Royce laughed and rubbed his hands together.
"Dead sure, Stevie," he said.
Packard's eyes dropped to the table. Before him were the ten crisp bank-notes. Each was for one dollar. Ten dollars in all. His heritage, saved to him by Bill Royce.
"Bill, old man," he said slowly, "you've taught me how to play the game. Pray God I can be as white with a pardner as you have been."
And, crumpling the notes with a sudden gesture, he thrust them into his pocket.
CHAPTER VII
THE OLD MOUNTAIN LION COMES DOWN FROM THE NORTH
It was perhaps eight o'clock, the morning blue, cloudless, and still. Packard had conferred briefly with Barbee; the Ranch Number Ten men had gone about their work. Steve and Bill Royce, riding side by side, had mounted one of the flat, treeless hills in the upper valley and were now sitting silent while Royce fumbled with his pipe and Steve sent a long, eager look down across the open meadow-lands dotted with grazing cattle.
Suddenly their two horses and the other horses browsing in a lower field, jerked up their heads, all ears pricked forward. And yet Steve had heard no sound to mar the perfect serenity of the young day. He turned his head a little, listening.