"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——"