They saw him as if he had been merely thin air.
"Good evenin'," said Jean.
After what appeared to Jean a lapse of time sufficient to impress him with a possible deafness of these men, the gaunt-faced one said, "Howdy, Isbel!" The tone was impersonal, dry, easy, cool, laconic, and yet it could not have been more pregnant with meaning.

Jean's sharp sensibilities absorbed much.

None of the slouch-sombreroed, long-mustached Texans--for so Jean at once classed them--had ever seen Jean, but they knew him and knew that he was expected in Grass Valley.

All but the one who had spoken happened to have their faces in shadow under the wide-brimmed black hats.

Motley-garbed, gun-belted, dusty-booted, they gave Jean the same impression of latent force that he had encountered in Colter.
"Will somebody please tell me where to find my father, Gaston Isbel ?" inquired Jean, with as civil a tongue as he could command.
Nobody paid the slightest attention.