VISITORS
THE stock of the Mangan-Hatton Company were soft from the trip by train
from Utah, and the pull through the desert sand on top of that had
worn them out. Therefore Hunter Mangan decided to let them rest out
their first day in the new camp, while the men devoted themselves to
making their coming sojourn at the foot of the buttes as comforting as
possible.
Early they went to work and before the two young Canbys swooped down
upon them, the large dining tent and the cook tent were up, together
with several bunk tents and the commissary, which last was as big and
as round as a good-sized circus tent. Now the men were at work on
the stable tent--a mere “top” of huge proportions. At their portable
forges the smiths were busy shoeing horses, sharpening drills, and
mending broken implements. Freighters and axmen had gone to the distant
mountains for piñon pine fir, and mountain mahogany for fuel, as the
desert greasewood supply soon would prove insufficient for the big
camp’s needs. In the commissary tent the clerks arranged their stock
of goods. In the office tent the bookkeeper, his assistant, and the
timekeeper fussed with their appliances and books. In the cook tent
and dining tent the cooks and flunkies worked, setting up the long
oilcloth-covered tables, mending benches broken by travel, building
shelves, and sorting out provisions.
“Look who’s here!” remarked Lardo the Cook to Falcon the Flunky, as the
former came in from the tank wagon. “Couple o’ Alkali Ikes just made
it in on de Jack-an’-Ned Short Line. A Ike an’ a Ikerooess. Couple o’
splinters offen sumpin--a he one an’ a goil. Some Moll, I’ll say--only
she wears leadder pants. Lamp de bot’ of ’em, Jade. Scenery--no
foolin’!”
Falcon the Flunky stepped to the cook-tent door and saw the new
arrivals shaking hands with Hunter Mangan, fresh and immaculate in neat
khaki and leather puttees.
“Wot about her, ol’-timer? There--wot?”
“She’s certainly pretty,” agreed The Falcon in his perpetually grave
manner. “Brother and sister, I should say. They seem to be acquainted
with Mangan.”
“Guess dey b’long to dat ranch over dere in dem cottonwoods an’
jungles--hey? Ain’t dat wot dey call Squawtoot’?”
“I believe so.”
“An ancient hick wid w’iskers--hey? I seen um in dat Opacko boig
talkin’ to de squeeze.”
“Oh, is that he?” observed The Falcon. “I believe I saw him, too, when
I applied for my job. Wore silver-mounted spurs and chaps--quite a
picturesque old Westerner.”
“Say, kid, youse sure c’n spill de lingo,” Lardo commented. “Now if
I’d ’a’ been a-tellin’ ’bout dat ole Ezekiel I’d ’a’ said: ‘An ole
mattress robber wid his pins in leadder stovepipes an’ one geed lamp.’
Pictur-es-_que_, was he? I’ll say he was worse’n dat. But wot about
dis jane--give us de dope on her, Jack! Like’s not she’s dis ole
cocklebur’s dawter.”
“She’s pretty,” repeated The Falcon, his eyes on the girl.
“Any ole snipe shooter could say dat!” retorted Lardo the Cook. “I done
it meself--easy. Youse’re a disappointment on dat deal, Jack. Well, I
guess youse’ve contrackted an eyeful, now. I didn’t tell youse to make
a telescope outa yerself. Find me dose drip pans I was huntin’, and
den fasten yerself to de crank o’ dat meat grinder. We’ll shoot ’em
hash fer dinner, ketch-as-ketch-can, an’ if dey don’t like it dey c’n
tell Lardo de Cook. And dat’s sudden deat’! I killed more gaycats for
kickin’ about hash dan fer any udder reason, Jack.”
Falcon the Flunky returned to his work, but the girl that he had seen
had aroused his interest. She was as pretty as the little desert
flowers he had enjoyed so much on the trip across the wastes. She
looked like a wild-West moving picture actress as she sat there in her
elaborate saddle, chapped and booted and spurred, talking to Mangan,
except that--well, Falcon the Flunky did not particularly care for
actresses. The girlish freshness of her appealed to him most.
He hunted for and found the dripping pans, made sure that the cold meat
they had brought along had not spoiled, and began grinding it into one
of the pans for hash. It requires a great deal of grinding to make
hash for a construction camp, and Falcon the Flunky was still engaged
in turning the crank three quarters of an hour later when, at the
cook-tent door, he heard Mangan say:
“And this is the cook tent, Miss Canby. Go right in. Lardo is a wild
man, but we’ll watch him while you’re around.”
The flaps of the tent were pulled aside to frame a picture of a girl
in chaps and boots and Stetson. Then said the picture, to whoever was
outside at her back:
“Oh, I want to see the flunky first,” said the girl. “I’ve never seen a
flunky.”
She was looking directly at the patient grinder of cooked beef. And in
that instant the grinder wished fervently that he was anything but a
flunky.
Now a boy with wide eyes and a blistered snub nose joined the picture.
It moved forward a step or two, and Hunter Mangan became a part of its
composition. He pointed laughingly at the man who ground meat.
“That is a flunky,” he said.
There came a devilish twinkle into the girl’s hazel eyes. With quick,
rustling strides she left the doorway and whirled her spur rowels
straight toward the object under discussion. She held out a strong
hand, browned to the color of her chestnut hair by desert winds.
“How do you do, Mr. Flunky!” she cried, her eyes as friendly as a
baby’s.
Lardo the Cook, Baldy, Strip, and Rambo the Bouncer were all eyes and
ears. Mangan was laughing a little forcedly. The snub-nosed cow-puncher
was grinning.
Then The Falcon’s hand left the crank of the food chopper and grasped
the girl’s.
“I’m happy to meet you,” he said easily. “I’m called Falcon the Flunky.”
Almost a giggle came from the Indian paint-brush lips.
“I’m Manzanita Canby,” the girl exchanged, with a roguish twinkle in
her eyes. “And this is my brother, Martin--better known as Podhead.
It’s a wonder Mr. Mangan wouldn’t introduce us.”
“Mr. Canby, I’m happy to know you,” Falcon the Flunky said, offering
his hand to the boy and making a friend for life by calling him mister.
“And Mr. Mangan is excusable, Miss Canby,” he continued, smiling
easily, “for he doesn’t know me by any other name than Falcon the
Flunky. It would have seemed awkward to introduce me to you as that.”
Her hazel eyes grew round. “Is--is that a---- What is it, Mr. Mangan? A
moniker?”
“That’s my moniker,” said Falcon the Flunky. “You see, most tramps
have monikers, and some of them are quite unique. I called myself The
Falcon; and when Mr. Mangan took me on as a cook’s helper he labeled me
Falcon the Flunky. It’s alliterative, and not unpicturesque, and suits
me to a T.”
“But I want to know you by your real name!” she protested.
“Sorry,” he replied, “but I’m not traveling under my real name just
now.”
“And won’t you tell even me? Whisper it?” There was a pout on her red
lips. Miss Manzanita Canby could be a wretched little flirt when she
wished. Ask Crip or Limpy or Lucky or Ed or Toddlebike--gentlemen
riders of well-known integrity.
“Sorry to seem rude,” The Falcon held out, “but I must refuse even
you.” To whisper into that little pink ear a secret kept from all
others in the world was a temptation indeed, but the flunky held to his
rule.
“Falcon the Flunky is our mystery man, Miss Canby,” put in Hunter
Mangan in tones that showed he was not quite sure whether he liked the
unexpected situation or not.
“Oh, that’s delightful!” she cried. “I’ve always wanted to know a
mystery man! And now I don’t want to know your name. If you ever begin
to tell me I’ll stick my fingers in my ears. Because--I’ll tell you
why--I’m going to be a detective and find out what the mystery is about
you!”
“Ha-ha!” and Mangan laughed. “Quite an idea. And now let’s go back to
the commissary tent, Miss Canby. I’ll show you----”
“No! No! Not yet. Please! I want Falcon the Flunky to show me around
the culinary department first. You and Mart go see whatever you had in
mind, Mr. Mangan. I want to begin on my solution of the mystery.”
“But--er--that is, Miss Canby----”
“Go on, please--I’ll be over directly. Mart wants to see the stable
tent, I know. He’s crazy about horses. I’ll be over soon--really,
truly!”
Martin thereupon braced up and took his cue. “Aw, come on, Mr. Mangan,
an’ let ’er alone. You don’t know ’er like I do. She always gets
whatever she wants.”
“And, Mr. Mangan,” added Manzanita, “please ask the cook to have
somebody else grind the meat, won’t you? Really, I want to find out
about Falcon the Flunky. I’ll solve your mystery for you.”
There was nothing else for the contractor to do but to comply with
this seeming whim of an irresponsible and adorable girl. He shrugged,
glanced a little shamefacedly at Lardo the Cook in a request for him to
bow as he had bowed and led the way out ahead of the grinning Martin.
“Now,” said Manzanita Canby, “introduce me to the cook and everybody.
Mr. Mangan’s too stuck up for me. They call me a roughneck around here.
Anyway, I like to know just folks, and I’m wild about stiffs.”
“Cu-can youse beat it!” Lardo the Cook whispered to Baldy, hastily
rubbing dough from hands and bare arms to be ready for the presentation.
When the rest of the cook-tent’s crew had stammeringly responded to
The Falcon’s introduction of them to Miss Canby, that young person
immediately lost interest in them and the cook tent.
“I want to see the dining tent,” she informed The Falcon. “Show me
that, won’t you?”
The Falcon would, and Lardo the Cook nodded acquiescence.
The back entrance of the dining tent was only two steps from the cook
tent--the separation making for coolness in the former. Both entrances
were screened. Falcon the Flunky held the door open for the camp’s
guest, and she passed in under the big top.
“The stiffs eat here,” explained her self-chosen guide, indicating two
long oilcloth-covered tables that extended the length of the tent. “And
that smaller table over there is for the royal family.”
“What’s that? But let’s go on out in front before you tell me. Then I
want to know--oh, everything about construction camps and stiffs.”
He led the way between the long tables to the front entrance, and she
passed out into the morning sunlight.
“Let’s sit down on the ground here by the door,” she suggested.
“I’ll get a chair----”
“No, I prefer sitting on the ground. I sit in chairs only at mealtime.”
Accordingly she sat herself down in the desert sand, and The Falcon sat
beside her. The commissary tent and the stable tent were in plain view,
both fronting them. At the door of the commissary stood Hunter Mangan
and Mart, the latter pretending that he was enjoying the big cigar that
mated the contractor’s and looking very important indeed. Mangan looked
toward the dining tent, and then suddenly turned his eyes elsewhere.
“Look at that kid brother of mine smoking that big cigar!” Manzanita
said with a laugh. “If Pa Squawtooth should see that! I ought to tell
on him, but I never do. That boy’s a great care to me.” She sighed
pensively. “Well, now, Mr. Falcon the Flunky, what is the royal family?”
The Falcon was watching her closely. While she scooped up sand and
allowed it to trickle through her brown fingers, and seemed to be idly
intent on it, she now and then shot a quick glance from under her long
chestnut lashes toward the commissary. The flunky was nonplused. Quite
apparently she had been little interested in the culinary department.
That she had made him come straight through to where she could see
Mangan and her brother was as evident. What had she in mind? Not a
sudden interest in Falcon the Flunky and the mild mystery suggested--of
that he was disappointedly certain. It piqued him a trifle. Somehow
he found that he wanted her to be interested in him. How old was
she--sixteen or twenty-two or three? The long heavy braids of
glimmering chestnut hair said “sixteen.” Her developed womanly figure,
for all its strength and litheness, proclaimed that she was in her
twenties.
“Well?”
“I beg your pardon. Why, the royal family of a construction camp
consists of the white-collar brigade--men who don’t work with their
hands to any appreciable degree--together with the women of the camp,
if there are any about. The contractors and their families, the
bosses, the bookkeepers, timekeepers, commissary men, and sometimes
an engineer’s party, if one happens to be boarding with a contractor.
In most camps these eat at a separate table, and in some cases in a
separate dining tent--smaller. That’s the royal family.”
“Snobs, eh?”
“We-ell--perhaps. I don’t know, though. When you know the camps better
you’ll realize that democracy is pretty prevalent in big construction
work. I don’t exactly think that snobbish. The stiffs don’t seem to
resent it, anyway. And that’s the test, isn’t it?”
“I suppose so. Are you a stiff?”
“Oh, yes.”
“You don’t talk out of one corner of your mouth and say, ‘De bot’ o’
youse togedder.’ Oh, I think that’s so funny! They’re regular clowns.”
The Falcon cleared his throat. “How old are you?” he asked bluntly.
“Nineteen,” she readily told him, sifting sand over her chaps.
“Mum! You’re deceptive. It’s the way you wear your hair, I suppose.”
“I fall down in the sand so much,” she said, “it’s easier to keep it
out of my hair this way.”
“I didn’t ask out of mere curiosity,” he told her, chuckling at her
confession. “I--well, I hardly know how to say it, Miss Canby. But if
you were my sister, for instance, I’d warn you not to be too familiar
with the stiffs. Now please don’t be offended. You see, I realize
that you know nothing about the tramps or near tramps that make up a
construction camp. They’re all right in their way--I’m not condemning
stiffs in general--but some might misinterpret your democratic manner.
You’ve had lots to do with cow-punchers, I suppose, and that might
prove misleading. There’s hardly the chivalry among stiffs that you
have found in the cow camps, I imagine.”
“But you’re a stiff!”
“Of course; of course. But there are stiffs and stiffs--while it might
be said that all cow-punchers are gentlemanly. You must understand that
your cowmen are always in virtually the same environment, and are not
nearly so nomadic as these men. But perhaps I shouldn’t have spoken as
I did--especially on such short acquaintance. I meant well, though.”
“Oh, I can take care of myself pretty well. I’ve always managed to do
so. I pack a six usually.” Her look implied that life had cheated her
in never having offered an opportunity for her to shoot a villain or
two. “Now you mustn’t censure me. I get enough of that at home. I’m
frightfully crude, I know; but I do hate to be told about it every
day. But don’t apologize. Go on and tell me about monikers and getting
sloued in the hoosegow, and the main squeeze and gypo camps, and
skinners and muckers and dynos and things. Mr. Mangan told me a lot
before ever I’d seen a camp and fired my imagination. Who’s the main
squeeze?”
The Falcon laughed until he caught her peeking from under her lashes at
the stable tent, where Mangan and the struggling cigar smoker had gone.
Then he stopped laughing suddenly. Was this a subtle little flirtation?
Was Mangan interested in this girl? Was she trying to make him jealous?
But if so, why had she picked on the recruit flunky as a pawn in her
game? The Falcon was mystified. Mangan, it seemed, never had even
looked toward the dining tent since the two had come out and sat down.
“The main squeeze,” he informed her, “is hobo slang for anybody in
high authority. Mr. Mangan there is the main squeeze about this camp.
But ordinarily when a construction stiff speaks of the main squeeze
he means the head contractor, or main contractor, as he is more often
called.”
“And who is the main squeeze on this road?”
“The main contractors are the firm of Demarest, Spruce & Tillou, of
Minneapolis. They are a large concern.”
“Oh, I’ve met Mr. Demarest! I like him. He’s my kind--bluff,
rough-and-ready, and cross and kind at the same time. He pulled my
queues and kidded me something fierce, and said if I was his daughter
he’d spank me. Pa had just caught Mart and me smoking corn-silk
cigarettes behind the stable, you know. But at the same time Mr.
Demarest aided and abetted me in my meanness. He bet me a dollar I
couldn’t jump from one stack of alfalfa to another that we had on the
ranch then, in three trials. I took him up; and the first two times
I slid off to the ground. But the third time I stuck, and held there
clawing at the hay for pretty nearly a minute. Then he laughed like
thunder in the mountains and paid up like a sport, and his face got red
with little purple jiggers all over it, and veins and things. He’s a
sport. But go on--explain about main contractors.”
“Well,” complied The Falcon, “the main contractors take the entire
contract for, say, fifty or maybe a hundred miles--or sometimes maybe
for the entire work--if they’re big enough to swing it. Then they
sublet portions to smaller contractors for a smaller figure per yard
than they have agreed upon with the company.
“For instance, there’ll be rock work here on Mangan & Hatton’s piece.
There’ll be a deep cut through the saddle of those two big buttes. The
main contractors probably figured that they could run that cut and
build the accompanying fill for, say, seventy cents a yard. Then they
probably sublet the job to the Mangan-Hatton Company for sixty-five
cents.
“Dirt work pays far less per yard, according to the nature of it.
“Now, after contracting, the main squeeze will sublet every mile that
he can to smaller men. Then the parts that no one wants to tackle,
perhaps because of the inadequacy of the outfits on the job, must be
attended to by the main contractors themselves. Naturally to them are
left the roughest, most difficult pieces of the work. They usually move
in last, then, and not only do their own work but keep a weather eye on
what the subs are doing.”
“And Demarest, Spruce & Tillou are to come here later on?”
“Very likely--unless they sublet all of it. And there will be dozens of
other outfits, large and small, and ragtowns and----”
“What’s a ragtown?”
“Well, the less you know about a ragtown the better. They’re tent towns
that move around with big construction work--composed of saloons, dance
halls, gambling games, and such things designed to get the stiff’s
money away from them.”
“Oh, I want to see a ragtown! I was in a saloon once. There was one up
at the gold mine near our mountain ranch. I put my foot on the rail and
bought drinks for the house. But I drank red pop. Beer’s bitter. And I
can shoot craps, too. Listen: The kid and I were shooting craps back of
a stable one day, and I threw seven or ’leven six times straight; and
I’d just won his neckerchief and clasp and one of his spurs when old Pa
Squawtooth came snooping around a haystack and nailed us. That is, he
got the kid. I beat it! When will a ragtown come, do you think?”
“I think I’ll have a word with your father when one does come,” he told
her.
“No, don’t! I won’t get hurt or do anything wicked. Pa’ll spoil
everything. He wants me to sit around the house all day and play the
piano and crochet. Then, besides, the kid will be sticking his peeled
nose into things, and I’ll have to go along to take care of him. Now
you aren’t going to lecture any more, are you? What’s a gypo camp--and
a gypo queen?”
Falcon the Flunky had started to tell her when from the dining-room
door behind him he heard a fervent “Good night!” in familiar tones.
Turning, he saw the drooping mouth and flaring pitcher-handle ears of
Halfaman Daisy, who apparently had been seeking him.
“Come here, Halfaman,” he ordered. “I want to introduce you to Miss
Canby. She wants to know about gypo queens, and you’re an authority on
that subject.”
Halfaman’s freckled face went red to the ears, and he winked with one
eye and then the other at his partner, pleading to be released.
“Miss Canby,” The Falcon went on, “this is my partner, Halfaman Daisy.”
The girl was holding out her ready hand, and Halfaman wriggled toward
her and covered it with his own, removing his cap and promptly dropping
it--stooping for it, stubbing his toe on a greasewood root buried in
the sand, making a spectacle of himself, and realizing it painfully.
“Ma’am,” he said, straightening at last, “how’s each paltry division
this mornin’? Please’ ta meet you, ma’am.” Then he stood as if he had
been ordered to be shot at sunrise.
“Are you a stiff, Mr. Halfaman?” the girl asked, ingenuously.
“Oh, sure--worse’n that.”
“‘Halfaman’ sounds like a puncher name,” she informed him. “You look
like all man to me. Why do they call you that?”
“Well, you see, ma’am, I’m one o’ the begatters. I’m Phinehas; and
Phinehas begat Abishua. First Chronicles, sixth chapter--that’s where
the begatters are. Now, you couldn’t call a bird Phinehas and look
pleasant, could you, ma’am? So my old pardner, his name was Holman, and
the stiffs they got to callin’ me Halfaman just for a kid.”
“Tell Miss Canby about the begatters, Halfaman,” suggested The Falcon.
“Perhaps she doesn’t understand.”
With a look of seriousness Halfaman scraped his bedraggled cap to one
side of his kinky head.
“Have you ever read the Bible, ma’am?” he asked.
“Oh, yes--lots. Every night before I go to bed I read a chapter.”
“That’s right, ma’am--that’s right,” approved Mr. Daisy. “Now next time
you read First Chronicles, sixth chapter. Then you’ll know all about
the begatters. Here’s the way she runs:
“‘And the children of Amram; Aaron and Moses and Miriam. The sons of
Aaron; Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar. Eleazar begat Phinehas;
Phinehas begat Abishua.’
“Phinehas--that’s me. Phinehas begat Abishua. Now, ma’am, did you ever
hear tell o’ Wing o’ the Crow?”
“No, indeed. Tell me.”
“Well, she’s the daughter of a one-winged gypo man called Jeddo the
Crow. She’s just about your age--maybe a leetle older--but black,
ma’am--black as tar.”
“Oh! Mercy!”
“Whoa! Not all over! You don’t savvy. Just her hair and eyes. Well,
now, you live over there, don’t you?”
He pointed over the shimmering desert to the low adobe ranch house,
swimming hazily in a yellow mirage.
Manzanita nodded.
Halfaman raked his cap to the other side of his head.
“Well, now, when Wing o’ the Crow gets here with her dad--that’s
Abishua--I want you to meet her--see? You ’n’ her oughta be good
pals. She’s as pretty as you are--and I’ll tell the world that’s
progressin’ some. So you meets her--see?--and you two gets nice and
acquainted--see?--and then I wanta slip you an earful o’ somethin’
I got on my chest. Then all you gotta do, ma’am, is use your
inflooence--see? Get me? Now I gotta beat it. I’m mendin’ harness.
Please’ to meet you, ma’am!”
And he hurried away, whistling out of one corner of his mouth.
“Why, what a funny man!” remarked Manzanita laughingly. “What on earth
was he talking about?”
“For a heart,” said The Falcon earnestly, “he has a big nugget of gold.
He was talking about his sweetheart, Wing o’ the Crow, a shanty queen.
But I’m afraid he didn’t explain very well.”
Falcon the Flunky did, however, and now it seemed that his listener was
more interested. She looked less frequently toward the various places
to which Mangan betook himself, trailed by Mart and the cigar, and
watched The Falcon’s face.
It was a fine, frank face to watch; and more and more, as thoughts of
her petty little game took to the background, she realized that here
was a sincere, likable young man with brains that were anything but
sluggish. She liked his eyes and their steady, brotherly look; she
noticed that his hands were trim and clean and strong. His careful
articulation, effortless though it seemed, told volumes about his
upbringing. She had sought out Falcon the Flunky to use as a tool in
her willful game of thwarting her scheming father and Hunter Mangan;
and now she realized that she had picked the wrong man for her purpose.
She actually was going to like the flunky.
This would never do! She despised herself now. Suppose the flunky had
proved to be an uncouth, uninteresting, ignorant person, and that she
had tried to use him in the furtherance of her own silly ends! Her
confidence in her own desirability was great, spoiled as she had been
by adoring vaqueros. Would it not have been terrible if she had caused
a poor, unfortunate flunky to fall in love with her? She blushed for
shame at her unthinking selfishness.
But this man was different He was well knit and muscular, good to look
upon, refined, and mysteriously interesting. If he wanted to fall in
love with her, he should be perfectly able to take care of his own
interests in such a matter. So if he wanted to go and fall in love with
her--why, he could just go ahead and do it!
In the midst of these musings Manzanita suddenly straightened
apprehensively. A familiar figure had ridden in on a magnificent black
horse. Over near the stable tent a half-smoked cigar dropped in the
sand and was stealthily covered by a booted foot.
“Goodness!” breathed the girl. “There’s pa. I--I guess I’d better be
going.”
Youth plans and plans, but youth’s actualities are ofttimes
disconcerting--nay, appalling!