A Master's Degree Part 26

Aloud he said:

"Have you ever spoken directly to Elinor on this matter?"

"N-no. It was an understanding between her and her uncle and between him and me," Burgess replied.

"Well, I don't pretend to know girls very well, being a confirmed bachelor"--the Dean's eyes were smiling--"but my advice at this distance is not to ask Norrie to release you from what she herself has never yet bound you. I'll vouch for her peace of mind; and your sense of honor is fully vindicated now. To be equally frank with you, Burgess, now that Norrie is entirely in my charge, I have put this sort of thing for her absolutely into the after-commencement years. The best wife is not always the girl who wears a diamond ring through three or four years of her college life. I want my niece to be a girl now, not a bride-in-waiting."

As Burgess rose to go his eye caught sight of the pigeons above the bend in the river.

"By the way, Doctor, have you ever found out anything about the woman who used to live in that deserted place up north?"

"Nothing yet," Fenneben replied. "But, remember, I have not spent a week--that is, a sane week--in Lagonda Ledge since the night you, and she, and Saxon, and the dog saved my life. I shall take up her case soon."

"She is gone away and n.o.body knows where, Saxon tells me," Burgess said.

"For many reasons I wish we could find her, but she has dropped out of sight."

Lloyd Fenneben wondered at the sorrowful expression on the younger man's face when he said this.

As he left the study Victor Burleigh came in.

"Sit down, Burleigh. What can I do for you?" Fenneben asked.

Something like his own magnetism of presence was in the young man before him.

"I want to tell you something," Vic responded.

"Let me tell you something. I knew you had good blood in your veins even when I saw you kill that bull snake. Burgess has just been in. He has told me his side of your story. n.o.ble fellow he is to free himself of a life-long slavery to somebody else's dollars. However much a man may try to hide the fetters of unlawful gains, they clank in his own ears till he hates himself. Now Burgess is a freeman."

"I am glad to hear you say so, Dr. Fenneben. It makes my own freedom sweeter," Vic declared.

"Yes," Fenneben replied. "Your added means will bring you life's best gift--opportunity."

"I have no added means, Doctor. I have funds in trust for Bug Buler, and I come to ask you to take his legal guardians.h.i.+p for me." And then he told his own life story.

"So the heroism s.h.i.+fts to you as well. I can picture the cost to a man like yourself," the Dean said. "Have you no record of Bug's father and mother?"

"None but the record given by Dr. Wream. They are dead," Burleigh replied. "His father may have met the same fate that my father did."

"Why don't you take the guardians.h.i.+p yourself, Burleigh? The boy is yours in love and blood. He ought to be in law."

Victor Burleigh stood up to his full height, a magnificent product of Nature's handiwork. But the mind and soul "Dean Funnybone" had helped to shape.

"I will be honest with you, Dr. Fenneben," Burleigh said, and his voice was deep and sweetly resonant. "If I keep the money in charge I may not be proof against the temptation to use it for myself. As strong as my strong arms are my hates and loves, and for some reasons I would do almost anything to gain riches. I might not resist the tempter."

Lloyd Fenneben's black eyes blazed at the words.

"I understand perfectly what you mean, but no woman who exacts this price is worth the cost." Then, in a gentler tone, he continued: "Burleigh, will you take my advice? I have always had your welfare on my heart. Finish your college work first. Get the best of the cla.s.sroom, the library, the athletic field, and the 'picnic spread.' Is that the right term? But fit yourself for manhood before you undertake a man's duties. Meantime, He who has given you the mastery in the years behind you is leading you toward the larger places before you, teaching you all the meanings of Strife, and Sacrifice, and Service symbolized above our doorway in our proud College initial letter. The Supremacy is yet to come. Will you follow my counsel? I'll take care of Bug, and we will keep Burgess out of this for a while."

Burleigh thought he understood, and the silent hand clasp pledged the faith of the country boy to the teacher's wishes.

It is only in story books that events leap out as pages are turned, events that take days on days of real life to compa.s.s. In the swing of one brief year Lagonda Ledge knew little change. New cement walks were built south almost to the Kickapoo Corral. A new manufacturing concern had bonds voted for it at an exciting election, and a squabble for a suitable site was in process. Vincent Burgess and Victor Burleigh, two strong men, were growing actually chummy, and Trench declared he was glad they had decided to quit playing marbles for keeps and hiding each other's caps.

And now the springtime of the year was on the beautiful Walnut Valley.

Elinor and Dennie, Trench, "Limpy," the crippled student, and Victor Burleigh were all on the home-stretch of their senior year. One more June Commencement day and Sunrise would know them no more. Beyond all this there was nothing new at Lagonda Ledge until suddenly the white-haired woman was up at Pigeon Place, again, a fact known only to old Bond Saxon and little Bug, who saw her leave the train. The little blue smoke-twist was again rising lazily in the warm May air, and somebody was systematically robbing houses in town, and Bond Saxon was often drunk and hiding away from sight. A May storm sent the Walnut booming down the valley, bank full, cutting off traffic at the town bridge, but the days that followed were a joy. A tenderly green world it was now, all blossom-decked, and blown across by the gentle May zephyrs, with nothing harsh nor cruel in it, unless the rus.h.i.+ng river down below the shallows might seem so. The Kickapoo Corral, luxuriant with flowers, and springing gra.s.s, and May green foliage, told nothing of the old-time siege and sorrow of Swift Elk and the Fawn of the Morning Light.

On the night after the storm Professor Burgess stopped at the Saxon House.

"Where is your father, Dennie?" he asked.

"He went up north to help somebody out of the mud and water, I suppose,"

Dennie replied. "He is the kindest neighbor, and he has been trying to--to keep straight. He told me when he left that this night's work was to be a work of redemption for him. He may get stronger some time."

In his heart Burgess knew better. He had no faith in the old man's will power, and the burden of a hidden crime he knew would but increase its weight with time, and drag Bond down at last. But Dennie need not suffer now.

"Will you go with me down to the old Corral tomorrow afternoon, Dennie?

I want some plants that grow there. I'm studying nature along with Greek," he said, smiling.

"Of course, if it is fair," Dennie replied, the pretty color blooming deeper in her cheeks.

"Oh, we go fair or foul. You remember we fought it out coming home from there once."

Meanwhile Bond Saxon was hurrying north on his work of redemption. At the bend in the river he found Tom Gresh sitting on the flat stone slab.

The light was gleaming through the shrubbery of the little cottage, and the homey sounds of evening and the twitter of late-coming birds were in the air.

"What are you here for, Gresh?" Bond asked, hoa.r.s.ely. "I thought you had left for good."

The villainous-looking outlaw drew a flask from his pocket.

"Have a drink, Saxon. Take the whole bottle," and he thrust it into the old man's hands.

Bond wavered a moment, then flung it far into the foamy floods of the Walnut.

"Not any more. You shall not get me drunk again while you rob and kill."

"You did the killing for me once. Won't you do it again?" Gresh snarled.

Bond clinched his fists but did not strike.

"What are you after now?" he asked. "You are through with the Burleighs; Vic settled you and you know it."

Even with the words the clutch of Vic's fingers on the outlaw's throat seemed to choke him now.

"If my last Burleigh is gone," he growled with an oath, "I'm not done yet. There's Elinor Wream. Don't forget that her mother was my adopted sister. Don't forget that my old foster father cut me off without a cent and gave her all his money. That's why Nathan Wream married her.

He wanted her money for colleges." The sneer on the man's face was diabolical. "I can hit the old man through Elinor, and I'll do it some time, and that's not the only blow that I can strike here, and I am going to finish this thing now." He pointed toward the cottage where the unprotected woman sat alone. "Twice I've nerved myself to do it and been fooled each time. One October day you were here drunk. I could have laid it on you easy, and maybe fixed Fenneben too, if a little child's voice hadn't scared me stiff. And the day of the big football game you wouldn't get drunk and she must go down to that game just to look once at Lloyd Fenneben. I meant to finish her that day. This is the third and last time now. There is not even a dog to protect her."

Bond Saxon had been a huge fellow in his best days, and now he summoned all the powers nature had left to him.

"Tom Gresh," he cried, "in my infernal weakness you made me a drunken beast, who took the life of an innocent man you wanted out of your way.