Suddenly she was thinking of Guy Pollock.
She dismissed him. He was too cautious. She needed a spirit as young and unreasonable as her own. And she would never find it. Youth would never come singing. She was beaten.
Yet that same evening she had an idea which solved the rebuilding of Gopher Prairie.
Within ten minutes she was jerking the old-fashioned bell-pull of Luke Dawson. Mrs. Dawson opened the door and peered doubtfully about the edge of it. Carol kissed her cheek, and frisked into the lugubrious sitting-room.
“Well, well, you're a sight for sore eyes!” chuckled Mr. Dawson, dropping his newspaper, pushing his spectacles back on his forehead.
“You seem so excited,” sighed Mrs. Dawson.
“I am! Mr. Dawson, aren't you a millionaire?”
He cocked his head, and purred, “Well, I guess if I cashed in on all my securities and farm-holdings and my interests in iron on the Mesaba and in Northern timber and cut-over lands, I could push two million dollars pretty close, and I've made every cent of it by hard work and having the sense to not go out and spend every——”
“I think I want most of it from you!”
The Dawsons glanced at each other in appreciation of the jest; and he chirped, “You're worse than Reverend Benlick! He don't hardly ever strike me for more than ten dollars—at a time!”