future with which youth bristles for those who take the trouble
to watch it.

Although Pierson was only a sophomore he was the political as
well as the social leader of his fraternity. Envy said that the
Sigma Alphas truckled to his wealth; perhaps the exacter truth
was that his wealth forced an earlier recognition of his real
capacity. His position as leader made him manager of the Sigma
Alpha combination of fraternities and barbs which for six years
had dominated the Washington and Jefferson Literary Society. The
barbs had always voted humbly with the aristocratic Sigma Alphas;
so Pierson's political leadership apparently had no onerous
duties attached to it--and he was not the man to make work for
himself.

As the annual election approached he heard rumors of barb
disaffection, of threatened barb revolt. Vance, his barb
lieutenant, reassured him.

"Always a few kickers," said Vance, "and they make a lot of
noise. But they won't draw off twenty votes." Pierson made
himself easy--there was no danger of one of those hard-fought
contests which in past years had developed at Battle Field many
of Indiana's adroit political leaders.

On election night he felt important and powerful as he sat in the
front row among the arrogant Sigma Alphas, at the head of his
forces massed in the left side of the hall. He had insisted on
Scarborough's occupying a seat just behind him. He tilted back
in his arm-chair and said, in an undertone: "You're voting with