"Go on," said Terry. Her face was suddenly as white as the hands from which she was swiftly, nervously stripping her gauntlets. "Just what is Blenham's generous offer, Dad?"
"It's one of two things."
He hesitated and licked his lips. Terry's heart sank lower yet; it took him so long to set the thing into words! "You see, as Old Man Packard's foreman and agent he comes to tell us that he is ordered to foreclose; to break us utterly. As a friend to us he says——"
"For God's sake!" cried Terry sharply. "What does he say?"
"He will pay us a thousand dollars to let him take over everything! He will assume the mortgage; he will scrap it out with old Packard; he will clear the title; and, if we get where we want the ranch back some time, he will let us buy him out for just what he has put in it."
Terry looked at him gravely.
"In words of one syllable," she said quietly, "Blenham plans to give you one thousand dollars; then to pay to old Packard the seven thousand you owe him; and for this amount of eight thousand to grab an outfit that is worth twenty thousand if it's worth a nickel! That's his generous offer, is it?"
"My dear——"
"Don't my dear me!" she snapped impatiently. "Just go on and get the whole idiotic thing out of your system. What else?"
"That's all. As I have said already, as things are we are bound to lose everything to Packard. Blenham steps up and offers us a thousand——"