Quong better than anything else. And, if he turned out a successful chef—somehow Sheridan felt certain as to that—the men of the ranch would defend his sanctuary.
He caught up with them two miles out of town. Quong was hunched up on the pony, both hands on the horn and reins. He jerked to the trot, making a poor figure of it yet, curiously, there were no covert smiles on the faces of the cowboys. His awkwardness was still pervaded by a certain dignity. Moreover, a cowman has his points of etiquette and of fitness. It would never have occurred to them to "kid the cook". A chef, be he white, brown, black or olive, is a personage on a ranch, to be propitiated rather than to poke fun at, even when he was as poor a cook as Stoney, pressed into the kitchen by circumstance and not by his own desire.
Jackson dropped back to join him.
"They ain't trailin'?"
"The agent sent them off on a wrong trail," said Sheridan. "And he's going to hint that he might have made the train, after all."
"I never heard of a Chinese cowboy," said Jackson, meditatively. "Now I've seen one on a hawss, I know why."
"If they had more and better horses in China, I fancy they'd learn well enough. Red. They're a clever race. The Chinese aviators are good ones." Jackson snickered.
"I'll say they are. He's bin doin' some aviatin' himself. Ridin' the air, most of the time. Got bucked off twice but climbed on ag'en cool as a
