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To think that one of my blood, my own gran'son, should go to law! Why, by high heaven, Blenham, the thing's downright disgraceful!" Swiftly, deftly, employing a remark like a surgeon's lancet, Blenham offered: "I have the hunch that Temple girl put it in his head." "You're right!" This new suggestion required no weighing and fine balancing.
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."
He's waitin' for me to get one of the boys to hitch up an' haul him to a doctor. He says you an' two other guys gouged his eye out for him." "He's a liar," announced Packard angrily. "The thing was an accident. It was a fair fight between him and Bill Royce. Blenham fell on an old spur. I promised you I'd be here this morning, Woods." "Yes," said Woods. "I expected you."
Blenham gets his orders straight from me to-night; he goes after you to break you, smash you, literally pull you to pieces root an' branch an' with me an' Blenham workin' on the job night an' day, stoppin' at nothin'. Hear me? I mean it!" His two fists were now lifted high above his head. "Stoppin' at nothin' I'll step on you an' your Temple frien's like you was a nest of caterpillars.
There was but the one thing to do; smash down the door and so come at Blenham the shortest, quickest, only way. Then Blenham called to him for the first time. "Fool, are you, Steve Packard? Look at that door. Don't you know before you can batter it down I can pick you off! An' I can do more'n that!" As though he had cruelly drawn it from her, there came again Terry's scream.
Blenham, filled with anxiety, had gone already, would be rushing back to Ranch Number Ten to make sure if the ten thousand dollars were safe or had been discovered already by the rightful owner. He had slipped away hurriedly but, after the fashion of a careful, practical man, had taken time to confer with Dan Hodges and had commissioned Joe Woods to hold Packard here.
"Stand where you are, Blenham." He wondered dully if he had killed Woods. He considered the matter almost impersonally just now; the game wasn't yet played, cards were out, the mind must be cool, the eye quick. "You two boys on the end come over here and help me with Woods." Again Woods's big body twisted; it even turned half over now, and Woods sat up.
On the floor, near his feet, was a revolver; from its position Steve guessed that Barbee had just kicked it safely out of Blenham's reach. Barbee's own gun was in the boy's hand. "You're a pretty foxy kid, Barbee," Blenham was saying tonelessly. "You got the drop on me; you're the firs' man as ever did that little trick. Yes; you're a pretty foxy kid!"
And further, to all of this Steve marked how Blenham had drawn a quick rein but had shown no tremor of uneasiness; had considered that though the man had been taken completely by surprise he had given no sign of being startled, but had answered a sharp summons with a cool, quiet voice. So, summing it up, here was one to be hated and watched.
"Well?" growled Blenham, his voice ugly and baffled and throaty with his rage. "You butt in again, do you?" Steve swung up into the saddle just now vacated by Temple. "Yes," he retorted coolly. "And I'm in to stay, too, if you want to know, Blenham. To the finish." With only the width of a narrow road between them they stared at each other. Then Blenham jeered: "Oho! It's the skirt, huh?
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