[Gutenberg 14355] • 54-40 or Fight

There is scarcely a single cause in which a woman is not engaged in some way fomenting the suit.-Juvenal. "Then you offer me no hope, Doctor?" The gray mane of Doctor Samuel Ward waved like a fighting crest as he made answer: "Not the sort of hope you ask." A moment later he added: "John, I am ashamed of you." The cynical smile of the man I called my chief still remained upon his lips, the same drawn look of suffering still remained upon his gaunt features; but in his blue eye I saw a glint which proved that the answer of his old friend had struck out some unused spark of vitality from the deep, cold flint of his heart. "I never knew you for a coward, Calhoun," went on Doctor Ward, "nor any of your family I give you now the benefit of my personal acquaintance with this generation of the Calhouns. I ask something more of you than faint-heartedness." The keen eyes turned upon him again with the old flame of flint which a generation had known-a generation, for the most part, of enemies. On my chief's face I saw appear again the fighting flush, proof of his hard-fibered nature, ever ready to rejoin with challenge when challenge came.