Why couldn't gopher have hypertext

tags:: #internet #technology projects::hist1900-memex/docs/source_notes/@franaWebThereWas2004

“The not-so-secret weapon for accomplishing this was hypertext, text embedded with clickable pointers to more text.” (Frana, 2004, p. 33)

Why couldn't gopher have hypertext? If its a directory structure, there can be links to other files and their specific directory path.