Ranch," Packard agreed. "If we can get away with it."

"Meaning what? How get away with it?"

"It's mortgaged to the hilt, it seems. I don't know for how much yet.
The mortgage and a lot of accrued interest has to be paid off. Just
how big a job we've got to find out."

"Seen your grandfather yet?"

"No. I should have looked him up, I suppose, before I fired Blenham.
But, being made of flesh and blood----"

"I know, I know." And Royce filled his lungs with a big sigh. "Bein'
a Packard, you didn't wait all year to get where you was goin'. But
there'll be plenty of red tape that can't be cut through; that'll have
to be all untangled an' untied. Unless your grandfather'll do the
right thing by you an' call all ol' bets off an' give you a free hand
an' a fresh start?"

"All of which you rather doubt, eh, Bill?"

Royce nodded gloomily.

"I guess we've gone at things sort of back-end-to," he said
regretfully. "You'd ought to have seen him first, hadn't you? An'
then you kicked his pet dawg in the slats when you canned Blenham. The
old man's right apt to be sore, Steve."

"I shouldn't be surprised," agreed Steve. "Who are the Temples, Bill?"

"Who tol' you about the Temples?" came the quick counter-question.

"Nobody. I stayed at their place last night."

Royce grunted.

"Didn't take you all year to find her, did it?" he offered bluntly.

"Who?" asked Packard in futile innocence.

"Terry Temple. The finest girl this side the pearly gates an' the
pretties'. What kind of a man have you growned to be with the women,
Steve?"

"No ladies' man, if that's what's worrying you, old pardner. I don't
know a dozen girls in the world. I just asked to know about these
people because they're right next-door to us and because they're
newcomers since my time."

Again Royce grunted, choosing his own explanation of Packard's
interest. But, answering the question put to him, he replied briefly:

"That little Terry-girl can have anything I got; her mother was some
class, too, they tell me. I dope it up she just died of shame when she
come to know what sort she'd picked for a runnin' mate. An' as for
him, he's a twisty-minded jelly-fish. He's absolutely no good. An',
if I ain't mistaken some considerable, you'll come to know him real
well before long. Watch him, Steve."

"Well," said Packard as Royce broke off, sensing that this was not all
to be said of Temple; "let's have it. What else about him?"