have fought the thing out with yourself, and +come down like Moses did with the ten Commandments cut deep on the +tables of your stony old heart. If you don't, you'll not need to go to +old Lagonda's pool. By the holy saints, I'll take you there myself and +plunge you in just to rid the world of such a fool. You hear me! Now, go +on! And remember in your tussle that that big S cut over the old Sunrise +door out there stands for Service. That's what will make your name fit +you yet, Victor.” + +Vic slowly climbed up to where an hour ago the sudden opportunity for +the fruition of his young life and hope had been brought to him. Lost +now, unless--Nobody would ever know and Bug could lose nothing. He +opened the west window and looked out at the Walnut Valley, dim and +shadowy now, and the silver prairies beyond it and the gorgeous crimson +tinted sky wherefrom the sun had slipped. And then and there, with his +face to the light, he wrestled with the black Apollyon of his soul. And +every minute the temptation grew to keep the funds “in trust,” and to +keep on caring for the boy he had cared for since babyhood. He clinched +his white teeth and the tiger light was in his eyes again as the longing +for Elinor's love overcame him. He pictured her as only one sunset +ago she had looked up into his eyes, her face transfigured with love's +sweetness, and he wished he might keep that picture forever. But, +somehow, between that face and his own, came the picture of little Bug +alone in the wretched dugout, reaching up baby arms to him for life and +safety; on his baby face a pleading trustfulness. + +Victor unbuttoned his cuff and slipped up his sleeve to the scar on his +arm. + +“Anybody can see the scar I put there when I cut out the poison,” he +said to himself, at last. “Nobody will see the scar on my soul, but I'll +cut out the poison just the same. I did not save that baby boy from the +rattlesnakes only to let him be crushed by the serpent in me. Trench was +right, the S over the doorway down there stands for Service as well +as for Sacrifice and Strife. Dr. Fenneben says they all enter into the +winning of a Master's Degree. Shall I ever get mine earned, I wonder?” + +He looked once more at the west, all a soft purple, gray-veiled with +misty shadows, save over the place where the sun went out one shaft of +deepest rose hue tipped with golden flame was cleaving its way toward +the darkening zenith. Then he closed the window and went downstairs and +out into the beautiful December twilight. + +In all Kansas in that evening hour no man breathed deeper of the sweet, +pure air, nor walked with firmer stride, than the man who had gone out +under the carved symbol of the college doorway, Victor Burleigh of the +junior class at Sunrise. + + + +SUPREMACY + + Make thyself free of Manhood's guild, + Pull down thy barns and greater build, + Pluck from the sunset's fruit of gold, + Glean from the heavens and ocean old, + From fireside lone and trampling street + Let thy life garner daily wheat, + The epic of a man rehearse, + Be something better than thy verse, + And thou shalt hear the life-blood flow + From farthest stars to grass-blades low. + --LOWELL + + + +CHAPTER XIII. THE MAN BELOW THE SMOKE + +_And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors_. + +ELINOR WREAM was standing at the gate as Victor Burleigh came striding +up the street. + +“Where are you going so fast, Victor?” she asked. “Everybody is in a +rush this evening. We had a telegram from the East this afternoon. Uncle +Joshua is very ill, and Uncle Lloyd had to get away on short notice. Old +Bond Saxon went by just now, but,” lowering her voice, “he was awfully +drunk and slipped along like a snake.” + +“Have you seen Bug?” Victor asked. “Dennie says he left a little while +ago to find his ball he lost out north this afternoon. He wouldn't tell +where, because he had promised not to.” + +“No, I have not seen him. But don't be uneasy about Bug. He never plays +near the river, nor the railroad tracks, and he always comes in at the +right time,” Elinor said, comfortingly. + +“I know he always has before, but I want to find him, anyhow.” The +affectionate tone told Elinor what a loving guardianship was given to +the unknown orphan child. + +“There was a man here to see Uncle Lloyd just after he left this +evening. The same man that brought a little package for you the night we +came home. I suppose he comes from your part of the state out West, for +he seemed to know you and Bug. He asked me if Bug ever played along the +river and if he was a shy child. He was a strange-looking man, and +I thought he had the cruelest face I ever saw, but I am no expert on +strange faces.” + +Victor did not wait for another word. + +“I must find Bug right away. You can't think what he is to me, Elinor,” + and he hurried away. + +At the bend in the Walnut Vic saw Bug's little scarlet stocking cap +beside the flat stone. The twilight was almost gone, but the glistening +river reflected on the torn bushes above the bank-full stream. + +The crushing agony of the first minutes made them seem like hours. And +then the college discipline put in its work. Vic stopped and reasoned. + +“Bug isn't down there. He never goes near the river. That strange man is +Tom Gresh. He killed my father and he's laid a trap for me. He doesn't +want to kill Bug. He wants to keep him to workout vengeance and hate on +me. He says he'll send me to my father if I go near him. Well, I'm going +so near he'll not doubt who I am, and I'll have Bug unharmed if I have +to send Gresh where my father could not go even with water to cool his +tongue. A man may fight with a man as he would fight with a beast to +save himself or something dearer than himself from beastly destruction, +Fenneben says. That's the battle before me now, and it's to the death.” + +The tiger light was in the yellow eyes as never before and the stern jaw +was set, as Victor Burleigh hurried away. And this was the man who, such +a little while ago, was debating with himself over the quiet possession +of Bug Buler's inheritance. Truly the Mastery comes very near to such as +he. + +It was with tiger-like step and instinct, too, that the young man went +leaping up the dark, frost-coated glen. About the mouth of the cave the +blackness was appalling. It seemed a place apart, cursed with the frown +of Nature. Yet in the April time, the sweetest moments of Vic's young +life had been spent in this very spot that now showed all the difference +between Love and Hate. + +As he neared the opening of the cavern he guarded his footsteps more +carefully. The jungle beast was alert within him and the college +training was giving way to the might of muscle backed by a will to win. + +A dim light gleamed in the cave and he watched outside now, as Gresh on +the April day had watched him inside. Down by a wood fire, whose smoke +was twisting out through a crevice overhead somewhere, little Bug was +sitting on Tom Gresh's big coat, the fire lighting up his tangle of +red-brown curls. His big brown eyes looking up at the man crouching by +the fire were eyes of innocent courage, and the expression on the sweet +child-face was impenetrable. + +“He's a Burleigh. He's not afraid,” Vic thought, exultingly. “That's +half my battle. I had it out with the rattlesnakes. I'll do better +here.” + +At that moment the outlaw turned toward the door and leaped to his feet +as Vic sprang inside. + +Bug started up with outstretched arms. + +“Keep out of the way, Bug,” Vic cried, as the two men clinched. + +And the struggle began. They were evenly matched, and both had the +sinews of giants. The outlaw had the advantage of an iron strength, +hardened by years of out-door life. But the college that had softened +the country boy somewhat gave in return the quick judgment and superior +agility of the trained power that counts against weight before the +battle is over. But withal, it was terrible. One fighter was a murderer +by trade, his hand steady for the blackest deeds, and here was a man he +had waited long months to destroy. The other fighter was in the struggle +to save a life dear to him, a life that must vindicate his conscience +and preserve his soul's peace. + +Across the stone-floored cave they threshed in fury, until at the +farther wall Gresh flung Vic from him against the jagged rock with a +force that cut a gash across the boy's head. The blood splashed on both +men's faces as they renewed the strife. Then with a quick twist Burleigh +threw the outlaw to the floor and held him in a clutch that weighed him +down like a ledge of rock; and it was pound for pound again. + +Away from the mass of burning coals the blackness was horrible. Beyond +that fire Bug sat, silent as the stone wall behind him. Gresh gained the +mastery again, and with a grip on Vic's throat was about to thrust his +head, face downward, into the burning embers. Vic understood and strove +for his own life with a maniac's might, for he knew that one more wrench +would end the thing. + +“You first, and then the baby; I'll roast you both,” Gresh hissed, and +Vic smelled the heat of the wood flame. + +But who had counted on Bug? He had watched this fearful grapple, +motionless and terror-stricken, and now with a child's vision he saw +what Gresh meant to do. Springing up, he caught the heavy coat on which +he had been sitting and flung it on the fire, smothering the embers and +putting the cavern into complete darkness. + +Vic gained the vantage by this unlooked for movement and the grip +shifted. The fighters fell to the floor and then began the same kind of +struggle by which Burleigh had out-generaled big, unconquerable Trench +one day. The two had rolled and fought in college combat from the top +of the limestone ridge to the lower campus and landed with Burleigh +gripping Trench helpless to defend further. That battle was friend with +friend. This battle was to the death. The blood of both men smeared the +floor as they tore at each other like wild beasts, and no man could have +told which oftenest had the vantage hold, nor how the strife would end. +But it did end soon. The heavy coat, that had smothered the fire and +saved Vic, smoldered a little, then flared into flame, lighting +the whole cave, and throwing out black and awful shadows of the two +fighters. They were close to the hole in the inner wall now. Gresh's +face in that unsteady glare was horrible to see. He loosed his hold a +second, then lunged at Vic with the fury of a mad brute. And Vic, who +had fought the devil in himself to a standstill three hours ago, now +caught the fiend outside of him for a finishing blow, and the strength +of that last struggle was terrific. + +Up to this time Vic had not spoken. + +“I killed the other snakes. I'll kill you now,” he growled, as he held +the outlaw at length in a conquering grip, his knees on Gresh's breast, +his right hand on Gresh's throat. + +In that weird light the conqueror's face was only a degree less brutal +than the outlaw's face. And Burleigh meant every word, for murder was +in his heart and in his clutching fingers. Beneath the weight of his +strength Gresh slowly relaxed, struggling fiercely at first and groping +blindly to escape. Then he began to whine for mercy, but his whining +maddened his conqueror more than his blows had done. For such strife is +no mere wrestling match. Every blow struck against a fellowman is as +the smell of blood to the tiger, feeding a fiendish eagerness to kill. +Beside, Burleigh had ample cause for vengeance. The creature under his +grip was not only a bootlegger through whose evil influence men took +other lives or lost their own; he had slain one innocent man, Vic's own +father, and in the room where his dead mother lay had robbed Vic's home +of every valuable thing. He had sworn vengeance on all who bore the +name of Burleigh. What fate might await Bug, Vic dared not picture. One +strangling grip now could finish the business forever, and his clutch +tightened, as Gresh lay begging like a coward for his own worthless +life. + +“It's a good thing a fellow has a guardian angel once in a while. We +get pretty close to the edge sometimes and never know how near we are to +destruction,” Vic had said to Elinor in here on the April day. + +It was not Vic's guardian angel, but little Bug whose white face was +thrust between him and his victim, and the touch of a soft little hand +and the pleading child-voice that cried: + +“Don't kill him, Vic. He's frough of fighting now. Don't hurt him no +more.” + +Vic staid his hand at the words. The few minutes of this mad-beast duel +had made him forget the sound of human voices. He half lifted himself +from Gresh's body at Bug's cry. And Bug, wise beyond his years, +quaint-minded little Bug, said, softly: + +“Fordive us our debts as we fordive our debtors.” + +Strange, loving words of the Man of Galilee, spoken on the mountain-side +long, long ago, and echoed now by childish lips in the dying light of +the cavern to these two men, drunk with brute-lust for human blood! For +Vic the words struck like blows. All the years since his father's death +he had waited for this hour. At last he had met and vanquished the man +who had taken his father's life, and now, exultant in his victory, came +this little child's voice. + +The cave darkened. A mist, half blood, half blindness, came before his +eyes, but clear to his ears there sounded the ringing words: + +“Vengeance is mine; I will repay!” + +It was the voice of Discipline calling to his better judgment, as Bug's +innocent pleading spoke to the finer man within him. + +Under his grip Gresh lay motionless, all power of resistance threshed +out of him. + +“Are you ready to quit?” Vic questioned, hoarsely, bending over the +almost lifeless form. + +The outlaw mumbled assent. + +“Then I'll let you live, you miserable wretch, and the courts will take +care of you.” + +Burleigh himself was faint from strife and loss of blood. As he relaxed +his vigilance the last atom of strength, the last hope of escape +returned to Gresh. He sprang to his feet, staggered blindly then, quick +as a panther, he leaped through the hole in the farther wall, wriggled +swiftly into the blind crevices of the inner cave, and was gone. + +It was Trench who dressed Vic's head that night and shielded him until +his strength returned. But it was Bond Saxon who counseled patience. + +“Don't squeal to the sheriff now,” he urged. “The scoundrel is gone, and +it would make a nine days' hooray, and nothing would come of it. He was +darned slick to take the time when Funnybone was away.” + +“Why?” Vic asked. + +But Bond would not tell why. And Vic never dreamed how much cause Bond +Saxon had to dread the day when Tom Gresh should be brought into court, +and his own great crime committed in his drunken hours would demand +retribution. So Lagonda Ledge and Sunrise knew nothing of what had +occurred. Burleigh had no recourse but to wait, while Bug buttoned +up his lips, as he had done for Burgess out at Pigeon Place, and +conveniently “fordot” what he chose not to tell. But he wandered no more +alone about the pretty by-corners of Lagonda Ledge. + + + +CHAPTER XIV. THE DERELICTS + + _I dimly guess from blessings known + Of greater out of sight, + And, with the chastened Psalmist, own + His judgments, too, are right. + + I know not what the future hath + Of marvel or surprise, + Assured alone that life and death + His mercy underlies_. + --WHITTIER + +IT was early spring before Dr. Fenneben returned to Lagonda Ledge. +Everybody thought the new line on his face was put there by the death +of his brother. To those who loved him most--that is, to all Lagonda +Ledge--he was growing handsomer every year, and even with this new +expression his countenance wore a more kindly grace than ever before. + +“Norrie, your uncle was a strange man,” Fenneben declared, as he and +Elinor sat in the library on the evening of his return. “Naturally, I am +unlike my stepbrothers, but I have not even understood them. There +were many things I learned at Joshua's bedside that I never knew of the +family before. There were some things for you to know, but not now.” + +“I can trust you, Uncle Lloyd, to do just the right thing,” Norrie +declared. + +The new line of sadness deepened in Lloyd Fenneben's face. + +“That is a hard thing to do sometimes. Your trust will help me +wonderfully, however,” he replied. “My brother in his last hours made +urgent requests of me and pled with me until I pledged my word to carry +out his wishes. Here's where I need your trust most.” + +Elinor bent over her uncle and softly stroked the heavy black hair from +his forehead. + +“Here's where I help you most, then,” she said, gently. + +“I have some funds, Elinor, to be yours at your graduation--not before. +Believe me, dear girl, I begged of Joshua to let me turn them over to +you now, but he staid obstinate to the last.” + +“And I don't want a thing different till I get my diploma. Not even till +I get my Master's Degree for that matter,” Elinor said, playfully. + +“And meantime, Norrie, will you just be a college girl and drop all +thought of this marrying business until you are through school?” + Fenneben was hesitating a little now. “A year hence will be time enough +for that.” + +“Most gladly,” Elinor assured him. + +“Then that's all for my brother's sake. Now for mine, Norrie, or for +yours, rather, if my little girl has her mind all set about things after +school days, I hope she will not be a flirt. Sometimes the words and +acts cut deeper into other lives than we ever dream. Norrie, I know this +out of the years of my own lonely life.” + +Elinor's eyes were dewy with tears and she bent her head until her hair +touched his cheek. + +“I'll try to be good 'fornever,' as Bug Buler says,” she murmured. + + +Over in the Saxon House on this same evening Vincent Burgess had come in +to see Dennie about some books. + +“I took your advice, Dennie,” he said. “I have been a man to the extent +of making myself square with Victor Burleigh, and I've felt like a free +man ever since.” + +The look of joy and pride in Dennie's eyes thrilled him with a keen +pleasure. Her eyes were of such a soft gray and her pretty wavy hair was +so lustrous tonight. + +“Dennie, I am going to be even more of a man than you asked me to be.” + +Dennie did not look up. The pink of her cheek, her long lashes over +her downcast eyes, the sunny curls above her forehead, all were fair to +Vincent Burgess. As he looked at her he began to understand, blind bat +that he had been all this time, he, Professor Vincent Burgess, A.B., +Instructor in Greek from Harvard University. + +“I must be going now. Good-night, Dennie.” + +He shook hands and hurried away, but to the girl who was earning her +college education there was something in his handclasp, denied before. + +The next day there was a settling of affairs at Sunrise, and the +character-building put into Lloyd Fenneben's hand, as clay for the +potter's wheel, seemed to him to be shaping somewhat to its destined +uses. + +Again, Vincent Burgess sat in the chair by the west study window, +acting-dean, now seeking neither types, nor geographical breadth, nor +seclusion amid barren prairie lands for profound research in preparing +for a Master's Degree. + +With no effort to conceal matters, except the fact that the trust funds +had first belonged to his own sister and brother-in-law, he explained to +Fenneben the line of events connecting him with Victor Burleigh. + +“And, Dr. Fenneben, I must speak of a matter I have never touched upon +with you before. It was agreed between Dr. Wream and myself that I +should become his nephew by marriage. I want to go to Miss Elinor +and ask her to release me. You will pardon my frankness, for I cannot +honorably continue in this relationship since I have restored the +property to Victor Burleigh.” + +“He thinks she will not care for him now,” Fenneben said to himself. +Aloud he said: + +“Have you ever spoken directly to Elinor on this matter?” + +“N-no. It was an understanding between her and her uncle and between him +and me,” Burgess replied. + +“Well, I don't pretend to know girls very well, being a confirmed +bachelor”--the Dean's eyes were smiling--“but my advice at this distance +is not to ask Norrie to release you from what she herself has never yet +bound you. I'll vouch for her peace of mind; and your sense of honor is +fully vindicated now. To be equally frank with you, Burgess, now that +Norrie is entirely in my charge, I have put this sort of thing for +her absolutely into the after-commencement years. The best wife is not +always the girl who wears a diamond ring through three or four years +of her college life. I want my niece to be a girl now, not a +bride-in-waiting.” + + +As Burgess rose to go his eye caught sight of the pigeons above the bend +in the river. + +“By the way, Doctor, have you ever found out anything about the woman +who used to live in that deserted place up north?” + +“Nothing yet,” Fenneben replied. “But, remember, I have not spent a +week--that is, a sane week--in Lagonda Ledge since the night you, and +she, and Saxon, and the dog saved my life. I shall take up her case +soon.” + +“She is gone away and nobody knows where, Saxon tells me,” Burgess said. +“For many reasons I wish we could find her, but she has dropped out of +sight.” + +Lloyd Fenneben wondered at the sorrowful expression on the younger man's +face when he said this. + +As he left the study Victor Burleigh came in. + +“Sit down, Burleigh. What can I do for you?” Fenneben asked. + +Something like his own magnetism of presence was in the young man before +him. + +“I want to tell you something,” Vic responded. + +“Let me tell you something. I knew you had good blood in your veins even +when I saw you kill that bull snake. Burgess has just been in. He has +told me his side of your story. Noble fellow he is to free himself of a +life-long slavery to somebody else's dollars. However much a man may try +to hide the fetters of unlawful gains, they clank in his own ears till +he hates himself. Now Burgess is a freeman.” + +“I am glad to hear you say so, Dr. Fenneben. It makes my own freedom +sweeter,” Vic declared. + +“Yes,” Fenneben replied. “Your added means will bring you life's best +gift--opportunity.” + +“I have no added means, Doctor. I have funds in trust for Bug Buler, and +I come to ask you to take his legal guardianship for me.” And then he +told his own life story. + +“So the heroism shifts to you as well. I can picture the cost to a man +like yourself,” the Dean said. “Have you no record of Bug's father and +mother?” + +“None but the record given by Dr. Wream. They are dead,” Burleigh +replied. “His father may have met the same fate that my father did.” + +“Why don't you take the guardianship yourself, Burleigh? The boy is +yours in love and blood. He ought to be in law.” + +Victor Burleigh stood up to his full height, a magnificent product of +Nature's handiwork. But the mind and soul “Dean Funnybone” had helped to +shape. + +“I will be honest with you, Dr. Fenneben,” Burleigh said, and his voice +was deep and sweetly resonant. “If I keep the money in charge I may not +be proof against the temptation to use it for myself. As strong as my +strong arms are my hates and loves, and for some reasons I would do +almost anything to gain riches. I might not resist the tempter.” + +Lloyd Fenneben's black eyes blazed at the words. + +“I understand perfectly what you mean, but no woman who exacts this +price is worth the cost.” Then, in a gentler tone, he continued: +“Burleigh, will you take my advice? I have always had your welfare on +my heart. Finish your college work first. Get the best of the classroom, +the library, the athletic field, and the 'picnic spread.' Is that the +right term? But fit yourself for manhood before you undertake a man's +duties. Meantime, He who has given you the mastery in the years behind +you is leading you toward the larger places before you, teaching you all +the meanings of Strife, and Sacrifice, and Service symbolized above our +doorway in our proud College initial letter. The Supremacy is yet to +come. Will you follow my counsel? I'll take care of Bug, and we will +keep Burgess out of this for a while.” + +Burleigh thought he understood, and the silent hand clasp pledged the +faith of the country boy to the teacher's wishes. + +It is only in story books that events leap out as pages are turned, +events that take days on days of real life to compass. In the swing of +one brief year Lagonda Ledge knew little change. New cement walks were +built south almost to the Kickapoo Corral. A new manufacturing concern +had bonds voted for it at an exciting election, and a squabble for a +suitable site was in process. Vincent Burgess and Victor Burleigh, two +strong men, were growing actually chummy, and Trench declared he was +glad they had decided to quit playing marbles for keeps and hiding each +other's caps. + +And now the springtime of the year was on the beautiful Walnut Valley. +Elinor and Dennie, Trench, “Limpy,” the crippled student, and Victor +Burleigh were all on the home-stretch of their senior year. One more +June Commencement day and Sunrise would know them no more. Beyond +all this there was nothing new at Lagonda Ledge until suddenly the +white-haired woman was up at Pigeon Place, again, a fact known only to +old Bond Saxon and little Bug, who saw her leave the train. The little +blue smoke-twist was again rising lazily in the warm May air, and +somebody was systematically robbing houses in town, and Bond Saxon was +often drunk and hiding away from sight. A May storm sent the Walnut +booming down the valley, bank full, cutting off traffic at the town +bridge, but the days that followed were a joy. A tenderly green world it +was now, all blossom-decked, and blown across by the gentle May zephyrs, +with nothing harsh nor cruel in it, unless the rushing river down below +the shallows might seem so. The Kickapoo Corral, luxuriant with flowers, +and springing grass, and May green foliage, told nothing of the old-time +siege and sorrow of Swift Elk and the Fawn of the Morning Light. + +On the night after the storm Professor Burgess stopped at the Saxon +House. + +“Where is your father, Dennie?” he asked. + +“He went up north to help somebody out of the mud and water, I suppose,” + Dennie replied. “He is the kindest neighbor, and he has been trying +to--to keep straight. He told me when he left that this night's work was +to be a work of redemption for him. He may get stronger some time.” + +In his heart Burgess knew better. He had no faith in the old man's will +power, and the burden of a hidden crime he knew would but increase its +weight with time, and drag Bond down at last. But Dennie need not suffer +now. + +“Will you go with me down to the old Corral tomorrow afternoon, Dennie? +I want some plants that grow there. I'm studying nature along with +Greek,” he said, smiling. + +“Of course, if it is fair,” Dennie replied, the pretty color blooming +deeper in her cheeks. + +“Oh, we go fair or foul. You remember we fought it out coming home from +there once.” + +Meanwhile Bond Saxon was hurrying north on his work of redemption. At +the bend in the river he found Tom Gresh sitting on the flat stone slab. +The light was gleaming through the shrubbery of the little cottage, and +the homey sounds of evening and the twitter of late-coming birds were in +the air. + +“What are you here for, Gresh?” Bond asked, hoarsely. “I thought you had +left for good.” + +The villainous-looking outlaw drew a flask from his pocket. + +“Have a drink, Saxon. Take the whole bottle,” and he thrust it into the +old man's hands. + +Bond wavered a moment, then flung it far into the foamy floods of the +Walnut. + +“Not any more. You shall not get me drunk again while you rob and kill.” + +“You did the killing for me once. Won't you do it again?” Gresh snarled. + +Bond clinched his fists but did not strike. + +“What are you after now?” he asked. “You are through with the Burleighs; +Vic settled you and you know it.” + +Even with the words the clutch of Vic's fingers on the outlaw's throat +seemed to choke him now. + +“If my last Burleigh is gone,” he growled with an oath, “I'm not done +yet. There's Elinor Wream. Don't forget that her mother was my adopted +sister. Don't forget that my old foster father cut me off without a +cent and gave her all his money. That's why Nathan Wream married her. +He wanted her money for colleges.” The sneer on the man's face was +diabolical. “I can hit the old man through Elinor, and I'll do it some +time, and that's not the only blow that I can strike here, and I am +going to finish this thing now.” He pointed toward the cottage where the +unprotected woman sat alone. “Twice I've nerved myself to do it and been +fooled each time. One October day you were here drunk. I could have laid +it on you easy, and maybe fixed Fenneben too, if a little child's +voice hadn't scared me stiff. And the day of the big football game you +wouldn't get drunk and she must go down to that game just to look once +at Lloyd Fenneben. I meant to finish her that day. This is the third and +last time now. There is not even a dog to protect her.” + +Bond Saxon had been a huge fellow in his best days, and now he summoned +all the powers nature had left to him. + +“Tom Gresh,” he cried, “in my infernal weakness you made me a drunken +beast, who took the life of an innocent man you wanted out of your way. +You thought, you fool, that she might care for you then. I've carried +the curse of that deed on my soul night and day. I'll wipe it partly +away now by saving her life from you. So surely as tonight, tomorrow, +or ever you try to harm her, I'll not show you the mercy Vic Burleigh +showed you once.” + +Strange forms the guardian angel takes! + +Hence we entertain it unawares. + +Of all Lagonda Ledge, old Bond Saxon, standing between a woman and the +peril of her life, looked least angelic. Gresh understood him and turned +first in fawning and tempting trickery to his adversary. But Saxon stood +his ground. Then the outlaw raged in fury, not daring to strike now, +because he knew Bond's strength. And still the old man was unmoved. A +life saved for the life he had taken was steeling his soul to courage. + +At last in the dim light, Gresh stood motionless a minute, then he +struck his parting blow. + +“All right, Bond Saxon, play protector all you want to, but it's a short +game for you. The sheriff is out of town tonight, but tomorrow afternoon +he will get back to Lagonda Ledge. Tomorrow afternoon I go with all my +proofs--Oh, I've got 'em. And you, Bond Saxon, will be behind the bars +for your crime, done not so many years ago, and your honorable daughter, +disgraced forever by you, can shift for herself. I've nothing to lose; +why should I protect you?” + +He leaped down the bank into the swiftly flowing river, and, swimming +easily to the farther side, he disappeared in the underbrush. + +The next afternoon, somebody remembered that Bond Saxon had crossed the +bridge and plunged into the overflow of the river around the west end. +But Bond had been drunk much of late and nobody approached him when he +was drunk. How could Lagonda Ledge know the agony of the old man's soul +as he splashed across the Walnut waters and floundered up the narrow +glen to the cave? Or how, for Dennie's sake, he had begged on his knees +for mercy that should save his daughter's name? Or how harder than the +stone of the ledges, that the trickling water through slow-dragging +centuries has worn away, was the stony heart of the creature who denied +him? And only Victor Burleigh had power to picture the struggle that +must have followed in that cavern, and beyond the wall into the blind +black passages leading at last to the bluff above the river, where, +clinched in deadly combat, the two men, fighting still, fell headlong +into the Walnut floods. + + +Down at the shallows Professor Burgess and Dennie had found the waters +too deep to reach the Kickapoo Corral, so they strolled along the +bluff watching the river rippling merrily in the fall of the afternoon +sunshine. And brightly, too, the sunshine fell on Dennie Saxon's +rippling hair, recalling to Vincent Burgess' memory the woodland camp +fire and the old legend told in the October twilight and the flickering +flames lighting Dennie's face and the wavy folds of her sunny hair. + +But even as he remembered, a cry up stream came faintly, once and no +more, while, grappling still, two forms were borne down by the swift +current to the bend above the whirlpool. Dennie and Vincent sprang to +the very edge of the bluff, powerless to save, as Tom Gresh and Bond +Saxon were swept around the curve below the Corral. Across the shallows +they struggled for a footing, but the undertow carried them on toward +the fatal pool. + +A shriek from the bank came to Bond Saxon's ears, and he looked up and +saw the two reaching out vain hands to him. + +“Your oath, Vincent; your oath!” he cried in agonizing tones. + +Then Vincent Burgess put one arm about Dennie Saxon and drew her close +to him and lifted up his right hand high above him in token to the +drowning man of his promise, under heaven, to keep that oath forever. + +A look of joy swept over the old face in the water, his struggling +ceased, and once more tribute was paid to the grim Chieftain of +Lagonda's Pool.-------- + +They said about town the next day that it was the peacefulest face +ever seen below a coffin lid. And, remembering only his many acts of +neighborly kindness, they forgave and forgot his weaknesses, while +to the few who knew his life-tragedy came the assuring hope that +the forgiving mercy of man is but a type of the boundless mercy of a +forgiving God. + + + +CHAPTER XV. THE MASTERY + + _And only the Master shall praise us, and only the + Master shall blame, + And no one shall work for money, and no one + shall work for fame, + But each for the joy of working, and each, in his + separate star, + Shall draw the Thing as he sees It for the God of + Things as They Are_. + --KIPLING + +JUNE time in the Walnut Valley, and commencement time at Sunrise on the +limestone ridge! Nor pen nor brush can show the glory of the radiant +prairies, and the deep blue of the “unscarred heavens,” and the bright +gleams from rippling waters. And at the end of a perfect day comes the +silvery grandeur of a moonlit June night. + +It was late afternoon of the day before commencement. Victor Burleigh +stood on the stone where four years ago the bull snake had stretched +itself in the lazy sunshine. Only one more day at Sunrise for him, and +the little heartache, unlike any other sorrow a life can ever know, +was his, as he stood there. In the four years' battle he had come off +conqueror until the symbol above the doorway no longer held any mystery +for him. His character and culture now matched his voice. Before him +was higher learning, an under-professorship at Harvard, and later on the +pulpit for his life work. But now the heartache of parting was his, and +a deeper pain than breaking school ties was his also. A year of jolly +goodfellowship was ending, a happy year, with Elinor his most frequent +companion. And often in this year he had wondered at Lloyd Fenneben's +harsh judgment of her. Fondness of luxury seemed foreign to her, and +womanly beauty of character made her always “Norrie the beloved.” But +Victor was true to Fenneben's demands and willing to try to live through +the years after, if one year of happy association could be his now. +Whatever claims Burgess might assert later, he could not take from +another the claim to happy memories. But, today, there was the dull +steady heartache that he knew had come to stay. + +Presently Elinor joined him. + +“May I come down tonight for a goodby stroll, Elinor? There's a full +moon and after tomorrow there are to be no more moons, nor stars, nor +suns, nor lands, nor seas, nor principalities, nor powers for us at +Sunrise.” + +“I wish you would come, Victor,” Elinor said. “Come early. There's +a crowd going out somewhere, and we can join the ranks of the great +ungraduated for the last time.” + +“Elinor, I'm not hunting a crowd tonight,” Vic said in a low voice. + +“Well, come, anyway, and we'll hunt the solitude, if we can't hunt any +other game.” And they strolled homeward together. + + +In the early evening Lloyd Fenneben and Elinor sat on the veranda +watching the sunset through the trees beyond the river. + +“You are to graduate from Sunrise tomorrow,” Dr. Fenneben was saying. +“For a Wream that is the real beginning of life. I have your business +matters entrusted to me, ready to close up as soon as you are 'legally +graduated' according to my brother's wishes, but you may as well know +them now.” + +He paused, and Elinor, thinking of the moonlight, maybe, waited in +peaceful silence. + +“Norrie, when I finished at the university my brother put a small +fortune into my hands and bade me go West and build a new Harvard. You +know our family hold that that is the only legitimate use for money.” + +Norrie smiled assent. + +“I did not ask whose money it was, for my brother handled many bequests, +and I was a poor business man then. I came and invested it at last +in Sunrise-by-the-Walnut. That was your mother's money, given by your +father to Joshua, who gave it to me. Joshua did not tell me, and I +supposed some good, old Boston philanthropist had bought an indulgence +for his ignorant soul by endowing this thing so freely. I found it out +on Joshua's deathbed, and only to pacify him would I consent to keep it +until now. Henceforth, it must be yours. That is why I asked you a year +ago to just be a college girl and drop all thought about marrying. I +wanted you to come into possession of your own property before you bound +yourself by any bonds you could not break.” + +Elinor sat silent for a while, her dark eyes seeing only the low golden +sunset. She understood now what had grooved that line of care in Lloyd +Fenneben's face when he came home from the East. But he had conquered, +aye, he had won the mastery. + +“And you and Sunrise?” she asked at length. + +“I can sell the college site and buildings to this new manufactory +coming here in August. Added to this, I have acquired sufficient funds +of my own to pay you the entire amount and a good rate of interest with +it. My grief is that for all these years, I have kept you out of your +own.” + +Elinor rose up, white and cold, and put her hand on her uncle's hand. + +“Let me think a little, Uncle Lloyd. It is not easy to realize one's +fortune in a minute.” Then she left him. + +“It makes little difference what passion possesses a man's soul, if it +possesses him he will wrong his fellowmen,” Fenneben said to himself. +“In Joshua Wream's craving to endow college claims he robbed this girl +of her inheritance and sent her to me, telling me she was shallow-minded +and wholly given to a love of luxuries, that I might not see his plans; +while Norrie, never knowing, has proved over and over how false these +charges were. And at last, to still his noisy conscience, he would marry +her, willing or unwilling, to Vincent Burgess. But with all this, his +last hours were full of sorrowful confession. What do these Masters' +Degrees my brother bore avail a man if he have not the mastery within? +Meanwhile, my labors here must end.” + +Lonely and crushed, with his life work taken from him, he sat and faced +the sunset. Presently, he saw Elinor and Victor Burleigh strolling away +in the soft evening light. At the corner, Elinor turned and waved a +good-by to him. Then the memory of his own commencement day came back +to him, and of the happy night before. Oh, that night before! Can a man +ever forget! And now, tonight! + +“Don Fonnybone,” Bug Buler piped, as he came trudging around the corner. +“I want to confessing.” + +He came to Fenneben's side and looked up confidently in his face. + +“Well, confessing. I've just finished doing that myself,” Fenneben said. + +“I did a bad, long ago. I want to go and confessing. Will you go with +me?” + +“Where shall we go to be shriven, Bug? + +“To Pigeon Place,” Bug responded. “The Pigeon woman is there now. I saw +her coming, and I must go right away and confessing.” + +“I'll go with you, Bug. I want to see that woman, anyhow,” Fenneben +said. + +And the two went away in the early twilight of this rare June evening. + +Out at Pigeon Place, when Dr. Fenneben and little Bug walked up the +grassy way to the vine-covered porch in the misty twilight, Mrs. Marian +sat in the shadow, unaware of their coming until they stood before her. + +Lloyd Fenneben lifted his hat, and little Bug imitated him. + +“I beg your pardon, Mrs. Marian. This little boy wanted to tell you of +something that was troubling him. I think he trespassed on your property +unknowingly.” + +The gray-haired woman stood motionless in the shadow still. Her fair +face less haggard than of yore, as if some dread had left it, and only +loneliness remained. + +“I was here, and you was away, and I peeked in the window. It was +rude and I never did see you to tell you, and I'm sorry and I won't +for--never do it again. Dennie told me to come tonight, and bring Don +Fonnybone.” Bug had his part well in hand. + +Even as she smiled at him, Dr. Fenneben noticed how her hand on the +lattice shook. + +“And I want to thank you, Mrs. Marian, for your bravery and goodness on +the night I was assaulted here.” Fenneben was a gentleman to the core +and his courtesy was charming. “I meant to find you long ago, but my +brother's death, with my own long illness, and your absence, and my many +duties--” He paused with a smile. + +“Oh, Lloyd, Lloyd, on an evening like this, why do you come here?” + +The woman stood in the light now, a tragic figure of sorrow. And she was +not yet forty. + +Dr. Fenneben caught his breath and the light seemed to go out before +him. + +“Marian, oh, Marian! After all these years, do I find you here? They +said you were dead.” He caught her in his arms and held her close to his +breast. + + +“Lots of folks spoons round the Saxon House, so I went away and lef +'em,” Bug explained to Vic once afterward. + +And that accounted for little Bug sitting lonely on the flat stone by +the bend in the river where Dennie and Burgess found him later. + +“So you have stood between me and that assassin all these years, +even when the lies against me made you doubt my love. Oh, Marian, the +strength of a woman's heart!” Fenneben declared, as, side by side, black +hair and the gray near together, these long-separated lovers rebuilt +their world. + +“And this little child brought you here at last. 'A little child shall +lead them,'” the woman murmured. + +“Yes, Bug is a gift of God.” Lloyd Fenneben was bending over her. “He is +Victor Burleigh's nephew, who found him in a deserted place--” + +A shriek cut the evening air and she who had been known as Mrs. Marian +lay in a faint at Fenneben's feet. + +“Tell me, Marian, what this means.” + +Lloyd Fenneben had restored her to consciousness and she was resting, +white and trembling, in his arms. + +“My little Bug, my baby, Burgess!” she sobbed. “Bond Saxon, in a drunken +fit, killed his father. Then Tom Gresh carried him away to save him from +Bond, too, so Tom declared, but I did not believe him. Bond never harmed +a little child. Tom said he meant no harm and that Bug was stolen from +where he had left him. It was then that my hair turned white. Tom tried +once, a year ago in December, to make me believe he could bring Bug back +to me if I would care for him--for that wicked murderer! Oh, Lloyd!” + +She nestled close in Dr. Fenneben's protecting arms, and shivered at the +thought. + +“And you named him Burgess for your own name. Does Vincent know?” + Fenneben questioned, tenderly smoothing the white hair as Norrie had so +often smoothed his own. + +“Is this Vincent my own brother? Will he really own me as his sister? +I've tried to meet him many times. I left his picture on my table that +he might see it if he should ever come. My father separated us years +ago. After we came West he sent me just one letter in which he said +Vincent would never speak to me nor claim me as his sister again. A +brother--a lover--and my baby boy!” + +And the lonely woman, overcome with joy, sat white and still beneath the +white moonbeams. + + +Joy does not kill any more than sorrow. Vincent Burgess and Dennie +Saxon, who came just at the right time, told how they had waited with +Bug at the slab of stone by the bend in the river until they should be +needed. + +“It was Dennie who planned it all,” Vincent said, “and did not even let +me know. Bug told her my picture was on the table in there. But so long +as her father lived, she kept her counsel.” + +“I tried four years ago to get Dr. Fenneben to come out here,” Dennie +said. And the Dean remembered the autumn holiday and Dennie's solicitude +for an unknown woman. + +But the joy of this night, crowning all other joys in the Walnut Valley, +was in that sacred moment when Bug Buler walked slowly up to Marian +Burleigh, sister to Vincent Burgess, lost love of Lloyd Fenneben's +youth--slowly, and with big brown eyes glowing with a strange new love +light, and, putting up both his chubby hands to her cheeks, he murmured +softly: + +“Is you my own mother? Then, I'll love you fornever.” + + +Meantime, on this last moonlit June night, Elinor and Vic were strolling +down the new south cement walk, a favorite place for the young people +now. + +At the farther end, Vic said: + +“Norrie, let's go down across the shallows to the west bluff again. Can +you climb it, or shall we join the crowd down in the Kickapoo Corral?” + +“I can climb where you can, Victor,” Elinor declared. + +“Dennie will never want to come here again. Poor Dennie!” + +Vic was helping Elinor across the shallows as he spoke. Up in the Corral +a happy crowd of young people were finishing their last “picnic spread” + for the year. Below the shallows the whirlpool was glistening all +treacherously smooth and level under the moonbeams. + +“Why 'poor Dennie,' Victor? Her father had nothing more for him, here, +except disgrace. The tribute paid him at his funeral would have been +forever withheld, if he had lived a day longer, and he died sure of +Dennie's future.” Elinor spoke gently. + +“Who told you all this, Elinor?” Victor asked. + +“Professor Burgess, when he showed me the diamond ring Dennie is to wear +tomorrow.” + +“Dennie, a diamond! I'm glad for Dennie. Diamonds are fine to have,” Vic +declared. + +They had climbed to the top of the west bluff. The silvery prairie and +silver river and mist-wreathed valley, and overhead, the clear, calm +sky, where the moon sailed in magnificent grandeur, were a setting to +make the evening a perfect one. And in this setting was Elinor, herself +the jewel, beautiful, winsome, womanly. + +“I have some good news.” She turned to the young man beside her. “You +know the Wreams have made a life business of endowing colleges. Well, +I am a Wream by blood, and tomorrow, oh, Victor, tomorrow, I, too, have +the opportunity of a lifetime. I'm going to endow Sunrise.” + +He looked at her in amazement. + +“Oh, it's clear enough,” she exclaimed. “It was my money that built +Sunrise. It shall stay here, and Dr. Lloyd Fenneben, Dean of Sunrise, +and acting-Dean Vincent Burgess, A.B., Professor of Greek, and Victor +Burleigh, Valedictorian, who goes East to a professorship in Harvard, +and to the ministry of the gospel later on--all you mighty men of valor +will know how little Norrie Wream cares for money, except as it can make +the world better and happier. I haven't lived in Lloyd Fenneben's home +these four years without learning something of what is required for a +Master's Degree.” + +“Norrie!” All the music of a soul poured into the music of the deep +voice. + +“Victor! There is no sacrifice in it. I wish there were, that I might +wear the honors you wear so modestly.” + +“I, Elinor?” + +“I know the whole story. Dennie told me when you had that awful fight, +and Trenchie told me long ago, that you thought I must have money to +make me happy. Why I, more than Dennie, or you, who gave Bug his claim?” + +Elinor put up her hands to Victor, who took them both in his, as he drew +her to him and kissed her sweet red lips. And there was a new heaven +and a new earth created that night in the soft silvery moonlight of the +Walnut Valley. + +“I'd rather be here with you than over the river with anybody else. I +feel safer here,” she murmured, remembering when they had striven in the +darkness and the storm to reach this very height. + +But Victor Burleigh could not speak. The mastery for which he had +striven seemed to bring meed of reward too great for him to grasp with +words. + + + +THE PARTING + + ... _There is neither East nor West, Border, + nor Breed, nor Birth, + When two strong men stand face to face, tho' they + come from the ends of the earth!_ + --KIPLING + +COMMENCEMENT day at Sunrise was just one golden Kansas June day, when + +The heart is so full that a drop overfills it. + + +Victor Burleigh, late of a claim out beyond the Walnut, Professor-to-be +in Harvard University, and Vincent Burgess, acting-Dean of Sunrise, only +a degree less beloved than Dean Fenneben himself, met on the morning of +commencement day at the campus gate, one to go to the East, the other +to stay in the West. Side by side they walked up the long avenue to +the foot of the slope, together they climbed the broad flight of steps +leading up to the imposing doorway of Sunrise with the big letter S +carved in relief above it. And after pausing a moment to take in the +matchless wonder of the landscape over which old Sunrise keeps watch, +the college portal swung open and the two entered at the same time. +Inside the doorway, under the halo of light from the stained glass dome +with its Kansas motto, wrought in dainty coloring. Elinor Wream, niece +of the Dean of Sunrise, and Dennie Saxon, old Bond Saxon's daughter, who +had earned her college tuition, stood side by side, awaiting them. And +beyond these, on the rotunda stairs, Dr. Lloyd Fenneben was looking down +at the four with keen black eyes. Beside him on the broad stairway was +Marian Burgess Burleigh, the white-haired, young-faced woman of Pigeon +Place, and Bug Buler--everybody's child. + +The barriers were down at last: the value of common life, the power of +Strife and Sacrifice and Service, the joy of Supremacy, the conflict of +rich red blood with the thinner blue, the force of culture against mere +physical strength, the power of character over wealth--these things had +been wrought out under the gracious influence of Dr. Lloyd Fenneben in +Sunrise-by-the-Walnut. + + +“Come up, come up; there is room up here,” the Dean called to the group +in the rotunda. “There's an A.B. for all who have conquered the Course +of Study, and a Master's Degree for everyone who has conquered himself.” + + +The common level so impossible on a September day four years ago, came +now to two strong men when the commencement exercises were ended, and +Sunrise became to the outgoing class only a hallowed memory. + +The hour is high noon, the good-bys are given, and from the crest of the +limestone ridge the ringing chorus, led by good old Trench, sounds far +and far away along the Walnut Valley: + + Rah for Funnybone! + Rah for Funnybone! + Rah for Funnybone! + _Rah!_ RAW RAH!!! + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's A Master's Degree, by Margaret Hill McCarter + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A MASTER'S DEGREE *** + +***** This file should be named 1348-0.txt or 1348-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/4/1348/ + +Produced by Charles Keller + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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