was that Blenham did not
discharge Royce in three words. It was his turn for hesitation, for
which there was no explanation forthcoming. Then, gripped by a rage
which made him inarticulate,--he whirled upon Barbee.

Yellow-haired Barbee at the table promptly stood up, awaiting no second
invitation to that look of Blenham's. Were one staging a morality play
and in search of the personification of impertinence, he need look no
farther than this cocksure youth. He was just at that age when one is
determined that there shall be no mistake about his status in the
matters of age and worldly experience; in short, something over
twenty-one, when the male of the species takes it as the insult of
insults to be misjudged a boy. His hair was short--Barbee always kept
it close cropped--but for all that it persisted in curling, seeking to
express itself in tight little rings everywhere; his eyes were very
blue and very innocent, like a young girl's--and he was, all in all,
just about as good-for-nothing a young rogue as you could find in a ten
days' ride. Which is saying rather a good deal when it be understood
that that ten days' ride may be through the cattle country back of San
Juan.

"Goin' to eat me alive?" demanded Barbee lightly, "Or roast me first?"

"For two cents," said Blenham slowly, "I'd forget you're just a kid an'
slap your face!"

Barbee swept one of the fifty-cent pieces from the table and tossed it
to the foreman.

"You can keep the change out'n that," he said contemptuously.

It was nothing new in the experience of Blenham, could be nothing
unforeseen for any ranch foreman, to have his authority called into
question, to have a rebellious spirit defy him. If he sought to remain
master, the foreman's answer must be always the same. And promptly
given.

"Royce," said Blenham, his hesitation passed, "you're fired. Barbee,
I'll take you on right now."

Few-worded was Blenham, a trick learned from his master. Across the
room Bill Royce had floundered at last to his feet, crying out mightily:

"Hi! None o' that, Blenham. It's my fight, yours an' mine, with
Barbee jus' buttin' in where he ain't asked. If you want trouble, take
a man your size, full-grown. Blind as I am--and you know the how an'
the why of it--I'm ready for you. Yes, ready an' anxious."

Here was diversion and the men in the bunkhouse, drawing back against
the walls, taking their chairs with them that there might be room for
what