"Oh, papa!"
To Ben Gaynor this unannounced coming of his daughter partook of the nature of an apparition and of a miracle. At first he would not believe his senses, fearing that he had just gone off his head. Then it was that the look in his eyes frightened her. But the hands gripping his were flesh-and-blood hands, and, besides, Ben Gaynor was a very matter-of-fact man, little given to prolonged fanciful ideas, even after a night of pain and mental distress.
"By the Lord, we'll nail their hides to our barn door yet!" were his first words of greeting. He hitched himself up against his pillows.
"What in the world happened?" Gloria asked after a sigh of relief.
"How you happened to be here gets me," said Gaynor. "It's like magic.
You didn't hear down in San Francisco that I was hurt, did you?"
"No. I—I just happened to be here. You see, papa——"
"That'll come later," he broke in. "You're here; that's all that counts.
You're going to do something for me."
Anything, thought Gloria. And she was glad that he did not seek just now the explanation of her presence here; of course she would tell him everything—later. But she was still confused—"Mrs. Gratton "! Did she, down in the depths of her frivolous girl-heart, want to be that? Had she glimpsed, when she so gaily left San Francisco last night, that this escapade was something more than a mere "lark"?
"You are not dangerously hurt, papa?"
"Bless you, no! Not now, that you're here. Though I believe it would have near killed me if I'd been put out of the running altogether. I got a crack on the head that sickened me; but the tough old skull held out against it. And I got an arm broken and a rib cracked——"