ion instead of a sixteenth century barbarity in Cuba."

Thaine was reciting his lesson glibly, but Leigh broke in.

"But why must you go? You, an only child?"

She had never seen a soldier. Her knowledge of warfare had been given her
by the stories Jim Shirley and Dr. Carey had told to her in her childhood.

"It's really not my fault that I'm an only child. It's an inheritance. My
father was an only child, too. He went to war at the mature age of
fifteen. I'll be twenty-one betimes." Thaine stood up with military
stiffness.

"Your father fought to save his country. You just want gold lace and a
lark. War is no frolic, Thaine Aydelot," Leigh insisted.

"I'm not counting on a frolic, Miss Shirley, and I don't want any gold
lace till I have earned it," Thaine declared proudly.

"Then why do you go?" Leigh queried.

"I go in the name of patriotism. Wars don't just happen. At least, that is
what the professor at the University tells us. Back of this Spanish fuss
is a bigger turn waiting than has been foretold. Watch and see if I am not
a prophet. This is a war to right human wrongs. That's why we are going
into it."

"But your father wants you here. The Sunflower Ranch is waiting for you,"
Leigh urged.

"His father wanted him to stay in Ohio, so our family history runs. But
Mr. Asher heard the calling of the prairies. His wilderness lay on the
Kansas plains, and he came out and drove back the frontier line and pretty
near won it. At least, he's got a wheat crop in this year that looks some
like success."

Thaine smiled, but Leigh's face was grave.

"Leighlie, my frontier is where the Spanish yoke hangs heavy on the necks
of slaves. I must go and win it. I must drive back my frontier line where
I find it, not where my grandfather found it. I must do a man's part in
the world's work."

His voice was full of earnestness and his dark eyes were glowing with the
fire of inspiration. By the patriotism and enthusiasm of the youth of
twenty-one has victory come to many a battlefield.

"But I don't want you to go away to war," Leigh pleaded.

"You don't want me here."

Thaine let his hand rest gently on hers for a moment as it lay on top of
the easel; then hastily withdrew it.

"Has your alfalfa struck root deep enough to begin to pull up that
mortgage yet?" he inquired, as if to drop the unpleasant subject.

"Not yet," Leigh answered. "We make every acre help to seed more acres.
It's an uphill pull. It's my war