GUESTS
SQUAWTOOTH CANBY was finding his new rôle a difficult one. As his
devoted daughter had expressed it, he was not a “folks snob,” but
merely a “money snob,” and a new and inexperienced one at that. The
warm hospitality of Squawtooth Ranch was a byword in this section of
the country. Any man, vaquero, miner, prospector, homesteader, or the
chance wayfarer from the inside of the range was welcome at Squawtooth
so long as he showed the slightest evidences of being a gentleman as
the term is interpreted in the outland West. Penniless prospectors and
underpaid cow-punchers for years had sat at table with the master of
the squat old adobe and the master’s daughter, and no member of the
household ever had thought of considering them anything but equals.
To break the custom of a lifetime is a difficult matter; and to-night
Webster Canby found himself perplexed as how to treat his guests.
Falcon the Flunky and Hunter Mangan.
He had not known that the first named was to be a guest until shortly
before his arrival. He had come afoot five minutes ahead of Mangan, who
arrived on horseback. When Manzanita had seen him walking in from the
desert she had told her father that she herself had invited a guest for
supper, and there had been little time before The Falcon’s arrival for
questions. She introduced him, when he stepped over the high threshold,
as Mr. Falcon of the Mangan-Hatton camp.
This was a busy time of year for Squawtooth Canby, and he had not found
much opportunity to visit his new friend’s camp. Therefore it was not
surprising that he never before had met a man called Mr. Falcon. The
visitor was hardly dressed as a member of the camp’s royal family
would be--in khaki or corduroy and puttees--but he was nevertheless
presentable. Dress clothes of any kind were almost unknown to most of
the men who came to Squawtooth, so in this The Falcon was not amiss.
During the short conversation that time allowed the two men before the
arrival of Hunt Mangan, nothing was asked and nothing volunteered in
regard to The Falcon’s place in the Mangan-Hatton camp. Squawtooth at
once realized his guest’s refinement and education. Naturally supposing
him to be of importance to the work, else Manzanita would not have
invited him to be a guest with Mangan, he was getting on famously when
Mangan came.
Manzanita met the contractor at the door and brought him in. Mangan’s
eyes widened as he saw Falcon the Flunky, and for a moment he looked
bewilderedly at the girl. Then his native refinement asserted itself,
and he shook hands cordially, if a little awkwardly, with Canby and his
fellow guest.
At once Manzanita went to help Mrs. Ehrhart with the dinner, leaving
the three men together. The Falcon sat listening to the conversation of
Canby and Mangan, not offering a word but perfectly at ease. Presently
he stepped to the piano, glanced over the music on the rack, and seated
himself on the stool.
“Don’t mind if I loosen up a little, do you?” he asked, smiling around
at them. “I see a piano so seldom these days that I can’t keep away
from one when I do.”
“Sure! Sure!” genially encouraged Squawtooth. “Give us a tune.”
Thereupon Falcon the Flunky played several semi-classical pieces with
a touch and feeling that surprised Mangan, who appreciated good music.
As he talked with his host he watched the man at the piano. Where had
he come from? Who was he? Was he playing the instrument merely to prove
that he was socially above the general run of construction laborers?
The Falcon swiveled presently on the stool and sat listening again to
the conversation.
“You’re pretty good at that, Mr. Falcon,” volunteered Canby, to whom
almost any noise on an instrument meant music.
The Falcon smiled. “Pretty rusty, I imagine. I haven’t touched a piano
in three months.”
“We was talkin’ about the new railroad bridge over the Little Albert,”
Squawtooth observed. “Mr. Mangan says she’ll hold, but I tell him he
don’t realize what a torrent that river c’n be when the snows thaw up
in the mountains. What d’you think about ’er, Mr. Falcon?”
“I’ve seen the abutments only once,” replied The Falcon, “but it
strikes me that you have grounds for what you say, Mr. Canby. I’m
afraid such a bottom as this sandy country will give is not going to
be----”
“Right there’s the idea. They ain’t goin’ deep enough, and them
abutments are too light. But o’ course they know more about it than I
do.”
The ghost of a smile was playing over Hunt Mangan’s lips. While he was
not vitally concerned with the bridge contract or its outcome, he knew
that Foster & Bean, who were doing the quarry work, were unsurpassed in
their line, and he had perfect confidence in their judgment.
Canby continued to explain the treachery of the sand-bottom rivers
of the West as he knew them, speaking to his supporter. Mangan said
nothing, but watched and wondered about Falcon the Flunky.
That he should voice any opinion at all about railroad work surprised
him, but that he should have tried to display a knowledge of a part of
such work altogether foreign to that of the Mangan-Hatton Company,
evidently his first experience, was more puzzling still. And he was
not a fool! Then the young man began to talk, and Mangan listened. His
sentences displayed a technical knowledge of railroad building which
was not at Mangan’s command. Mangan knew his own end of the work and
nothing more. He was not an engineer, merely a good rock man and a
dirt mover. But Falcon the Flunky talked like a man who had studied
every phase of railroad construction, from the preliminary survey of
a proposed route to the laying of the steel. He talked not from a
contractor’s viewpoint, but from that of a high-salaried man employed
by the company whose money was being invested, and who demanded that
all phases of the work tend toward one ultimate idea, the excellence of
their railroad.
Was this young man a spy in the employ of the Gold Belt Cut-off? Was
he, at his age, a technical expert come to pose as a common laborer
and report the progress of the work? If so, why had he chosen the
Mangan-Hatton outfit as his headquarters? There was nothing wrong with
the Mangan-Hatton work, Mangan could have sworn. No, he was no spy. He
would not have exposed his knowledge of railroad building if he were
that. Unless he had thrown overboard all his plans, and was doing this
solely to convince Canby that he was as good as the best of them. And
Manzanita could be the only excuse for such a foolish play at that.
It was not until after dinner--supper as it invariably was called at
Squawtooth--that Canby and Mangan found themselves alone, Manzanita
having taken The Falcon away to show him that ever interesting marvel
on a ranch, “the cutest little calf, born only last night.” The
cattleman and the contractor were left on the broad Spanish veranda,
smoking cigars. Mangan’s host cleared his throat apologetically.
“I expect I hadn’t oughta ask it, Mr. Mangan,” he began; “but, d’ye
know, I never heard tell o’ Mr. Falcon until to-night! He got here just
before you did, and I didn’t know he was comin’ until he was openin’
the gate. Little Apple didn’t tell me anything about ’im, and I didn’t
ask. Oughtn’t to be askin’ you, I reckon, but it seems funny I never
heard you mention ’im. Am I impolite? Who is he? Smart as a cricket,
ain’t he?”
“I must confess,” replied Hunt Mangan slowly, “that I know very little
about him myself.” The contractor spoke abstractedly. He was thinking
of “Little Apple,” of which “Manzanita” is the Spanish equivalent. He
never before had heard the girl called that.
“Been with you long?”
“Oh, Fal--er--Mr. Falcon, eh? Why, he’s been with us since we came to
Squawtooth.”
“Seems to me I’ve seen ’im somewheres. Say--I got it! Wasn’t he the
fella that come into the ho-tel the day I rode to Opaco to see you,
before you’d moved out? Wasn’t he the fella that was pardners with the
man you give a dollar to--to eat on?”
“I--I believe he did come to me that day.”
Squawtooth Canby’s craggy eyebrows came down. “Why, you pretty near
didn’t hire him, ’cause he said he wasn’t much of a skinner!”
“I believe something like that came up,” conceded Hunt after a pause,
during which he had hoped the cowman would continue speaking.
“And you give ’im the job o’ flunky--pot-walloper!”
Again the pause; and finally the contractor had to admit it.
“Well, by cripes!” exclaimed Squawtooth, his bushy brows drawn lower
still. Then he raised them suddenly and eyed his guest with a look of
shrewdness.
“Hunt,” he accused, “you’re keepin’ somethin’ back. And whether it’s
polite er not, I gotta know it now. Come acrost. What’s the fella’s
name? Who is he? What’s he doin’ for you?”
“Really, Mr. Canby, I’ve told you all I know about him.”
“You c’n tell me what he’s doin’ for you, I reckon.”
“He’s working in the kitchen,” Mangan was obliged to admit reluctantly.
“Did you ever get his name? He wouldn’t give it down at Opaco that
time.”
“He is still on the books as Falcon the Flunky, as I wrote him down
when he got the job. He’s drawn no pay as yet, so there has been no
check made out to him. Really, I can tell you nothing more about him.”
“Funny deal! How’d Nita get acquainted with ’im?”
Mangan told of the meeting, without embellishment.
“Huh! Funny! I beg yer pardon, Hunt. Come on out now an’ I’ll show ye
our new pipe line to the new ’falfy field I’m layin’ off.”
* * * * *
Squawtooth’s guests had taken their leave, walking side by side toward
the lights of the camp twinkling across the black desert, Mangan
leading his saddle horse.
“Manzanita!”--from the front veranda.
“Yes, pa?”
“Come out here a little, will ye? I wanta have a little _habla_ with
ye.”
The girl stepped over the high threshold and stood in the dark beside
her father.
“Set down,” he said, relighting his cigar.
She sat in a reed chair beside him.
“Daughter,” he began, “tell me what ye know ’bout Falcon the Flunky.”
“Oh! So Mr. Mangan----”
“Stop right here, Nita!”
She was silent a little. “Yes, I shouldn’t have started that,” she
confessed. “Hunt’s all right. If he said anything at all, you forced it
out of him.”
“I did--sorta agin’ my will, at that. But I hadta know. It wasn’t
curiosity and pokin’ into another man’s affairs. It concerned you, and
I had a right to know. Wasn’t much said. I chopped it off and waited
for you to tell me. Go on.”
“Well, didn’t you like him?”
“M’m--I thought I was questionin’ you, Nita?”
“I’m not on the carpet, am I, pa? If there’s anything to be discussed,
why not just talk and question each other and answer each other?”
“Well, then, what if I did like ’im?”
“That’s why I asked him to come.”
“Don’t get ye.”
“I wanted you to meet him, not knowing he is a camp flunky, and like
him for himself. Didn’t you?”
“Yes,” he replied. “I admit I kinda took to the boy, though all the
time I thought I’d seen ’im before somewheres. And I had.” He explained
briefly. “He’s smart, and he’s got education. He’s there! From an
ignorant man’s viewpoint, I’d say he knows more railroad buildin’ in
a minute than Hunt Mangan does in a year. In a big way, I mean. But
that’s neither here ner there. Who is he?”
“Pa, I actually can’t tell you any more about him than Hunter Mangan
could. And I know that was next to nothing.”
“You mean ye don’t even know his name?”
“I don’t.”
“Ner where he’s from, ner who his folks are, ner what he did before he
come out here and went to flunkyin’?”
“No, pa.”
“Well, by cripes! And ye invite ’im over here to supper!”
“Why, is that so strange, pa? Hundreds of strangers have been guests at
Squawtooth.”
“Desert rats--not tramps!”
“Did The Falcon strike you as a no good, Pa Squawtooth?”
Canby puffed his cigar till the end of it glowed like a little moon
through the smoke screen of a forest fire.
“Manzanita----”
“Yes, pa?”
“Has--now--Hunter Mangan ever ast ye to marry ’im?”
“You embarrass me. But I can’t tell a lie. He has not.”
“He likes ye plenty, Nita.”
“I hope he does. I certainly like him.”
“But ye said ye wasn’t goin’ to.”
“I say many things. I’m older now than when I made that remark. And
even then I was not displeased with him; I was put out at the thought
of a railroad crossing Squawtooth.”
“Don’t care now, do ye, Nita?”
“Not so much, pa. I begin to realize that other people in the world
must live, and that railroads are necessary to their prosperity and
happiness. Everybody can’t be fortunate enough to live at dear old
Squawtooth.”
“Uh-huh. What if Hunt Mangan was to ask ye to marry ’im, Manzanita?--if
ye don’t resent my impertinence.”
“I’d refuse, of course.”
“Refuse! ‘Of course!’ Why ‘of course?’”
“I don’t love him.”
“Who do ye love, daughter?”
“You.”
“Uh-huh--ye’d better! Who else?”
“That podheaded little Mart.”
“Who else?”
Silence answered this for a time. “Perhaps you are impertinent, after
all,” said Manzanita demurely at last.
“I don’t mean to be. I’m yer pa.”
“I don’t know that I love anybody else--the--the way I guess you mean,
pa.”
“Mangan’s a fine fella,” said her father after another intermission.
“He is. But I don’t love him. Even if I did, pa, you’ve made me ’fess
up that he hasn’t asked me to be his wife.”
“Has--now--Falcon the Flunky ast ye?”
“How embarrassing you can be, pa! No! No! No!”
“Ain’t sore, are ye, daughter?”
“Of course not, silly! No railroad man has asked me to marry him. Every
vaquero in the country has asked me half a dozen times, I guess.”
“Uh-huh--I imagined so. Now about this Falcon the Flunky ag’in,
daughter: he’s a kind of a winner, ain’t he? Kinda mysterious, eh? All
that? And good to look upon--smart an’ all. What would ye say if he was
to ast ye to marry ’im?”
“Pa, I positively refuse to answer such a question! Why, I’m surprised
at you!”
“Ye didn’t say as much when I ast ye what ye’d say if Hunt Mangan was
to ast ye.”
“Perhaps you’ve worn out my patience!”
“Perhaps--maybe so. We’ll drop it, then. Le’s go to bed. It’s pretty
near eleven--three hours later’n my bedtime.”