Page:Ralph Connor - The man from Glengarry.djvu/366

  to do. They had made of the lank, raw, shanty lad a man, and such a man as a sculptor would have loved to behold. Straight as a column he stood two inches over six feet, but of such proportions that seeing him alone, one would never have guessed his height. His head and neck rose above his square shoulders with perfect symmetry and poise. His dark face, tanned now to a bronze, with features clear-cut and strong, was lit by a pair of dark brown eyes, honest, fearless, and glowing with a slumbering fire that men would hesitate to stir to flame. The lines of his mouth told of self-control, and the cut of his chin proclaimed a will of iron, and altogether, he bore himself with an air of such quiet strength and cool self-confidence that men never feared to follow where he led. Yet there was a reserve about him that set him a little apart from men, and a kind of shyness that saved him from any suspicion of self-assertion. In vain he tried to escape from the crowd that gathered about him, and more especially from the foot-ball men, who utterly adored him.

"You can't do anything for a fellow that doesn't drink," complained Starry Hamilton, the big captain of the foot-ball team.

"Drink! a nice captain you are, Starry," said Ranald, "and Thanksgiving so near."

"We haven't quite shut down yet," explained the captain.

"Then I suppose a cigar is permitted," replied Ranald, ordering the steward to bring his best. In a few minutes he called for his mail, and excusing