The Phantom Herd

by B. M. Bower

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  WHEREIN LUCK MAKES A SPEECH

  Luck stood on the platform of the Texas Cattlemen's Convention and lookeddown upon the work-lined, brown faces of the men whose lives had for themost part been spent out of doors. Their sober attentiveness confused himfor a minute so that he forgot what he wanted to say--he, Luck Lindsay,who had faced the great audiences of Madison Square Garden and had smiledhis endearing smile and made his bow with perfect poise and an eye forpretty faces; who had without a quiver faced the camera, many's the time,in difficult scenes; who had faced death more times than he could count,and what was to him worse than death,--blank failure. But these oldrange-men with the wind-and-sun wrinkles around their eyes, and theirready-to-wear suits, and their judicial air of sober attention,--thesewere to him the jury that would weigh his work and say whether it wasworthy. These men--

  And then one of them suddenly cleared his throat with a rasping soundlike old Dave Wiswell, his dried little cowman of the picture, andembarrassment dropped from Luck like a cloak flung aside. He was here toput his work to the test; to let these men say whether _The Phantom Herd_was worthy to be called a great picture, one of which the West could beproud. So he pushed back his mop of hair--grayer than the hair of manyhere old enough to be his father--with the fiat of his palm, and lookedstraight into the faces of these men and said what he had to say:

  "Mr. Chairman, and gentlemen of this Convention, I consider it a greatprivilege to be able to stand here and speak to you--a greater privilegethan any of you realize, perhaps. For my heart has always been in therange-land, my people have been the people of the plains. I have to-daybeen honored by the hand-grip of old-timers who were riding circle,trailing long-horns, and working cattle when I was a boy in short pants.

  "I have trailed herds on the pay roll of one man who remembers me hereto-day, and of others who have crossed the Big Divide. I have seen theopen range shrink before the coming of barbed wire and settlers. I havewatched the 'long shadow' fall across God's own cattle country.

  "Since I entered the motion-picture business, my one great aim and my onegreat dream has been to produce one real Western picture. One picturethat I could present with pride to such a convention as this, and havemen who have spent their lives in the cattle industry give it the stampof their approval; one picture that would make such men forget thepresent and relive the old days when they were punchers all and proud ofit. Such an opportunity came to me last fall and I made the most of it. Igot me a bunch of real boys, and went to work on the picture I havecalled _The Phantom Herd._ From the trail-herds going north I have triedto weave into my story a glimpse of the whole history of the rangecritter, from the shivering, new-born calf that hit the range along witha spring blizzard, to the big, four-year-old steer prodded up the chutesinto the shipping cars.

  "I want you, who know the false from the real, to see _The Phantom Herd_and say whether I have done my work well. I finished the pictureyesterday, and I have brought it down here for the purpose of asking youto honor me by accepting an invitation to a private showing of thepicture this evening, here in this hall. I want you to come and bringyour wives and your children with you if you can. I want you to see _ThePhantom Herd_ before it goes to the public--and to-morrow I shall faceyou again and accept your verdict. You know the West. You will know aWestern picture when you see it. I know you know, and I want you to tellme what you think of it. Your word will be final, as far as I amconcerned. Gentlemen, I hope you will all be present here to-night ateight o'clock as my guests. I thank you for your attention."

  Luck went away from there feeling, and telling himself emphatically, thathe had made a "rotten" talk. He had not said what he had meant to say, orat least he had not said it the way he had meant to say it. But he wastoo busy to dwell much upon his deficiencies as an orator; he had yet toborrow a projection machine and operator from somewhere--for, as usual,he had issued his invitation before he had definitely arranged for theexhibition, and had trusted to luck and his own efforts to be able tokeep his promise.

  Luck (or his own efforts) landed him within easy conversational reach ofa man who was preparing to open a little theater on a side street. Theseats were not in yet, but he had his machine, and he meant to operate ithimself, while his wife sold tickets and his boy acted as usher,--afamily combination which to Luck seemed likely to be a success. This man,when Luck made known his needs, said he was perfectly willing to "limberup" his machine and himself on _The Phantom Herd_, if Luck would let hiswife and boy see the picture, and would pay the slight operatingexpenses. So that was settled very easily.

  At five minutes to eight that evening all of the cattlemen and a fewfavored, influential citizens of El Paso whom Luck had invited personallysat waiting before the blank screen. Up in the operator's crampedquarters Luck was having a nervous chill and trying his best not to showit, and he was telling the operator to give it time enough, for theLord's sake, and to be sure he had everything ready before he started in,and so forth, until the operator was almost as nervous as Luck himself.

  "Now, look here," he cried exasperatedly at last. "You know yourbusiness, and I know mine. You're going to have me named in yourwrite-ups as the movie-man that run this show for the convention, ain'tyou? And I'm going to open up a picture house next week in this town,ain't I? And I ain't going to advertise myself as a bum operator, am I?Now you _vamos_ outa here and get down there in the audience, if youdon't want me to get the fidgets and spoil something. Go on--beat it!"

  Luck must have been in a strange condition, for he beat it promptly andwithout any retort, and slid furtively into a chair between two oldrange-men just as the operator's boy-usher switched off the lights.Luck's heart began to pound so that he half expected his neighbors totell him to close his muffler,--only they were of the saddle-horsefraternity and would not have known what the phrase meant.

  _The Phantom Herd_ flashed suddenly upon the screen and joggled theredizzily, away over to one side. Luck clapped his hand to his perspiringforehead and murmured "Oh, my Gawd!" like a prayer, and shut his eyes tohide from them the desecration. He opened them to find that the caste wasjust flicking off and the first scene dissolving in.

  The man at his left gave a long sigh and crossed his knees, and leanedback and began to chew tobacco rapidly between his worn old molars.

  _"Oh, a ten dollar hoss and a forty dollar saddle,I'm goin' to punchin' Texas cattle."_

  The sub-title dissolved slowly into a scene showing a cow-puncher (whowas Weary) swinging on to his rangy cow-Horse and galloping away afterthe chuck-wagon just disappearing in the wake of the dust-flinging_remuda_. Back somewhere in the dusk of the audience, a man began to humthe tune that went with the words, and the heart of Luck Lindsay gave anexultant bound. He had used lines from "The Old Chisholm Trail" and otherold-time range songs for his sub-titles, to keep the range atmospherecomplete, and that cracked voice humming unconsciously told how itappealed to these men of the range.

  Luck did not slide down in his seat so that his head rested on thechair-back while _The Phantom Herd_ was being shown. Instead, he satleaning forward, with his face white and strained, and watched for weakpoints and for bad photography and scenes that could have been bettered.

  He saw the big trail-herd go winding away across the level, with Wearyriding "point" and Happy Jack bringing up the "drag," and the othersscattered along between; riding slouched in their saddles, hatbrimspulled low over eyes smarting with the dust that showed in a thin film atthe head of the herd and grew thicker toward the drag, until riders andanimals were seen dimly through a haze.

  "My--I can just feel that dust in m' throat!" muttered the man at hisright, and coughed.

  Luck saw the storm come muttering up just as the cattle were bedding downfor the night. He saw the lightning, and he knew that those who watchedwith him were straining forward. He heard some one say involuntarily:"They'll break and run, sure as hell!" and he knew that he had done thatpart of his work well.

  He saw the
night scenes he had taken in town. He almost forgot that allthis was his work, so smoothly did the story steal across his senses andbeguile him into half believing it was true and not a fabric which he hadbuilt with careful planning and much toil. He saw the round-up scenes;the day-herd, the cutting-out and the branding, the beef-herd driven tothe shipping cars. True, those steers were not exactly prime beef,--hehad caught the culls only, late in the season for these scenes--but theypassed, with one audible comment that this was a poor season for beef!

  "We rounded 'em up and we put 'em in the cars--"

  The sub-title sang itself familiarly into the minds of the range men.More than one voice was heard to begin a surreptitious humming of theold tune, and to cease abruptly with the sudden self-consciousness ofthe singer.

  But there was the story, growing insensibly out of the range work. Luck,more at ease now in his mind, studied it critically. There was thequarrel between old Dave and Andy, his son. He saw the old man out withhis men, standing his shift of night-guard, stubbornly resisting thecreeping years and his load of trouble; riding around the sleeping herdwith his head sunk on his chest, meeting the younger guard twice on eachcomplete circle, and yet never seeming to see him at all.

  "Sing low to your cattle, sing low to your steers--"

  The words and the scene opened wide the door of memory and let wholetroops of ghosts come drifting in out of the past. The hall, Luck rousedhimself to notice, was very, very still; so still that the sizzling soundof the machine at the rear was distinct and oppressive.

  There was the blizzard, terrible in its biting realism. There was the oldcow and calf, separated from the herd, fighting in the primal instinct topreserve themselves alive,--fighting and losing. There was that other,more terrible fight for existence, the fight of the Native Son againstthe snow and the cold. Men drew their breath sharply when he fell and didnot rise again. They shivered when the snow began to drift against hisquiet body, to lodge and shift and settle, and grow higher and higheruntil the bank was even with his shoulders, to drift over him and make ofhim a white mound--And then, when Andy staggered up through the swirl,leading his horse and shouting; when he stumbled against Miguel and triedto raise him and rouse him, a sound like a groan went through the crowd.

  "Close a call as I ever had was in a blizzard like that," the old man atLuck's left whispered agitatedly to Luck behind his palm, when the lightssnapped on while the operator was changing for the last reel.

  There was Andy, haunted and haggard, at home again with his father. Therewere those dissolve scenes of the "phantom herd" drifting always acrossthe skyline whenever Andy looked out into the night or rose startledfrom uneasy sleep. Weird, it was,--weird and real and very terrible. And,at last, there was that wonderful camp-fire scene of the Indian girl whoprayed to her gods before she went to meet her lover who was dead andcould not keep the tryst. There were heart-breaking scenes where theIndian girl wandered in wild places, looking, hoping, despairing--Luckhad planned every little detail of those scenes, and yet they thrilledhim as though he had come to them unawares.

  He did not wait after the last scene faded out slowly. He slipped quietlyinto the aisle and went away, while the hands of the old-timers werestinging with applause. Halfway down the block he heard it still, and hissteps quickened unconsciously. They were calling his name, back there inthe hall. They were all talking at once and clapping their hands and, asan interlude, shouting the name of Luck Lindsay. But Luck did not heed.He wanted to get away by himself. He did not feel as though he could sayanything at all to any one, just then. He had seen his Big Picture, andhe had seen that it was as big and as perfect, almost, as he had dreamedit. To Luck, at that moment, words would have cheapened it,--even thewords of the old cattlemen.

  He went to his hotel and straight up to his room, regardless of the factthat it would have been to his advantage to mingle with his guests and tolisten to their praise. He went to bed and lay there in the dark,reliving the scenes of his story. Then, after awhile, he drifted off intosleep, his first dreamless, untroubled slumber in many a night.

  By the time the Convention was assembled the next day, however, he hadrecovered his old spirit of driving energy. The chairman had invited himby telephone to attend the afternoon meeting, and Luck went--to begreeted by a rousing applause when he walked down the aisle to theplatform where the chairman was waiting for him.

  Resolutions had already been passed, the Convention as a body thankingLuck Lindsay for the privilege of seeing what was in their judgment thegreatest Western picture that had ever been produced. The chairman made alittle speech about the pleasure and the privilege, and presented Luckwith a letter of endorsement and signed with due formality by chairmanand secretary and sealed with the official seal. Attached to the letterwas a copy of the vote of thanks, and you may imagine how Luck smiledwhen he saw that!

  He stayed a little while, and during the recess which presently wascalled he shook hands with many an old-timer whose name stood for a gooddeal in the great State of Texas. Then he left them, still smiling overwhat he called his good luck, and wired a copy of the letter ofendorsement to all the trade journals, to be incorporated in hisfull-page advertising. By another stroke of luck he caught most of thetrade journals before their forms closed for the next issue, so that _ThePhantom Herd_ was speedily heralded throughout the profession as thefirst really authentic Western drama ever produced. By still anotherstroke of what he called luck, an Associated Press man found him out, andwas pleased to ask him many questions and to make a few notes; and Luck,wise to the value of publicity, answered the questions and saw to it thatthe notes recorded interesting facts.

  That evening Luck, feeling that he had reached the last mile-post on theroad to success, hunted up a few old-timers who appealed to him most astrue types of the range, and gave them a dinner in a certain place whichhe knew was run by an old round-up cook. There was nothing about thatdinner which would have appealed to a cabaret crowd. They talked of theold days when Luck was a lad, those old-timers; they talked oftrail-herds and of droughts and of floods and blizzards and range warsand the market prices of beef "on the hoof." They called in the oldround-up cook and cursed him companionably as one of themselves, andremembered that more than one of them had run when he pounded the bottomof a frying pan and hollered "Come and get it!" They ate and they smokedand they talked and talked and talked, until Luck had to indulge himselfin a taxi if he would not miss the eleven o'clock train north. His onlyregret, in spite of the fact that he was practically and familiarly brokeagain, was that circumstances did not permit the Happy Family to sit withhim at that table. Especially did he regret not having old Applehead andthe dried little man with him that night to make his gathering complete.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  "SHE'S SHAPING UP LIKE A BANK ROLL"

  "Well," said Luck to the Happy Family, "we've come this far along thetrail, and now I'm stuck again. Bank won't loan any more on the camera,and I've got a dollar and six bits to market _The Phantom Herd_ with!Everything's fine so far; she's advertised,--or will be when themagazines come out,--and she's got some good press notices to back herup; but she ain't outa the woods yet. I've got to raise some moneysomehow. I hate to ask poor old Applehead--"

  "Pore old Applehead, my granny!" bawled Big Medicine, laughing his big_haw-haw._ "Pore ole Applehead's sure steppin' high these days. He'dmortgage his ranch and feel like a millionaire, by cripes! His oleCome-Paddy cat jest natcherally walloped the tar outa Shunky Cheestely,and Applehead seen him doin' it. Come-Paddy, he's hangin' out in thehouse now, by cripes, 'cept when he takes a sashay down to the stablelookin' fer more. And Shunky, he's bedded down under the Ketch-all, whenhe ain't hittin' fer the tall timber with his tail clamped down betweenhis legs. Honest to grandma, Luck, you couldn't hit Applehead at a bettertime. He'll borry money er do anything yuh care to ask, except shut upthat there cat uh hisn."

  "Well, luck may come my way; I'll just sit tight a few days and see,"said Luck. "When that positive film comes, I'll
have to rustle moneysomewhere to get it outa the express office, so we can make moreprints. And--"

  "And grind our daylights out again on that there drum that never does gitwound up?" groaned Big Medicine, and felt his biceps tenderly.

  "We won't rush the next job quite so hard," Luck soothed, perfectlyamiable and easy to live with, now that the worst was over. "We made adarn good set of prints, just the same; boys, you oughta seen thatpicture! I've a good mind to get some house here in town to run it; say,I might raise some money that way, if I can't do it any other." And thenhis enthusiasm cooled. "Town isn't big enough for a long-enough run," heconsidered disgustedly. "I'm past the two-bit stage of the game now."

  "Well, you ask Applehead to raise the money," advised Weary. "Or one ofus will write to Chip for some. Mamma! The world's full of money! Seemslike it ought to be easy to get hold of some."

  "It is--but it ain't," Luck stated somewhat ambiguously, and turned thetalk to his meeting with the old-timers, and prepared to "sit tight" andwait for his god Good Luck to smile upon him.

  The smile arrived at noon the next day, in the form of a wire fromPhiladelphia. Luck read it and gave a whoop of joy quite at variance withhis usual surface calm.

  Can Offer You Fifteen Hundred Dollars for Pennsylvania Rights ThePhantom Herd Usual Ten Cents Per Foot Positive Prints if Accepted Wire atOnce and Ship to This Point

  RJ Crittenden

  "I hollered too soon," groaned Luck, when he had read it the second time,pushing back his hair distractedly. "How the devil am I going to send himany positive prints at ten cents a foot or ten cents an inch or any otherprice? Till I get that shipment of positive, I can't fill any orders atall! And until I begin to fill orders, I can't realize on the film. Canyou beat that? I'll have to wire him to wait, and that's two thousanddollars tied up!"

  "Aw, gwan!" Happy Jack croaked argumentatively. "Why don't you send himwhat you took to the Convention?"

  Luck stared at Happy stupefied before he said a word. "Say, Miguel, yousaddle your ridge-runner while I get ready to take this wire hack totown and send it off," he snapped, preparing to write. "Sure, I'll sendthat set of prints! Happy, you can go to the head of the class. Nowit's only a case of sit tight till the money comes. The prints arepacked and in the bank vault, so I'll just get them out and send themC.O.D. to Mr. Crittenden, along with the states rights contract. How'sthat for luck, boys?"

  "Pretty good--for Luck," grinned Andy meaningly. "Fly at it, you comingmillionaire!"

  "Just a case of sit tight, boys. _Adios!"_ cried Luck jubilantly as hehurried away.

  Once start along a smooth trail, and everything seems to conspire towarda pleasant trip. To prove it, Luck found another telegram waiting for himin Albuquerque. This was from Martinson, and might be interpreted as anapology more or less abject. Certainly it was an urgent request that hereturn immediately to Los Angeles and to his old place at the Acme, andproduce Western pictures under no supervision whatever.

  Luck gave a little chuckle when he pocketed that message, but he did notsend any answer. He meant to wait and talk it over with the boys first."Better proposition than before," Martinson said. Well, perhaps it wouldbe best to look into it; Luck was too experienced to believe that onesuccess means permanent success; there are too many risks for the freelance to run when a single failure means financial annihilation. If theAcme would come to his terms, it might be to his advantage to take hisboys back and accept this peace-offering. At any rate, he appreciated tothe full the triumph they had scored.

  Next, by some twist of the red tape in the Philadelphia expressoffice,--or perhaps R.J. Crittenden was a good fellow and asked them todo it,--the two thousand dollars came by wire, just three days after Luckhad received notice that his shipment of positive film was being held forhim at the express office in Albuquerque. Also came other offers, mostlyby wire, for states rights to _The Phantom Herd._ And when the HappyFamily realized what those offers meant, they didn't care how hard or howlong Luck worked them in the little house which he had turned into alaboratory.

  Being human, intensely so in some ways, the first set of prints theyturned out Luck sent to Los Angeles with a mental godspeed and a hopethat Bently Brown and Martinson would see it and "get wise to what a_real_ Western picture looked like." There were other orders ahead of LosAngeles in Luck's book, but they waited a little longer so that he mightthe sooner taste a little of the sweets of revenge.

  Whether Bently Brown and Martinson saw _The Phantom Herd,_ Luck was along, long time finding out. But he learned that some one else did seeit, and that right speedily. For among his many telegrams that cameclicking into Albuquerque was this one which makes a fitting end tothis story:

  Luck LindsayAlbuquerqueNew Mexico

  Congratulations on _The Phantom Herd_ Wonderful Production NewProposition You to Produce Western Features with Your Present Company onStraight Salary and Bonus Basis Miss Jean Douglas to Play Your Leads if ICan Sign Her up Can You Come Here at Once to Close Deal Answer

  Dewitt

  "All right, boys, you can run and play." Luck handed them the telegram,looked at his watch, and began to roll down his sleeves. "I'll catch thenext train for 'Los' and see Dewitt,--don't take any studying to knowthat's the thing to do,--and if you'll pack all this negative, Bill, I'lltake that along and hire the rest of the prints made. Andy, you're ridingherd on this bunch while I'm gone. Just hold yourselves ready for orders,because I don't know how things will shape up. But believe me, boys,she's shaping up like a bank-roll!"