"Yes, sir, I said it!" Guy Little nodded vigorously. "Them forty miles in fifty-three minutes. In the dark. An' with tire trouble. It's a record. The best you ever done it in was fifty-seven minutes. She beat you four minutes. Her!" He indicated Terry. "Doctor Bridges--" began Terry. "It's a lie!" cried the old man, smashing the table top with a clenched fist. "I don't care who says it; she couldn't do it! No girl could; no Temple could. It ain't so!" "Call me a liar?" cried Terry, a sudden flaming, surging, hot current in her cheeks, her eyes blazing. "You are a horrid old man. I always knew you were a horrid old man and you are a lot horrider than I thought you were. And--you just call me a liar again, Hell-Fire Packard, and I'll slap your face for you!" For a moment, gripped by his ever-ready rage, the old man stood towering over her, looking down with blazing eyes into eyes which blazed back, a little tremor visibly shaking him as though he were tempted almost beyond resistance to lay his hands on her and punish her impudence. A bright, almost eager, fearlessness shone in her eyes. "I dare you," said Terry. "Old man that you are, I'll slap you so that you'd know who it is you're insulting. Pirate!" she flung at him. "And land-hog-- Oh! "Doctor Bridges, you are to come with me right now." She had flung about giving her shoulder to Packard's inspection. "We must hurry back to Red Creek." "Say, Packard," chimed in Guy Little. "Her car's all shot to pieces. An' her gas is all gone. An' her ol' man is awful sick in Red Creek an' needin' a doc in a hurry--or not any. You understan'----" "What's it got to do with me?" boomed Hell-Fire Packard. "What do I care whether her old thief of a father dies to-night or next week? What do I----" "Aw, rats," grunted Guy Little. "What's eatin' you, Packard? Listen to me: She says how she done it in fifty-three minutes an' you can't do it any better'n fifty-seven; how you ain't no dead-game sport noways; how she's short of change but would bet a man fifty dollars you couldn't an' wouldn't." "She said them things?" roared the old man. "I--" began Terry. "She did!" answered Guy Little hastily and loudly. "She did!" "Bridges," snapped old Packard, "grab your hat an' black poison bag an' be ready in two minutes." Packard was on his way to the door. "Guy Little, you get my car at the front door--quick! An' as for you--" He was at the door and half turned to stare angrily into Terry's eyes--"You can do what you please. I'm goin' to take the only pill-slinger in the country to the worst ol' thief I ever heard a man tell about." "I'm going back with you," said Terry briefly. Old man Packard shrugged. Then he laughed. "If you ain't scared," he grunted, "to ride alongside a man as swears, so help him God, in spite of smash-bang-an'-be-damn', is goin' to make that little run back to Red Creek--in less'n fifty minutes!"