Hazel's eyes were slyly watching him. She shook her head.
"That's not it," she smiled back. "You don't know my daddy. He might say that, but there's a whole lot of other thoughts stumbling around in his funny old head. If he wants you he thinks you can do more than hit hard."
The humor of it all got hold of Gordon.
"Good," he cried, with one of his whole-hearted laughs. "Now I'll let you into a secret. This is a great secret. One of those secrets a feller generally hangs on tight to because he's half ashamed of it. I can do more than hit hard!"
Then he became serious, and it was the girl's turn to find amusement.
"You see, I've been raised in a bit of a hothouse. Maybe it's more of a wind shelter, though. You know, where the rough winds of modern life can't get through the crevices and buffet you. That's why I fell for that sharp on the train. That's why I bumped head first into Snake's Fall. That's why your daddy thinks I don't know a lot. But I tell you right here I've got to make that hundred thousand dollars in six months, and I'm going to do it by hook or crook, if there's half a smell of a chance. I've no scruples whatsoever. I just must make it, or—or I'll never face my father ever again. Do you get me? Whatever you have at stake in this land proposition, it's just nothing to what I have. And you'll know what I mean when I say it's just the youthful pride and foolish egoism of twenty-four years. Say, do you know what it means to a kid when he's dared to do some fool trick that may cost his life? Well, that's my position, but I've done the daring for myself. My mood about this thing is the sort of mood in which, if I couldn't get that money any other way, I'd willingly hold up a bullion train."
The girl nodded. For a moment she made no attempt to answer him. She was gazing out ahead at a point where signs of busy life had made themselves apparent. Something of the shadow that had been in her eyes at their meeting had returned. Gordon was watching them, and a quick concern troubled him.
"Say," he observed anxiously. "You're—worried. I saw it when I came up."
The girl endeavored to pass his inquiry off lightly.
"Worried?" she shook her head. "The anxieties of the business are on my poor daddy's shoulders, and will soon be on yours. They're not on mine."