"You'll have won out," broke in Hazel, her eyes shining in the moonlight. Then a shadow crossed her face. "But when your father knows what you've done? What then?"
Gordon seemed to consider his reply carefully.
"You can leave that to me, Hazel," he said at last, with a whimsical smile. "There's surely got to be a grand finale to this, and when it comes I'll still need your help. Say, why were you riding in to the ranch—at dead of night?"
The abrupt question shocked the girl out of her delighted content. The memory of her trouble came overwhelmingly upon her. But Gordon was waiting.
"You're making good, but I've made pretty bad," she said, thrusting a desire to burst into tears resolutely from her. "I'm just every sort of fool and I—don't know how much damage I haven't done. Everything's gone right until this evening. Hip-Lee has just been as near perfect as a Chinaman can be. We've carried out all our plans right through, and I've never been near your father without Hip-Lee looking on. That is—until this evening." The girl sighed. The confession of her blundering was hard to make. "It was this way," she went on presently. "Your father was out walking. I hadn't seen him return. I was in the kitchen fixing his supper, and it was sticky hot, and I just hated the flies, so I went out for a breath of air. Hip-Lee had been playing his spy game on your father. Well, I just stood out front of the house taking a look at the hills, and wishing I was amongst their snows, when your father spoke. He had got back, and was sitting outside the house, and, maybe, like me he was yearning for that snow. Well, I just couldn't run away—so we talked. I guess we'd talked quite awhile, and I'd kind of forgotten things, and in the middle of his talk he started to address me by my name, and got as far as 'Miss.' Then, without a thought, I spoke my name. He just seemed startled, but never said a word about it, and now I'm worried to death. Was there ever such——"
The girl broke off, and it seemed to Gordon, in spite of her attempted smile, she was very near tears. Instantly he smothered his own feelings of alarm at her story and endeavored to console her. He laughed, but in Hazel's hyper-sensitive condition of anxiety, his laugh lacked its usual buoyancy.
"That's nothing to worry over," he said. "I'd say if your name had meant anything to him he wouldn't have given you breathing time before you'd learned a heap of things that wouldn't have sounded pretty. Dad's no end of a sport, but when he gets a punch, and the fellow who gives it him don't vanish quick, he's got a way of hitting back mighty hard. I don't guess that break's going to figure any in our play. He never said a word?"
"Not a word." Hazel tried to take comfort, but still remained unconvinced. "Anyway what could he do?"
Gordon remained serious for some moments. Then his eyes lit again.
"Not a thing," he said emphatically, and Hazel knew he meant it.