"Buck! you silly fellow! Don't you know that I didn't mean to cast you off?"
"But the note?" he gasped. "It was in your handwriting? And the ring? You sent back the ring!"
"Yes, I wrote the letter because father commanded me to write it, and I sent back the ring for the same reason. You ought to have known that!"
The change in his feelings was so great and sudden that he could hardly repress a shout.
"I reckon I'm the biggest idiot unhung!" he confessed, as he took her in his arms. "But when I saw that the writing was yours, I fancied your father had by threats, or in some way, induced you to change your mind, and that you really thought, in duty to him, you ought not to see me any more. Say, I'm too happy to think! I'm——"
"You are just a silly fellow!"
"You never shot straighter! I'm a roaring idiot!"
He kissed her and held her face toward the light in a rather vain effort to see its outline.
"I've been crazier since I got that note than any locoed cowboy that ever tore up the ranges. I've simply been wild!"
"I am very sorry, Buck. Yet I think I must have suffered as much. Last night father obtained from me a confession that I had met you in the grounds here. He asked me if I had met you, and my confused looks made my denials useless. Then he ordered me to write that note and to send back the ring. He mailed them himself. And he made me promise that I wouldn't meet you again. But when I made it, I realized that I couldn't keep it."