Buck Badger stared at a letter in a familiar handwriting which had come to his room in the afternoon mail. He had delivered to Donald Pike that threatening talk the night before, when Pike came back to the land of sentient things after that awful choking.

The infliction of this punishment on Pike, and the feeling that Winnie would stand by him in spite of everything, had so satisfied the Westerner that he had been in an uncommonly comfortable frame of mind, in spite of the fact that the powerful opposition of Fairfax Lee was yet to be overcome. With Winnie true, and time and youth in their favor, there seemed no good reason why he should be in the dumps.

But the letter at which 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 pa.s.sed 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 ain't--no man on earth is good enough for her--but I'm just as good as Fairfax Lee, any day in the week! Hanged if I don't tell him so, too!

"Yes, I'll walk into his office, if I have to knock over that clerk to do it, and I'll tell him what I think of him, if I'm arrested for it next minute. In this beastly East, instead of meeting a man and fighting him, the first thing a fellow thinks of, if he has a word with another, is to call in the police. But I'm not afraid of the New Haven police!"

Badger's heart seethed like a volcano.

"See her! Well, I reckon! I'll see her if I die for it! I'll see her, even if she refuses to speak to me! I'm going to find out what's at the bottom of this!"

While the Westerner was thus storming, an expressman came with the little package containing the ring and the trinkets which Badger had given to Winnie. It contained no note, but the address was in Winnie's handwriting.

Badger tore the package open almost before the expressman was out of the room. A lump came into his throat as he looked at the ring. He remembered so distinctly the time he gave it to her and all the words then said. It seemed impossible that she had returned it now in this curt manner.

"I'll ask her to take it back!" he muttered. He dropped the ring into a pocket of the suit he was wearing, that he might be sure to have it with him when he met her--for that he would meet her in some way or other he was firmly resolved.

"Her father has driven her into this. It's not her wish, I know. But she is so good and dutiful that she may stick by this decision, to please him. I allow that there is where the trouble is going to come. But I won't give her up! Not unless she tells me positively with her own lips that everything is ended."

Badger now did something which he would never have dreamed of doing a short time before. Even the thought of it would have been greeted with scorn. He carefully put the letter in an inner pocket, put away the trinkets which Winnie had returned, and set out to find Frank Merriwell.

The act did not even strike him as incongruous.

"Inza and Elsie will do anything for Merriwell! He can go in and out of Lee's house as he wants to. I allow he will be glad to help me in this thing, if he can. The trail looks to be so confoundedly tangled that a bit of help in ciphering it out will be mighty welcome just now!"

He scowled as he crossed the campus and remembered the unpleasant experience of the previous night. The tree in front of Durfee still bore a large quant.i.ty of "fruit." The tab of Badger's shirt was there.

"Come over here and pick out your property!" shouted a student who was standing in a group near the tree.

Badger strode on without a word, for he was in no humor for pleasantries.

"Fruit!" squealed Danny Griswold.

"Where are you going, my pretty maid?" Bink Stubbs sang from his perch on the fence.

"Going to hunt up those cats," said the Westerner, with sarcastic scorn.

"I hear their kittens squawling for them!"

Danny fell over against Bink.

"A joke from Badger!" he murmured. "Somebody fan me!"

"I'll fan you!" grunted Bink, who was not pleased with the Kansan's retort, pushing Danny roughly from him.

"Do!" begged Danny. "That took my breath. What will happen next?"

Badger swung on at a swift, nervous pace, and mounted to Frank's room.

"Come in!" Frank sung out, as the Kansan's knuckles hammered on the door.

He was rather surprised to see Badger at that hour. But he put away the book he had been studying, and pushed out a chair.

"Take a seat!" he invited.

"I reckon you'll think it's mighty funny that I should come to you for advice and help?"

"Why, no! It's a way my friends have. And they know that I am always ready to do whatever I can for them."

"Well, it's about Winnie!" said Badger bluntly. Whereupon, in a few words, he told his story.

"That rather stumps me, Badger," Frank admitted. "I think, though, that the straight way is the best. If you're willing, I will see Lee in your behalf. I shall have to admit to him that you were intoxicated at that time, but I'll try to make him see that you are pretty straight goods, for all of that. Perhaps a few words from one who knows you will be helpful."

"If you will, Merry, I can't ever thank you enough. It will be about as big a favor, I allow, as one man ever did for another, and I sha'n't forget it."

Merriwell looked at his watch.

"I can't go to his office this afternoon, but I'll see him at his house to-night. I may be late getting there, but I'll try to time it to be there when he gets home from his club."

Badger went away as if walking on air. He could hardly think of anything else throughout the remainder of the day, and night found him in the vicinity of the Lee home, even though he had a feeling that Merriwell would prefer he should keep away from there until the result of the promised interview was known.

"I wish Merry would hurry," he thought, as he finally advanced to the fence, drawn there by his intense desire to be near to Winnie. "I'll speak to him before he goes in, and ask him to come right out as soon as possible with the news."

As he stood thus by the fence, a light step sounded, and, looking over, he recognized in the dim light the form of Winnie Lee. He was by her side at a bound.

"You must not stand by that note!" he pleadingly began. "I allow that you will see, when you think of it, that it isn't right by me!"

He did not attempt to touch her or stoop toward her. She had, in writing that letter, forbidden familiarities. Their relations toward each other were unchanged. He remembered the ring in his pocket.

"Buck! you silly fellow! Don't you know that I didn't mean to cast you off?"