the machinist, in four flashing minutes, where the fault lay in the
dynamo to the Big House refrigerator, laid the fault home to Thompson,
dictated a note to Bonbright, with citation by page and chapter to a
volume from the library to be drawn by Thompson, told Thompson that
Parkman, the dairy manager, was not satisfied with the latest wiring
up of milking machines, and that the refrigerating plant at the
slaughter house was balking at its accustomed load.

Each man was a specialist, yet Forrest was the proved master of their
specialties. As Paulson, the head plowman, complained privily to
Dawson, the crop manager: "I've worked here twelve years and never
have I seen him put his hands to a plow, and yet, damn him, he somehow
seems to know. He's a genius, that's what he is. Why, d'ye know, I've
seen him tear by a piece of work, his hands full with that Man-Eater
of his a-threatenin' sudden funeral, an', next morning, had 'm mention
casually to a half-inch how deep it was plowed an' what plows'd done
the plowin'!--Take that plowin' of the Poppy Meadow, up above Little
Meadow, on Los Cuatos. I just couldn't see my way to it, an' had to
cut out the cross-sub-soiling, an' thought I could slip it over on
him. After it was all finished he kind of happened up that way--I was
lookin' an' he didn't seem to look--an', well, next A.M. I got mine in
the office. No; I didn't slip it over. I ain't tried to slip nothing
over since."

At eleven sharp, Wardman, his sheep manager, departed with an
engagement scheduled at eleven: thirty to ride in the machine along
with Thayer, the Idaho buyer, to look over the Shropshire rams. At
eleven, Bonbright having departed with Wardman to work up his notes,
Forrest was left alone in the office. From a wire tray of unfinished
business--one of many wire trays superimposed in groups of five--he