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Updated: June 28, 2025
The oldest man there, saving Bill Royce only, was Blenham the foreman, and Blenham had yet to see his thirty-fifth birthday. Ten years ago, that is to say before he came into the cattle country and found work for Packard, Blenham had been a sergeant in the regular army, had seen something of service on the border.
"Pack of low-bred mongrel pups!" cried Blenham wrathfully, for the first time breaking his silence. "Sneakin', low-lived curs an' cowards!" "That it, Steve?" persisted Royce. "Goin' to tie him up an' give him a whippin' with a blacksnake?" "I am going to whip him for your sake, Bill," answered Steve sternly. He threw off his coat, tossing it behind him.
Now his great, calloused, soiled, hairy hands shut down upon her, gripping her shoulders, jerking her from her place into the crevice from which his face had emerged. She fought, seeking to get the revolver in her blouse. Blenham must have known that she kept it there. He snatched it and threw it behind him and cursed her as he dragged her with him.
You see, when a man loses anything he loses some of his luck with it; when another man gets it, he gets the luck along with it. Thanks, Blenham." Blenham made no answer. His eyes were bright with anger and yet troubled with uncertainty. The uncertainty was there to be recognized by him who looked keenly for it. Blenham did not know just which way to jump.
"It's quite a way for cattle to stray," said the old man sharply. Blenham shrugged carelessly. "Oh, I dunno," he returned lightly. "I've knowed 'em to go fu'ther than that. Well, I made a pass to haze 'em on back this way an' young Packard blocks my play." The old man's eye brightened. "What did he say?" he asked eagerly.
"That'll about beat you," he suggested. He leaned forward for Steve's card. "Unless you've got a seven in the hole." And a seven it was; the bright red seven of hearts. The dealer paid, ten dollars to Steve's ten. "Come again?" he asked. "Not to-night," returned Packard. "I took just the one flutter to show Blenham." He turned and saw that Blenham had already slipped quietly out of the room.
Out of the darkness he brought a tall, wall-eyed roan, quickly saddled and bridled and handed over to Steve. "Heeled?" came solicitously from the little man as Steve swung up into the saddle. "No." "Well, Blenham is. He goes that way all the time. An' he's a right good shot, the boys say. If there's some real sour blood stirred up between him an' you there's no use bein' a plumb fool, is there?
"Do you mean to tell me " "They was sittin' on top a big log," said Blenham tonelessly. "Confidential lookin', you know. I won't say he was holdin' her hands, an' at the same time I won't say he wasn't. An' I won't say he'd jus' kissed her, two seconds before I rode aroun' a bend in the trail." One of his ponderous shrugs and a grimace concluded his meaning. Then he laughed.
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.
Defies me to do my worst, him a young, penniless whippersnapper, me a millionaire an' a man-breaker! Why, curse it, he's a man already, Blenham! He's a Packard to his backbone, I tell you! By the Lord, I've a notion to jump into my car and go get the boy!" A troubled shadow came and went swiftly across Blenham's face, not to be seen by the old man who was staring out of his window.
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