as 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