A Master's Degree Part 2

"Kill it! Kill it!" she cried, trying to force her slender white parasol into his hand.

Before he could move, Vic Burleigh leaped out from behind the cedars, and, picking up a sharp-edged bit of limestone, tipped his hand dexterously and sent it clean as a knife cut across the s.p.a.ce. It struck the snake just below the head, half severing it from the body. Another leap and Burleigh had kicked the whole writhing ma.s.s--it would have measured five feet--off the stone into the sunflower stalks and long gra.s.ses of the steep slope.

"How did you ever dare?" Elinor asked.

"Oh, he's not poison; he just doesn't belong up here."

The bluntness of timidity was in Vic's answer, but the strength and musical depth of his resonant voice was almost startling.

"There is no Eden without a serpent, Miss Elinor," Professor Burgess said lightly.

"Nor a serpent without some sort of Eden built around it. The thing's mate will be along after it pretty soon. Look out for it down there. The best place to catch it is right behind its ears," came the boy's quick response.

Burleigh looked back defiantly at Burgess as he disappeared indoors. And the antagonism born in the meeting of these two men in the morning took on a tiny degree of strength in the afternoon.

"What a wonderful voice, Vincent. It makes one want to hear it again,"

Elinor exclaimed.

"Yes, and what an overgrown pile of awkwardness. It makes one hope never to see it again," her companion responded.

"But he killed that snake in a way that looked expert to me," Elinor insisted.

"My dear Miss Elinor, he was probably born in some Kansas cabin and has practiced killing snakes all his life. Not a very elevating feat. Let's go down and explore Lagonda Ledge now before the other snake comes in for the coroner's inquest."

And the two pa.s.sed down the stone steps to the shady level campus and on to the town beyond it.

"You are hard on snakes, Burleigh," Dr. Fenneben said as he welcomed the country boy into his study. "A bull snake is a harmless creature, and he is the farmer's friend."

"Let him stay on the farm then. I hate him. He's no friend of mine," Vic replied.

He was overflowing the chair recently graced by Professor Burgess and clutching his derby as if it might escape and leave him bareheaded forever. His face had a dogged expression and his glance was stern. Yet his direct words and the deep richness of his voice put him outside of the cla.s.s of commonplace beginners.

"Are you fond of killing things?" the Dean asked.

The ruddy color deepened in Vic Burleigh's brown cheek, but the steadfast gaze of his eyes and the firm lines of his mouth told the head of Sunrise something of what he would find in the st.u.r.dy young Jayhawker.

"Sometimes," came the blunt answer. "I've always lived on a Kansas claim. Unless you know what that means you might not understand--how hard a life"--Vic stopped abruptly and squeezed the rim of his derby.

"Never mind. We take only face value here. Fine view from that window,"

and Lloyd Fenneben's genial smile began to win the heart of the country boy as most young hearts were won to him.

Burleigh leaned toward the window, forgetful of the chair arms he had striven to subdue, the late afternoon sunlight falling on his brown face and glinting in his auburn hair.

"It's as pretty as paradise," he said, simply. "There's nothing like our Kansas prairies."

"You come from the plains out west, I hear. How long do you plan to stay here, Burleigh?" Dr. Fenneben asked.

"Four years if I can make it go. I've got a little schooling and I know how to herd cattle. I need more than this, if I am only a country boy."

"Who pays for your schooling, yourself, or your father?" Fenneben queried.

"I have no father nor mother now."

"You are willing to work four years to get a diploma from Sunrise? It is hard work; all the harder if you have not had much schooling before it."

"I'm willing to work, and I'd like to have the diploma for it," Vic answered.

"Burleigh, did you notice the letter S carved in the stone above the door?"

"Yes, sir; I suppose it stands for Sunrise?"

"It does. But with the years it will take on new meanings for you.

When you have learned all these meanings you will be ready for your diploma--and more. You will be far on your way to the winning of a Master's Degree."

Vic's eyes widened with a sort of child-like simplicity. He forgot his hat and the chair arms, and Dr. Fenneben noted for the first time that his golden-brown eyes matching his auburn hair were shaded by long black lashes, the kind artists rave about, and arched over with black brows.

"His eyes and voice are all right," was the Dean's mental comment.

"There's good blood in his veins, I'll wager."

But before he could speak further the shrill scream of a frightened child came from the campus below the ridge. At the cry Vic Burleigh sprang to his feet, upsetting his chair, and without stopping to pick it up, he rushed from the building.

As he tore down the long flight of steps, Lloyd Fenneben caught sight of a child on the level campus running toward him as fast as its fat little legs could toddle. Two minutes later Vic Burleigh was back in the study, panting and hot, with the little one clinging to his neck.

"Excuse me, please," Vic said as he lifted the fallen chair. "I forgot all about Bug down there, and the widow Bull"--he gave a half-smile--"was wriggling around trying to find her mate, and scared him. He's too little to be left alone, anyhow."

Bug was a st.u.r.dy, stubby three-year-old, or less, dimpled and brown, with big dark eyes and a tangle of soft little red-brown ringlets. As Vic seated himself, Bug perched on the arm of the chair inside of the big boy's encircling arm.

"Who is your friend? Is he your brother?" asked the Dean.

"No. He's no relation. I don't know anything about him, except that his name is Buler. Bug Buler, he says."

Little Bug put up a chubby brown hand loving-wise to Vic Burleigh's brown cheek, and, looking straight at Dr. Fenneben with wide serious eyes, he asked,

"Is you dood to Vic?"

"Yes, indeed," replied the Dean.

"Nen, I like you fornever," Bug declared, shutting his lips so tightly that his checks puffed.

"How do you happen to have this child here, Burleigh?" questioned Fenneben.

"Because he's got n.o.body else to look after him," answered Vic.

"How about an orphan asylum?"

Vic looked down at the little fellow cuddled against his arm, and every feature of his stern face softened.

"Will it make any difference about him if I get my lessons, sir? I can't let Bug go now. We are the limit for each other--neither of us got anybody else. I take care of him, but he keeps me from getting too coa.r.s.e and rough. Every fellow needs something innocent and good about him sometimes."