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“So you would rather be an engineer than a lawyer, Bob? Is that what you want to tell me?”

“Yes, sir,—an engineer rather than anything else!”

The speakers were sitting on a bench in the park which surrounds the old Virginia State House in Richmond. Father and son they were certainly—the likeness was unmistakable.

The man hesitated a moment before going on with the conversation. When he spoke it was seemingly from a new angle.

“How old are you now, Bob? Seventeen, isn’t it? Yes, yes, of course. And in a week or two you will have finished with Crossways for good?”

“Mr. Moseley says I am ready for my college exams, Dad. Tells me that he can’t take me along any further.”

“And instead of taking the examinations for Harvard and then going fishing with me, you want to go out West and work on an engineering corps all summer. After that, what?”

“If you’ll let me, I want to go to Rensselaer and study civil engineering. I’ll have had some practice then and the theory will come easier.”

“I see. But, my son, do you realize that if you follow your desire to be an engineer there will never be the firm of Robert Hazard and Son? That the practice I have built up will not pass on to you as I have so often planned? We would have made a great team, my boy, and it’s rather hard to give up the idea so suddenly. But I see that you must do as you wish.”

This way of taking it was rather disconcerting to Bob Hazard. He had hoped his father would be a little angry, perhaps, at the news of his decision. And if he had, Bob could have stuck to his determination with more heart, for he would have felt he had been treated a little unjustly. But his father’s acceptance of the situation left him without any defense. Besides, the note of disappointment which was so evident, convinced him that from his father’s standpoint he was ungrateful for the love and care he had received.

“No, no, Dad!” Bob cried. “We won’t give up the idea! I—didn’t know you felt that way about it. The engineering can go. I’ll write Whiskers and tell him I’m not coming. Of course we’ll have the firm of Hazard and Son and we’ll make rival lawyers sit up and take notice!”

The older Hazard looked at his son with gleaming eyes. What stuff the lad was made of! An immense pride filled him that this boy could be so unselfish and destroy his own carefully laid plans for the future with such a brave attempt at sincerity.

“Thank you, Bob,” he said slowly. “But I can’t let you give up your ambition for mine. You would not be happy, nor after a time would I, for I realize that your desire to be an engineer is not just a whim. You could not be a good lawyer unless your heart were in it, and I don’t want a son of mine to be anything but a good lawyer, if he’s one at all. I’d far rather have you a good engineer than an almost good lawyer. You will have to try out your plan. If it works, well and good; if it doesn’t, you can still try something else. You are old enough to decide for yourself, my son.”

“You are a good Dad!” cried Bob, putting an arm around the older man’s shoulders and hugging him unashamedly. “Whiskers—that is, Steve Whitney—wrote and told me to report to him as soon as I could. Then I have your permission to go West just as soon as school closes?”

“Yes,” was the quick answer, although the speaker had hoped that the boy would suggest spending a week or two with him before he left for the West. But Bob’s next words cheered him a lot.

“Of course, Dad, I don’t mean to go until we’ve had a chance to see each other. If you could only come out to Crossways for the next week or two it would be great! That way, we could visit and still I could get out on the job just as soon as possible. I don’t want Whiskers to fill my place just because I don’t show up. But I’ll come up to New York—”

“You won’t have to do that,” said Mr. Hazard with a smile.

“You mean you can come to Crossways?”

“I do. It just so happens that I can spare a few days right now. Besides, I’d like to meet the fellows you are always writing about—Tom and Ned—and see the place where you grew that big crop of corn last summer.”

Mr. Hazard was as good as his word. The same night found him installed in the colonial house from which the great plantation of Crossways had formerly been managed. Now the plantation was a thing of memory only. Only the house and comparatively few cultivated acres remained of the once proud estate. Edward Moseley, the last of a long line, kept a school, which, primarily started for the benefit of his tenants’ children, had become so famous that boys from all parts of the country were now enrolled.

The summer before, when Mr. Hazard found that it was necessary for him to make a trip abroad, he had left Bob at Crossways; and to make things pleasanter he had sent down a canoe, giving it to Tom Wickham and Ned Moseley, Bob’s chums. Therefore, when he appeared in person, Tom and Ned were prepared to like him. They were not disappointed.

When he demanded it the boys showed him the island in the low grounds on which they had grown the test crop of corn.

“It seems to me that you fellows hit on a really excellent plan to occupy your time during the summer. Who thought of it?” he asked after examining the plot.

“Tom,” said Ned quickly. “He planned it and we did the work.”

“I reckon I did my share of the work too,” exploded Tom. When the laugh died down, Mr. Hazard went on with his questions.

“Are you going to plant it again this year?”

“Not this piece, sir,” answered Tom. “I’ve got all I can do helping my father. When we raised more than double the average yield of his fields on our little patch here, he decided that there was something in modern farming methods after all, so this year we’re putting all our corn in as it should be! And we’re going to have some crop, too!”

“Didn’t you meet Mr. Whitney somewheres around here, Bob?” Mr. Hazard asked, turning to his son.

Before Bob could answer, Tom Wickham had broken in.

“Mr. Whitney? Oh, you mean ‘Whiskers,’ who put the engineering bug into Bob’s head, last year. We found him up the river at the cave. Would you like to go up there?”

Mr. Hazard assented, so they planned the expedition for another day, as this afternoon was growing old. When they went, however, he was told of the adventures that had centered around the cave and Whiskers. How they had come on him by chance and, thinking him an escaped criminal, had undertaken his capture. This had led to Ned’s being caught instead and when Bob and Tom had effected the rescue, had resulted in the discovery of the secret chamber behind the cave. Mr. Hazard was particularly interested when he heard of the part Whiskers had taken in the defense of the island and its precious crop from the onslaught of the summer freshet. They told him that it was not until the crop was safe that Whiskers had revealed who he was, an engineer in the United States Reclamation Service. He had hidden himself away until certain unfounded charges against him were cleared away. These had been brought by grafters he had found on the job he had in charge.

“Well, Bob,” remarked Mr. Hazard when the tale was done, “you certainly had a better time here than you would have had if you had gone to Russia with me!”

Finally Bob’s father had to go back to New York. Several telegrams had come and the last one could not be disregarded. The night before he left Mr. Hazard led Bob out into the grounds. When they came to the fence, they leaned on it and started talking. The moon was up and shed its light on the flat fields. In the hum of the country stillness, only the summer whistle of the quail and the sharp plaintive cry of the whippoorwill were distinct.

“You are determined, Bob?” the older man asked. Bob knew to what his father referred.

“Yes, sir! Absolutely!”

“You have counted the cost well? There is no great reward in what you plan to do. There will be no limousines—no luxury in the life you will lead. A lawyer can have both.”

“I know it, sir!”

The man knew his was a losing fight yet he wanted to struggle on. Through the years he had watched over his motherless boy, he had dreamed dreams. He had seen the time when Bob would enter his office, when he would become a partner and at last when he would take onto his young shoulders the whole burden of the work. It had been a good dream and he was loath to give it up. He made one more effort.

“If you find that the work is not as much fun as you expected, will you come back and tell me so? You won’t stick it out just as a matter of pride?”

“I can safely promise that, Daddy. You know, don’t you, that I really would like to be a lawyer if I only could? But I know I’ve just got to try this engineering. If it turns out wrong for me I’ll come back gladly.”

Both were silent for a few minutes. Then Bob spoke again, his manner saying more than his words:

“You’ve been bully to me, Dad.”

“You are all I’ve got, son,” was the quiet reply. “I must let you do the best you can for yourself.”

They went into the house and the next day Mr. Hazard was whirling northward, gazing out of the car window and hoping that some good chance would bring his boy back to him. As it was he felt lost and quite alone.