“In that case, you’ve prob’ly got a better appetite than you had this mornin’,” remarked “Beans,” hospitably. He started to ladle from the steaming kettle of “smother” on the stove.
“Nothing to eat for me!” broke in Lane, sullenly. “Are Withee and John Barrett back yet?”
“Oh, they’ll stay out till dark all right. Barrett will want to count trees as long as he can see.”
“I’ll wait, then!” Lane started towards the men’s camp, but the cook stopped him.
“If you’re reck’nin’ to lie down for a nap, warden, don’t get into them bunks. Them Quedaws have brought in the usual assortment of ‘travellers’ this season, and I don’t want to see a neat man like you accumulate a menagerie. Now you just go right across there into Withee’s private camp. He’d say so if he was here. I’ll do that much honors when he ain’t here. You won’t wake up scratchin’.”
Without a word Lane turned and strode across to the office camp, went in, and slammed the door shut after him.
“He’s about as sour and crabbed an old cuss to do a favor for as I ever see,” remarked the cook, fiddling a smutty finger under his nose. “But a man never ought to git discouraged in this world about bein’ polite.” He caught sight of the advance-guard of returning choppers up the road, and whirled on the cookee. “You freckle-faced, hump-backed, dead-and-alive son of a clam fritter, here come them empty nail-kags! Get to goin’, now, or I’ll pour a dish of hot water down your back.”
“Is that what you call bein’ polite?” growled the cookee.
The cook kicked at him as he fled into the meal camp with a pan of biscuits.
“They don’t use politeness on cookees any more than they put bay-winders onto pig-pens!” he shouted.