r fool not to take advantage of his position. Certainly he had not
the remotest idea of any affection, but Hilma was a fine looking girl.
He imagined an affair with her.

As he reflected upon the matter now, scowling abstractedly at the button
of the electric bell, turning the whole business over in his mind, he
remembered that to-day was butter-making day and that Mrs. Tree would
be occupied in the dairy. That meant that Hilma would take her place. He
turned to the mirror of the sideboard, scrutinising his reflection with
grim disfavour. After a moment, rubbing the roughened surface of his
chin the wrong way, he muttered to his image in the glass:

"That a mug! Good Lord! what a looking mug!" Then, after a moment's
silence, "Wonder if that fool feemale will be up here to-day."

He crossed over into his bedroom and peeped around the edge of the
lowered curtain. The window looked out upon the skeleton-like tower of
the artesian well and the cook-house and dairy-house close beside it. As
he watched, he saw Hilma come out from the cook-house and hurry across
toward the kitchen. Evidently, she was going to see about his dinner.
But as she passed by the artesian well, she met young Delaney, one of
Annixter's hands, coming up the trail by the irrigating ditch, leading
his horse toward the stables, a great coil of barbed wire in his gloved
hands and a pair of nippers thrust into his belt. No doubt, he had been
mending the break in the line fence by the Long Trestle. Annixter saw
him take off his wide-brimmed hat as he met Hilma, and the two stood
there for some moments talking together. Annixter even heard Hilma
laughing very gayly at something Delaney was saying. She patted his
horse's neck affectionately, and Delaney, drawing the nippers from his
belt, made as if to pinch her arm with them. She caught at his wrist
and pushed him away, laughing again. To Annixter's mind the pair seemed
astonishingly intimate. Brusquely his anger flamed up.

Ah, that was it, was it? Delaney and Hilma had an understanding between
themselves. They carried on their affair right out there in the open,
under his very eyes. It was absolutely disgusting. Had they no sense
of decency, those two? Well, this ended it. He would stop that sort of
thing short off; none of that on HIS ranch if he knew it. No, sir. He
would pack that girl off before he was a day older. He wouldn't have
that kind about the place. Not much! She'd have to get out. He would
t