CHAPTER III
THE HIDDEN HOMESTEAD
Jackson left shortly after noon with the spare horse for Rand, and he left content. Stoney had specialized on stews and hash, alternating with steaks he always contrived to render tough, but Quong dished them up a meat-pie that was savory with herbs and would not have done injustice to Delmonico. Or so Sheridan told him.
Quong accepted everything with a dignified complacency that seemed to set him apart—at least in his cooking—as an automaton of perfect mechanism, plus imagination and resource, but uncommunicative, self-sufficient. Later in the afternoon, Sheridan, passing round the ranch-house on his way to the corral, saw him seated on a bench, reading a book set down beside him, its leaves held open by stone weights. How he contrived to follow the text and the contour of the vegetables at the same time, without disaster to fingers or potatoes, seemed a marvel to Sheridan, but Quong was doing it, the parings were fine and continuous, potato eyes were whisked out with a deft twist of the knife point.
"Everything goes wonderfully, Quong," he said. "You were a godsend. You are an artist as a chef but I suspect you capable of better things than
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