"I want to tell you something," Vic responded.

"Let me tell you something. I knew you had good blood in your veins even when I saw you kill that bull snake. Burgess has just been in. He has told me his side of your story. Noble fellow he is to free himself of a life-long slavery to somebody else's dollars. However much a man may try to hide the fetters of unlawful gains, they clank in his own ears till he hates himself. Now Burgess is a freeman."

"I am glad to hear you say so, Dr. Fenneben. It makes my own freedom sweeter," Vic declared.

"Yes," Fenneben replied. "Your added means will bring you life's best gift--opportunity."

"I have no added means, Doctor. I have funds in trust for Bug Buler, and I come to ask you to take his legal guardianship for me." And then he told his own life story.

"So the heroism shifts to you as well. I can picture the cost to a man like yourself," the Dean said. "Have you no record of Bug's father and mother?"

"None but the record given by Dr. Wream. They are dead," Burleigh replied. "His father may have met the same fate that my father did."

"Why don't you take the guardianship yourself, Burleigh? The boy is yours in love and blood. He ought to be in law."