Part 61

As he reflected upon these things, the pass was opening out into a curious, cup-shaped valley, crowded with huge hotels and diminutive cottages of more or less fantastic architecture, clustering in the valley, climbing the hills, perching on jutting rocks and overhanging terraces. Waldo knew the secret of this startling outcrop of human enterprise. He knew that here, in this populous nook, were hidden springs of mineral waters, bubbling and sparkling up from the caverns of the earth. He found his way to one of the springs, where he took a long, deep draught of the tingling elixir, speculating the while, as to its nature and source. Then on he went, refreshed and exhilarated.

A few miles of dusty highway brought him at last within the borders of classic Springtown, classic in its significance to him, as the elm-embowered shades of Cambridge or New Haven to the New England boy at home. As he entered upon the broad Western Avenue, the declining sun had nearly touched the great Peak, its long, level rays striking a perfect glory across the boughs of the cottonwood trees shining in the height of their yellow autumn splendor. They arched the walk he trod, and stretched to the northward, a marvellous golden vista, as brilliant as the promise of the future itself. There were fine residences on either side of the avenue, finer than anything the ranch boy had ever dreamed of, while off to the west stretched the line of mountains, transfigured in the warm afternoon light. But all the boy could see or think of was that golden vista, stretching before him to the very portals of the house of learning.

And presently, along this glorified path, a man approached, and as the two came face to face, he stopped before the boy and called him by name.

The whole situation was so wonderful,--so magical it seemed to Waldo in the exaltation of the moment,--that he did not pause to consider how his name should be known to a chance passer-by; and when the stranger went on to give his own name, and it was the name of the college president, the boy accepted the fact that dreams come true, and only held his head a little higher and trod the path a little more firmly, as he walked beside the president under the yellow cottonwoods.

"I came out to meet you," the president was saying, in a big, friendly voice. "I heard you were coming, and I thought we might talk things over a bit on the way."

They chatted a little of the boy's plans and resources, of the classes he was to enter, and of what he might accomplish in his college course; and then they came out from under the trees, and found themselves upon the college campus. A game of football was going on there, the figures of the players fairly irradiated in the golden light which fell aslant the great open space, touching the scant yellowish grass into a play of shimmering color. They stood a moment, while the president pointed out to Waldo the different college buildings. Then:--

"I have something pleasant to tell you," his companion remarked, with a glance at the strong eager face of the boy. "The college has just had the gift of a scholarship."

"I'm glad of that," said Waldo, heartily, finding a cheerful omen in the fact that the day was an auspicious one for others beside himself.

"The gift is a sort of thank-offering," he heard his new friend say; "from a man who fell in with you--up in the pass this afternoon!"

The boy's face went crimson at the words, but he only fixed his eyes the more intently upon the football players, as if his destiny had depended upon the outcome of the game.

"The scholarship is the largest we have;"--he heard the words distinctly, but they struck him as coming from quite a long distance. "It is to be called--the Waldo Kean Scholarship!"

The Waldo Kean Scholarship! How well that sounded! What a good, convincing ring it had, as if it had been intended from the very beginning of things!

He stood silent a moment, pondering it, while the president waited for him to speak; and as he watched the field the football players seemed to mingle and vanish from sight like shadows in a dream, while in their place a certain tall angular form stood out, loose-jointed, somewhat bent, yet full of character and power. All the splendor of the setting sun centred upon that rugged vision, that yet did not bate one jot of its homely reality.

And the boy, lifting his head with a proud gesture, and with a straightening of the whole figure, looked the president in the face and said: "That is my father's name!"

They started to cross the campus, where the football players were once more in possession. The sun had dropped behind the Peak, and the glory was fading from the face of the earth; but to Waldo Kean, walking side by side with the college president, the world was alight with the rays of a sun whose setting was yet a long way off; and the golden vista he beheld before him was nothing less than the splendid illimitable future,--the future of the New West, which was to be his by right of conquest!

THE END.

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A Selection from the Catalogue of G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

Complete Catalogue sent on application

One of the most successful novels of the year, because it is one of those unusual stories that appeals to all classes of readers of fiction.

THE ROSARY

By Florence L. Barclay

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G. P. Putnam's Sons New York--London

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BY ANNA FULLER

A LITERARY COURTSHIP