s of me. But there's a few
people that are more to me than most others--that chap Presley, for
instance--and those people I DO want to have like me. What they think
counts. Pshaw! I know I've got enemies; piles of them. I could name you
half a dozen men right now that are naturally itching to take a shot at
me. How about this ranch? Don't I know, can't I hear the men growling
oaths under their breath after I've gone by? And in business ways, too,"
he went on, speaking half to himself, "in Bonneville and all over the
county there's not a man of them wouldn't howl for joy if they got a
chance to down Buck Annixter. Think I care? Why, I LIKE it. I run my
ranch to suit myself and I play my game my own way. I'm a 'driver,'
I know it, and a 'bully,' too. Oh, I know what they call me--'a brute
beast, with a twist in my temper that would rile up a new-born lamb,'
and I'm 'crusty' and 'pig-headed' and 'obstinate.' They say all that,
but they've got to say, too, that I'm cleverer than any man-jack in the
running. There's nobody can get ahead of me." His eyes snapped. "Let 'em
grind their teeth. They can't 'down' me. When I shut my fist there's
not one of them can open it. No, not with a CHISEL." He turned to Hilma
again. "Well, when a man's hated as much as that, it stands to reason,
don't it, Miss Hilma, that the few friends he has got he wants to keep?
I'm not such an entire swine to the people that know me best--that
jackass, Presley, for instance. I'd put my hand in the fire to do him
a real service. Sometimes I get kind of lonesome; wonder if you would
understand? It's my fault, but there's not a horse about the place that
don't lay his ears back when I get on him; there's not a dog don't put
his tail between his legs as soon as I come near him. The cayuse isn't
foaled yet here on Quien Sabe that can throw me, nor the dog whelped
that would dare show his teeth at me. I kick that Irish setter every
time I see him--but wonder what I'd do, though, if he didn't slink so
much, if he wagged his tail and was glad to see me? So it all comes to
this: I'd like to have you--well, sort of feel that I was a good friend
of yours and like me because of it."

The flame in the lamp on the wall in front of Hilma stretched upward
tall and thin and began to smoke. She went over to where the lamp hung
and, standing on tip-toe, lowered the wick. As she reached her hand
up, Annixter noted how the sombre, lurid red of the lamp made a warm
reflectio