e a good-natured,
tongue-free crowd, most of whom had had their first drinks and were
beginning to liven up as in duty bound on a Saturday night.

A four-horse wagon came rattling into town from the east to pour out
its contents, big, husky men, at Hodges's door. Among them Packard
recognized one man. He was the lumber-camp cook from whom he had
gotten coffee and hotcakes the other day, that morning after he had
refused to accept Terry's cool invitation to breakfast.

"I'll have to look in on those fellows tomorrow," he thought as they
shouldered past, boisterous and eager. "Grandy's sure had his nerve
cutting my timber with never so much as a by-your-leave."

Their foreman was with them; one glance singled him out. He was of
that type chosen always by old man Packard to head any one of the
Packard units, a sort of confident mastery in his very stride, the
biggest man of them, unkempt and heavy, with a brutal face and hard
eyes. Joe Woods, his name. Packard had already heard of him, a rowdy
and a rough-neck but a capable timberjack to the calloused fingers of
him. He followed the men into the saloon.

At his place behind the long bar was Hodges, busy filling imperative
orders, taking in the money which he counted as good as his once it
left the paymaster's pocket. But it struck Packard that the bartender
did not appear happy; his face was flushed and hot, his eyes looked
troubled. Now and then he flashed a quick look at Blenham who stood
leaning against the bar at the far end, twisting an empty whiskey-glass
slowly in his big hand, staring frowningly at nothing.

"Hodges is a fool and he has just been told so!" was Steve's answer to
the situation.

"Hi, Blenham!" called big Joe Woods. "Have a drink."

"No," growled Blenham, deep down in his throat. "I don't want it.
I----"

His eyes, lifted to the lumber-camp boss, passed on and rested on Steve
Packard. He broke off abruptly, his look changing, probing, seeming
full of question.

"Get the money I gave Hodges for you?" asked Packard, coming into the
room. "The ten one-dollar bills that you left behind you?"

"They wasn't mine," said Blenham quickly, his hand hard about the
whiskey glass, his manner vaguely nervous. "I tol' Dan to give 'em
back to you."

Steve smiled.

"Funny," he said carelessly. "Hodges said----"

"I made a mistake," called Hodges sharply. "I got Blenham mixed up
with some other guy. I don't know nothin' about this here