y axe right. The next day he found fault with me for the way
I used a cross-cut saw. A week later I was piling brush to burn, and the
way I laid the brush did not suit him. He was everlastingly blowing
about himself and telling how he did things. I did not seem to be able
to do anything right. One night after supper we had all assembled in the
bunk-house, when Parsons said: 'I tell you boys, hell went pop this
morning. Plaisted gave the boss hell because he commenced to growl at
him for the way he held the lines. Plaisted told him he was the greatest
old crank that ever run a ranch, and that the devil himself couldn't
suit him. He left the team right in the field and called for his money.
I tell you the boss's face was as red as a beet. He had to give Simmons
six dollars a month more to take the team.'

"Hendricks said, 'I gave the boss a piece of my mind this morning when I
tried to open the gate leading into the garden. It is a rod long, and as
heavy as hell; the whole weight was on the ground. I told him any man
that had such a gate as that on his ranch never ought to own a ranch. I
said, 'Why in the devil don't you get some hinges and hang your gates?'
Ambrose spoke up, and said, 'Sometimes the boss seems pleasant enough,
but he does like to find fault and tell you what big things he has
done. To hear him talk you would think that his ranch was the only ranch
that was worth anything. He told his visitors to-day that his place
would pay the interest on one hundred thousand dollars. You know, boys,
it wouldn't sell for twelve thousand.'

"Parsons said: 'The boss has been growling at me ever since I have been
with him, but I pay no attention to him. He thinks if you don't do a
thing as he does, you don't do it right, and any idea that does not
originate in his brain is not worth anything. To hear him talking to
that lady visiting here to-day you would think he was a perfect man
living on a model ranch.' I will never forget how mad Hendricks was with
the boss one Saturday evening. We had just come from supper when
Hendricks lit his pipe and gave vent to his feelings, as follows: 'If I
had had a four-year-old club at the supper table to-night, I felt so
boiling mad that I would have knocked hell out of him. To hear him go on
a nagging and fault-finding with that little woman of his. There she has
been a-working hard all day, set three good meals, doing the churning
and all the housework besides; and all she gets for her