eyes on her for the
matter of years. "Dumpy, pudgy, squidge-nosed little fool. I'll run
both her and her thief of a father out of the country."

"An'," continued Guy Little, "I didn't exac'ly' say, m'lord, as how
this Terry Temple party was after him. I said as how he was after her!
That is, as how, roundin' out what I know about him, he's got a eye for
a fine-lookin' lady. Which, against argyment, I maintain that Terry
Temple girl is."

"Guy Little," cried Packard sharply, "you're a fool! Maybe you know
all there is about motor-cars an' gasoline. When it comes to females
you're a fool."

"Ah, m'lord, not so!" protested Guy Little, a gleam in his eye like a
faint flicker from a dead fire. "There was a time--before I set these
hoofs of mine into the wanderin' trail--when----"

The rest might best be left entirely to the imagination and there he
left it. But the old man was all untouched by his henchman's utterance
and innuendoed boast for the simple reason that he had heard nothing of
it.

"Those Temple hounds," he muttered, staring at Guy Little who stared
butlerishly back, "are leeches, parasites, cursed bloodsuckers and
hangers-on. They think I'm goin' to take this boy in an' give him all
I got; they think they see a chance to marry him into their rotten
crowd an' slip one over on me this way! That simperin', gigglin' fool
of a girl try an' hook my gran'son! I'll show 'em, Guy Little; I'll
show the whole cussed pack of 'em! I'll exterminate 'em, root an'
branch an' withered leaf! By the Lord, but I'll go get 'em!"

"He'll do it," nodded Guy Little, addressing the invisible third party
in order not to directly interrupt his patron's flow of words.

But for a little the old man was silent, running his calloused fingers
nervously through his beard, frowning into the dusk thickening over the
world outside. When he spoke again it was softly, thoughtfully, almost
tenderly. And the words were these:

"Break a fool an' make a man, Guy Little! That's what we're goin' to
do for Stephen Packard. He's always had too much money, had life too
easy. We'll jus' nacherally bust him all to pieces; we'll learn him
the big lesson of life; we'll make a man out'n him yet. An' when
that's done, Guy Little, when that time comes-- Go send Blenham here,"
he broke off with sharp abruptness.

Guy Little achieved his stage bow and departed. The door only half
closed behind him, he was shouting at the top of his vo