my sleeves rolled up for
trouble either; had Blenham been a white man instead of a brute and a
bully he might have kept his job under me. But I guess you all know
the sort of life he has been handing Royce here. Bill taught me how to
ride and shoot and fight and swim; pretty well everything I know that's
worth knowing. Since I was a kid he's been the best friend I ever had.
Anything else you boys would like to know?"

Barbee had risen slowly from the floor.

"Packard's son or the devil's," he said quickly, his eyes never leaving
Blenham, "I'm with you."

The man whom, over the card-table, Barbee had addressed as Spotty and
whose nickname had obviously been gained for him by the peculiar tufts
of white hair in a young, tousled head of very dark brown, cleared his
throat and so drew all eyes to himself at his side of the room.

"Bill Royce bein' blind, if you could only prove somehow who you are--"
he suggested, tone and expression plainly indicating his willingness,
even eagerness, to be convinced.

"Even if I can't see him," said Royce, his own voice eager, "I know!
An' I can prove it for my part by a couple of little questions--if you
boys will take my word for it?"

"Shoot," said Spotty. "No man's called you liar yet, Bill."

"Then, Stevie," said Royce, just a shade of anxiety in his look as his
sightless eyes roved here and there, "answer me this: What was the
first horse you ever rode?"

"A mare," said Steve. "Black Molly."

"Right!" and Royce's voice rang triumphantly. "Next: Who nailed the
board over the door? The ol' cedar board?"

"I did. Just before I went away."

"An'," continued Royce, his voice lowered a trifle, "an' what did you
say about it, Stevie? I was to know----"

"Coach him up! Tell him what to say, why don't you?" jeered Blenham.

"I don't think I need to," replied Royce quietly. "Do I, Steve?"

"I was pretty much of a kid then, Bill," said Packard, a half-smile
coming into his eyes for the first time, a smile oddly gentle. "I had
been reading one of the Arabian Nights tales; that's what put it into
my head."

"Go ahead, Steve; go ahead!"

"I said that I was going to seek my fortune up and down the world; that
the board above the door would be a sign if all went well with me.
That as long as I lived it would be there; if I died it would fall."

There was a little, breathless silence. It was broken by Bill Royce's
joyous laughter as Bill Royce's big hand smote his th