"Who thinks you a—fool?"
"Anybody with sense."
"Then I'm afraid I've got no sense."
Gordon found himself looking into the girl's serious eyes.
"You—don't think me—a—fool?" he cried incredulously.
Hazel had no longer any inclination to laugh. A great emotion suddenly surged through her heart, and her pretty oval face was set flushing.
"When a woman owes a man what I owe you, if he were the greatest fool in the world to others, to that woman he becomes all that is great and fine, and—and—oh, just everything she can think good of him. But you—you are not a fool, or anything approaching it. I don't care what you have done in our affairs—for me, whatever it is, it is right. I'll tell you something more. I am certain that if my daddy wins through it will be your doing."
Gordon had nothing to say. He was dumbfounded. Hazel, in her generosity, was the woman he had always dreamed of since that first day he had seen her, which seemed so far back and long ago. He had nothing to say, because there was just one thought in his mind, and that thought was, then and there to take her in his arms and release her for no man, not even her——
Hazel was pointing along the trail.
"Why, there is my daddy coming along—on foot. I've never—known him to walk a prairie trail ever before, I wonder what's ailing him."