CHAPTER XIX.
A CRUSHING BLOW.
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.