Man to Man | Page 9

she retorted. "So we'll let him go at that. Old
Hell-Fire Packard, his father, is the biggest lawbreaker out of jail. He's
the only one left, and from the looks of things he'll keep on living and
making trouble another hundred years."
"There was another Packard, wasn't there?" he insisted. "Phil Packard's
son, the old man's grandson?"
"Never knew him," said Terry. "A scamp and a scalawag and a tomfool,
though, if you want to know. If he wasn't, he'd have stuck on the job
instead of messing around in the dirty ports of the seven seas while his
old thief of a grandfather stole his heritage from him."
"How's that?" he asked sharply. "How do you mean 'stole' it from
him?"
"The same way he gobbles up everything else he wants. Ranch Number
Ten ought to belong to the fool boy now, oughtn't it? And here's old
Packard's pet dog Blenham running the outfit in old Packard's interests
just the same as if it was his already. Set a thief to rob a thief," she
concluded briefly.
Steve Packard sat bolt upright in his chair.
"I wouldn't mind getting the straight of this," he told her quietly. "I
thought that Philip Packard had sold the outfit to his father before his
death."

"He didn't sell it to anybody. He mortgaged it right up to the hilt to the
old man. Then he up and died. Of course everything he left, amounting
mostly to a pile of debts, went to his good-for-nothing son."
A light which she could not understand, eager and bright, shone in
young Packard's eyes. If what she told him were true, then the old
home ranch, while commonly looked upon as belonging already to his
grandfather, was the property legally of Steve Packard. And
Blenham--yes, and old Bill Royce--were taking his pay. Suddenly
infinite possibilities stretched out before him.
"Come alive!" laughed Terry. "We were talking about your finding a
job. There's one open here for you; first to teach me all you know about
the insides of my car; second-- What's the matter? Gone to sleep?"
He started. He had been thinking about Blenham and Bill Royce. As
Terry continued to stare wonderingly at him he smiled.
"If you don't mind," he said non-committally, "we'll forget about the
job for a spell. I left some stuff back at the Packard ranch that belongs
to me. I'm going back for it in the morning. Maybe I'll go to work there
after all."
She shrugged distastefully.
"It's a free country," she said curtly. "Only I can't see your play. That is,
if you're a square guy and not a crook, Number Ten size. You've got a
chance to go to work here with a white crowd; if you want to tie up
with that ornery bunch it's up to you."
"I'll look them over," he said thoughtfully.
"All right; go to it!" she cried with sudden heat. "I said it was a free
country, didn't I? Only you can burn this in your next wheat-straw:
once you go to riding herd with that gang you needn't come around
here again. And you can take Blenham a message for me: Phil Packard
knifed dad and double-crossed him and made him pretty nearly what he
is now; old Hell-Fire Packard finished the job. But just the same, the

Temple Ranch is still on the map and Terry Temple had rather scrap a
scoundrel to the finish than shake hands with one. And one of these
days dad's going to come alive yet; you'll see."
"I believe," he said as much to himself as to her, "that I'll have to have a
word with old man Packard."
She stared at him incredulously. Then she put her head back and
laughed in high amusement.
"Nobody'd miss guessing that you had your nerve with you, Mr. Lanky
Stranger," she cried mirthfully. "But when it comes to tackling
Hell-Fire Packard with a mouthful of fool questions-- Look here; who
are you anyway?"
"Nobody much," he answered quietly and just a trifle bitterly. "Tom
Fool you named me a while ago. Or, if you prefer, Steve Packard."
She flipped from her place on the table to stand erect, twin spots of red
leaping into her cheeks, startling him with the manner in which all
mirth fled from her eyes, which narrowed and grew hard.
"That would mean old Hell-Fire's grandson?" she asked sharply.
He merely nodded, watching her speculatively. Her head went still
higher. Packard heard her father rise hurriedly and shuffle across the
floor toward the kitchen.
"You're a worthy chip off the old stump," Terry was saying
contemptuously. "You're a darned sneak!"
"Terry!" admonished Temple warningly.
Her stiff little figure remained motionless a moment, never an eyelid
stirring. Then she whirled and went out