by B. M. Bower
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
A FEW OF THE MINOR DIFFICULTIES
However obliging fate may desire to be, certain of nature's laws mustbe observed. Whether luck was disposed to stay with Luck Lindsay ornot, a storm such as the fates had conjured for his needs could notwell blow itself out as suddenly as it had blown itself in; so Luck didnot get all of his interior double-exposure stuff done the next day,nor his remaining single-exposure stuff either. When his own reason andApplehead's earnest assurances convinced him that the day after thereal blizzard day was going to be unfit for camera work, Luck tookWeary, Pink, and the Native Son to Albuquerque, rented a little househe had discovered to be vacant, and set them to work building a dryingdrum for his prints, according to the specifications he furnished them.He hauled his tanks from the depot and showed the boys how to installthem so as to have the benefit of the running water, and got hisprinter set up and ready to work; for he knew that he would have tomake his first prints himself, with the help of the Happy Family, thephotographer having neither the room nor the time for the work, andLuck having no more than barely money enough to pay house rent and thecharges on his tanks and printer.
Then, being an obliging young man when the fates permitted him to indulgehis natural tendencies, Luck made a hurried trip to a certain little shopthat had dusty mandolins and watches and guns and a cheap kodak in thedingy window. He went in with his watch in his pocket ticking cheerfullythe minutes and hours that were so full of work and worry. When he cameout, the watch was ticking just as cheerfully in a drawer and the chainwas looped prosperously across his vest from buttonhole to empty pocket.He went straight across to a grocery store and bought some salt pork andcoffee and cornmeal and matches which Rosemary had timidly asked him ifhe could get. She explained apologetically that she was beginning to runout of things, and that she had no idea they were going to have suchawful appetites, and that of course there were two extra people to feed,and that they certainly could dispose of their share three times aday,--meaning, of course, Annie-Many-Ponies and Bill Holmes.
Even while his brain was doing swift mental gymnastics in addition andsubtraction, Luck had told her he would get whatever she wanted. Hiswatch brought enough to buy everything she asked for except a can ofsyrup; and that, he told her, the groceryman must have overlooked, for hecertainly had ordered it. He called the groceryman names enough toconvince Rosemary that her list had not been too long for his purse, andthat Luck's occasional statement that he was broke must be takenfiguratively; Luck breathed a sigh of relief that Rosemary, at least, wasonce more spared the knowledge that all was not yet plain sailing to asmooth harbor.
The next day being sunny, Luck finished the actual camera work on _ThePhantom Herd_. That night he and Bill Holmes developed every foot ofnegative he had exposed since the storm began, and they finished just asRosemary rapped on the darkroom door and called that breakfast wasready. Bill took it for granted that he could sleep, then, while thenegative was drying; but Luck was merciless; that Cattlemen's Conventionwas only two days off,--counting that day which was already begun,--andthere was also a twelve-hour train trip, more or less, between hispicture and El Paso.
Bill Holmes had learned to join film in movie theaters, and Luck set himto work at it as soon as he had finished his breakfast. When Billgrumbled that there wasn't any film cement, Luck very calmly went to histrunk and brought some, thereby winning from Rosemary the admiringstatement that she didn't believe Luck Lindsay ever forgot a single,solitary thing in his life! So Bill Holmes assembled the film, scene byscene, without even the comfort of cigarettes to keep awake. At his elbowLuck also joined film until the negative in the garret was dry enough tohandle, when he began cutting it according to the continuity sheet, readyfor Bill to assemble.
Luck's mood was changeable that day. He would glow with the pride ofachievement when he held a yard or so of certain scenes to the light andknew that he had done something which no other producer had ever done,and that he had created a film story that would stand up like a lone peakabove the level of all other Western pictures. When those night sceneswere tinted--and that scene which had for its sub-title _OpeningExercises_, and which showed the Happy Family mounting Applehead'ssnakiest bronks and riding away from camp into what would be an orangesunrise after the positive had been through its dye bath--
And then discouragement would seize him, and he would wonder how he wasgoing to get hold of money enough to take him to El Paso and theConvention. And how, in the name of destitution, was he going to pay forthat stock of "positive" when it came? Applehead was dead willing to helphim,--that went without saying; but Applehead was broke. That last loadof horse-feed had cleaned his pockets, as he had cheerfully informed Luckover three weeks before. Applehead was not, and never would be by his ownefforts, more than comfortably secure from having to get out and work forwages. He had cattle, but he let them run the range in season and out,and it was only in good years that he had fair beef to ship. He hated agang of men hanging around the ranch and eating their fool heads off, hefrequently declared. So he and Compadre had lived in unprosperous peace,with a little garden and a little grape arbor and a horse for Appleheadin the corral, and teams in the pasture where they could feed and waterthemselves, and a month's supply of "grub" always in the house. Appleheadcalled that comfort, and could not see the advantage of burdening himselfwith men and responsibilities that he might pile up money in the bank.You can easily see where the coming of Luck and his outfit might strainthe financial resources of Applehead, even though Luck tried to bear allextra expense for him. No, thought Luck, Applehead would have to mortgagesomething if he were to attempt raising money then. And Luck would havetaken a pack-outfit and made the trip to El Paso on horseback before hewould see Applehead go in debt for him. As it was, he was seriouslyconsidering that pack-horse proposition as a last resort, and trying toinvent some way of shaving his work down so that he would have time forthe trip. But certain grim facts could not be twisted to meet his needs.He simply had to print his positive for projection on the screen. Andthat positive simply had to go through certain processes that took acertain amount of time; and it simply had to be dry and polished beforehe could wind it on his reels. Reels? Lord-ee! He didn't have any reelstowind it on!
"What's the matter? Spoil something?" Bill Holmes asked indifferently,pausing to look at Luck before he took up the next strip of celluloidribbon with its perforated edges and its little squares of shadowlikepictures that to the unpractised eye looked all alike.
"No. What reel is that you're on now? We want to be in town before darkwith this stuff, so as to start the printer going to-night." Byprinting, that night, and by hard riding, he might be able to make it,he was thinking.
"Think we'll be through in time?"
"Certainly, we'll be through in time." Luck held up another strip to seewhere to cut it. "We've got to be through!"
"I'm liable to be joining this junk by the sides instead of the ends,before long," Bill hinted.
"No, you won't do anything like that." Luck's voice had a disturbing noteof absolute finality.
Bill looked at him sidelong. "A fellow can't work forever without sleep.My head's splitting right now. I can hardly see--"
"Yes, you can see well enough to do your work--and do it right!Get that?"
Bill grunted. Evidently he got it, for he said no more about his head, orabout sleep. He did glance frequently out of the tail of his eye atLuck's absorbed face with his jaw set at a determined angle and his greatmop of iron-gray hair looking like a heavy field of grain after athunderstorm, standing out as it did in every direction. Now and thenLuck pushed it back impatiently with the flat of his palm, but he showedno other sign of being conscious of anything at all save the picture;though he could have told you offhand just how many times Bill turnedhis eyes upon him.
At noon they were not through, and to Bill the attempt to finish that dayseemed hopeless, not to say insane. But by four o'clock they were donewith the cutting and joining, and had their
film carefully packed and inthe mountain wagon, and were ready to drive through the slushy mud whichwas the aftermath of the blizzard to the little house in Albuquerquewhich the boys had turned into a crude but efficient laboratory.
There Luck continued to be merciless in his driving energy. He canvassedthe moving-picture theaters of the town and borrowed reels on which towind his film when it was once ready for winding. He went back to thelittle house and set every one within it to work and kept them at it. Heprinted his positive, dissolved his aniline dye, which was to befirelight effect, in the bathtub,--and I should like to know what thelandlord thought when next he viewed that tub! He made an orange bath forsunrise effects in one of the stationary tubs, and his light blue fornight tints in the other. He buzzed around in that little house like adisturbed blue-bottle fly that cannot find an open window. He had hissleeves rolled to his shoulders and his hair more tousled than ever; hehad blue circles under his eyes and dabs of dye distributed here andthere on his face and his arms; he had in his eyes the glitter of a manwho means to be obeyed instantly and implicitly, whatever his command maybe,--and if you want to know, he was obeyed in just that manner.
Happy Jack and Big Medicine took turns at the crank of the big dryingdrum, around which Andy and Weary had carefully wound the wet film. Beinga crude, home-made affair, the crank that kept that drum turning over andover did not work with the ease of ball-bearings. But Happy Jack, rollinghis eyes up at Luck when he hurried past to attend to somethingsomewhere, did not venture his opinion of the task. Nor did Big Medicinebellow any facetious remarks whatever, but turned and sweated, and usedthe other hand awhile, and turned and turned, and goggled at Luckwhenever Luck came within his range of vision, and changed off to theother hand and turned and turned, and still said nothing at all.
Bill Holmes went to sleep about midnight and came near ruining a batch offirelight scenes in the analine bath, and after that Luck did all thetechnical part of the work himself. The Happy Family did what they couldand wished they were not so ignorant and could do more. They could not,for instance, help Luck in the final assembling of the polished film andthe putting in of the sub-titles and inserts. But they could polish thatfilm, after he showed them how; so Pink and Weary did that. And atdaylight Luck shook Bill Holmes awake and set him to work again.
Just to show that Luck was human, even though he was obsessed by a frenzyof work, he sent the boys outside, whenever one of them could be spared,for the smoke they craved and could not have among that five thousandfeet of precious but highly inflammable film. But he did not treathimself to the luxury of a cigarette.
Luck had not yet solved the problem of meeting the expense of the tripto El Paso. Riding down with a pack-horse would take him too long; thebest he could do would not be quick enough; for the Convention would beover before he got there, and his trip therefore useless. He workedjust as fast, however, as though he had only to buy his ticket and takethe train.
And then, when the last drumful was drying, he got his idea, and tookAndy by the shoulder and led him out into the little front hall. "Boy,"he said, "you hook up the team and drive like hell out to the ranch andget the camera and all the lenses. And right under the lid of my trunkyou'll find a letter file marked Receipts. In the C pocket you'll findthe sales slips of camera and so on; you bring them along. And bring mybag and any clean socks and handkerchiefs you can find, and my gray suitand some collars and ties. Oh, and my shoes. Make it back here by twoo'clock if you can; before three at the latest."
"You bet yuh," assented Andy just as cheerfully as though he saw somesense in the order. Luck's clothes were a reasonable request, but Andycould not, for the life of him, figure any use for the camera and lenses;and as for the receipts, that sounded to him like plain delirium. Andy'sbrain, at that time, seemed to be revolving slowly round and round likethe big drying drum, and his thoughts were tangled in exasperatingvisions of long, narrow strips of wet film.
However, at two-thirty he drove smartly up to the little house with thecamera and Luck's brown leather bag packed with the small necessities ofhighly civilized journeying, and a large flat package wrapped in oldnewspapers. He had not set the brake that signalled the sweating horsesto stop, before Luck was in the doorway with his hat on his head and theair of one whose business is both urgent and of large issues.
"Got the receipts? All right! Where are the things? This the lenses? Allright! Put the team in the stable and go get yourself some rest."
"Where's your rest coming in at?" Andy flung back over his shoulder, asLuck turned away with the camera on his shoulder and the small case inhis hands.
"Mine will come when I get through. I've got the last reel wound andpacked, though. You bed down somewhere and sleep. I'll be back in alittle. I'm going to catch that four o'clock train."
When you consider that Luck made that statement with about fifteen centsin his pocket and no ticket, you will understand why Andy gave him thatqueer look as he drove off to the stable. Luck might have climbed upbeside Andy and ridden part of the way, but he was too preoccupied withlarger matters to think of it until he found himself picking his footingaround the mud through which Andy had splashed in comfort.
At the bank, Luck went in at the side door which gave easy access to theoffice behind; and without any ceremony whatever he tapped on a certainglass-paneled door with a name printed across. He waited a second, andthen turned the knob and walked briskly in, carrying camera, tripod, andthe case of small attachments, and smiling his smile of white teeth andperfect assurance and much good will.
Now, the cashier whom he faced was a tall man worn thin with the worriesof his position and the care of a family. He lived in a large whitehouse, and his wife never seemed able to find a cook who could cook; sothe cashier was troubled with indigestion that made his manner one ofpassive irritation with life. His children were for some reason forever"coming down" with colds or whooping-cough or measles or something (youhave seen children like that), so his eyes were always tired with wakefulnights. It needed a Luck Lindsay smile to bring any answering light intothe harassed face of that cashier, but it got there after the firstsurprised glance.
Luck stood his camera--screwed to its tripod--against the wall by thedoor. "I'm Luck Lindsay, Mr. White," he announced in his easy, Texasdrawl. "I'm in a hurry, so I'll omit my full autobiography, if you don'tmind, and let you draw your own conclusions about my reputation andcharacter. I've a five-reel feature film called _The Phantom Herd_ justcompleted, and I want to take it down to El Paso and show it before theTexas Cattlemen's Convention which meets there to-day. I want theirendorsement of it as a Western film which really portrays the West, toincorporate in my advertisements in all the trade journals. But theproduction of the film took my last cent, and I've got to raise money onmy camera for the trip down there. You see what I mean. I'm broke, andI've got to catch that four o'clock train or the whole thing stops righthere. This camera cost me close to fifteen hundred dollars. Here are thereceipted sales slips to prove it. In Los Angeles I could easily get--"He caught the beginning of a denial in Mr. White's sidewise movement ofthe head--"ten times as much money on it as you can give me. You probablydon't know anything at all about motion-picture cameras, but you can readthese slips and find out how prices run."
Mr. White had in a measure recovered from the effects of Luck's smile. Hepicked up the slips and glanced at them indifferently. "There's apawn-shop just down the street, I believe," he said. "Why--"
"I want to leave this camera here with you, anyway," Luck interrupted."It's valuable--too valuable to take any risk of fire or burglary. Iwant to leave it in your vault. You've handled a good deal of my money,and you know who I am, and what my standing is, or else you aren't theright man for the position you occupy. It's your business to know thesethings. Now, I'm not asking you for any big loan. All I want is expensemoney for that trip. If you'll advance me seventy-five or a hundreddollars on my note, with this camera as security, I'll thank you andromp down to El Paso and get that endorsement
before the conventionadjourns till next year."
Mr. White looked at the camera strangely, as though he half expected itto explode. "I should have to take it up with the directors--"
"Directors! Hell, man, that train's due in an hour! What _are_ youaround here--a man in authority, or just a dummy made up to look likeone? Do you mean to tell me you're afraid to stake me to enough money tomake El Paso and return? What, for the Lord's sake, do I look like,anyway,--a crook?"
Mr. White's head was more than six feet in the air when he stood up, andLuck Lindsay in his high-heeled boots lacked a good six inches of thataltitude; but for all that, Luck Lindsay was a bigger man than Mr.White. He dominated the cashier; he made the cashier conscious of hisdyspepsia and his thin hair and his flabby muscles and his lack ofenthusiasm with life.
"The directors have to pass on all bank loans," he explainedapologetically, "but I can lend you the money out of my personal account.If you will excuse me, I'll get the money before my assistant closes thevault. And shall I put these inside for you?" He rose and started for theinner door with a deprecating smile.
"Aren't you going to take a note?" Luck studied the man withsharpened glance.
"My check will be a sufficient record of the transaction, I think." AndMr. White, with two or three words scribbled at the bottom, proceeded tomake the check a record. "I am glad to be able to stake you, Mr. Lindsay,and I hope your trip will be successful."
He got another Luck Lindsay smile for that, and the apology he had comingto him. And then in a very few minutes Luck hurried out and back to thelittle house on the edge of town.
"Where's my bag? So long, boys; I'm going to drift. I'll change clotheson the train--haven't got time now. Here's five dollars, Andy, for thestable bill and so on. Bill, you're the only one of the bunch thatshirked, so you can carry this box of reels to the depot for me. _Adios_,boys, I'm sure going to romp all over that Convention, believe me, ifthey don't swear _The Phantom Herd's_ a winner from the first scene!"