ound her breath, gave
voice to a great "Oh" of dismay and distress.

For an instant, Annixter stood awkwardly in his place, ridiculous,
clumsy, murmuring over and over again:

"Well--well--that's all right--who's going to hurt you? You needn't be
afraid--who's going to hurt you--that's all right."

Then, suddenly, with a quick, indefinite gesture of one arm, he
exclaimed:

"Good-bye, I--I'm sorry."

He turned away, striding up the stairs, crossing the dairy-room, and
regained the open air, raging and furious. He turned toward the barns,
clapping his hat upon his head, muttering the while under his breath:

"Oh, you goat! You beastly fool PIP. Good LORD, what an ass you've made
of yourself now!"

Suddenly he resolved to put Hilma Tree out of his thoughts. The matter
was interfering with his work. This kind of thing was sure not earning
any money. He shook himself as though freeing his shoulders of an
irksome burden, and turned his entire attention to the work nearest at
hand.

The prolonged rattle of the shinglers' hammers upon the roof of the big
barn attracted him, and, crossing over between the ranch house and the
artesian well, he stood for some time absorbed in the contemplation
of the vast building, amused and interested with the confusion of
sounds--the clatter of hammers, the cadenced scrape of saws, and the
rhythmic shuffle of planes--that issued from the gang of carpenters who
were at that moment putting the finishing touches upon the roof and rows
of stalls. A boy and two men were busy hanging the great sliding door at
the south end, while the painters--come down from Bonneville early that
morning--were engaged in adjusting the spray and force engine, by means
of which Annixter had insisted upon painting the vast surfaces of
the barn, condemning the use of brushes and pots for such work as
old-fashioned and out-of-date.

He called to one of the foremen, to ask when the barn would be entirely
finished, and was told that at the end of the week the hay and stock
could be installed.

"And a precious long time you've been at it, too," Annixter declared.

"Well, you know the rain----"

"Oh, rot the rain! I work in the rain. You and your unions make me
sick."

"But, Mr. Annixter, we couldn't have begun painting in the rain. The job
would have been spoiled."

"Hoh, yes, spoiled. That's all very well. Maybe it would, and then,
again, maybe it wouldn't."

But when the foreman had left him, Annixter