as "just a kid
of a girl, you know," and to banter her out of them. Now he was ready
to acknowledge that he had failed to give Terry her due; with a sudden
access of irritation it was borne in upon him that if she was fully
minded to be stand-offish and unpleasant, he had something more than
just a kid of a girl to deal with. Frowning, he sought his tobacco and
papers.

"Going to eat?" asked Terry carelessly. "Or not?"

"I don't know . . . yet," he returned, lifting his eyes from his
cigarette. "Most certainly not if you don't want me to."

"Ho!" taunted Terry, the bright light of battle in her eyes. "Climbing
on your high horse, are you? Well, then, stay there."

Packard lighted his cigarette and returned her look steadily.

"Kid of a girl, nothing!" he told himself. And going back to his
epithet of yesterday, "Little wildcat."

"Then," continued the girl evenly, taking up the conversation where it
had broken down some time ago, "I'll say what I've got to say. First,
because you're a Packard. Next, because it was pretty slick work, that
stunt of yours, diving into the lake for me, pretending you didn't know
who I was, and grabbing the first chance to get acquainted. Much good
it'll do you! Maybe I haven't been through high school and you have
fussed around at college; just the same, Mr. Steve Packard, Terry
Temple's not your fool or any other man's! And, on top of all of your
other nerve, to try and make me think you didn't know you owned your
own ranch! And trying to pump me and corkscrewing away at dad when he
was full of whiskey. . . . Pah! Your kind of he-animal makes me sick."

"You think," he offered stiffly, "that I'm hand and glove with Blenham?
And, perhaps, that I'm taking orders from my grandfather, trying to put
one over on you?"

"Thinking's not the right word," she corrected sharply. "I know."

He shrugged. As he did so it struck him that there was nothing else
for him to do. She had the trick of utter finality.

"And," she called after him as he turned abruptly to leave the room,
"you can tell old Hell Fire for me that maybe he's got the big bulge on
the situation right now but that it's bad luck to count your chips
until the game is over. There's a come-back left in dad yet, and . . .
and if you or your hell-roaring old granddad think you can swallow the
Temple outfit whole, like you've done a lot of other outfits . . ."

Packard went out and slammed the door after him.