"You? Who are you?"

"I'm the man on the job right now," answered Packard crisply. "And
from now on, I'm running the Ranch Number Ten, if you want to know. If
you want to know anything else, why then you don't happen to be foreman
any longer. You're fired! As for foreman under me--my old pardner,
Bill Royce, blind or not blind, has his old job back."

Bill Royce grew rigid.

"You ain't--you ain't Stevie come back?" he whispered. "You ain't
Stevie!"

With three strides Packard reached him, finding Bill Royce's hand with
his.

"Right you are, Bill Royce," he cried warmly as at last his and Royce's
hands locked hard.

"I'm fired, you say!" Blenham was storming, his eyes wide. "Fired?
Who says so, I want to know?"

"I say so," returned Packard shortly.

"You?" shouted Blenham. "If you mean ol' man Packard has sent you to
take my place just because-- It's a lie; I don't believe it."

"This outfit doesn't happen to belong to old man Packard--yet," said
Steve coolly. "Does it, Royce?"

"Not by a jugful!" answered the blind man joyously. "An' it never will
now, Steve! Not now."

Blenham looked mystified. Rubbing his skinned knuckles he glared from
Steve to Royce, then to the other faces, no less puzzled than his own.

"Nobody can fire me but ol' man Packard," he muttered heavily, though
his tone was troubled. "Without you got an order from him, all signed
an' ready for me to read----"

"What I have," cut in Steve crisply, "is the bulge on the situation,
Blenham. Ranch Number Ten doesn't belong to the old man; it is the
property of his grandson, whose name is Steve Packard. Which also
happens to be my name."

Blenham sneered.

"I don't believe it," he snapped. "Expect me to pull my freight at the
say-so of the first stranger that blows in an' invites me to hand him
my job?" He laughed into the newcomer's face.

Packard studied him a moment curiously, instinctively aware that the
time might come when it would be well to have taken stock correctly of
his grandfather's lieutenant. Then, before replying, he looked at the
faces of the other men. When he spoke it was to them.

"Boys," he said quietly, "this outfit belongs to me. I am Steve
Packard, the son of Philip Packard, who owned Number Ten Ranch and who
mortgaged it but did not sell it to his father--my grandfather. I've
just got back home; I mean to have what is mine; I am going to pay the
mortgage somehow. I haven't jumped in with