Street variety. He was tall, his face was ivory pale and the features were wonderfully refined. They suggested the earlier ivory carvings of Chinese priests, or the paintings of Chinese aristocrats that Sheridan had seen in the Metropolitan Museum. For all its fine chiseling and oval symmetry there was a suggestion of strength about the face that was marked. The man was no pidgin-English coolie and Sheridan marveled over what had brought him to the end of a branch line in Arizona. There were Chinese in Phoenix, Chinese laundrymen in Bisbee, Globe, and the mining towns, but this man did not look like a washer of clothes. His hands were not those of a laborer. Sheridan had met a merchant in New York, an importer of valuable carvings and rugs, rare things of jade and teak and ivory, recognized as an expert, called to consultation by amateur and professional collectors, who reminded him of this Oriental who, with perfect self-possession and an inimitable air of self-isolation, descended from the jerkwater train carrying a modern suitcase, ignoring Sheridan's gaze and the more blatant curiosity of the agent, to take seat on the worn bench and smoke a cigarette produced from a silver case.
"Now what the devil are you doing in this galley?" Sheridan quoted to himself. But he had to superintend the shunting and coupling of his cars and he rode off as three riders came loping in from Metzal, one the postmaster, carrying his sacks across his saddle.
Another of the trio was Hollister, his face inflamed
