Winston glanced at the steaming dishes hungrily, for he had passed most
of the day in the bitter frost, eating very little, and there was still
a drive of twenty miles before him.

"It is time I was taking the trail," he said.

He was sensible of a pain in his left side, which, as other men have
discovered, not infrequently follows enforced abstinence from food, but
he remembered what he wanted the half-dollar in his pocket for. The
hotel-keeper had possibly some notion of the state of affairs, for he
laughed a little.

"You've got to sit down," he said. "Now, after the way you fixed me up
when I stopped at your ranch, you don't figure I'd let you go before
you had some supper with me?"

Winston may have been unduly sensitive, but he shook his head. "You're
very good, but it's a long ride, and I'm going now," he said.
"Good-night, Nettie."

He turned as he spoke, with the swift decision that was habitual with
him, and when he went out the girl glanced at her father reproachfully.

"You always get spoiling things when you put your hand in," she said.
"Now that man's hungry, and I'd have fixed it so he'd have got his
supper if you had left it to me."

The hotel-keeper laughed a little. "I'm kind of sorry for Winston
because there's grit in him, and he's never had a show," he said.
"Still, I figure he's not worth your going out gunning after, Nettie."