“Dr. Fenneben”--his musical voice rang clear--“I'm only a poor devil from the short-grass country where life each year depends on that year's crop. Three years out of four, the wind and drouth bring only failure at harvest time. Then we starve our bodies and grip onto hope and determination with our souls till seedtime comes again. I want a college education. Last summer burned us out as usual within a month of harvest. Then the mortgage got in its work on my claim and I had to give it up. I had barely enough to get through here at pauper rates this year--but I could n't do it and keep Bug, too. I went into Colorado and played baseball for pay, so I could come here and bring him with me. That's why I can out-bat our team, and could win dead easy for Sunrise tomorrow. Nobody in Kansas knows it. Now, what shall I do?” The words were shot out like bullets. “What shall you do?” Lloyd Fenneben's black eyes held Burleigh. “There is only one thing to do. When you ranked high in grades with only the trivial matter of excusable absence against you--no broken law--you took Professor Burgess gently by the throat and told him you meant to play anyhow. You stood your ground like a man, for your own sake and for the honor of Sunrise. Stand like a man for your own sake and the honor of Sunrise, now. Go to Professor Burgess and take him gently--by the hand, this time--and tell him you do not mean to play, and why you cannot.” Burleigh sat still as stone, his face white as marble, his wide-open eyes under his black brows seeing nothing. “But our proud record--the glorious honor of this college,” he said at length, and back of his words was the thought of Victor Burleigh, the idol of Sunrise, dethroned, where he had been adored. “There is no honor for a college like the honesty of its students. There is no prouder record than the record of daring to do the right. You could get into the game once by a brute's strength. Get out of it now by a gentleman's honor.” Behind the speech was Lloyd Fenneben himself, sympathetic, firm, upright, before whom the harshness of Victor Burleigh's face slowly gave place to an expression of sorrow. “My boy,” Fenneben said gently, “Nature gave us the Walnut Valley with its limestone ledges and fine forest trees. But before our Sunrise could be builded the ledge had to be shapen into the hewn stone, the green tree to the seasoned lumber, quarter-sawed oak--quarter-sawed, mind you. Mill, forge and try-pit, ax and saw and chisel, with cleft and blow and furnace heat, shaped them all for Service. Over our doorway is the Sunrise initial. It stands also for Strife, part of which you know already; but it stands for Sacrifice as well. You are in the shaping. God grant you may be turned out a man fitted by Sacrifice for Service when the shaping is done.”