Man to Man Read online

  CHAPTER XV

  AT THE FALLEN LOG

  Since the hill ranch operated by the Temples and the Packard RanchNumber Ten had over two miles of common border-line, it was unavoidablethat Steve and Terry should meet frequently. Truly unavoidable sincefurther they were both young, Terry as pretty as the proverbialpicture, Steve the type to stick somehow in such a girl's mind. Sheturned up her nose at him; she gave him a fine view of her back; but inriding her father's range she let her eyes travel curiously across theline.

  For his part Steve, seeing where some of his calves had invaded Templeproperty, followed the errant calves himself instead of sending one ofhis men. And as he rode he was apt to forget his strayed cattle as hewatched through the trees for a fluttering, gay-hued scarf.

  Certainly of girls and women he had known she was the most refreshing;certainly she was the prettiest after an undeniably saucy style. Andlife here of late, with Blenham and Woods gone and unheard from, was aquiet, uneventful affair.

  Terry, for her part, told herself and any one else who cared to listen,that he was a Packard, hence to be distrusted, avoided, considered asbeneath a white person's notice. His breed were all crooked. Siredand grandsired by precious scoundrels, he was but what was to beexpected. And yet----

  For "yets" and "ifs" and "howevers" had already begun to intrude,befogging many a consideration hitherto clear as cut glass. He had notlied about a horse being shot under him; he had been party to Blenham'sdeparture from the ranch; he had been man enough in Red Creek to whipJoe Woods; and, single-handed, he had driven a crew of rough-and-readytimberjacks off his property.

  Further, it was undeniable that he had a good-natured grin, that hiseyes though inclined either to be stern or else to laugh at her, werefrank and steady, that he made a figure that fitted well in the eye ofa girl like Terry Temple.

  "Oh, the Packards are men," said Terry begrudgingly, "even if they arepirates!"

  This to her father and, it is to be suspected, for her father's sake.For, despite the girl's valiantly repeated hope that Temple "would comeback yet" and be again the man he once was, he seemed in fact to growmore shiftless day after day, communing long over his fireplace withhis drink, passing from one degree to another of untidiness. He madeher "feel just like screaming and running around the house breakingthings" at times.

  "You are impatient, my dear," said Temple as one speaking to a veryyoung child. "And there are matters which you don't understand; whichI cannot even discuss with you. But," and he winked very slyly, lessat Terry than just in a general acknowledgment of his own acumen, "youjust wait a spell! I've got somethin' up my sleeve--somethin' that----Oh, you just wait, my dear!"

  Terry sniffed.

  "I ought to be pretty good at waiting by now," she told him, littleimpressed. "And if you have anything up your sleeve besides the flabbyarm of a do-nothing, then it must be another bottle of whiskey! Youcan't flim-flam me, dad, and you ought to know it."

  She whisked out of the house, her face reddened with vexation, a suddenmoisture in her eyes. It took all of the fortitude she could summoninto her dauntless little bosom to maintain after days like this thatthere was still a "come-back" left in her father.

  In an hour made fragrant by the resinous odors of the upland pines andthe freshly liberated perfumes of the little white evening flowersthick in the meadows, Terry on her favorite horse went flashing throughthe long shadows of the late afternoon, riding as Terry always rodewhen her breast was tumultuous and her temper rising.

  The recently imported Japanese cook and houseboy peered out after herfrom his kitchen window, his eyes actually losing their Oriental castand growing round; a trick, this, of Iki's whenever Terry came into hisview.

  "Part bird," mused Iki, "part flower, big part wild devil-girl! Oof!Nice to look at, but for wife Japonee girl more better. Think so."

  Little by little as she rode, letting her horse out until she fairlyraced through the fields and into the woods beyond, the pitiful pictureof her father faded from her mind. As the vision dimmed of Temple'sshoddiness in his worn-out slippers another image formed in Terry'smind; an image which was there more than the girl had as yet come torealize.

  Yes, as types the Packards were all right; how many times had sheadmitted that to herself? But as individuals . . . Oh, how she hatedthem! And to-day, for some reason not clearly defined in Terry'sconsciousness, she found it convenient to assure herself with newemphasis that she hated and despised the Packards with a growingdetestation, and from this point to go on and inform Miss Teresa Templeexactly why she looked on those of the Packard blood just as she did.

  She summoned a host of reasons, set them in ranks like so many soldiersto wage war for her, marshalled and deployed and reviewed anddress-paraded them, and found them all eminently satisfactorymercenaries.

  There was one reason which she thrust into the background, seeking tokeep it hidden behind the serried ranks of its brothers-in-arms. Andyet it insisted in mutinous fashion on pushing to the fore. Seeking toconsider the Packards en masse, as a curse rather than as individuals,she found that she was remembering Steve Packard rather vividly.

  In the outward seeming Steve Packard was a gentleman; he had that vaguesomething called culture; he bore himself with the assurance and easeof one who knew the world; he had been to college--and Terry knewnothing more of school than was to be learned at a country high school.Steve's father had "broken" her father financially; had such not beenthe fact Terry herself would have had her own college diploma on herwall; Terry would have known something more of the world than she nowknew; she would have been "a lady."

  "Oh, pickles!" cried Terry aloud, bringing her runaway thoughts to asharp halt. "What difference does it make if he knows Latin and Idon't? And a hot specimen of a 'lady' I'd make anyhow!"

  Over a ridge she flew, the low sun glistening from her spurs and thepolished surfaces of her boot-tops, down into the dusk-filled fragranceof a woodsy canon, into the mouth of a silent trail, around a widecurve, and to her own favorite spot of all these woods. A nook ofhaunting charm with its sprawling stream, its big-boled and widelyscattered trees, its grass and flowers. "Mossy Dell," she called it,having borrowed the name from an old romance read in breathless fashionin her room.

  Slipping out of her saddle and leaving her horse to browse if suchpastime suited him, Terry went through the trees and down along theflashing creek, humming softly, her voice confused with the gurgle ofthe noisy little stream, her eyes at last growing content.

  She was half smiling at some shadowy thought before she had gone twentypaces; she tossed off her hat and let it lie, meaning to come back forit later; she unfastened the scarf about her neck, baring her whitethroat to the hour's cool invitation, she let her bronze-brown hairdown in two loose, curling braids across her shoulders, toying with theends as she went.

  Coming here at troubled moments altered the girl's mood very much as anhour in a quiet cathedral may soothe the soul of the orthodox.

  A little further on, lying across the stream and just around anotherbend, was a great fallen cedar, its giant trunk eight or ten feetthrough at the base. Approximately it marked the border-line betweenthe Temple Ranch and Ranch Number Ten; it was quite as though thewilderness itself had cast down the big tree across an old trail toindicate a line which must not be crossed.

  Upon the top of this supine woodland monarch Terry was accustomed tosit, her back against one of the big limbs, her heels kicking at themossy sides, while she glanced back and forth from Temple property toPackard land and told herself how much finer was her side than theother.

  Just where the tree had fallen the creek-bed was rocky and uneven; thewater eddied and whirled and plunged noisily into its pools. Terry,clambering up from her side of the big log, heard only the shouting ofthe brook. She grasped the dead branches, pulled herself up, slipped alittle, got a new foothold; Terry's head, her face flushed rosily, hereyes never brighter, popped up on one side of the log just in time withthe t
ick of her destiny's clock.

  Terry's head, her face flushed rosily, her eyes neverbrighter, popped up on one side of the log.]

  That is to say just as Steve Packard, climbing up from the other side,thrust his head up above the top. An astonished grunt from Steve whoin the first start of the encounter came close to falling backward; alittle choking ejaculation from Terry whose eyes widenedwonderfully--and the two of them settled silently into their places onthe cedar and stared at each other. Some three or four feet only laybetween the brim of Steve's hat and Terry's upturned nose.

  "Well?" demanded Terry stiffly.

  "Well?" countered Steve.

  He regarded her very gravely. He had never had a girl materialize thisway out of space and his own thoughts. This sudden confronting savoredof the supernatural; for the moment it set him aback and he was contentto stare wonderingly into the sweet gray eyes so near his own and totake note of the curve of her lips, the redness of them, the dimplewhich, though departed now and, he felt, in hiding, had left a hint ofitself behind in its hasty flight.

  "If there's one thing I hate worse than a potato-bug," said Terry,"it's a fresh guy! Think you're funny, don't you?"

  "Fresh? Funny?"

  He lifted his eyebrows. And then, her suspicion clear to him, hisgravity departed the way Terry's dimple had gone and he put back hishead and laughed. Laughed while the girl with deepening color anddarkening eyes looked at him indignantly.

  "Think I did that on purpose?" he cried in vast good nature. "That Iwas spying on you? That I waited until you started to climb up hereand that then I popped my head up just at the same time? All onpurpose?"

  "That's just exactly what I do think!" Terry told him hotly. "You--youbig smarty! Everywhere I go, have you got to keep showing up?"

  "I'll tell you something," said Steve. "If I had climbed up here justto give you a little surprise party; if I had known you were there andthat I could have poked my head up just as you did yours--know what Iwould have done?"

  "What?" Terry in her curiosity condescended to ask.

  "I'd have kissed the prettiest girl I ever saw!" he chuckled. "Honestto grandma! That's just what I'd have done. As it was, you halfscared me out of my wits; I came as close as you please to going overbackward and breaking my neck."

  "Not as close as I please. And as for kissing me, Long Steve Packard,you just try that on sometime when you want your face slapped good andhard and a bullet pumped into you besides!"

  "Mean it?" grinned Steve.

  "I most certainly do," she retorted emphatically.

  "Offered merely as information?" he wanted to know. "Or as a dare? Oran invitation?"

  When she did not reply at once but contented herself by putting a dealof eloquence into a look--which, by the way, had no visible effect uponhis rising good humor--he went on to remark:

  "If you just slapped my face it would be worth it. If you just shot methrough the finger-nail or something like that, it would be worth itstill." He examined her critically. "Even if you plugged me squarethrough the thumb----"

  "If you don't know it," she informed him aloofly, "you are trespassingright now where you are not wanted. The sooner you trail your big feetoff Temple land the better I'll like it!"

  "Temple land? Since when was a tree considered as land, Miss TeresaArriega Temple?"

  "Think that's funny?" she scoffed.

  "And besides," he continued, "the tree is on Packard property. Seethat old pine stump over yonder? And that big rock there? Thosethings mark the boundary-line and you'll notice we're on my side!"

  Terry's temper flamed higher in her eyes, flashed hotter in her cheeks.

  "We are not! And you know we are not! The line runs yonder, justbeyond that big white rock on the creek-bank. And you are a good tenfeet on my side. Where, if you please, you are not wanted."

  "That isn't a pretty enough thought to bear repetition," he offeredgenially. "Look here, Terry Temple, what's the use----"

  "Are you going? Or do you intend just to squat there like a toad andspoil the view for me?"

  "Toads are fat animals," he corrected her. "I'm not. More like abullfrog, if you like. What am I going to do? Why, just squat, Iguess."

  As he leaned back against the limb which offered its support to hisshoulders Terry noted that he wore in full sight at his side the heavyColt he had bought the other night in Red Creek. A new habit, withSteve Packard.

  "Gunman, are you?" she jeered. "I might have known it. Gunmen are allcowards."

  He sighed.

  "You can be the most irritating young lady I ever met. And why? Whathave I ever done to you--besides save you from drowning? Since we areneighbors, why not be good friends? By the way, where do you carryyour gun?"

  "It's different with a girl," she said bluntly. "There's some excusefor her. With the kind that's filling the woods lately she's apt toneed it."

  "And you wouldn't be afraid to use it?"

  "I'm not here to chin with you all day," observed Terry coolly. "Andyou haven't told me what you're doing on my land."

  "Your land?" he demanded.

  "On my side of the line, then."

  He considered the question.

  "I'm here to meet some one," he answered finally.

  "I like your nerve! Arranging to meet your friends here! StevePackard, you are the--the--the----"

  "Go on," he prompted. "You'll need a cuss-word now; any other finishwill sound flat."

  "--the _Packardest_ Packard I ever heard of!" she concluded. "You andyour friend----"

  "No more my friend than he is yours," he said, interrupting her. "Anindividual named Blenham. And I'm not here so much to meet himas--let's say to head him off."

  Terry set it down that, since it was next to impossible at any time fora Packard to speak the truth, he was just lying to her for the sake ofthe devious exercise. As she was on the point of saying emphaticallywhen Steve said "Sh!" and pointed. She heard a breaking of brush andsaw the horns of a steer; the animal was coming into the trail from thePackard side.

  "You just watch," whispered Steve. "And sit right still. It won't doyou any harm to know what's going on."

  The big steer broke through into the trail, stopped and sniffed, andthen came on up the stream. Behind came another and another, emergingfrom the shadows, passing through the swiftly fading light of the open,gone again into the shadows that lay over the wooded Temple acreage.In all nine big fat steers. And behind them, sitting loosely in hissaddle, came Blenham.

  Only when the last steer had crossed the line did Steve rise suddenly,standing upright on the great log, his hands on his hips. Terrylooking up into his face saw that all of the good humor had gone fromit and that there was something ominous in the darkening of his eyes.

  "Hold on, Blenham!" he called.

  Blenham drew a quick rein.

  "That you, Packard?" he asked quietly.

  "It is," answered Steve briefly. "On the job, too, Blenham. All thetime."

  Blenham laughed.

  "So it seems," he said, his look like his tone eloquent of an innuendowhich embraced Terry evilly. "If you're invitin' me to join yourlittle party, I ain't got the time. Thanks jus' the same."

  Since one's consciousness may harbor several clear-cut impressionssimultaneously, Steve Packard, while he was thinking of other matters,felt that never until this moment had he hated Blenham properly; no,nor respected him as it would be the part of wisdom to do.

  The man's glance running over Terry Temple's girlishness was like thecrawling of a slug over a wild flower and supplied a new and perhapsthe key-note to Blenham's ugliness. It was borne in upon Steve thathis grandfather's lieutenant was bad, absolutely bad; that, old adagesto the contrary notwithstanding, here was a character with not a hintof redemption in it; after the Packard outright way, this youngestPackard was ready to condemn out of hand.

  And further, to all of this Steve marked how Blenham had drawn a quickrein but had s
hown no tremor of uneasiness; had considered that thoughthe man had been taken completely by surprise he had given no sign ofbeing startled, but had answered a sharp summons with a cool, quietvoice. So, summing it up, here was one to be hated and watched.

  "What are you doing on my land, Blenham?" asked Steve sharply. "Andwhere are you driving those steers?"

  Blenham eased himself in his saddle, drew his broad hat lower over hiseyes; thus he partly hid the patch which he had worn since he came fromthe doctor's hands.

  "I ain't on your land any more," he returned. "An' as for themsteers--what's it to you, anyhow?"

  Open defiance was one thing Steve had not looked for.

  "Looking for more trouble yet, Blenham?" he asked briefly.

  Blenham shrugged.

  "I'm tendin' to business," he said slowly. "No, I'm not lookin' fortrouble--yet. Since you want to know, I'm hazin' them cow-brutes theshortes' way off'n Number Ten an' on to the North Trail. I'm puttin''em on the trot to the Big Bend ranch where they happen to belong."

  Steve lifted his brows, for the moment wondering. Blenham was notwaiting for pitch dark to move these steers; he manifested no alarm atbeing discovered; now he calmly admitted that he was driving them toold man Packard's ranch where they belonged. It was possible that hewas right.

  In the few weeks that he had been back Steve had not had the time toknow every head on his wide-scattered acreage; as the steers hadtrotted through the shadows and into the open his eyes had been lessfor them than for the coming of Blenham and he was not sure of thebrands.

  He felt that Terry's eyes, as Terry sat very still on her log, weresteadily upon him.

  "Blenham," he said curtly, "I don't know whose cattle those are. But Ido know this much: If they are mine I am going to have them back; ifthey are not mine I am going to have them back just the same."

  "How do you make that out?" demanded Blenham.

  "I make out that neither you nor any other man has any business drivingstock off my range without consulting me first."

  "They're Big Bend cows," muttered Blenham. "The ol' man's orders----"

  "Curse the old man's orders!" Steve's voice rang out angrily. "If hecan't be decent to me, can't he at least let me alone? Need he sendyou here to do business with me? If you want orders, Blenham, you justtake these from me: Ride back to the old man on Big Bend ranch and tellhim that what stock is on my ranch I keep here until he can prove it ishis! Understand? If he can prove that these steers belong to him--andI don't believe he can and you can tell him that, too--why then, lethim send me the money to pay for their pasturage and he can have them.And in the meantime, Mr. Blenham, get out and be damned to you!"

  For the moment Steve lost all thought of Terry sitting very still soclose to him, his mind filled with his grandfather and hisgrandfather's chosen tool. So when he thought that he heard thesuspicion of a stifled giggle, a highly amused and vastly delightedlittle giggle, he was for the instant of the opinion that Blenham waslaughing at him.

  But the intruder was all seriousness. He sat motionless, his glancestony, his thought veiled, his one good eye giving no more hint of hispurpose than did the patch over the other eye. In the end he shrugged.

  "My orders," he said finally, "was simply to haze them steers back tothe Big Bend. The ol' man didn't say nothin' about startin' anythingif you got unreasonable." Again he shrugged elaborately. "I'll comeagain if he says so," he concluded and, jabbing his spurs viciouslyinto his horse's flanks, his sole sign of irritation, Blenham rode awaythrough the woods.

  "He let go too easy," murmured Terry. "He's got a card in the holeyet."

  Her eyes followed the departing rider, she pursed her lips after him.

  Steve turned and looked down upon her.

  "I hope you don't mind if I trespass to the extent of riding afterthose steers?" he offered. "I want to drive them back and at the sametime I don't mind making sure that Blenham is still on his way."

  Terry regarded him long and searchingly.

  "Go ahead," she said at last. And, as though an explanation werenecessary, she continued: "There's just one animal I hate worse than Ido a Packard! For once the fence is down between you and Temple land,Steve Packard."

  "Let's keep it down!" he said impulsively. "You and I----"

  "No, thanks!" Terry rose swiftly to her feet, balancing on her log,reminding him oddly of a bright bird about to take flight. "You justremember that there's just one animal I hate _almost_ as much as I doBlenham; and that that's a Packard."

  And so she jumped down from the log and left him.