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