STEVE RIDES BY THE TEMPLE PLACE
"Dear me, Mr. Man! How savage you do look!"
Steve started and whirled. No; this time he was not dreaming. It was
Terry.
Terry laughed lightly, deliciously. She had grown prettier. She had
learned a new way to smile. No, it was just the old way, after all.
But she had discovered a new way to do her hair, an amazingly charming
way. Her lips were redder than ever before; her eyes were gayer and
grayer and softer and sweeter. Her voice tinkled with new, thrilling
music. She was just exactly perfect in Steve Packard's eyes.
"You're super," said Steve. "You're superlative. You haven't done a
thing all these long, weary months except grow more devilishly
attractive."
"Are you as savage as you looked?" she asked swiftly.
For a brief instant he turned his eyes away from her and gazed after a
herd that was moving slowly toward the north, Barbee and the other boys
heading again toward the home range. But, no matter what rage and
sullen chagrin lay in his heart, his eyes, returning to Terry, showed
that already her coming had worked its change. He appeared almost
content.
"Are you going to shake hands?" he asked.
"Shall I?" she asked. "We are to be good friends after all?"
"Or, are you going to kiss me?"
Terry arched her brows at him. But there was a live fire in her eyes
and a crimsoning tide under her lovely skin.
"Smarty!" cried the old Terry. "Just try getting fresh with me and
you'll get your face slapped!"
Whereupon Steve's laughter boomed out joyously.
"It's Terry come home again!" he announced to the open meadow about
them. "Terry herself."
Was it Terry herself? She seemed strangely embarrassed all of a
sudden. Just why? Terry didn't know.
"We are going out in my car," she said hurriedly. It seemed that she
must hasten to make some safe remark each time that his eyes, busied
with her, rested upon her eyes. "We'll be at the ranch long before you
get your cows home. You may come to see me--if you please to."
"Who is we?" he asked.
"Oh," said Terry, "that means Mrs. Randall who is going to be cook and
chaperon."
San Juan dozed in the late afternoon heat. The corrals were between
them and the quiet street. He threw out his arms, caught Terry in them
and kissed her. And Terry, whipping back, slapped his face.
"You--you----" she panted, her face scarlet.
He touched tenderly with his finger-tips the place where her hand had
struck him.
"I'll be over to call on you and Mrs. Randall," he said. "Real soon."
Now as Steve Packard rode slowly after his cowboys and a diminishing
herd, the dust-filled air, dry and hot as it was, seemed sweet and
caressing to his temples, his eyes mused happily. Blenham had just
worsted him, Blenham had tricked him, had put him to the heavy expense
of the long drive, had knocked his steers up for him, had laughed at
him.
Very well; tally for Blenham. A matter to be considered in due time.
A body blow, perhaps, but then what in God's good world is a strong
body for if not to buffet and be buffeted? He and Blenham would come
to grips again, soon or late, and in some way still hidden by the
future matters would finally adjust themselves.
All considerations with which only some dim future was concerned. Just
now, in the living, breathing, quivering present there was room for but
the one thought: Terry had come back to him.
Yes. Terry had come back to him. And he had kissed her. And she had
slapped him. He smiled and again his finger-tips went their way
tenderly to his cheek. He had kissed her because he loved her, meaning
her no harm, offering her no insult. She had slapped him because she
was Terry, and because she couldn't very well help it. Not because she
did not love him!
Somewhere in the world, off in some misty distance, there was a man
named Blenham, a trickery, treacherous, cruel hound of a man. He would
require attention presently. Just now----
"You've come back to me!" whispered Steve Packard.
And he sighed and shook himself and wished longingly that the return
drive were over and that he had a bath and a shave and were just
calling at the Temple ranch.
Though presently he overhauled his men Steve rode all that day pretty
well apart, maintaining a thoughtful silence which Barbee and the
others supposed had to do solely with the failure of his plans for a
good market. His men knew that he had banked pretty heavily on this
deal; and that now again he would be confronted by the old problem of
finding sufficient feed to pull his herds through.
Hay was scarce and high and would need to be hauled far, making its
final cost virtually prohibitive. The herders, grumbling among
themselves, were for the most part of the opinion that he should have
accepted his defeat at Blenham's hands and sold to Doan at a sacrifice
figure.
That night they camped at the Bitter Springs, making but a brief stop
to water and feed and rest the road-weary cattle. Then in the night
and moving slowly they pushed on planning to get to the next
water-holes before the heat of another day. And now Steve, giving his
orders to Barbee, left them and struck out ahead.
There was small need of accommodating his impatience to the sluggish
progress of the leg-dragging brutes and there were matters to be
arranged. Further, it was his intention to have a talk with Terry
Temple just as soon as might be.
That day Terry's automobile with shrieking horn swept on by him. He
caught a glimpse of two veils, a brown and a black; the car's top was
up. Terry appeared not to see him.
"She hasn't lost a speck of her impudence!"
He frowned after her departing car, praying in his heart for a puncture
or a stalled engine. She deserved as much for the way in which she
tooted her infernal horn. But his prayer went unanswered and his
displeasure vanished presently as he pushed on steadily in her wake,
eager to come to the end of his ride.
But he must never entirely forget the panting herd straggling on far
behind him, choking and coughing in its own dust. He must arrange
somewhere, somehow for pasturage. So he made a detour and looked in on
Brocky Lane first, then on Rod Norton. Both old friends were glad to
see him and gave him hard brown hands in grips that were good to feel.
But they merely shook their heads when he mentioned his errand. Lane
had sold a few head last week; Norton was afraid that he would have to
make a sacrifice sale himself. They would do anything that they could
but it was only too clear that they could not give him that which they
themselves did not have and could not get.
"Old man Packard," offered Norton bluntly, "is the only man I can think
of who has pasture to rent. Drop Off Valley, just up in the mountains
back of your place."
Steve laughed shortly and swung up into his saddle.
"So long, Nort," he said colorlessly "The old man would burn his grass
off before he'd let me have it."
And he rode on, two problems in his mind, both growing more difficult
as he drew nearer the home ranch. Problem One: Just what was Terry
going to say? Problem Two: How was he going to pull his stock through?
As though he did not already have enough on his hands, Bill Royce
greeted him at the home ranch-house with the significant word--
"Trouble!"
"I know it," grunted Packard, swinging down stiffly from his saddle.
"What kind this time, Bill?"
"Blenham-brand, I'd reckon," said Bill angrily. Steve noted that both
of the old hand's cheeks were flushed hotly. "Barbee telephoned in
about four hours ago. Seven steers dead, some more sick. An'," the
explanation coming quickly, "Barbee's got the hunch Blenham had rode on
ahead an' had poisoned the water-holes an'----"
"Damn him!" cried Steve, a sudden fury seeming to leap out upon him and
take him by the throat. "Am I to stand everything from that man and
from my old fiend of a grandfather? It's this and that and any other
thing they want to turn loose and here I stick like a cursed
toad-stool, doing nothing for want of proof! Proof," he snorted
disgustedly. "Bill Royce, let's quit waiting for anything but just go
get the trouble-seeking outfit!"
"Which sounds good to me," retorted Royce eagerly.
And yet when his rage cooled a bit Steve ground his teeth in his
impotence. He must wait until Barbee came with what God chose to leave
him of his steers, he must hear the foreman's account and decide
whether Blenham were really at the bottom of this or if it were just
his way and his men's to blame all things upon Blenham.
"The first thing, Bill," he said when he had turned his tired horse
loose in the pasture, "is to decide what we are going to do with what
cattle Blenham hasn't poisoned for us. We are fed off pretty short
down at this end. I'll ride over to the Temple place and see if we
can't arrange with Miss Terry to run a few head there."
"Yes," said Royce dryly. "I'd hurry if I was you, Steve. But, say!"
He slapped his leg and jerked up his head. "How about the old Indian
Valley, Drop Off Valley, as they call it now?"
"Gone crazy, Bill? When did my grandfather ever show any inclination
to help out?"
Then Royce, thoroughly excited, explained. Andy Sprague from beyond
the ridge had ridden by only yesterday afternoon. If Royce had only
known at that time that Steve was bringing back the cattle from San
Juan he would have arranged with Andy. For the man had said that he
had just bought Drop Off Valley from old Packard; that he wouldn't want
the range this year as he had only recently sold close. He would rent
and reasonably.
"There's close on a couple of thousan' acres in there; there's plenty
water an' enough good grass to run two or three hundred head easy until
your feed comes in again down this way. Nail him, Steve; for the love
of Mike, nail Andy Sprague quick before the crooked little cuss finds
out jus' how bad you need the pasture an' sticks you accordin'. Go
nail him, Steve."
And Steve, seeing hope like a brightening flush of a new day, hurried
to the corrals and a fresh horse. He was going straight after Andy
Sprague. But----
"Guess I'll ride by the Temple place," he said carelessly.