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"He said," said Blenham, picking at his hat-band, "as how if the stock was yours which he didn't believe he'd hold 'em until you sent over enough coin to pay for their feed. He said as how, if you couldn't be decent you better anyhow leave him alone. He said hell with both of us." "He did?" cried old Packard. "He said that, Blenham?"
He slammed the little roll down on the bar. "Come get it, if you want it." Packard promptly stepped forward, taking the money. "I figured there was a chance to make ten dollars, easy money, if I just walked across the street for it," he said, looking pleasantly from Hodges to Blenham. "Sure, I want it. It's luck-money; didn't you know?
Behind came another and another, emerging from the shadows, passing through the swiftly fading light of the open, gone again into the shadows that lay over the wooded Temple acreage. In all nine big fat steers. And behind them, sitting loosely in his saddle, came Blenham.
Yet it was being borne in upon him that it was useless to hurry now; that Blenham had made of his advantage a safe lead; that he might as well slow down, make a cigarette, take his time.
But his eyes were frowning thoughtfully. What would be Blenham's next move? What would Blenham do, what would he say when Hodges gave him Packard's message? Might he, in an unguarded moment, give a hint toward the answer of that other question which now had become the only consideration: "Were the larger banknotes still hidden at Ranch Number Ten or had Blenham already removed them?"
The old cattle-man who had been the hero of his boyhood, who had taught him to shoot and ride and swim, who had been so vital and so quick and keen of eye blind? "What happened to him?" asked Packard presently. "Suppose you ask him," she retorted. "If you know him so well. He is still with the outfit. A man named Blenham is the foreman now. He's old Packard's right-hand bower, you know."
Whereupon Blenham, his hesitation over, turned abruptly and went down to the corral, saddled, and rode away. On the heels of the irate foreman's wordless departure Steve Packard and Bill Royce went together to the old ranch-house, where, settled comfortably in two big arm-chairs, they talked far into the night.
His grunt was to be heard above Doctor Bridges's devout "Thank God, we're here!" as the physician stepped stiffly to the sidewalk. "Better," said Steve. "I think he's going to be all right after all. I hope so. He " "Blenham?" she asked insistently. "He didn't put one over on you? The mortgage " Steve tapped his breast pocket.
Blenham and Woods are going with you. All told there are above a dozen of you and only one of me. But I've got Woods's gun and Blenham's and I happen to mean business. This is my outfit; if you fellows start anything and there is trouble, why you're on the wrong side of the fence. Besides, you're apt to get hurt.
"Tell me when," and Packard held the roll in a tight-shut hand, "and I'll leave them with you." "Las' Saturday night," said Hodges, after a brief moment of reflection. Packard tossed the little roll to the bar. "There's the money. Tell Blenham I thought it was his!"
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