score of rangy chaps, sun-browned and sun-dried, splashing and laughing and all watching Quong, who was plucking chickens for supper, speculating on how he was going to serve it. Supper had been set back half an hour to allow for the two to come in from Metzal to eat with the rest. Sheridan himself ate at the same table with his boys. The more he saw of them the more he liked them. At ease, they were like so many kids at times, in action, they were men who appeared, many of them, far older than their years. Often they posed, they loved excitement and loved still better to affect to be unmoved by it, as they did by danger. Yet at times they would break out into the wildest demonstrations. They interlarded their talk with profanity as others might quote scraps of a foreign language, to add piquancy. They hated a liar and a braggart, they loved a good story. They gambled, they drank—whenever they could get it. Nearly all of them were shy of women; their stories were far more decent than the average run among men of their rank.
All of them had streaks of adventure, of romance, of poetry. There was Jackson's love of the fiddle. Sheridan had seen Stoney sit like a statue on his horse for half an hour gazing at a sunset. Their play was as vigorous as their work. The latter they took always seriously. They loved to play tricks on each other and their code forbade them wincing when they happened to be the trickee. They were at once boyish, manly, brave, and Sheridan felt himself akin to them in many ways.
