"It is."
"You said you didn't care."
"I don't."
"Then——"
Gordon burst out into a happy laugh.
"Don't you see, dear? I just don't care for, or think about anything else in the world. You—you—you are just mine, so what's the use of talking of the old dad."
"Really? True? True?" The girl's tender eyes were melting as they gazed up into her lover's. "More to you than all—this?" She indicated the busy life on the new township. The miracle, as she regarded it, which he had worked. The man smiled, his eyes full of a great, tender love. "I'm glad," the girl sighed. "It isn't always so with men—where the making of money is concerned, is it?" She breathed a great contentment and happiness. "Yes, I'm—so glad. It's the same with me, but—I want all this to go on right—because of you. I want your success. I want your success as a man, and—with your father. I'm very jealous for those things now. You see, you belong to me, don't you?" She turned and gazed away across the plain. "Oh, it's good to see it all—to see all the busy work going on. Look there—and there," she pointed quickly in many directions. "Buildings going up. Temporary buildings. The substantial structures to come later. Then the road gangs at work. The carpenters at the sidewalks. The surveyors. The teams and wagons. Above all, that depot being built with all expedition by—your father." She laughed happily and clapped her hands. "It's all growing every day. A mushroom town. And you—you have made that money your great father dared you to make. Dared you—you, and you have made it out of him! Oh, dear! the humor of it is enough to make a cat laugh. Here you, by sheer audacity and roguery, have held up a railroad and coolly played the highwayman on your own father!"
Gordon shook his head.
"Call it grabbing opportunity. It was an opportunity which came my way through the trifling oversight of forgetting to return the private code book which the old dad had entrusted to my care. Say, I can never thank the dad enough for that half-hour talk in his office which sent me out into the wilderness. If he hadn't handed it to me, I should never have blundered into Snake's; and if I hadn't blundered into Snake's I shouldn't have found you. I guess my parent's just one of the few to whom a son owes anything. He gave me life, but didn't stop at that. He gave me you."
Hazel's eyes were smiling happily.