associate with, not the kind I want to associate with, and that I want
this to be the last time you set foot on my property. If you are not
absolutely without pride of any sort you will not make it necessary for
me to have you put off the ranch!"

"And you won't tell me--"

"So far as I am concerned the conversation is closed. And," drily,
"the door is open."

The anger in Wayne Shandon's heart, unchecked at last, blazed in his
eyes.

"I'll go now," he said shortly. "I have no wish to enter a man's house
where I am not welcome. But what I have said I have meant. I shall
see Wanda when I can, and when she will come to me as she will some
day, I shall marry her."

"You are a fool as well as a scoundrel," shouted Leland as he saw the
other turn toward the door. "Wanda, when she marries, will marry a
gentleman, and not a cur and a coward!"

"Those are hard names, Mr. Leland!"

"Not so hard as another which belongs to you," came the vibrant
rejoinder. "If you dare speak to her again--"

"As I most certainly shall," coolly.

"By God!" cried the old man, his clenched fist raised. "You leave my
girl alone or--"

Caught in a sudden gust of rage such as had not half a dozen times in
his lifetime touched his blood, he strode to his table, snatched open
the drawer and whipped out a revolver.

"Go!" he shouted, his face a fiery red. "Go now, without another word,
or I'll shoot you."

Wayne Shandon's head was flung up with the old gesture, his eyes grew
steely and steady, and his answer was a cool contemptuous laugh.

"You have called me a coward," he said. "You called me a liar." He
came back into the room and sat down upon the edge of the table, not
three feet from Martin Leland. "Now, prove me the coward--or yourself
the liar!"

It was a challenge of sheer reckless impudence, the tempting of a man
whose reason was blind drunk with rage. He looked coolly into Leland's
eyes ignoring the deadly weapon in Leland's hand.

"I am going to roll a cigarette," he said quietly. "I'll stay just
that long."

The fingers which brought out tobacco and papers were unhurried. He
opened the muslin bag, poured the tobacco into the trough of his paper,
and his hands were steady. His eyes left Leland's a moment to make
sure that he was not spilling any of the brown particles; he lifted
them again as he sealed his finished cigarette with the tip of his
tongue. He swept a match along his thigh; then he went out, cl