"That so?" said Knowles. His eyes contracted. It was his only betrayal of the wrench she had given the tender heart within his tough exterior. "Well, I figured it was bound to come some day. I've been lucky not to lose you any time the last four years."
"You--you do not say anything about him, Daddy."
"Haven't you cut him out of the herd?" he dryly replied. "That's enough for me, long as I know he's your choice and is square."
"He's got the will to work. He'll get there, with you pushing on the reins. That's how I size him up."
"But, Daddy, he told me he had been bad, very bad."
Knowles searched the girl's face, with a sudden up-leaping of concern--that vanished as quickly before what he saw in her clear eyes.
"Might have expected it of you, honey. You stand by him. You've got sense enough to know what it means when a man thinks enough of a girl to tell her the wrong things he has done. I was wild, too, when I was a youngster. There was a girl I thought enough of to tell. She wasn't your kind, honey. It came near sending me to the devil for good. You know better. No girl ought to be fool enough to hitch up with a man to reform him. But if he has already taken a brace and straightened the kinks out of himself, that's different."
"He has come up, Daddy--out of the depths."
Knowles only half caught her meaning. "Sure he climbed up. That proves he has the grit and the nerve. He had proved that even better, going down at the other place. Put any man down there, and he'd make a try to get out. No, the real test was his going back down again. He might have come up just for himself. But going down again--that's the proof of what's in him; that's what proves he's white!"
"Dear Daddy!... But I'm afraid. He thinks he has been too bad ever to--to marry me. I'm so afraid he'll go away and leave me!"
The cowman straightened up, his eyes glinting with righteous indignation.
"What! Go 'way and leave you?--when you want him to stay? By--James! He's going to stay! Don't you worry, honey. He's going to stay, if I have to rope and hogtie him for you!"
The girl stared into the frowning face of her father. There was no twinkle in the corner of his eyes. He was absolutely serious. For the first time in over two days her dimples flashed. Her eyes sparkled with merriment. Her lips parted. But she checked the gay laugh before it could burst out.