t 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 we