So turned, Terry could not see her clearly. He caught a glimmer of red bronze hair, dark in shadow and brilliant in high lights, and a sheen of greenish eyes. Otherwise, he only noted the casual manner in which she acknowledged the introduction, unsmiling, indifferent, as Pollard said: "Here's my daughter Kate. This is Terry—a new hand."
It seemed to Terry that as he said this the rancher made a gesture as of warning, though this, no doubt, could be attributed to his wish to silently explain away the idiosyncrasy of Terry in using his first name only. He was presented in turn to the four men, and thought them the oddest collection he had ever laid eyes on.
Slim Dugan was tall, but not so tall as he looked, owing to his very small head and narrow shoulders. His hair was straw color, excessively silky, and thin as the hair of a year-old child. There were other points of interest in Slim Dugan; his feet, for instance, were small as the feet of a girl, accentuated by the long, narrow riding boots, and his hands seemed to be pulled out to a great and unnecessary length. They made up for it by their narrowness.
His exact opposite was Marty Cardiff, chunky, fat, it seemed, until one noted the roll and bulge of the muscles at the shoulders. His head was settled into his fat shoulders somewhat in the manner of Denver's, Terry thought.
Oregon Charlie looked the part of an Indian, with his broad nose and high cheekbones, flat face, slanted dark eyes; but his skin was a dead and peculiar white. He was a down-headed man, and one could rarely imagine him opening his lips to speak; he merely grunted as he shook hands with the stranger.
To finish the picture, there was a man as huge as Joe Pollard himself, and as powerful, to judge by appearances. His face was burned to a jovial red; his hair was red also, and there was red hair on the backs of his freckled hands.
All these men met Terry with cordial nods, but there was a carelessness about their demeanor which seemed strange to Terry. In his experience, the men of the mountains were a timid or a blustering lot before newcomers, uneasy, and anxious to establish their place. But these men acted as if meeting unknown men were a part of their common, daily experience. They were as much at their ease as social lions.
Pollard was explaining the presence of Terry.
"He's come up to clean out the varmints," he said to the others. "They been getting pretty thick on the range, you know."
"You came in just wrong," complained Kate, while the men turned four pairs of grave eyes upon Terry and seemed to be judging him. "I got Oregon singing at last, and he was doing fine. Got a real voice, Charlie has. Regular branded baritone, I'll tell a man."