Afterwards he began placidly to smoke and meditate.
From his manner you would never have guessed that his life and the lives of the Happy Family hung upon the outcome of this meeting.

You would not have surmised that his stomach was gnawing at his nerves, sending out insistently the call for food; or that his thirst tormented him; or that the combination of hunger, heat, thirst and mental strain had bred a jumping headache that was knotting the veins in his temples.

All these nagging miseries beset him--but he knew the ways of the Indians and he meant to impress this old man first of all with his plains-Indian training; so he schooled himself to patience.
The Indian eyed him furtively from under heavy eyebrows while he smoked.
And the sun beat savagely down upon the sand of that basin, and Luck's vision blurred with the pain that throbbed behind his eyes.

But the facial discipline of the actor was his to command, and he permitted his face to give no sign of what he felt or thought.
The Indian leaned slowly, lifted a brown hand, made a studied gesture or two and waited, his eyes fixed unwinkingly upon Luck.

It was as if he were saying to himself: "We'll see if this white man can speak in the sign-talk of the Indians." Luck lifted his two hands, drew them slowly apart to say that he had come a long way.