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Updated: June 4, 2025
But in very brief time Steve Packard's loitering pace was exchanged for red-hot haste as the sounds winging outward from the bunk-house met him, stilled his singing, and informed him that men were battling in a fury which must have something of sheer blood-thirst in it. He raced to the closed door, swung down from the saddle, and threw the door open.
"My name is Saunders," I said. "I am at present an inmate of Mayor Packard's house a house belonging to Mr. Searles, and one which has its drawbacks." The meaning look with which I uttered the last sentence called forth an answering one. A flash of excitement broke over his features and he cast a quick glance at the door which fortunately had swung to at my entrance.
It was the time of early dusk; not yet were the coal-oil lamps lighted; shadows were lengthening and merging out in the rolling fields. Packard's eyes, withdrawn from the outdoors, wandered along his tall and seldom-used book-shelves, fell to the one worn volume on the table beside him, went hastily to the door. Down the hall came the sound of quick boot-heels.
Steve was taller, had the longer reach, was gifted by the gods with a supple strength no whit less than the bearish power of the timber boss. With ten blows struck, with both men rocking dizzily, it was patently Steve Packard's fight. But a dull, dogged persistence was in Joe Woods's eyes as again he shook his head and charged. Steve struck for the stomach and landed hard.
He looked round, and was surprised to see Miss Giltinan, head of the ladies' department, her lips tight with anger, replacing a heap of cardboard boxes with jerks of suppressed fury. She was his best saleswoman, gathered in from the pavement a week after she had been ejected from Packard's factory for cheeking the boss.
At a logging-camp well up on the slope of the mountains just after he had forded the upper waters of Packard's Creek, he breakfasted on warmed-over coffee and greasy hot cakes. He opened his eyes interestedly as he watched a gang of timberjacks cutting into a forest of his pines. "Old man Packard's crowd?" he asked the camp cook. "Sure thing," was the cook's careless answer.
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.
Blenham's big hands, clenching slowly, fell to his sides; Blenham's eyes, sullen and evil, clung steadily to Packard's. "You've saved me my inheritance to-night; you've helped save me my ranch. You've helped me square the game with a dirty dog named Blenham!" Like a dog Blenham showed his teeth. His drawn face was stamped in the image of fury.
"I can't get mother Bascom to see it as I do," said Diadema, "but for one thing she's ben carryin' home bundles 'bout every other night for a month, though she's ben too smart to buy anythin' here at this store. She had Packard's horse to go to Saco last week.
The drive from Hell-Fire Packard's front door to the store in Red Creek was made in some few negligible seconds over forty-eight minutes. The three occupants of the car reached town alive. Never in her life after that night would Terry Temple doubt that there was a Providence which at critical times took into its hands the destinies of men.
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