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 gir