w, as Vic recalled the query, "If Victor
Burleigh had his corners knocked off and was sandpapered down and
had money?"--and of Elinor's blushing confession that it would make a
difference she could not help if these things were. The corners were
knocked off now, and Dean Fenneben had gently but persistently applied
the sandpaper. The money must be henceforth the one condition.

"Elinor." Vic's voice was sweet as low bars of music.

"Oh, Victor, there's something I can't prevent."

She was thinking of Uncle Joshua, whose money had supported her all
these years and of her obligation to heed his wishes. It was all settled
for her now. And all the while Victor was thinking of his own limited
means as the rock that was wrecking him with her.

For all his life afterward he never forgot the sorrow of that moment. He
looked into Elinor's face, and all the longing, all the heart-hunger
of the days gone by, and of the days to come seemed to lie in those
wide-open eyes shaded by long black lashes.

"Elinor, my father's cruel murder and my mother dying alone were one
kind of grief. My fight with those deadly poison things to rescue little
Bug was another kind. My days of hardship and poverty on the claim, with
only Bug and me in that desolate loneliness, was still another. But none
of these seem a sorrow beside what I must face henceforth. And yet I
have one joy mine now. You did care down in the glen. May I keep that
one gracious joy--mine always?"

"You have always won in every game. You will in this struggle. Don't
forget the name your mother gave you." Her eyes were luminous with
tears. "We must go down to the Corral now. Tomorrow will make things all
right. I shall be proud of you and your success everywhere, for you will
succeed."

"I may not be worthy of victory," he said, sadly.

"You have never been unworthy. Don't be now." She smiled bravely.

They turned from the west prairie and the sunset, and slowly they passed
out of its passing radiance down to the darkening spaces of the old
Kickapoo Corral.

And the day with its gladness and sorrow, whether for loss or gain,
slipped into the shadowy beauty of an April twilight.

CHAPTER IX. GAIN, OR LOSS?

_Ye know how hard an Idol dies, an' what that meant
to me--E'en take it for a sacrifice, acceptable to Thee_.
--KIPLING
THE ball game on Friday, the thirteenth, was a great event this year.
The Sunrise football eleven had he