“I know. You look like Grandfather,” he said thickly. And when Peter’s eyes met his, “It’s your eyes. Grandfather had eyes exactly like yours. And there’s something about the mouth--a bitterness. Gameness, too. Grandfather had his legs off at the knees, for fifty years. Called himself a hunk of meat in a wheel chair. God, it must be awful--a thing like that, when the rest of you is big and strong--but you’re not crippled that way. Oh, Johnny! Are you awake?” He heard a grunt. “I’ve got it--what you meant at first, about seeing your sergeant. Uncle Peter looks like--” A hand went over his mouth quite unexpectedly and effectually. He looked up into the eyes like Grandfather King’s and found them very terrible. “Fool! Never whisper it. Am I not the son of Jess Cramer? It had better be so! Better not see that I am like his enemy--and rival.” He leaned close, his eyes boring into the eyes so like his own. “One word to any one that would slur my mother, and--” he pressed his lips together, his meaning told by his eyes. “She came to me to-day, chattering her fear. Old Jess Cramer lives with other thoughts, and his eyes are dim at close range. Never come close to him, boy. Never recall the past to him. It would mean--God knows what it would mean. My mother’s life, maybe. And then his own, for I’d kill him, of course, if he touched her.” Rawley blinked, trying to make sense of the riddle. Then his good hand went out and rested on Peter’s arm, that was trembling under the thin shirt sleeve. “Uncle Peter!” His lips barely moved to form the words, and afterward they smiled. “The blood of the Kings! I’m glad--” “Are you?” Peter bent over him fiercely. “Proud of a man who went away and left my mother--” “He had to go,” Rawley defended hastily. “He meant to come back in a month’s time. But he was shot through the legs, and in hospital for months, and then sent home a cripple. After that he lost his legs altogether. How could he come back? Johnny can tell you.” Peter pulled himself together and redressed the long, angry gash on Rawley’s head. Johnny Buffalo, having slowly squirmed his body to a position that gave him a view of Rawley’s cot, watched them unblinkingly, his wise old eyes gravely inscrutable. When he had finished, Peter strode to the door and stood there looking out. Rawley had a queer feeling that he was looking for eavesdroppers. “What you say will make my mother happier,” he told Rawley, coming back and speaking in his usual calm tone of immutable reserve. “She seemed very bitter to-day when she talked with me. She has always thought your grandfather went away knowing he would never come back. And she has proud, Spanish blood in her veins--” “Anita, by ----!” Rawley’s jaw dropped in sheer, crestfallen amazement. “Did he tell you?” Peter eyed him queerly. “It’s the diary. The beautiful, half-Spanish girl, all fire and life--he described her like that. And--”