Man to Man

Man to Man, by Jackson
Gregory

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Title: Man to Man
Author: Jackson Gregory
Release Date: July 29, 2006 [EBook #18933]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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MAN ***

Produced by Al Haines

[Frontispiece: The blazing heat was such that men and horses and steers
suffered terribly.]

MAN TO MAN
BY
JACKSON GREGORY

AUTHOR OF
JUDITH OF BLUE LAKE RANCH, THE BELLS OF SAN JUAN,
SIX FEET FOUR, ETC.

ILLUSTRATED BY
J. G. SHEPHERD

GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS -------- NEW YORK

COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
Published October, 1920

CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I.
STEVE DIVES INTO DEEP WATERS II. MISS BLUE CLOAK

KNOWS WHEN SHE'S BEAT III. NEWS OF A LEGACY IV.
TERRY BEFORE BREAKFAST V. HOW STEVE PACKARD
CAME HOME VI. BANK NOTES AND A BLIND MAN VII. THE
OLD MOUNTAIN LION COMES DOWN FROM THE NORTH VIII.
IN RED CREEK TOWN IX. "IT'S MY FIGHT AND HIS. LET HIM
GO!" X. A RIDE WITH TERRY XI. THE TEMPTING OF YELLOW
BARBEE XII. IN A DARK ROOM XIII. AT THE LUMBER CAMP
XIV. THE MAN-BREAKER AT HOME XV. AT THE FALLEN LOG
XVI. TERRY DEFIES BLENHAM XVII. AND CALLS ON STEVE
XVIII. "IF HE KNOWS--DOES SHE?" XIX. TERRY CONFRONTS
HELL-FIRE PACKARD XX. A GATE AND A RECORD SMASHED
XXI. PACKARD WRATH AND TEMPLE RAGE XXII. THE HAND
OF BLENHAM XXIII. STEVE RIDES BY THE TEMPLE PLACE
XXIV. DOWN FROM THE SKY! XXV. THE STAMPEDE XXVI.
YELLOW BARBEE KEEPS A PROMISE XXVII. IN HONOR OF
THE FAIRY QUEEN!

ILLUSTRATIONS
The blazing heat was such that men and horses and steers suffered
terribly . . . . . . Frontispiece
The men about him and Packard withdrew this way and that leaving
empty floor space.
Terry's head, her face flushed rosily, her eyes never brighter, popped up
on one side of the log.
"Say it!" laughed Terry. "Well, I'm here. Came on business."

MAN TO MAN
CHAPTER I
STEVE DIVES INTO DEEP WATERS

Steve Packard's pulses quickened and a bright eagerness came into his
eyes as he rode deeper into the pine-timbered mountains. To-day he
was on the last lap of a delectable journey. Three days ago he had
ridden out of the sun-baked town of San Juan; three months had passed
since he had sailed out of a South Sea port.
Far down there, foregathering with sailor men in a dirty water-front
boarding-house, he had grown suddenly and even tenderly reminiscent
of a cleaner land which he had roamed as a boy. He stared back across
the departed years as many a man has looked from just some such
resort as Black Jack's boarding-house, a little wistfully withal. Abruptly
throwing down his unplayed hand and forfeiting his ante in a card game,
he had gotten up and taken ship back across the Pacific. The house of
Packard might have spelled its name with the seven letters of the word
"impulse."
Late to-night or early to-morrow he would go down the trail into
Packard's Grab, the valley which had been his grandfather's and,
because of a burst of reckless generosity on the part of the old man,
Steve's father's also. But never Steve's, pondered the man on the horse;
word of his father's death had come to him five months ago and with it
word of Phil Packard's speculations and sweeping losses.
But never had money's coming and money's going been a serious
concern of Steve Packard; and now his anticipation was sufficiently
keen. The world was his; he had no need of a legal paper to state that
the small fragment of the world known as Ranch Number Ten belonged
to him. He could ride upon it again, perhaps find one like old Bill
Royce, the foreman, left. And then he could go on until he came to the
other Packard ranch where his grandfather had lived and still might be
living.
After all of this--Well, there were many sunny beaches here and there
along the seven seas where he had still to lie and sun himself. Now it
was a pure joy to note how the boles of pine and cedar pointed straight
toward the clear, cloudless blue; how the little streams trickled through
their worn courses; how the quail scurried to their brushy retreats; how
the sunlight splashed warm and golden through the branches; how

valleys widened and narrowed and the thickly timbered ravines made a
delightful and tempting