Terry sat rigid, speechless, grown suddenly cold. For once in her life no ready answer sprang to her lips.
Then Hell-Fire Packard had started his engine, sounded his horn, and they were on their way. And Terry, because no words would come, put her head back and laughed in a way that, as she knew perfectly well, would madden him.
The drive from Hell-Fire Packard's front door to the store in Red Creek was made in some few negligible seconds over forty-eight minutes. The three occupants of the car reached town alive. Never in her life after that night would Terry Temple doubt that there was a Providence which at critical times took into its hands the destinies of men.
There had been never a word spoken until they had come to the gate which had closed behind Terry on the way out. Old man Packard had looked at speedometer, clock and obstruction. Terry had seen his hands tighten on his wheel.
"Set tight an' hang on," he had commanded sharply.
The big front tires and bumper struck the gate; there was a wild flying of splinters and at sixty miles an hour they went through and on to Red Creek.
"The old devil!" whispered Terry within herself. "The old devil!"