A Master's Degree [15]
light in his own eyes told nothing of the glitter that had flashed in them when he glared at Professor Burgess down in the Corral.
"I wasn't killing snakes. I was looking up at a girl on the rotunda stairs the first time," he said, "and I don't want to tell about this scar, because I've wished a thousand times to forget it. See how much darker it is down there than it is up here."
The shadows were lengthening in the Corral where the supper fires were gleaming. Across the low bluff the imprisoned sun was sending a dull red glow along the waters of the Walnut.
"Look at that still place in the river, Victor. The ripples are all on the farther side," Elinor said, looking pensively downstream.
"Watch it a minute. Do you see that bit of drift coming upstream in the still water?" Vic asked.
"Why, the water does move; toward us, too, instead of down the river. I'd like to boat around in that quiet place."
She was leaning forward, resting her chin in her hand. In outline against the misty background shot through with the crimson light from the storm-smothered sun, with the gray shadows of the old Kickapoo Corral below them, hemmed in by the silver gleaming waters of the Walnut, a picture grew up before Victor Burleigh's eyes that he was never to forget. Like the cleft of the lightning through the cloud, like the flash of the swallow's wing, the careless-hearted boy leaped to the stature of a man, into whose soul the love of a lifetime is born. Unconsciously, he drew away from her, and long afterward she recalled the sweetness of his deep voice when he spoke again.
"Elinor Wream, I'd rather see you helpless up here with the hungriest wild beast between us that ever tore a human form to pieces than to see you in that quiet water below the shallows."
"Why?" Elinor looked up into his face.
"Because I could save your life here, maybe, even if I lost mine. Down there I could drown for you, but that would n't save you. Nobody ever swam that whirlpool and lived to tell about it. There's a ledge underneath that holds down what the infernal slow suction swallows. But it's dead sure."
"Why, that's awful," Elinor said, lightly, for she had no picture of him engulfed in the slow-moving treachery below them.
"There's an old Indian legend about that pool," Vic said, staring down at the water.
"Tell me about it." Elinor was breaking the twigs from a branch of buck-berry growing beside her.
"Oh, it's a tragical one, like everything else about that place," Vic responded, grimly. "Old Lagonda, Chief of the Wahoos, I reckon, I don't know his tribe, did n't want to give up this valley to the sons and heirs of Sunrise to desecrate with salmon cans and pop bottles and Harvard-turned chaperons. He held out against putting his multiplication sign to the treaty, claiming that land was like water and air and could n't be bought and sold. But the white men with true missionary courtesy held his head under water till he burbled `Nuff,' and signed up with a piece of charcoal. Then he went down the river to this smooth-faced whirlpool, and laid a curse on the sons of men who had taken his own from him."
The twilight had deepened. The sun was lost in the cloudbank out of which a hot wind was sweeping eastward. Vic was telling the story well, and the magnetism of his voice was compelling. Elinor drew nearer to him.
"What was the curse? I would n't want to go near that place, unless you were with me."
The very innocence of the words put a thrill in Vic Burleigh's every pulse beat.
"Don't ever do it, if you can help it." Vic could not keep back the words. "Old Lagonda decreed a tribute to the river for the wrong done to him, a life a year in that pool. And the Walnut has been exacting in its rights. Life after life has gone out down there until sometimes it seems like the old chief's curse would never be lifted."
"I hope it may be, while I am at Sunrise, anyhow," Elinor said. "I don't like real tragedies about me. I like an easy, comfortable life, and everybody good and happy. I hope the curse
"I wasn't killing snakes. I was looking up at a girl on the rotunda stairs the first time," he said, "and I don't want to tell about this scar, because I've wished a thousand times to forget it. See how much darker it is down there than it is up here."
The shadows were lengthening in the Corral where the supper fires were gleaming. Across the low bluff the imprisoned sun was sending a dull red glow along the waters of the Walnut.
"Look at that still place in the river, Victor. The ripples are all on the farther side," Elinor said, looking pensively downstream.
"Watch it a minute. Do you see that bit of drift coming upstream in the still water?" Vic asked.
"Why, the water does move; toward us, too, instead of down the river. I'd like to boat around in that quiet place."
She was leaning forward, resting her chin in her hand. In outline against the misty background shot through with the crimson light from the storm-smothered sun, with the gray shadows of the old Kickapoo Corral below them, hemmed in by the silver gleaming waters of the Walnut, a picture grew up before Victor Burleigh's eyes that he was never to forget. Like the cleft of the lightning through the cloud, like the flash of the swallow's wing, the careless-hearted boy leaped to the stature of a man, into whose soul the love of a lifetime is born. Unconsciously, he drew away from her, and long afterward she recalled the sweetness of his deep voice when he spoke again.
"Elinor Wream, I'd rather see you helpless up here with the hungriest wild beast between us that ever tore a human form to pieces than to see you in that quiet water below the shallows."
"Why?" Elinor looked up into his face.
"Because I could save your life here, maybe, even if I lost mine. Down there I could drown for you, but that would n't save you. Nobody ever swam that whirlpool and lived to tell about it. There's a ledge underneath that holds down what the infernal slow suction swallows. But it's dead sure."
"Why, that's awful," Elinor said, lightly, for she had no picture of him engulfed in the slow-moving treachery below them.
"There's an old Indian legend about that pool," Vic said, staring down at the water.
"Tell me about it." Elinor was breaking the twigs from a branch of buck-berry growing beside her.
"Oh, it's a tragical one, like everything else about that place," Vic responded, grimly. "Old Lagonda, Chief of the Wahoos, I reckon, I don't know his tribe, did n't want to give up this valley to the sons and heirs of Sunrise to desecrate with salmon cans and pop bottles and Harvard-turned chaperons. He held out against putting his multiplication sign to the treaty, claiming that land was like water and air and could n't be bought and sold. But the white men with true missionary courtesy held his head under water till he burbled `Nuff,' and signed up with a piece of charcoal. Then he went down the river to this smooth-faced whirlpool, and laid a curse on the sons of men who had taken his own from him."
The twilight had deepened. The sun was lost in the cloudbank out of which a hot wind was sweeping eastward. Vic was telling the story well, and the magnetism of his voice was compelling. Elinor drew nearer to him.
"What was the curse? I would n't want to go near that place, unless you were with me."
The very innocence of the words put a thrill in Vic Burleigh's every pulse beat.
"Don't ever do it, if you can help it." Vic could not keep back the words. "Old Lagonda decreed a tribute to the river for the wrong done to him, a life a year in that pool. And the Walnut has been exacting in its rights. Life after life has gone out down there until sometimes it seems like the old chief's curse would never be lifted."
"I hope it may be, while I am at Sunrise, anyhow," Elinor said. "I don't like real tragedies about me. I like an easy, comfortable life, and everybody good and happy. I hope the curse