"I know that," answered the other, "but I've got to beat McCune."

"By the way," observed Meredith, "you left your stick behind."

"You don't think I need a club to face----"

Tom choked. "Oh, no. I wasn't thinking of your giving H. Fisbee a
thrashing. I meant to lean on."

"I don't want it. I've got to walk lame all my life, but I'm not going to
hobble on a stick." Tom looked at him sadly; for it was true, and the
Cross-Roaders might hug themselves in their cells over the thought. For
the rest of his life John Harkless was to walk with just the limp they
themselves would have had, if, as in former days, their sentence had been
to the ball and chain.

The window was open beside the two young men, and the breeze swept in,
fresh from the wide fields, There was a tang in the air; it soothed like a
balm, but there was a spur to energy and heartiness in its crispness, the
wholesome touch of fall. John looked out over the boundless aisles of corn
that stood higher than a tall man could reach; long waves rippled across
them. Here, where the cry of the brave had rung in forest glades, where
the painted tribes had hastened, were marshalled the tasselled armies of
peace. And beyond these, where the train ran between shadowy groves,
delicate landscape vistas, framed in branches, opened, closed, and
succeeded each other, and then the travellers were carried out into the
level open again, and the intensely blue September skies ran down to the
low horizon, meeting the tossing plumes of corn.