dead."

"Oh, I see," commented Tom Burton very drily. "You figure that it'll be
pleasanter for us to move into a palace somewhere, an' have a dozen or
two servants waitin' on us. All right, where's the palace comin' from?"

Ham spoke in absolute confidence. "I'll get it for you--as many palaces
as you want," he declared with steady-eyed effrontery; "if only you give
me the chance. All I ask is this. For God's sake, take the chain off
me--let me get into the fight."

Ham Burton was a tall and well-thewed lad for his age. His muscle fiber
had drawn strength from the ax and the log-pole, but as yet it had not
become heavy with decades of hard labor. He still stood slender and
gracefully tapering from shoulders to waist and just now there was
something trance-like in his earnestness which made wild prophecies seem
almost inspired. The hard-headed father eyed him with good-humored
irony.

"And how do you figure to get us all these things, son?" he inquired.

"I'll show you," came the quick and undoubting response. "All I want you
to do is to leave this place and educate me. Every year you stay here
you're spending part of what you've laid by, an' none of it ever comes
back. Gamble it on me, an' I'll attend to all the rest."

At that the bearded farmer broke into a loud laugh.

"I reckon you're fixed to give me a written guarantee, ain't you?" he
demanded. "But maybe just for the sake of makin' talk you'd better tell