Man to Man Part 46

Steve stepped over Barbee's twitching body, alert, every nerve taut, his finger crooked to the trigger of his rifle. But again Blenham had withdrawn. In the little rudely circular hollow from which Blenham had fired point-blank at Yellow Barbee was Terry's hat, trodden underfoot.

Again it was as though the mountain had swallowed the man and the girl he had taken with him.

But a moment later Steve saw and understood. Not ten steps from where he stood was the mouth of a cave. Into it Blenham had retreated. In there was Blenham now; Blenham and Terry with him. And the way, for the moment at least, was securely blocked. Evidently here was a hangout known before, previously employed. It had a door made of heavy cedar slabs. The door was shut, and, of course, barred from within.

"Terry!" called Steve.

Terry sought to answer; he heard her voice in inarticulate terror, little more than a gasp, choked back in her throat. Steve went dead white. He visualized Blenham's hands upon her.

He came on to the door, his rifle clubbed. There was but the one thing to do; smash down the door and so come at Blenham the shortest, quickest, only way.

Then Blenham called to him for the first time.

"Fool, are you, Steve Packard? Look at that door. Don't you know before you can batter it down I can pick you off! An' I can do more'n that!"

As though he had cruelly drawn it from her, there came again Terry's scream. Steve sprang forward and struck at the heavy cedar planks.

And Blenham called out again:

"Maybe you can break your way in; there's enough of you. But you'll find her dead when the door falls!"

Steve had again lifted his rifle. Now he let it sink slowly so that the b.u.t.t came to rest gently upon the rock at his feet. Blenham held the high hand; Blenham was unthinkably vile; Blenham was desperate.

And Terry, his little Terry on whom Blenham had always looked with the eye of a brute and a beast, was in there, just beyond three inches of solid seasoned cedar planking.

"If you harm her in the least--" It was Steve's voice though certainly at first neither Blenham nor even Terry could have recognized it. "If you harm her in the least, Blenham, I'll kill you. Not all at once--just by inches!"

Blenham answered him coolly.

"I know when I've lost a trick, Steve Packard. This ain't the firs'

one an' it ain't goin' to be the last. I've played 'em high an' I always knowed I took chances. But I'm playin' safe! Get me? Safe!"

"Go ahead; what do you mean?"

"Ol' man Packard is down there. This girl's yellin' spoiled my play.

By now he has learned a thing or two. All right; that's jus' the run of luck, rotten luck!"

Under the words the restraint was gone and his rage flared out briefly.

But it was patent that Blenham's shrewdness was still with him. He continued almost calmly:

"You an' him can have two words together. Then come back here an' give me your promises, both of you, to let me go. Then I'll let her go.

Otherwise, I'm as good as dead--an' so's she. I'll jam a gun to her head the las' thing an' blow her brains out. An', what's more, I'll get one or two of you besides before you drop me."

Into their parley, interrupting it, his eyes flaming, his face hot with anger, mounted old man Packard.

"Stephen," he said sternly, his eyes hard on his grandson's face, "tell me an' tell me the down-right truth, so help you G.o.d: Did you rent this pasture from Andy Sprague, thinkin' he owned it?"

Though he wondered, Steve answered briefly, to have this done with so that he could again turn to Blenham--

"Yes."

"An' the boys says you have been losin' stock an' blamin' it to me?

An' that you've had stock poisoned an' shot? An' blamed it to me?"

"Yes," said Steve.

"So've I," said the old man heavily. "An' I've always blamed it to you. An' I never sold to Andy Sprague. Him an' Blenham--Blenham has played us both ways for suckers, has stole enough cows from one an'

another----"

His voice was swept up into the roar of rage which had given him his name of the old mountain-lion of the north. He came stepping over poor Barbee's body, thrusting by Steve, towering over the door of the cave.

"Hold back," commanded Steve queerly. "He's in there. But he's got it on us. We've got to promise to let him go!"

"Let him go!" shouted the old man, his big bulk seeming actually to quiver with rage. "After all he's done, let him go? By the Lord, Stephen Packard, if you're that sort of a man----"

"She is in there with him," said Steve heavily. "Terry is in there.

Don't you see?"

"Terry? That Temple girl? What have we to do----"

"In the first place," cried Steve sharply, "she's a girl and he's a brute. In the second place, she is the next Mrs. Packard and I won't have Blenham pawing over her!"

His grandfather stared at him, long and keenly. Then he turned away and called out commandingly--

"Blenham, come out of that!"

Blenham jeered at him.

"And be shot down like a dog? There's a girl in here, Packard. Young Packard is gone on her; he wants to marry her. An' unless you an' him give your word to let me go, I'm goin' to jam a gun at her head an'

blow her brains out. An' I'll get him as I come out; an' I'll get you."

"Let him go!" called Terry faintly. "Let him go, Steve! Oh, dear G.o.d--if you love me----"

"Come out, Blenham!" shouted Steve. "I give you my word, so help me G.o.d, to let you go scot-free. Come out!"

"Not so fast," mocked Blenham, lingering over his high card. "You've got to promise for your men; you've got to send 'em across the valley.

You've got to have a horse handy for me to ride. You've got to back down the valley yourse'f. An' ol' man Packard has got to do the same."

Old man Packard roared out his curses, but in the end, seeing nothing else to do, he went grumbling down the rocky slope, back to his horse and to his men. But first he had known perhaps the supreme humiliation of his life. He had said:

"Blenham, on my word of honor as a Packard an' a gentleman, I'll let you go. An' I'll make my men let you go."

And there were actually tears hanging to his lashes as he swung again into his saddle.

"He has not hurt you, Terry?" asked Steve before he too would go down the slope.

"No," cried Terry. "No, no! But, oh, hurry, hurry, Steve. I feel that I'll smother, I'll die!"

From down in the valley they watched, close to a score of hard-eyed, wrath-filled men, as Blenham stepped out of the crevice and on to the ledge. They saw how he jeered as he stepped over the body of the man he had shot.

"A fool was Barbee," he called. "A fool the Packards, ol' an' young!"