Page:Peak and Prairie (1894).pdf/406

 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.