r the ol' cabin by the big timber over on the east side?"

"The old McKittrick place? Yes."

"Well, I went there to make a fire in the ol' fireplace an' sit an'
think things over. But I got to tell you about a feller name of Johnny
Mills. You didn't know him; he's workin' for the Brocky Lane outfit
now. Well, Johnny was as good a cow-man as you want, but you always
had to watch him that he didn't slip off to go quail-huntin'. With a
shot-gun he was the best wing-shot I ever heard a man tell about.

"He used to sneak for the McKittrick cabin where he kep' an ol'
muzzle-loadin' shot-gun, an' shot quail aroun' them springs up there
when he'd ought to be workin'. Then he'd come in an' brag, tellin' how
he'd never missed a shot. The boys, jus' to tease Johnny, had gone to
the cabin that very day an' drawed his shot out, jus' leavin' the
powder alone so Johnny would think he'd missed when he pulled the
trigger an' no birdies dropped.

"See what I'm drivin' at? I tied my horse an' started along the little
trail through the wild-holly bushes to the cabin. Somebody was waitin'
for me an' give me both barrels square in the face. That's when an'
how my lights went out, Steve."

It came as a shock, and Packard paled; Royce had been so long making
his explanations and then put the actual catastrophe so baldly that for
a moment his hearer sat speechless. Presently--

"Know who did it, Bill?" he asked.

"If I knew--for sure--I'd go get him! But I don't know; not for sure."
His big hands clenched until they fairly trembled with their own
tenseness. "It's tough to go blind, Steve!"

His hands relaxed; he sat still, staring into that black nothingness
which always engulfed him. When he spoke again it was drearily,
hopelessly, like a man communing with his own sorrow, oblivious of a
listener:

"Yes, it's fair hell to be blind. If there's anything worse I'd like
to know what it might be. To be walkin' along in the dark, always in
the dark--to stumble an' fall an' hear a man laugh--to pitch head firs'
over a box that had been slipped quiet in your way----"

"Blenham did that sort of thing?" demanded Packard sharply.

It would have done Bill Royce good to see the look in his eyes then.
Royce nodded.

"Blenham did whatever he could think of," he muttered colorlessly.
"An' he could think of a good many things. Just the same--maybe some
day----"

"And yet you stayed on, Bill?" when Royce's voice stopped.

"I'd