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She's a low-down, deceitful jade, that's what she is, sired by a sheep-stealin', throat-cuttin', ornery, no-'count, worthless cuss! The whole pack of them Temples, he an' she of 'em, big an' little of 'em, ought to be strung up on the firs' tree! The low-down bunch of little prairie dawgs, tryin' to trap a Packard with puttin' a putty-faced fool girl in their snare.
No. 5: The lengthy communication in another hand, which Mrs. Packard had found pinned on the baby's cloak, and at my intercession had handed over to me.
Not Mrs. Packard! Surely that voice was another's. Yet we both looked up to see: The sight which met our eyes was astonishing, appalling. She had let her baby slip to the floor and had advanced to the stairs, where she stood, clutching at the rail, looking down upon us, with a joy in her face matching the unholy elation we could still hear ringing in that word "dead."
Packard, with his rather clear-cut conception of the girl's character to steer by, saw the one way to master the situation. Whirling about, his back to her now, he broke into a run, speeding along the road in front of her. As he ran the hard lines about his mouth softened into a rare grin: he'd have her guessing for a minute, anyway. And by the time she got through guessing
Packard has company and I am on my way to the drawing-room, but I am happy to have the opportunity of assuring you that already she looks better, and that I begin to hope that your encouraging presence may stimulate her to throw aside her gloom and needless apprehensions. I shall be eternally grateful to you if it will. It is the first time in a week that she has consented to receive visitors."
For wherever Packard pay was taken it went into the pockets of just such as these, purposeful, self-reliant, men's men who could be counted on in a pinch and who, that they might be held in the service which required such as they, were paid a better wage than other ranches offered.
And why so much trouble?" "Some time I will tell you," I replied, putting my foot on the step. "O girls!" I exclaimed, as two screams rang out above and two agitated faces peered down upon us. "I've had an accident and a great adventure, but I've solved the mystery of the ghost. It was just one of the two poor old ladies next door. They used to come up through this trap. Where is Mrs. Packard?"
I am just standing on my own rights this time, as a man must now and then. Old man Packard is over there. He is coming on. He wants trouble. He doesn't want the law courts. He always preferred to play the game man to man. He has cost me a number of cattle; when I can figure just how many I am going over and collect from him if we are both left alive, which is to be doubted.
You 've hearn tell of 'em; they're relation to Pitt here." "I wouldn't own 'em if I met 'em on Judgement Bench!" exclaimed Pitt Packard hotly. "My stepfather's second wife married Mis' Maddox's first husband after he got divorced from her, 'n' that's all there is to it; they ain't no bloody-kin o' mine, 'n' I don't call 'em relation."
Steve Packard rode on, grown more thoughtful than before. But he directed his course this way and that on a speculative tour of investigation, seeking to see the greater part of the big, sprawling ranch, to note just what had been done, just what was being done, before having his talk with Blenham. And so the first stars were out before he came once more to the home corrals.
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