red not
the snap of his big, blunt fingers. There was remarkably little of the
sentimental about Blenham. He was a capable lieutenant for such as the
master of the Packard millions, he earned and received his increase in
wages every year, he got results.

This evening, however, the man's heavy, studied indifference to all
about him was ruffled. During the afternoon something had gone wrong
and no one yet, save "Cookie" Wilson, had an inkling of what had
plunged the foreman into one of his ill-tempered fits.

To-morrow it would be a ranch topic when Cookie could have had ample
time to embroider the thin fabric of his surmise; for it had fallen to
the cook's lot to answer the bunk-house telephone when there had been a
long-distance message for Blenham--and Wilson recognized old man
Packard's voice in a fit of rage.

No doubt the foreman of Ranch Number Ten had "slipped up" somewhere,
and his chief, in a very few words and those of a brand not to be
misunderstood, had taken him to task. At any rate Cookie was swelling
with eager conjecture and Blenham was in an evil mood. All evening his
spleen had been rising in his throat, near choking him; now suddenly he
spewed it upon Bill Royce.

"Royce!" he burst out abruptly.

The blind man was lying upon the edge of his bunk at the far end of the
room, smoking his pipe. He stirred uneasily.

"Well?" he asked. "What is it?"

"Cool old cucumber, ain't you?" jeered Blenham. "Layin' there like a
bag of mush while you listen to me. Damn you, when I talk to you,
stand up!"

Royce's form stiffened perceptibly and his lips tightened about the
stem of his pipe. But before he could shape his rejoinder there came
an unexpected voice from one of the four men just beginning a game of
pedro under the swinging lamp, a young voice, impudent, clear-toned,
almost musical.

"Tell him to go to hell, Bill," was the freely proffered counsel.

Blenham swung about on his heel, his eyes narrowing.

"That you, Barbee?" he demanded sharply.

"Sure it's me," rejoined Barbee with the same cool impudence. And to
the man across the table from him, "Deal 'em up, Spots; you an' me is
goin' to pry these two bum gamblers loose from their four-bit pieces
real _pronto_ by the good ol' road of high, low, jack, an' the game.
Come ahead, Spots-ol'-Spotty."

Blenham stared a moment, obviously surprised by this attitude taken by
young Barbee.

"I'll attend to you when I got nothin' else to do