AND CALLS ON STEVE
Though a tempest brewed in her soul and her blood grew turbulent with
it, Terry did not hesitate from the first second. Just the other day
upon a certain historic log had she not said:
"I hate Blenham worse than a Packard!"
True, she had gone on to intimate that the youngest of the house of
Packard was scarcely more to her liking than was the detested foreman.
But-- Well, if Steve didn't know, at least Terry did, that that remark
was uttered purely for its rhetorical effect.
"He's been a pretty decent scout from the jump," Terry admitted
serenely to herself as she threw her car into high and went streaking
through the pale moonlight. Then she smiled, the first quick smile to
come and go since she had hurled a book in Blenham's face. "A pretty
decent scout from the jump!"
He had literally jumped into her life, going after her quite as
though----
"Oh, shucks!" laughed Terry. "It's the moonlight!"
There came a certain sharp turn in the road where even she must slow
down. Here Terry came to a dead stop, not so much in hesitation as
because she was conscious of a departure from the old trails and felt
deeply that the act might be filled with significance. For when she
had made the turn she would have crossed the old dead line, she would
have passed the boundary and invaded Packard property.
"Well," thought Terry, "when you are between the devil and the deep sea
what are you going to do?"
So she let in her clutch, opened her throttle, sounded her horn purely
by way of defiance, and when next she stopped it was at the very door
of the old ranch-house where Steve Packard should be found at this
early hour of the evening.
The men in the bunk-house had heard her coming, and to the last man of
them pushed to the door to see who it might be. Their first thought,
of course, would be that the old mountain-lion, Steve's grandfather,
had come roaring down from his place in the north. Terry tossed up her
head so that they might see and know and marvel and speculate and do
and say anything which pleased them. Having crossed her Rubicon, she
didn't care the snap of her pretty fingers who knew.
"I want Steve Packard," she called to them. "Where is he?"
It was young Barbee who answered, Barbee of the innocent blue eyes.
"In the ranch-house, Miss Terry," he said. And he came forward,
patting his hair into place, hitching at his belt, smiling at her after
his most successful lady-killing fashion. "Sure I won't do?"
"You?" Terry laughed. "When I'm looking for a man I'm not going to
stop for a boy, Barbee dear!"
And she jumped down and knocked loudly at Steve's door, while the men
at the bunk-house laughed joyously and Barbee cursed under his breath.
Steve, supposing that it was one of his own men grown suddenly formal,
did not take his stockinged feet down from his table or his pipe from
his lips as he called shortly--
"Come in!"
And Terry asked no second invitation. In she went, slamming the door
after her so that those who gawked at the bunk-house entrance might
gawk in vain.
And now Steve Packard achieved in one flashing second the removal of
his feet from the table, the shifting of his pipe from his teeth, the
swift buttoning of his shirt across his chest. And as he stared at her
he gasped:
"I'll be----"
"Say it!" laughed Terry. "Well, I'm here. Came on business. There's
a hole in the toe of your sock," she ended with a flash of malice, as
she noted how, embarrassed for the first time since she had known him,
he was trying to hide a pair of man-sized feet behind his table.
[Illustration: "Say it!" laughed Terry. "Well, I'm here. Came on
business."]
Steve grew violently red. Terry laughed deliciously.
"I--I didn't know----"
"Of course you didn't," she agreed. "Now, I'm in something of a rush
of the red streak variety, but in a little book of mine I have read
that a young gentleman receiving a young lady caller after dark should
have his hair combed, his shirt buttoned, and at least a pair of
slippers on. I'll give you three minutes."
Packard looked at her wonderingly. Then, without an answer, he strode
by her and to the window. The shade he flipped up so that anyone who
cared to might look into the room. Next he went to the door and called:
"Bill, oh, Bill Royce. Come up here. Here's some one who wants a word
with you!"
Terry Temple's face went a burning, burning red. There came the
impulse to put both arms about this big shirt-sleeved, tousled Packard
man and squeeze him hard--and at the end of it pinch him harder. For
in Terry's soul was understanding, and he both delighted her and shamed
her.
But when Steve came back and slipped his feet into his boots and sat
down across the table from her, Terry's face told him nothing.
"You're a funny guy, Steve Packard," she admitted thoughtfully.
"That's nothing," grinned Steve, by now quite himself again. "So are
you!"
She had come from the Temple ranch without any hat; her hair had
tumbled down long ago and now framed her vivacious face most adorably.
Adorably, that is, to a man's mind; other women are not always agreed
upon such matters. At any rate, Steve watched with both admiration and
regret in his eyes as Terry shook out the loose bronze tresses and
began to bring neat order out of bewilderingly becoming chaos. Her
mouth was full of pins when Bill Royce came in. But still she could
whisper tantalizingly--
"If you picked on Bill for a chaperon because he's blind----"
Royce stopped in the doorway.
"That you, Terry Temple?" he asked. "An' you wanted me? What's up?"
"I came to have a talk with Steve Packard," answered Terry promptly.
She got up and took Royce's hands between hers and led him to a chair
before she relinquished them. And before she went back to her own
place she had said swiftly:
"I haven't seen you since you licked Blenham. I--I am glad you got
your chance, Bill."
"Thank you, Miss Terry," said Royce quietly. "I sorta evened up things
with him. Not quite. But sorta. Then you didn't want me?"
"Not this trip, Bill. It's just a play of Mr. Packard's here. He
didn't like to have it known that I had him all alone here; afraid it
might compromise him, you know."
She giggled.
"Or queer him with his girl, mos' likely!" chuckled Royce.
Whereat Steve glowered and Terry looked startled.
"You're both talking nonsense," said Packard. He reached out for his
pipe but dropped it again to the table without lighting it. "If there
is anything I can do for you, Miss Temple----"
He saw how the look in her eyes altered. Nothing less than an errand
of transcendent importance could have brought her here and he knew it.
And now, in quick, eager words she told him:
"Blenham has almost put one across on us. Our outfit is mortgaged to
your old thief of a grandfather for a miserable seven thousand dollars.
Old Packard sent Blenham over to tell dad he is going to shove us out.
Blenham plays foxy and offers dad a thousand dollars for the mortgage.
Oh, I don't understand just how to say it, but Blenham has a few
thousand dollars he has saved and stolen here and there, and he means
to grab the Temple ranch for a total of eight thousand dollars; seven
thousand to old Packard, one thousand to dad----"
"But surely----"
"Surely nothing! Dad's half full of whiskey as usual, and a thousand
dollars looks as big to him as a full moon. Besides, he's sure of
losing to old Hell-Fire sooner or later."
"And you want me----"
"If you've got any money or can raise any," said Terry crisply, "I'm
offering you a good proposition. The same Blenham is after. The ranch
is worth a whole lot better than twenty thousand dollars. My
proposition is-- But can you raise eight thousand?"
Steve regarded her a moment speculatively. Then, quite after the way
of Steve Packard, he slipped his hand into his shirt and brought out a
sheaf of banknotes and tossed them to her across the table.
"I'm not a bloodsucker," he said quietly. "Take what you like; I'll
stake you to the wad."
Terry looked, counted--and gasped.
"Ten thousand!" she cried. "Good Lord, Steve Packard! Ten
thousand--and you'd lend me----"
"To pay off a mortgage to my grandfather, yes," he answered soberly,
quite conscious of what he was doing and of its recklessness and,
perhaps, idiocy. "And to beat Blenham."
She jumped up and ran around the table to put her two hands on his
shoulders and shake him.
"You're a God-blessed brick, Steve Packard!" she cried ringingly. "But
I'm not a bloodsucker, either. If you're a dead game sport-- Well,
that's what I'd rather be than anything else you can put a name to.
Lace your boots, get into a hat, shove that in your pocket." And she
slipped the roll of bills into his hand. "By now dad and Blenham will
be on the road to Red Creek; we'll beat them to it, have a lawyer and
some papers all ready, and when they show up we'll just take dad out of
Blenham's hands."
"I don't quite get you," said Steve. "If you won't borrow the
money----"
"I'll make dad sell out to you for eight thousand; he pockets one
thousand and with the other seven your money-grabbing, pestiferous old
granddad is paid off. Then you and I frame a deal between us----"
"Partners!" ejaculated Bill Royce. "Glory to be! Steve Packard an'
Terry Temple pardners----"
"Don't you see?" Terry was excitedly tugging at Steve's arm. "Come
on; come alive. We're going to play freeze-out with Hell-Fire Packard
and his right-hand bower, both. And we're going to keep dad from doing
a fool thing. And we're going to-- Oh, come on, can't you?"
Steve got up and stood looking down at her curiously. Then he laughed
and turned away for his coat and hat.
"Lead on; I'm trailing you," he said briefly.
Bill Royce rubbed his hands and chuckled.
"Even if I ain't got eyes," he mused, "there's some things I can see
real clear."