ou 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