“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.”