ough him ran the blood of
the craftiest race of all the earth, the blood of a people who have
always fought against odds, to whom a forlorn hope is an assurance
of victory. On this day the son of a Sioux chief led the men of
that great university with the same skill that Hannibal led his
Carthaginian cohorts up to the gates of Rome. He led them with the
cunning of Chief Joseph, the greatest warrior of his people. He was
indefatigable, irresistible, magnificent--and he himself tied the
score.

"In spite of myself I joined madly in the cheering; but the boy didn't
let down. Now that his enemies recognized the source of their peril,
they focused upon him all their fury. They tried to destroy him. They
fell upon him like animals; they worried and they harried and they
battered him until I felt sick for him and for the girl beside me,
who had grown so faint and pale. But his body was of my making; I had
spent careful years on it, and although they wore themselves out, they
could not break Running Elk. He remained a fleeting, an elusive thing,
with the vigor of a wild horse. He tackled their runners with the
ferocity of a wolf.

"It was a grand exhibition of coolness and courage, for he was
everywhere, always alert and always ready--and it was he who won the
game.

"There came some sort of a fumble, too fast for the eye to follow, and
then the ball rolled out of the scrimmage. Before we knew what had
happened, Running Elk was away with it, a scattered field ahead of
him.

"I dare say you have heard about that run, for it occurred in the last
three minutes of play, and is famous in football annals to this day,
so I'm told. It was a spectacular performance, apparently devised by
fate to make more difficult the labors of old Henry and me. Every
living soul on those high-banked bleachers was on his feet at the
finish, a senseless, screaming demon. I saw Alicia straining forward,
her face like chalk, her very lips blanched, her whole high-strung
body aquiver. Her eyes were distended, and in them I saw a look which
told me that this was no mere girlish whim, that this was more than
the animal call of youth and sex. Running Elk had become a fetish to
her.

"The father must likewise have recognized this, for as we passed out
he stammered into my ear:

"'You see, Doc, the girl's mad. It's awful--awful. I don't know what
to do.'

"We had become momentarily separated from her, and therefore I urged
him: 'Get her away, quick,