Chapter 17

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.

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."