“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.