The Phantom Herd

by B. M. Bower

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  JUST A FEW UNFORESEEN OBSTACLES

  It is surprising how much time is consumed by the little things oflife,--unimportant in themselves, yet absolutely necessary to asatisfactory accomplishment of the big things. Luck, looking ahead intothe next day, confidently expected to be making scenes by the time thelight was right,--say nine o'clock in the morning. He had chosen severalshort, unimportant scenes, such as the departure of old Dave Wiswell, hiscattleman of the picture, from the ranch; his return, and the saddling ofhorses and riding away of the boys. Also he meant to make a scene of thearrival of the sheriff after having received word of the presence of BigMedicine, the outlaw, at the ranch. Rosemary, too, as the daughter of oldDave, must run down to the corral to meet her father. Scattered scenesthey were, occurring in widely separated parts of the story. But they hadto be made, and they required no especial "sets" of scenery; and otherwork, such as the building of the stage for interior sets, could go onwith few interruptions. The boys would have to work in their make-up, butsince the make-up was to be nothing more than a sharpening of thefeatures to make them look absolutely natural upon the screen, it wouldnot be uncomfortable. This was what Luck had planned for that day.

  Before breakfast he had selected a site for his stage, on the sunnyside of the hill back of the house, where it would be partiallysheltered from the sweeping winds of New Mexico. All day he would havethe sun behind him while he worked, and he considered the situation anideal one. He had the lumber hauled up there and unloaded, whileRosemary and Applehead were cooking breakfast for ten hungry people. Helaid out his foundation and explained to the boys just how it should bebuilt, and even sacrificed his appetite to his impatience by going aquarter of a mile to where he remembered seeing some old barbed wirestrung along a fence to keep it off the ground so that stock could nottangle in it. He got the wire and brought it back with him to guy outthe uprights for the diffusers. So on the whole he began the day aswell as even he could desire.

  Then little hindrances began to creep in to delay him. For one thing, theHappy Family had only a comedy acquaintance with grease paint, and theirmake-up reminded Luck unpleasantly of Bently Brown's stories. As theyappeared one by one, with their comically crooked eyebrows and theirrouge-widened lips and staring, deep-shadowed eyes, Luck sent them backto take it all off and start over again under his supervision. Theoutcome was that he gave a full hour to making up the faces of hischaracters and telling them how to do it themselves. Even Rosemary madeher brows too heavy and her lips too red, and her cheeks were flushedunevenly. Luck was a busy man that morning, but he was not taking scenesby nine o'clock, for all his haste.

  With a kindly regard for Rosemary's nervousness lest she fail him, he setup his camera and told her to walk down part way to the corral,looking--supposedly--to see if her dad had come home. She must standthere irresolutely, then turn and walk back toward the camera,registering the fact that she was worried. That sounds simple enough,doesn't it?

  What Luck most wanted was to satisfy himself as to whether Rosemary couldpossibly play the part of old Dave's daughter. If she could, he wouldsleep sounder that night; if she could not,--Luck was not at all clear asto what he should do if she failed. He told her just where to walk intothe "scene," which is the range of the camera. He went down part way tothe corral and drew a line with his toe, and told her to stop when shereached that line and to look away up the trail which wound down amongthe rocks and sage. When he called to her she was to turn and walk back,trying to imagine that she was much worried and disappointed.

  "Your dad was to have come last night," Luck suggested. "You tried tokeep him from going in the first place, and now we've got to establishthe fact that he is away behind time getting home. You know, this iswhere his horse falls with him, and he lies out all night, and BigMedicine brings him in next day. You kind of have a hunch that somethingis wrong, and you keep looking for him. Sabe." He fussed with the camera,adjusting it to what seemed to him the right focus. "Want to rehearse itfirst?" he added considerately.

  "No," Rosemary gasped, "I don't. I know how to walk, and how to turnaround and come back. I've been doing those things for twenty-two yearsor so, but Luck Lindsay, if you don't let me do it right away quick, Ijust know I'll stub my toe and fall down, or something!" The worst of itwas, she meant what she said. Rosemary, I am sorry to say, was so scaredthat her teeth chattered.

  "All right, you go on and do it now," Luck permitted, and began to turnthe crank at seventeen in order to hold her action slow, while he watchedher. Groaning inwardly, he continued to turn, while Rosemary went primlydown the winding trail, stood with her toes on the line Luck had markedfor her, gazed stiffly off to the right, and then, when he called to her,turned and came back, staring fixedly over his head. You have seen littlegirls with an agonized self-consciousness walk up an aisle to a platformwhere they must bow to their fathers and mothers and their criticalschoolmates and "speak a piece." Rosemary resembled the most bashfullittle girl that you can recall.

  "All right," said Luck tonelessly, and placed his palm over the lenswhile he gave the crank another turn. "We'll try it again to-morrow.Don't worry. You'll get the hang of it all right."

  His very smile, meant to encourage her, brought swift tears that rolleddown and streaked the powder and rouge on her cheeks. She had made a messof it all; she knew that just as well as Luck knew it. He gave hershoulder a reassuring pat as she went by, and that finished Rosemary. Sheretreated into the gloomy, one-windowed bedroom with its litter ofhalf-unpacked suitcases and an overflowing trunk, and she criedheartbrokenly because she knew she would never in this world be able toforget that terrible, winking eye and the clicking whirr of Luck'scamera. Just to think of facing it gave her a "goose-flesh" chill,--andshe did so want to help Luck!

  With the Happy Family and old Dave, Luck fared better. They, fortunatelyfor him, were already what he called camera-broke. They could forget allabout the camera while they caught and saddled their horses. They couldmount and ride away unconcernedly without even thinking of trying to act.Luck's spirits rose a little while he turned the crank, and just for purerelief at the perfect naturalness of it, he gave that scene an extra tenfeet of footage.

  With Applehead he had some difficulty. Applehead looked the part ofsheriff, all right. He wore his trousers tucked inside his boots becausehe always wore them so, especially when he rode. He wore his bigsix-shooter buckled snugly about his middle instead of dangling far downhis thigh, because he had always worn it that way. He wore his sheriffsbadge pinned on his vest and his coat unbuttoned, so that the wind blewit open now and then and revealed the star. Altogether he looked exactlyas he had looked when he was serving one of his four terms of office. Butwhen he faced the camera, he was inclined to strut, and Luck had nonegative to waste. He resorted to strategy, which consisted of a littlewholesome sarcasm.

  "Listen, Applehead! the public is going to get the idea that you surehate yourself!" he remarked, standing with his hands on his hips whileApplehead came strutting into the foreground. "You'll never make any onebelieve you were ever a real, honest-to-God sheriff. They'll put you downas an extra picked up through a free employment agency and feeling likeyou owned the plant because you're earning a couple of dollars. Go backdown there to your horse and wait till some of that importanceevaporates!"

  Applehead went off swearing to himself, and Luck got a fifteen-footscene of the departure of a very indignant sheriff who is withdifficulty holding his anger subordinate to his official dignity. Beforehe had time to recover his usual good humor, Luck with furtherdisparaging comment called him back. Applehead, smarting under thesarcasm, came ready for war, and Luck turned the crank until the sheriffwas almost within reach of him.

  "Gol darn you, Luck, I'll take that there camery and bust it over yourdanged head!" he spluttered. "I'll show ye! Call me a bum that's wearin'a shurf's star fer the first time in his life, will ye! Why, I'll jestabout wear ye out if--"

  "All right, pard; I was just aiming t
o make you come up looking mad. Youdid fine." Luck stopped to roll a smoke as though nothing had occurredbut tiresome routine.

  Applehead looked down at him uncertainly. He looked at the Happy Family,saw them grinning, and gave a mollified chuckle. "We-ell, you was takin'a danged long chance, now I'm tellin' yuh, boy!" he warned. "I was allset to tangle with yuh; and if I had, I reckon I'd a spiled something'fore I got through."

  It was noon by the sun, and a film of haze was spreading across the sky.Luck shot another scene or two and shouldered his precious camerareluctantly, when Rosemary, red-lidded but elaborately cheerful in hermanner, called them in to dinner.

  "She's goin' to storm, shore's you live," Applehead predicted, sniffinginto the wind like a dog confronted by a strange scent. A little laterhe looked up from his full plate with a worried air. "How's a stormgoin' to hit ye, Luck?" he asked. "Kinda put a stop to the pitcherbusiness, won't it?"

  "Not if it snows, it won't," Luck answered calmly, helping himself to thebrown beans boiled with bacon. "We'll round up a bunch of cattle, andI'll shoot my blizzard stuff. I'll need more negative, though, for that.If I knew for sure it's going to storm--"

  "I'm tellin' yuh it is, ain't I?" Applehead blew into his saucer ofcoffee,--his table manners not being the nicest in the world. "I kinsmell snow two days off, and that there wind comin' up the canyon has gotsnow behind it, now I'm tellin' ye. 'Nother thing, I kin tell by the wayCompadre walks, liftin' his feet high and bushin' up what's left of histail. That there cat's smarter'n some humans, and he shore kin smell snowcomin', same's I do. He hates snow worse'n pizen." Applehead drank hiscoffee in great gulps. "I'll bet he's huntin' a warm corner somewheres,right now."

  "No, he ain't, by cripes!" Big Medicine corrected him. "That thereCome-Paddy cat of yourn has got worse troubles than snow! Dog's got himtreed up the windmill. I seen--"

  Applehead did not wait to hear what Big Medicine had seen. He drank theremainder of his coffee in one great, scalding gulp, and went out torescue his cat and to put the fear of death into the little black dog.When he returned, puffing a little, to his interrupted meal and had toldthem a few of the things he meant to do to that dog if it refused tomend its ways, he declared again that he could "shore smell snow behindthat wind."

  "I wish it would hold off till that raw stock gets here," Luck observedanxiously. "I wired the order in, but at that I'm afraid it won't gethere before the end of the week. I'll have one of you boys pack me somewater into the dark room so I can develop negatives right after dinner. Iwant to see how she's coming out before I take any more."

  "I thought Andy'd fixed a hose fer that dark room," Happy Jack saidforebodingly. If there was water to be carried, Happy was pessimisticallycertain that he would have to carry it.

  "I turned that hose over to the missus for a colander," Andy explainedsoberly. "By gracious, I couldn't figure out anything else it could beused for."

  "Did you get the barrels fixed like I said?"

  "I sure did. Applehead must have had a Dutch picnic or two out here,from the number of beer kegs scattered all over the place. And a coupleof big whisky--"

  "Them there whisky bar'ls I bought and used fer water bar'ls till I gotmy well bored. Luck kin mind the time when we hauled water on a sled outathe arroyo down below." Applehead's eyes turned anxiously to Rosemary,toward whom he was beginning to show a timidly worshipful attitude.

  "You bet I can. Do you remember the time we hitched that big bronk upwith old Wall-eye, to haul water? Got back here a little ways beyond thestable with two barrels sloshing over the top, and the cat--not this one,but a black-and-white cat, that was--the cat jumped out from behind abuck brush. _Hot dog!_ That bronk went straight in the air! Remember thattime?" Luck leaned back in his chair to laugh.

  "I shore do," Applehead chuckled. "Luck, here, he was walkin' behind thesled and drivin',--and he wasn't as big as he is now, even. That was soonafter he come out here to fatten up like. Little bit of a peaked--why, Ibet he didn't weigh over a hundred pounds after a full meal! He wasridin' the lines an' steadyin' the bar'ls, busy as a dog at a badgerhole, when the cat jumped out, an' that there bronk r'ared back and swungoff short and hit fur the mesa; and Luck here a-hangin' and hollerin',an' me a-leggin' it to ketch up, and bar'ls teeterin' and--Mind how youwas bound you'd kill that cat uh mine?" he asked Luck, tears of laughterdimming his eyes. "That was ole Leather Lungs. He tuk sick an' died, yearafter that. Luck shore was mad enough to eat that thar cat, now I'mtellin' yuh!"

  The Happy Family laughed together over the picture Applehead had crudelypainted for them. But Luck, although he had started the story, alreadywas slipping away from the present and was trying to peer into thefuture. He did not even hear what Applehead was saying to keep the boysin a roar of mirth. He was mentally reckoning the number of days since hehad wired his order for a C.O.D. shipment of negative to be rushed toAlbuquerque. Two days in Los Angeles, getting ready for the venture; twodays on the way to Applehead's ranch, one day here,--five daysaltogether. He had told them to rush the order. If they did, there was achance that it might have arrived. He decided suddenly to make the tripand see; but first he would develop the exposed negative of theforenoon's work. He got up with that businesslike air which the HappyFamily had already begun to recognize as a signal for quick action, andtook off his coat.

  "Happy, I wish you and Bud would carry me some water," he said. "I'llshow you where to put it; I'm going to need a lot. Will you help me windthe film on my patent rack, Andy? And I'll want that little team hitchedto the buckboard so I can go to town after I'm through. I've got somehopes of my negative being there."

  "Want the rest of us to work on that stage, don't you, boss?" Wearyasked, pausing in the doorway to roll a smoke. "And please may I wipe offmy eyebrows?"

  "Why, sure!--to both questions," answered Luck, going over to his camera."I can't do much more till I get more negative, even with the lightright, which it isn't. You go ahead and finish the stage this afternoon.And be sure the uprights are guyed for a high wind; she sure can blow, inthis man's country."

  "You're danged right, she can blow!" Applehead testified emphatically."She can blow, and she's goin' to blow. You want to take your overshoesand mittens, boy, when you start out fer town. You know how cold she canget on that mesa. Chances are you'll come back facin' a blizzard. And,say! I wisht you'd take that there dog back with yuh, Luck, 'cause if yuhdon't, him and me's shore goin' to tangle, now I'm tellin' yuh! Mightyfunny note when a cat dassent walk acrost his own dooryard in broaddaylight, no more! Poor ole Compadre was shakin' like a leaf when I clumbup and got him down of'n the windmill. Way the wind was whistlin' upthere, the chances are he's done ketched cold in 'is tail, and if he has,yuh better see to it that thar dog ain't within gunshot uh me, now I'mtellin' yuh!"

  Luck did not hear half the tirade. He had gone into the dark room and wasdissolving hypo for the fixing bath, while the boys tramped in with fullwater buckets and began to fill the barrels he had placed in a row alongthe wall. He was impatient to see how his work of the forenoon would comeout of the developer, and he was quite as impatient to be on his way totown. Whether he admitted it or not, he had a good deal of faith inApplehead's weather forecasts; he remembered how often the old fellow hadpredicted storms in the past when Luck spent a long winter with him herein this same adobe dwelling. If it did snow, he must have plenty ofnegative for his winter scenes; for snow never laid long on the levelhere, and he had a full reel of winter stuff to make.

  He called Andy to come and help him wind his exposed film on the crude,improvised film racks that had lately been beer kegs, and closed the darkroom door upon the last empty bucket that had been carried in full. Inthe dull light of the ruby lamp he carefully wound his long strip ofexposed negative, emulsion side out, around the keg which Andy held forhim. His developer bath was ready, and he immersed the film-jacketed kegslowly, with due regard for bubbles of air.

  "You may not know it, but right here in this dark room is where I lookfor the real test o
f success or failure," he confided to Andy, while herocked the keg gently in the barrel. "I wish I could afford a goodcamera-man; but then, the most of them wouldn't work with this kind of anoutfit; they'd demand all the laboratory conveniences, and that would runinto money. Ever notice that when you can't get anything but the crudestkind of tools to work with, you generally have to use them yourself? Butit will take more than--oh, _hell_!"

  "What's wrong?" Andy Green bent his brown head anxiously down besideLuck's fast graying mop of hair, and peered at the images coming out ofthe yellowish veil that had hidden them. "Ain't they good?"

  Luck reached into the water tank and splashed a little water on his filmto check it while he looked. "Now, what in the name of--" He scowledperplexedly down at the streaked strips. "What do you suppose streaked itlike that?" He lifted worried, gray eyes to Andy's apprehensive frown,and looked again disgustedly at the negative before he dropped it backwith a splash into the developer.

  "No good; she's ruined," he said in the flat tone of a greatdisappointment. "Eighty feet of film gone to granny. Well, that'sluck for you!"

  Andy reached gingerly into the barrel and brought up the keg so thathe could take another look. He had owned a kodak for years and haddone enough amateur developing to know that something had gone verywrong here.

  "What ails the darned thing?" he asked fretfully, turning to Luck, whowas scowling abstractedly into his barrels of "soup."

  "You can search me," Luck replied dully. "Looks like I'd been stung witha bunch of bum chemicals. Either that, or something's wrong with ourtanks here." He reached down and pulled up the keg by its hooped top,glimpsed a stain on his finger and thumb and let the keg slip hastilyover into the pure water so that he could examine the stains.

  "Iron! Iron, sure as thunder!" he exclaimed suddenly. "Those iron hoopsare what did it." He rubbed his hand vexedly. "I knew better than that,too. I don't see why I didn't think about those hoops. Of all theidiotic, fool--"

  "What kinda brain do you think you've got in your head, anyway?" Andybroke in spiritedly. "Way you've been working it lately, engineeringevery blamed detail yourself, you oughtn't to wonder if one little thinggets by you."

  "Well, it's done now," Luck dismissed the accident stoically. "Lucky Istarted in on those costume and make-up tests of all you fellows, andthat scene of your wife's. And if I'd used the other half barrel insteadof this five-gallon keg for a start-off, I'd have spoiled the wholebunch. I'll have to throw out all that developer. Blast the luck! Well,let's get busy." He pulled out the keg and held it up for anotherdisgusted look. "I won't bother fixing that at all. Call Happy and Budback, will you, and have them roll this barrel of developer out and ditchit? And then take those two half barrels you were going to fix, and wrapthem with clothesline,--that cotton line on one of the trunks,--and knockoff all the hoops. I'm going to beat it to 'Querque and see if thatstuff's there. We'll try developing the rest this evening, after I getback. Darn such luck!"

  The five thousand feet of negative had not arrived, but there was aletter from the company saying that they had shipped it. Luck, bone-tiredand cold from his fifteen-mile drive across the unsheltered mesa, turnedaway from the express office, debating whether to wait for the film or goback to the ranch. It would be a pretty cold drive back, in the edge ofthe evening and facing that raw wind; he decided that he would save timeby waiting here in town, since he could not go on with his picturewithout more negative. He turned back impulsively, put his head in at thedoor of the express office, and called to the clerk:

  "When do you get your next express from the East, brother? I'll wait forthat negative if you think it's likely to come by to-morrow noon orthere-abouts."

  "Might come in on the eight o'clock train to-night, or to-morrow morning.You say it was shipped the sixteenth? Ought to be here by morning, sure."

  "I'll take a chance," Luck said half to himself, and closed the door.

  A round-shouldered, shivering youth, who had been leaning apatheticallyagainst the side of the building, moved hesitatingly up to him. "Say,do I get it right that you're in the movies?" he inquired anxiously."Heard you mention looking for negative. Haven't got a job for afellow, have you?"

  Luck wheeled and looked him over, from his frowsy, soft green beaver hatwith the bow at the back, to his tan pumps that a prosperous young manwould have thrown back in the closet six weeks before, as being out ofseason. The young man grinned his understanding of the appraisement, andLuck saw that his teeth were well-kept, and that his nails were clean andtrimmed carefully. He made a quick mental guess and hit very close to thefellow's proper station in life and his present predicament.

  "What end of the business do you know?" he asked, turning his face towardthe warmth of the hotel.

  "Operator. Worked two years at the Bijou in Cleveland. I'm down on myluck now; thought I'd try the California studios, because I wanted tolearn the camera, and I figured on getting a look at the Fair. I stalledaround out there till my money gave out, and then I started back to God'scountry." He shrugged his shoulders cynically. "This is about as far asI'm likely to get, unless I can learn to do without eating and a fewother little luxuries," he summed up the situation grimly.

  "Well, it won't hurt you to skip a lesson and have dinner with me," Lucksuggested in the offhand way that robbed the invitation of the sting ofcharity. "I always did hate to eat alone."

  The upshot of the meeting was that, when Luck gathered up the lines, nextday, and popped the short lash of Applehead's home-made whip over thebacks of the little bay team, and told them to "Get outa town!" in a tonethat had in it a boyish note of exultation, the thin youth hung to theseat of the bouncing buckboard and wondered if Luck really could drive,or if he was half "stewed" and only imagined he could. The thin youth hadmuch to learn besides the science of photography and some of it helearned during that fifteen-mile drive. For one thing, he learned thatreally Luck could drive. Luck proved that by covering the fifteen milesin considerably less than an hour and a half without losing any of hisprecious load of boxed negative and coiled garden hose and assistantcamera-man,--since that was what he intended to make of the thin youth.