Man to Man

by Jackson Gregory

  CHAPTER XVIII

  "IF HE KNOWS--DOES SHE?"

  There seemed no particular need for haste. And yet Terry ran eagerlyto her car, and Steve hurried after her with long strides while the mendown at the bunkhouse surmised and looked to Bill Royce for a measureof explanation. Steve was not beyond the age of enthusiasm; Terry wasall atingle. Life was shaping itself to an adventure.

  And so, though it appeared that all of the time in the world was theirsfor loitering--for it should be a simple matter to come to Red Creekwell in advance of Blenham and his dupe--Terry yielded to herexcitement, Steve yielded out of hand to the lure of Terry, and, quitegay about it, they sped away through the moonlight. While Terry,driver, perforce kept her eyes busied with the road, Steve Packardleaned back in his seat and contented himself with the vision of hisfellow adventurer.

  "Terry Temple," he told her emphatically and utterly sincerely, "youare absolutely the prettiest thing I ever saw."

  "I'm not a thing," said Terry. "And besides, I know it already.And----"

  Then it was that they got their first puncture; a worn tire cut throughby a sharp fragment of rock so that they heard the air gush outwindily. Terry jammed on her brakes. Steve jumped out and made hastyexamination.

  "Looks like a man had gone after it with a hand-ax," he announcedcheerfully. "Good thing you've got a spare."

  Terry flung down from her seat impatiently.

  "I need some new tires," she said, as she from one side and he from theother began seeking in the tool-box under the seat for jack and wrench."That spare is soft, too, and half worn through; I'll bet we get morethan one puncture before the job's done. But it's mounted, anyway."

  Steve went down on his knee and began jacking the car up; Terrystanding over him was busy with her wrench loosening the lugs at therim. Then, while he made the exchange and tightened the nuts, shestrapped the punctured tire in its carrier and slipped back into herseat. As Steve got in beside her he marked how speculatively her eyeswere busied with the road.

  "We've got them behind us, haven't we?" he asked.

  Terry nodded quickly.

  "Yes. We've got the head start and they're on horseback. It's notrick to beat them to it. But-- Oh, I saw a look on Blenham's faceto-night! He's bad, Steve Packard; all bad; the kind that stops atnothing! And somehow, somehow he's got a strangle-hold on poor old dadand is making him do this. We've got the head start, we can beat themto Red Creek, but----"

  "But you don't like the idea of leaving your father alone in Blenham'scompany to-night?" he finished for her. "Is that it?"

  Again she nodded. He could see her teeth set to nibbling at her lips.

  "Then," he suggested, "why go to Red Creek at all? Why not turn backhere and stop them? You can take Mr. Temple back home with you. Iimagine that between the two of us we can make Blenham understand he isnot wanted this time."

  "I was thinking of that," said Terry.

  And where the Ranch Number Ten road runs into the country road, Terryturned to the right, headed again toward her own home.

  When, with Steve at her heels, she ran up on the porch it was to be metby Iki, the Japanese cook, his eyes shining wildly.

  "Where's my father?" she asked, and Iki waving his hands excitedlyanswered:

  "Departed with rapid haste and many curse-words from his gentlemanfriend. The master could not make a stop for one little more drink ofwhiskey. The other strike and vomit threats and say: 'Most surely willI cause that you tarry long time in jail-side.' Saying likewise: 'Igot you by the long hair like I want you and yes-by-God, like some daysoon I get your lovely daughter!' Only he say the latter withunpleasant words of----"

  Terry was shaking him by both shoulders.

  "Where did they go?" she demanded. "How long ago?"

  "On horses, running swiftly," gibbered Iki. "Ten minutes,maybe--perhaps twenty or thirty. Who can tell the time when----"

  "Why didn't we meet them?" asked Steve of Terry. "If they are reallyheaded for Red Creek?"

  "They are taking all of the short-cuts there are," she answeredpromptly. "They'll take a cow-trail through the ranch, cut across thelower end of your place, and come into the old road just beyond.Blenham's all fox; he has guessed that I am out to put a spoke in hiswheel somehow. He won't be wasting any perfectly good moonlight. Comeon!" And again she was running to the car. "We'll overhaul them justthe same.

  "I believe you," grunted Steve, once more seated beside her, the enginedrumming, the wheels spinning. "You don't know what a speed law is, doyou?"

  "Speed law?" she repeated absently, her eyes on the next dark turn inthe road. "What's that?"

  He chuckled and settled back in his seat. His eyes, like the girl's,were watchfully bent upon the gloom-filled angle which Terry mustnegotiate before the way straightened out again before her. Herheadlights cut through the shadows; Terry's little body stiffened a bitand her hands tensed on her wheel; her flying speed was lessened analmost negligible trifle; she made the turn and opened the throttle.Steve nodded approvingly.

  For the greater part they were silent. He had never seen her in a moodlike to-night's. He read in her face, in her eyes, in the carriage ofher body, one and the same thing; and that was a complex something madeof the several emotions of determination, sorrow, and fiery anger.

  He read her thought readily; it was clear that she made no attempt toconceal it: She was going to consummate a certain deal, she was grievedand ashamed for her father, she remembered the "look on Blenham's faceto-night," and again and again her fury shot its red tide into hercheeks.

  "Blenham put his dirty hands on her," was Steve's thought; "or triedto."

  And he found that his own pulses drummed the hotter as he let hisimagination conjure up a picture for him, Blenham's big, knotted handsupon the daintiness that was Terry. In that moment it seemed to himthat he had been drawn home across the seas to help mete out punishmentto a man: a man who had stricken old Bill Royce, and who now dared lookevilly upon Terry Temple.

  Then came their second puncture, an ugly gash like the first caused bya flinty fragment of rock driven against the worn outer casing.

  "I ordered new tires a month ago," said Terry by way of explanation, asshe and Steve in the road together set about remedying the trouble.

  While he was getting the inner-tube out, squatting in front of her carso as to work in the glow from her headlights, she was rummagingthrough her repair kit.

  "These rocky roads, you know, and the way I drive."

  He laughed. "The way she drove!" That meant, "Like the devil!" as hewould put it. Over rocky roads, racing right up to a turn, jamming onher brakes when she must slow down a little; swinging about a sharpbend so that her car slid and her tires dragged; in short getting allof the speed out of her motor that she could possibly extract from it,regardless and coolly contemptuous of skuffed tires and other trifles.

  Finding the cut in the inner-tube was simple enough; the moonlightalone would have shown it. He held it up for her to look at and sheshook her head and sighed. But making the patch so that it would holdwas another matter; and pumping up the tire when the job was done wasstill another, and required time and ate up all of Terry's ratherinconsiderable amount of patience.

  "A little more luck like this," she cried as once more they took to theroad, "and Blenham will put one over on us yet!"

  It was borne in upon Steve that Terry's fears might prove to be onlytoo well founded. The time she had taken to drive to him at his ranch,the time lost in returning to her home and in changing tires andmending a puncture, had been put to better use by Blenham. True, hewas on horseback while they motored. And yet, for a score or so ofmiles, a determined, brutally merciless man upon a horse may render anaccount of himself.

  But while they both speculated they sped on. They came to the spotwhere the "old road" turned into the new; Blenham and Temple were to beseen nowhere though here the country was flat and but sparselytimbered, and the moon pricked out
all objects distinctly.

  And so on and on, beginning to wonder at last, asking themselves ifBlenham and Temple had drawn out of the road somewhere, hiding in theshadows, to let them go by? But finally only when they were climbingthe last winding grade with Red Creek but a couple of miles away, theysaw the two horsemen.

  Terry's car swung about a curve in the road her headlights for a briefinstant aiding the moon in garishly illuminating a scene to beremembered. Blenham had turned in his saddle, startled perhaps by thesound of the oncoming car or by the gleam of the headlights; hisuplifted quirt fell heavily upon the sides of his running horse; roseand fell again upon the rump of Temple's mount, and the two men, theirhorses leaping under them, were gone over the ridge and down upon thefar side.

  In a few moments, from the crest of the ridge, they made out the tworunning forms on the road below. Blenham was still frantically beatinghis horse and Temple's. Terry's horn blared; her car leaped; andBlenham, cursing loudly, jerked his horse back on its haunches and wellout of the road. With wheels locked, Terry slid to a standstill.

  "Pile in, dad," she said coolly, ignoring Blenham. "Steve Packard andI will take you into Red Creek. Packard is ready to make you a betterproposition than Blenham's. Turn your horse loose; he'll go home, andpile in with us."

  "He'll do nothing of the kind!" shouted Blenham, his voice husky withhis fury. "Just you try that on Temple, an'-- He'll do nothing of thekind," he concluded heavily, his mien eloquent of threat.

  "We know you think you've got some kind of a strangle-hold on him,Blenham," cut in Terry crisply. "But even if you have, dad is a whiteman and--dad! What is the matter?"

  Temple slipped from his saddle and stood shaking visibly, his face deadwhite, his eyes staring. Even in the moonlight they could all see thebig drops of sweat on his forehead, glistening as they trickled down.He put out his hand to support himself by gripping at his saddle,missed blindly, staggered, and began slowly collapsing where he stoodas though his bones were little by little melting within him. Blenhamlaughed harshly.

  "Drunker'n a boiled owl," he grunted. "But jus' the same sober enoughto know----"

  "Dad!" cried Terry a second time, out in the road beside him now, herarms belting his slacking body. "It isn't just that. You----"

  "Sick," moaned Temple weakly. "God knows--he's been hounding me todeath--I don't know--I wanted to stop, to rest back there but--I'mafraid that----"

  He broke off panting. Steve jumped out and slipped his own arms aboutthe wilting form.

  "Let me get him into the car," he said gently. And when he had liftedTemple and placed him in the seat he added quietly: "You'd better hurryon I think. Get a doctor for him. I'll follow on his horse."

  Terry flashed him a look of gratitude, took her place at the wheel andstarted down grade. Her father at her side continued to settle in hisplace as long as Steve kept him in sight.

  "Well?" growled Blenham, his voice ugly and baffled and throaty withhis 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 toknow, Blenham. To the finish."

  With only the width of a narrow road between them they stared at eachother. Then Blenham jeered:

  "Oho! It's the skirt, huh? Stuck on her yourself, are you?"

  Steve frowned, but met his piercing look with level contempt.

  "Your language is inelegant, friend Blenham," he said slowly. "Likeyourself it is better withdrawn from public notice. As to yourmeaning--why, by thunder, I half believe you are right! And I hadn'tthought of it!"

  Blenham caught In one of his rare bursts of heady rage shook his fisthigh above his head and cried out savagely:

  "I'll beat you yet, the both of you! See if I don't. Yes you an' yourcrowd an' him an' her an'----"

  "Don't take on too many all at once," suggested Steve.

  Only the tail of his eye was on Blenham; he was looking wonderingly anda bit wistfully down the moonlit, empty road.

  "I got him where I want him right now," snarled Blenham. "An'her--I'll have her, too, where I want her! An', inside less time thanyou'd think I'll have----"

  But he clamped his big mouth tight shut, glared at Steve a moment andthen, striking with spur and quirt together, so that his frightenedhorse leaped out frantically, he was gone down the road after Templeand Terry.

  As Steve followed a smile was in his eyes, a smile slowly parting hislips.

  "The scoundrel was right!" he mused. "And I hadn't even thought of it.Now how the devil do you suppose he knew?"

  And then, before he had gone a dozen yards a curious, puzzled,uncertain look come into his face.

  "If he knows," was his perplexity, "Does she?"