第8章

Annixter--after the two had exchanged greetings--complained of terrific colics all the preceding night.His stomach was out of whack, but you bet he knew how to take care of himself; the last spell, he had consulted a doctor at Bonneville, a gibbering busy-face who had filled him up to the neck with a dose of some hogwash stuff that had made him worse--a healthy lot the doctors knew, anyhow.HIS case was peculiar.HE knew; prunes were what he needed, and by the pound.

Annixter, who worked the Quien Sabe ranch--some four thousand acres of rich clay and heavy loams--was a very young man, younger even than Presley, like him a college graduate.He looked never a year older than he was.He was smooth-shaven and lean built.

But his youthful appearance was offset by a certain male cast of countenance, the lower lip thrust out, the chin large and deeply cleft.His university course had hardened rather than polished him.He still remained one of the people, rough almost to insolence, direct in speech, intolerant in his opinions, relying upon absolutely no one but himself; yet, with all this, of an astonishing degree of intelligence, and possessed of an executive ability little short of positive genius.He was a ferocious worker, allowing himself no pleasures, and exacting the same degree of energy from all his subordinates.He was widely hated, and as widely trusted.Every one spoke of his crusty temper and bullying disposition, invariably qualifying the statement with a commendation of his resources and capabilities.The devil of a driver, a hard man to get along with, obstinate, contrary, cantankerous; but brains! No doubt of that; brains to his boots.

One would like to see the man who could get ahead of him on a deal.Twice he had been shot at, once from ambush on Osterman's ranch, and once by one of his own men whom he had kicked from the sacking platform of his harvester for gross negligence.At college, he had specialised on finance, political economy, and scientific agriculture.After his graduation (he stood almost at the very top of his class) he had returned and obtained the degree of civil engineer.Then suddenly he had taken a notion that a practical knowledge of law was indispensable to a modern farmer.In eight months he did the work of three years, studying for his bar examinations.His method of study was characteristic.He reduced all the material of his text-books to notes.Tearing out the leaves of these note-books, he pasted them upon the walls of his room; then, in his shirt-sleeves, a cheap cigar in his teeth, his hands in his pockets, he walked around and around the room, scowling fiercely at his notes, memorising, devouring, digesting.At intervals, he drank great cupfuls of unsweetened, black coffee.When the bar examinations were held, he was admitted at the very head of all the applicants, and was complimented by the judge.Immediately afterwards, he collapsed with nervous prostration; his stomach "got out of whack," and he all but died in a Sacramento boarding-house, obstinately refusing to have anything to do with doctors, whom he vituperated as a rabble of quacks, dosing himself with a patent medicine and stuffing himself almost to bursting with liver pills and dried prunes.

He had taken a trip to Europe after this sickness to put himself completely to rights.He intended to be gone a year, but returned at the end of six weeks, fulminating abuse of European cooking.Nearly his entire time had been spent in Paris; but of this sojourn he had brought back but two souvenirs, an electro-plated bill-hook and an empty bird cage which had tickled his fancy immensely.

He was wealthy.Only a year previous to this his father--a widower, who had amassed a fortune in land speculation--had died, and Annixter, the only son, had come into the inheritance.

For Presley, Annixter professed a great admiration, holding in deep respect the man who could rhyme words, deferring to him whenever there was question of literature or works of fiction.

No doubt, there was not much use in poetry, and as for novels, to his mind, there were only Dickens's works.Everything else was a lot of lies.But just the same, it took brains to grind out a poem.It wasn't every one who could rhyme "brave" and "glaive,"and make sense out of it.Sure not.

But Presley's case was a notable exception.On no occasion was Annixter prepared to accept another man's opinion without reserve.In conversation with him, it was almost impossible to make any direct statement, however trivial, that he would accept without either modification or open contradiction.He had a passion for violent discussion.He would argue upon every subject in the range of human knowledge, from astronomy to the tariff, from the doctrine of predestination to the height of a horse.Never would he admit himself to be mistaken; when cornered, he would intrench himself behind the remark, "Yes, that's all very well.In some ways, it is, and then, again, in some ways, it ISN'T."Singularly enough, he and Presley were the best of friends.More than once, Presley marvelled at this state of affairs, telling himself that he and Annixter had nothing in common.In all his circle of acquaintances, Presley was the one man with whom Annixter had never quarrelled.The two men were diametrically opposed in temperament.Presley was easy-going; Annixter, alert.

Presley was a confirmed dreamer, irresolute, inactive, with a strong tendency to melancholy; the young farmer was a man of affairs, decisive, combative, whose only reflection upon his interior economy was a morbid concern in the vagaries of his stomach.Yet the two never met without a mutual pleasure, taking a genuine interest in each other's affairs, and often putting themselves to great inconvenience to be of trifling service to help one another.