Man to Man Part 47

They saw him come down the slope, carrying himself with a swaggering air of braggadocio, but plainly watchful and suspicious. Terry had come out upon the ledge and she too watched him. He came down swiftly and swung up into the saddle of the horse they had left for him.

And now at last his suspicion was past. His triumph broke out like a streak of evil light.

"I was ready to go," he called, "any time!"

He swung his arm out toward the blue hills of Old Mexico.

"Down there-----"

Barbee whom they had thought dead stirred a little where he lay. The rifle under him he thrust forward six inches.

"Blenham!" he called weakly.

Blenham swung about and fired, again from the hip. But he had fired hastily. Barbee's rifle, resting upon the rock, was steady. Between its muzzle and Blenham's broad chest there was but the brief distance of some fifty feet. The report of Barbee's rifle, the thin upcurling smoke under the new sun--these were the chief matters in all the world for their little fragment of time.

Then Blenham threw out his arms and pitched forward. His foot caught in the stirrup. The frightened horse was plunging, running, dragging a man whose body was whipped this way and that.

"I promised--a long time ago," whispered Barbee, "that I'd get you, Blenham."

CHAPTER XXVII

IN HONOR OF THE FAIRY QUEEN!

"Guy Little!"

The old man's voice boomed out mightily as the old man himself strode back and forth impatiently in the big barn-like library of his ranch home. Guy Little appeared with a promptness savoring either of magic or prepared expectancy.

"You rang, your majesty?"

"Rang, your foot!" shouted old Packard. "I hollered my ol' head off.

What's the day of the week, Guy Little?"

"It's Wednesday, your----"

"An' what's the day of the month?"

"It's the nineteenth, your----"

"Then tell me, sir," and the old man's tone was angry and challenging to a remarkable degree, "why in the name of the devil my gran'son, Stephen, ain't showed up yet!"

Guy Little might have remarked that it was rather early to expect any one to show up. It was not yet six o'clock of a morning which promised to be one of the very finest mornings ever known. The old man had, as Guy Little expressed it, "been prancin' an' pawin' aroun'," for an hour.

Guy Little grinned like any cherub.

"He has showed up," he chuckled, though he had meant to hold back the tidings teasingly. "He come in late las' night. You was asleep an'

sleepin' soun', so----"

"He did, did he?" bellowed the old man. "Crept in like a d.a.m.n' thief in the night, did he? Well, where is he now? Sleepin' yet, I'll be bound. When he ought to be up an'-- Why, when I was a young devil his age----"

"He's outside somewhere," said Guy Little. "He has been down to the crick for a mornin' dip, I'd guess, your majesty."

"Why would you guess that?"

"Because pretty near all he had on was a towel an' a--a sort of a----immodes' britch-cloth," explained Guy Little confidentially.

"An'," continued old man Packard, "where's--she?"

"Meanin' the Fairy Queen, your majesty?" Guy Little's voice was now a whisper.

"Meanin' her--the Fairy Queen," said the old man gently. "Sleepin', Guy Little? I won't have her woke!"

"Woke, your eyebrow!" chuckled Guy Little. "I'd say she's gone for a--a dip, too, your majesty. An'--an', between just the two of us ol'

fellers, hers is purty near as immodes' as his! Fact, an' I don't care whose granddaughter she is. Blue, you know; an' not very much of it.

An' a red cap. An'--I couldn't see very well through the curtains an'

I dasn't let 'em know I was lookin'. Only don't you let her know we know; why, bless her little simple heart, she ain't got the least idea how pretty an'--an'----immodes'----"

Old man Packard fixed him with a knowing eye.

"Ain't she?" he demanded. "Ain't she, Guy Little? Why, if there's one thing in this world worth knowin' that my granddaughter don't know-- Go order breakfas' ready in two shakes, Guy Little."

"I did," said Guy Little. "It's ready already. There they come.

Happy-lookin', ain't they? Like a couple kids."

"An' see that them two new saddle-horses is ready right after breakfas'

for 'em, Guy Little."

"They're ready now," chuckled Guy Little. "I remembered."

"An--an' she likes----"

"Flowers on the table? An' her grapefruit stacked high with sugar?

An' the coffee with hot milk? Don't I know nothin' a-tall, Packard?"

Steve and Terry, dripping and laughing, breaking into a run as they came on across the meadow, spied the big man and the little at the window and shouted a joyous good morning and Terry threw them a kiss apiece. And old man Packard, his hands on his hips, a look of absolute, ineffable content in his eyes, said softly:

"I've made a mistake or two in my life, Guy Little. But ain't I lived long enough to squeeze in a blunder or so here an' there? An' I've made a mistake a time or two on a man."

"Blenham did fool you pretty slick," suggested Guy Little.

"But," went on the old man hurriedly, "I know a real, upstandin', thoroughbred----"

"Fairy Queen of a woman."

"Fairy Queen of a woman when I see her. An' that little thing out there, her eyes shinin' like I ain't seen a pair of eyes shine for more'n fifty year, Guy Little--why, sir, she's what I call a-- Why, she's a Packard, man!"