ickapoo 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