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back here that the people of Sumnertown might have seen him in his glory—merely that they might contrast this glory with the wreck that it had come to now. But even that small mercy had not been granted to him, and he had read the disgust in the faces of the people who turned away from that station platform—disgust and pity commingled—than which there are no lower passions.
    They would not forget; they had heard the lies for three years by which they were promised stories of the giant’s prowess. This, they now felt,had been merely an artful deception practiced upon them by the father and the son—a stupid piece of artifice to keep from them the irrevocable fact—that the life and the body of Peter Hale were ruined things.
    Ross put the whip to the ragged, down-headed team of mustangs and drove them out of the town in a whirl. But they passed over the first mile before he could look at Peter, and then it was only a side glance, which showed him his son sitting with a high head and a glance fixed calmly on the road before them.
    Presently Peter said: “This goes even harder with you than I had feared, Father.”
    “Harder?” repeated the rancher. “Harder?” And then he laughed, but the sound was choked off and died in the pit of his throat.
    “You see,” said the level voice of Peter, “when I saw that you were so dead set on having me do something on the football field…why, after the accident, I talked it over with the coach and the doctor. They agreed that it might be a good thing if I didn’t give you the great disappointment. They agreed, at that time, that there was one chance in ten that my legs might be untangled from the knots that they were in. So I took that chance…like a coward. And having started with fear, in that manner, I’ve never had the nerve to speak to you about it since. I’ve written those misleading letters to you. I’ve even let poor Crossley write lies to you. Bless him Tony for it, though. He meant the best in the world.”
    It was an echo from a far and glorified world—in which the son of Ross Hale called the great Crossley—whose picture had appeared in papersa thousand times—by his first name. Ross Hale sat quietly, without answering, and digested the bitter sweetness of this fact through the remainder of the miles that brought them to the ranch house.

Chapter Six
    As they drove alone, with the wheels sagging now and again into a deeper rut and tossing up a whirl of gray dust and a film of white mist, it seemed to the rancher that something else might follow. Something else must follow. There were other explanations owing to him, and Peter would at once attempt to make them. It did not matter that they might be hard to make; Peter would surely make them.
    But Peter did not speak. He seemed only to be waiting for his father to open up the conversation again. For his own part, Peter was merely contented to sit there and let the time streak idly on, and the miles jog away toward the home ranch.
    The early burst of speed had left the broncos down-headed. Their feet trailed, for the toes of their hind hoofs had been chipped away by constant trailing through the dust of this same road. For how many years had Ross Hale seen them pause to walk up the rises and lurch wearily into a trot again, on the farther slope? How many times had he seen them reel at the same places, and stumble at the same places, and lift their heads with a sudden interest, when they smelled the black mud and freshness of water that always blew to the road from Murphy’s windmill and overflowing water tank.
    Peter Hale sat like a young Indian, and his fatherdecided, in bitterness, that perhaps he had not lost so very much, after all. For instance, his Peter was not the handsome youth that he had promised to become. Or was this, too, an after-effect of the sickness? It seemed to the broken heart of Ross Hale that the accident that had wrecked the powers of his son had marred his comeliness, also. His