Magnus, knowing with whom he had to deal, did not urge the point, being convinced that Annixter would argue over the affair the rest of the morning. He resettled himself in the buggy and Harran gathered up the reins.
“Well,” he observed, “you know your business best. Come if you can. We dine at seven.”
“I hear you are going to farm the whole of Los Muertos this season,” remarked Annixter, with a certain note of challenge in his voice.
“We are thinking of it,” replied Magnus.
Annixter grunted scornfully.
“Did you get the message I sent you by Presley?” he began.
Tactless, blunt, and direct, Annixter was quite capable of calling even Magnus a fool to his face. But before he could proceed, S. Behrman in his single buggy turned into the gate, and driving leisurely up to the porch halted on the other side of Magnus’s team.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” he remarked, nodding to the two Derricks as though he had not seen them earlier in the day. “Mr. Annixter, how do you do?”
“What in hell do you want?” demanded Annixter with a stare.
S. Behrman hiccuped slightly and passed a fat hand over his waistcoat.
“Why, not very much, Mr. Annixter,” he replied, ignoring the belligerency in the young ranchman’s voice, “but I will have to lodge a protest against you, Mr. Annixter, in the matter of keeping your line fence in repair. The sheep were all over the track last night, this side the Long Trestle, and I am afraid they have seriously disturbed our ballast along there. We—the railroad—can’t fence along our right of way. The farmers have the prescriptive right of that, so we have to look to you to keep your fence in repair. I am sorry, but I shall have to protest—” Annixter returned to the hammock and stretched himself out in it to his full length, remarking tranquilly:
“Go to the devil!”
“It is as much to your interest as to ours that the safety of the public—”
“You heard what I said. Go to the devil!”
“That all may show obstinacy, Mr. Annixter, but—”
Suddenly Annixter jumped up again and came to the edge of the porch; his face flamed scarlet to the roots of his stiff yellow hair. He thrust out his jaw aggressively, clenching his teeth.
“You,” he vociferated, “I’ll tell you what you are. You’re a—a—a pip!”
To his mind it was the last insult, the most outrageous calumny. He had no worse epithet at his command.
“—may show obstinacy,” pursued S. Behrman, bent upon finishing the phrase, “but it don’t show common sense.”
“I’ll mend my fence, and then, again, maybe I won’t mend my fence,” shouted Annixter. “I know what you mean—that wild engine last night. Well, you’ve no right to run at that speed in the town limits.”
“How the town limits? The sheep were this side the Long Trestle.”
“Well, that’s in the town limits of Guadalajara.”
“Why, Mr. Annixter, the Long Trestle is a good two miles out of Guadalajara.”
Annixter squared himself, leaping to the chance of an argument.
“Two miles! It’s not a mile and a quarter. No, it’s not a mile. I’ll leave it to Magnus here.”
“Oh, I know nothing about it,” declared Magnus, refusing to be involved.
“Yes, you do. Yes, you do, too. Any fool knows how far it is from Guadalajara to the Long Trestle. It’s about five-eighths of a mile.”
“From the depot of the town,” remarked S. Behrman placidly, “to the head of the Long Trestle is about two miles.”
“That’s a lie and you know it’s a lie,” shouted the other, furious at S. Behrman’s calmness, “and I can prove it’s a lie. I’ve walked that distance on the Upper Road, and I know just how fast I walk, and if I can walk four miles in one hour—”
Magnus and Harran drove on, leaving Annixter trying to draw S. Behrman into a wrangle.
When at length S. Behrman as well took himself away, Annixter returned to his hammock, finished the rest of his prunes and read another chapter of Copperfield. Then he put the book, open, over his face and went to sleep.
An hour later, toward noon, his own terrific snoring woke him up suddenly, and he sat up, rubbing his face and blinking at the sunlight. There was a bad taste in his mouth from sleeping with it wide open, and going into the dining-room of the house, he mixed himself a drink of whiskey and soda and swallowed it in three great gulps. He told himself that he felt not only better but hungry, and pressed an electric button in the wall near the sideboard three times to let the kitchen—situated in a separate building near the ranch house—know that he was ready for his dinner. As he did so, an idea occurred to him. He wondered if Hilma Tree would bring up his dinner and wait on the table while he ate it.
In connection with his ranch, Annixter ran a dairy farm on a very small scale, making just enough butter and cheese for the consumption of the ranch’s personnel. Old man Tree, his wife, and his daughter Hilma looked after the dairy. But there was not always work enough to keep the three of them occupied and Hilma at times made herself useful in other ways. As often as not she lent a hand in the kitchen, and two
