-breaker! Why,
curse it, he's a man already, Blenham! He's a Packard to his backbone,
I tell you! By the Lord, I've a notion to jump into my car and go get
the boy!"

A troubled shadow came and went swiftly across Blenham's face, not to
be seen by the old man who was staring out of his window. All of the
craft there was in the ranch foreman rose to the surface.

"Yes," he agreed quietly, "he's got the makin's in him. He ain't
scared of the devil himself, which is one right good earmark. He's
independent, which is another good sign. Why, when I runs across him
an' that Temple girl out in the woods----"

"What's that!" snapped the old man, though he had heard well enough.
"Do you mean to tell me----"

"They was sittin' on top a big log," said Blenham tonelessly.
"Confidential lookin', you know. I won't say he was holdin' her hands,
an' at the same time I won't say he wasn't. An' I won't say he'd jus'
kissed her, two seconds before I rode aroun' a bend in the trail." One
of his ponderous shrugs and a grimace concluded his meaning. Then he
laughed. "Nor I wouldn't say he hadn't. But, like I was tellin'
you----"

"You were tellin' me," growled the old man, "that that scoundrel of a
Temple's fool of a girl is tryin' her hand at spellbindin' my gran'son
Stephen! The dirty little saphead-- Look here, Blenham; you've got
more gumption than most: tell me how far things have gone an' what
Temple's game is. Guy Little has been tellin' me the same sort of
thing."

"There ain't much to tell," answered Blenham. "That is, that a man
couldn't guess without bein' told. He's your gran'son; even with a
scrap on between you an' him, still blood is thicker'n water an' some
day, maybe, you'll pass on to him all you got. Leastways, there's a
chance, an' also he oughta fit pretty snug in a girl's eye. Fu'ther to
all that, it's jus' the same ol' story. A feller an' a girl, an' the
girl with a fine figger an' a fine pair of eyes which, bein' a
she-girl, she knows how to use. Seein' as you ask the question, I
guess I could answer it by jus' sayin' that the Temples are makin' the
one move they'd be sure to make."

The senior Packard's scowl had known fame as long as fifty years ago;
never was it blacker than right now. For a little he stood still
glaring at the floor. Blenham watched him covertly, a look of craft in
the one good eye.

"Better go over an' see Temple right away," said Packard presently.
"He won't b