e lay sunning itself
on this very stone. How shy and awkward he seemed then, with only a deep
sweet voice to attract favorable attention. And now, big, and graceful,
and handsome, and reserved--any girl might be proud to have his regard.
Of course, for herself, there was Vincent Burgess in the pleasant
inevitable sometime. She gave little thought to that. She was living in
the present. And in the wooing spirit of the April afternoon Elinor was
glad to sit here beside Victor Burleigh.

"What time next month do we have the big baseball game?" she asked. "The
game that is to make Sunrise the champion college in Kansas, and you our
college champion?" Vic's lips suddenly grew gray.

"Friday, the thirteenth--auspicious date!" he answered. "But I may not
play in it. I might fail."

"Oh, we must win this game, anyhow, and you never do fail. Don't forget
the name your mother gave you. Do you remember when you told me that?"

"A couple of thousand years ago, wasn't it?" Vic asked, smiling down
on her. "If I don't play Sunrise needn't fail, even for Friday, the
thirteenth."

"But it will fail without you. You pulled us to victory a year ago
at the Thanksgiving game, and last fall the Sunrise goal line wasn't
crossed the whole season with 'Burleigh! Burly! Burlee!' for a slogan.
We must win this year. Then it will be a complete championship:
football, basket-ball, and baseball. We won't do it though unless we
have 'Burleigh at the bat'."

A shadow crossed his face and he looked away to where a tiny film of
blue smoke was rising above the rough ledges beyond the river.

"I'm getting over my stage fright now," Elinor said, the pink deepening
on her fair cheek, "and I'll tell you what I want."

"Command me!" he said, gallantly.

"Well, it's awful, and the girls are too mean to live. But they are
getting even with me, they say, for something I did last fall."

"All right." Vic was waiting, graciously.

"A lot of us have broken some of the rules of the Sorority and it's
decreed that I must go over the route we came home by on the night of
the storm down in the Kickapoo Corral. They are having a 'spread' down
there at five o'clock and we are to get there in time for it, going
by the west side of the river, and they'll bring us home. They said I
should ask you to go with me, and if you would n't go for me to ask Mr.
Trench to go. They are too silly for anything."

"Trench was executed for manslaughter at two forty-five today