For if Blenham beat him to-night and his grandfather beat him again later on, he knew that he would pass away from the country about Ranch Number Ten, that he would give over all sustained effort to make something of his life, that he would go back to drifting, rounding out his days after the fashion of the last twelve years. It was while Terry's car was speeding toward him that all of this ran through his mind.
There was the possibility that, knowing who he was, Terry would try to bluff him out of the road, counting confidently upon his leaping to safety at the last moment; there was the other possibility that she mistook his motives and would run him down in a sort of panic of self-defense.
Packard, with his rather clear-cut conception of the girl's character to steer by, saw the one way to master the situation. Whirling about, his back to her now, he broke into a run, speeding along the road in front of her. As he ran the hard lines about his mouth softened into a rare grin: he'd have her guessing for a minute, anyway. And by the time she got through guessing——
He had duplicated his feat of the afternoon at the bridge in Red Creek. Terry, in her first astonishment that the man should turn and run straight on in front of her, slowed down, hesitation in her mind. What was he up to? Then there came sudden shadows in a narrow part of the road, a sharp turn, the absolute necessity of slowing down just a trifle more, and then——
"It's all right; go ahead!" called Packard lightly. He was standing on her running-board.
She had thrown off her hat to the cool of the evening. As they passed out from the shadows he could see her eyes. He pushed back his own hat and Terry saw his eyes. For a moment, while the car sped on, neither spoke.
Looking at her he had glimpsed wonder, an annoyance that was swiftly growing into anger, and a certain assurance that Miss Terry Temple fully intended to remember this day and to square accounts with Stephen Packard.
Returning his look, Terry had seen but one emotion in his eyes: pure triumph. She could not know how the man of him, having but just now succeeded in this first task he had set himself, felt a sudden confidence of the future.
"If I had let you go by," said Packard quietly, "I should have felt that I had let my destiny pass me!"
"Don't you start in getting fresh just because it's moonlight!"