America--but the record of his
former testimony remained fixed in the stenographer's notes and was
fully available for later use--so that his going lifted no shadow from
Asa's future.

"I reckon they squshed ther indictment ergin him," Boone commented
bitterly to McCalloway, "an' paid him off with some of thet thar blood
money."

He paused and then went on, holding his finger between the pages of the
book he was studying. "He's done fared a long way off--but, some day
he'll fare back again. I stands full pledged--twell I comes of age, an'
I aims ter keep my word. Atter thet, I hain't makin' no brash promises.
Ther hate in my heart, hit don't seem ter slacken none. I mistrusts hit
won't--never."

But if the festering grievance did not "slacken," at least it seemed
just now partly submerged in the great adventure of going down to the
world below and becoming a collegian.

He went early in the autumn when he was seventeen, and McCalloway, who
accompanied and matriculated him, came away smiling. He had felt as
though he were leading a wolf-cub into a kennel of blooded hounds. But
when he had watched the self-poise with which his registrant bore
himself and how quickly amused smiles faded away under his level gaze,
he left with a reassured confidence.

When the days began to grow crisp the uncouth scholar saw for the first
time the lads in leather and moleskin tackling and punting out on the
campus--in the early try-outs of the season's football practice. He
looked on at first with a somewhat satirical detachment, but when the
scrimmages took on the guise of actual ferocity his interest altered
from tepid disapproval for "sich foolery" to a realization that it was
"no gal's play-party."

Several afternoons later Boone shyly intercepted the coach as he led out
the practice squads.

"Does thet thar football business belong ter a club--er somethin'," he
inquired, "er kin any feller git inter hit?"

The coach looked at the roughly dressed lad with the unruly hair, who
talked in barbaric phrases--and his practised eye took in the sinewy
strength of the well-muscled body. He appraised the power of the broad
shoulders, and the slim, agile lines of waist and legs, and gave him a
chance.

From the beginning it was evident that Boone Wellver would make the
scrub team. He was a tornado from the instant the ball was snapped--"an
injia rubber idjit on a spree," and yet this mystifying wolf-cub from
the hills came back to th