Wind and hard weather and a thousand suns had marked them, and the hand of man had branded them.

Here and there was a touch of gray in their hair, and about the mouth of each were lines which in such silent moments as this one gave an expression of yearning.
"What's up?
What's wrong ?" asked Wilbur from the door, but since no answer was deigned he said no more.
But Pierre, like a charmed man who dares to walk among lions, strolled easily through the room, and looked into the face of big Boone, who smiled faintly up to him, and Black Gandil, who scowled doubly dark, and Bud Mansie, who shifted uneasily in his chair and then nodded, and finally to Branch.

He dropped a hand on the massive shoulder of the blacksmith.
"Well ?" he asked.
Branch let himself droop back into his chair.

His big, dull, colorless eyes stared up to his friend.
"I dunno, lad.

I'm just weary with the sort of tired that you can't help by sleepin'.