he now gazed with starting eyes and anguished
face! It was from Winnie herself, and what it said was enough to make
the Kansan's brain reel:

"MR. BUCK BADGER: Father knows that we met last night, and he is
much displeased, as he has a right to be. I am very sorry I said to
you the things I did, for we can never be anything more to each
other. I have had time to think more clearly since I saw you, and
this is my decision. It will do no good to talk it over, for this
is final. Therefore, if you are a gentleman, you will not try to
see me again. I return to you by express your ring and the things
you have given me.

"WINNIE LEE."

"I can't understand it!" he gasped, as he recalled her words of the
evening before. "Yet she wrote it. There isn't any doubt whatever of
that. I wish there were, but I know that handwriting too well."

He read it over again and again, as if searching out some other meaning.
It seemed so impossible. Yet there it was. He got up and began to pace
round the room, stopping almost every time he passed the table to take
another look at the letter.

"Thrown over!" he groaned. "And after all we've been to each other! I
allow she couldn't stand up against her father. How in thunder did he
find out that we met last night? Some onery, spying Piute of a servant,
I reckon. Well, I seem to be rounded up now, and Winnie's given me the
branding-iron with her own white hand."

He mopped the sweat from his face.

"I won't accept it! That's whatever! She says that if I'm a gentleman,
I'll not try to see her again. Glad I ain't a gentleman! Glad I'm a
man--and I allow a man is a good deal bigger than a gentleman! I s'pose
a gentleman would sit down and twiddle his fingers, and do nothing.
Well, I ain't built that way! Not on your life! I'm going to see her
again, whether she wants to see me or not. I'll see her, if I have to
fight my way into that house! That's whatever!"

He gave his breast a thump, as if he fancied he was striking at an
enemy. His face was red and his neck veins stood out like cords. His
heavy shoulders were thrown back, and his broad white teeth gleamed in a
determined fashion.

"I'll find out just why she changed her mind so suddenly. Of course, it
was her father's work. He has kept her under his thumb so long that she
has come to the conclusion that she has to mind him in this, too! He
thinks I'm not good enough for her, I allow! Well, I a