"If you weren't so tanned you'd be quite fair; your eyes are gray too. Blue-gray when you smile, dark gray when you are angry; and yet you say your mother was Mexican——"
"Mexican, your foot!" she flared out at him, her trim little body stiffening perceptibly, her chin proudly lifted. "The Arriegas were pure-blooded Castilian, I'd have you understand. There's no mongrel about me."
He drowned his satisfied chuckle with a draft of coffee.
"I'm looking for a job," he said abruptly. "Happen to know of any of the cattle outfits around here that are short-handed?"
"Men are scarce right now," she answered. "A good cattle-hand is as hard to locate as a dodo bird. You could get a job anywhere if you're worth your salt."
"I was thinking," said Packard, "of moseying on to Ranch Number Ten. There's a man I used to know—Bill Royce, his name is. Foreman, isn't he?"
"So you know Bill Royce?" countered Terry. "Well, that's something in your favor. He's a good scout."
"Then he is still foreman?"
"I didn't say so! No, he isn't. And I guess he'll never be foreman of that outfit or any other again. He's blind."
Old Bill Royce blind! Here was a shock, and Packard sat back and stared at her speechlessly. Somehow this was incredible, unthinkable, nothing short. 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?