The Phantom Herd Read online

  "Well, the market demands that sort of thing," he declared, arguing against that curved palm and the telltale wrinkles around Luck's eyes. "It's all tommyrot, of course. I don't say it's good; I say it's the stuff that goes. We're here to make what the public will pay to look at." Martinson, besides keeping his finger on the public pulse and attending to the marketing of the Acme wares and watching that expenses did not run too high, found a little time in which to be human. "I know, Luck," the human side of him observed sympathetically; "it's just made-to-order melodrama, but business is simply rotten, old man. We've just got to release films the market calls for. There's no art-for-art's-sake in the movie business, and you know it. Now, personally, I like that scenario of yours-"

  "Forget it!" said Luck crisply, warning him off the subject. To make the warning keener-edged, he lifted the typed sheets over which he had worked so late the night before, glanced at the top one, gave a snort, and tore them twice down the length of them with vicious twists of his fingers. He did not mean to be spectacular; he simply felt that way at that particular moment, and he indulged the impulse to destroy something. He dropped the fragments into Martinson's waste basket, picked up the bundle of scripts and his hat, and went out with his mouth pulled down at the corners and with his neck pretty stiff.

  He went swinging across the studio yard and on past the great stage where the carpenters halted their work while they greeted him, and looked after him and spoke of him when he had passed. Early idlers-extras with high hopes and empty pockets-sent him wistful glances which he did not see at all; though he did see Andy Green and his wife (who had been Rosemary Allen). These two stood hesitating just within the half-open, high board gate fifty yards away. Luck waved his hand and swerved toward them.

  "Howdy! Where's the rest of the bunch?" he called out as they hurried up to him. Whereupon the group of extras were sharp bitten by the envy of these two strangers, spoken to so familiarly by Luck Lindsay.

  "Do you know, I feel sure the boys are being held in the lost-child place at the police station!" Rosemary Green, twinkled her brown eyes at him from between strands of crinkly brown hair. "I had tags all fixed, with name, age, owner's address and all that, and I was going to hang them around the boys' necks with pale blue ribbon-pale blue would be so becoming! But do you know, I couldn't find them! I feel worried. I should hate to waste thirty-nine cents worth of pale blue ribbon. I can't wear it myself; it makes me look positively swarthy." Rosemary Green had a most captivating way of saying swarthy.

  The corners of Luck's mouth came up instantly. "We'll have to send out scouting parties. I need that bunch of desperadoes. Let's look over by the corrals. I've got to go over and see what kind of a street set they're knocking together, anyway.

  "Hello! I have sure-enough crying need for all you strays," he exclaimed five minutes later, when they came upon the Flying TJ boys standing disconsolately at the head of the street "set" upon which carpenters were hammering and sawing and painters were daubing. Luck's eyes chilled as he took in the stereotyped "Western" crudeness of the set.

  "Well, we sure need you-and need you bad," Pink retorted. "We want to know what town was peeled so they could set the rind up like that and call it a street? Between you and me, Luck, it don't look good to me, back or front. You walk into what claims to be a saloon, and come out on a view of the hills. They tell me the bar of that imitation saloon is away over there on that platform, and they say the bottles are all full of tea. That right?"

  Luck nodded gloomily. "Soon as they get the set up, it's going to be your privilege to come boiling out of that saloon, shooting two guns, Pink," he prophesied. "You'll have the fun of killing half a dozen boys that come down from this end shooting as they ride." He put his cigarette between his lips and began to untie the dingy blue tape that bound the scenarios together.

  "Ever read any of Bently Brown's stories? They wished a bunch of them on to me while I was gone and couldn't defend myself," he said, as one who breaks bad news. "I'm certainly sorry about this, boys. It's a long way from what I brought you out here to do; and if you want to, you can call the deal off and go home. Rip-snorting, rotten melodrama-cheap as ice in Alaska. Stuff I hate-because it's the stuff that cheapens the West in pictures."

  "What about our range picture?" Andy Green began anxiously.

  Luck choked back an oath because of Andy's wife. "Ah-they're married to the idea that this rot is what sells best. They don't know what areal Western picture is: they never saw one. And they're afraid to take a chance. I was in hopes-but Mart's the big chief, you know. He'd gone and loaded up with this trash, and so he couldn't see my story at all. I get his viewpoint, all right; he's keen to pry off some real money, and he's afraid to experiment with new tools. But it does seem pretty raw to put you boys working on this cheap studio stuff after getting you out here to do something worth while."

  "We're to stay right here, then?" Weary spoke the question that was in the minds of all of them.

  "That's the present outlook," Luck confessed with bitterness. "I don't need real country for this junk. I was all primed to show him where I'd have to take my company to New Mexico, but I didn't say anything about it when he sprung this Bently Brown business. This will all be made right here at the studio and out in Griffith Park."

  Down deep in Luck's heart there was a hurt he would not reveal to any one. It was built partly of disappointment and an honest dislike for doing unworthy work; it had in it also some personal chagrin at being compelled to put the Happy Family at work in the very class of pictures he had often ridiculed in his talk with them, after bringing them all the way from Montana so that he might produce his big range picture. He stood looking somberly at the set which Clements had planned to save time-and therefore dollars-for the Acme Company. He thought of his range story, as it had first grown out of the night away up there in the plains country; he thought of how he had hurried so that he might the sooner make the vision a reality; how he had talked of it confidently to these men who had listened with growing enthusiasm and interest, until his vision had become their vision, his hopes their hopes.

  They had left the Flying U and come with him to help make that big picture of the range. By their eager talk they had helped him to strengthen certain scenes; they had even suggested new, original material as they told of this adventure and that accident, and argued-as was their habit-ever scenes and situations. That was why Andy had spoken of it astheir picture. That was why they were here; that was what had brought them early to the studio. And in his hand he held a half dozen or more of those cheap, lurid stories he had always despised; they must let the public see their faces in these impossible, illogical situations, or they must go back and call Luck Lindsay names to salve their disappointment.

  The dried little man-whose name was Dave Wiswell-came walking curiously up the fresh-made "street," his sharp eyes taking in the falsity of the whole row of shack-houses that had no backs; bald behind as board fences, save where two-by-fours braced them from falling. He saw the group standing before a wall that purported to be the front of a bank (which would be robbed with much bloodshed in the second scenario) and he hurried a little. Luck scowled at him preoccupiedly, nodded a good morning, and turned abruptly to the others.

  "Listen. If you boys are game for this melodrama, I'd like to use you, all right. You'll get experience in the business, anyway, so maybe it won't do you any harm. And if the weather holds good, we'll just make a long hard drive of this bunch of drivel; we'll rush 'em through-sabe? And I'll make it my business to see that Mart doesn't unload any more of the same. You may even get some fun out of it, seeing you're not fed up on this said Western drama, the way I am. Anyway, what's the word? Shall I hop into the machine and go down and buy you fellows a bunch of return tickets, or shall I assign you your parts and wade into this blood and bullets business?"

  Weary folded his arms and grinned down at Luck. "I'm all for the blood and bullets, myself," he said promptly. "I'm just crazy to come shooting and y
elling down this little imitation street and do things that are bold and bad."

  "I should think," interjected Rosemary Green, with a pretty viciousness, "that you'd be ashamed, Luck Lindsay! Do you think we are a bunch of quitters? Give me a part-and a gun-and I'll stand on a ladder behind that hotel window and shoot 'em as fast as they can turn the corner down there." Her brown eyes twinkled hearteningly at him. "I'll pull my hair down, and yell and shoot and wring my hands-Pink, you keep still! I'm positive I can shoot and wring my hands at the same time in a Bently Brown story, can't I, Luck?"

  "You certainly can," Luck told her grimly. "You can do worse than that and get by. Well, all right, folks. You prowl around and kill time while I get ready to start. There won't be anything doing till after lunch, at the earliest, so make yourselves at home. I'd introduce you to some of these folks if it was worth while, but it ain't. You'll know them soon enough-most of them to your sorrow, at that." He turned on his heel with a hasty "See yuh later," and plunged into the work before him just as energetically as though his heart were in it.

  Luck unhooked his hat from his knee, brought his laughing jaws together with that eloquent, downward tilt to the corners of his mouth, sat up straight, considered swiftly the possibilities of the next half hour, and paid tribute in one expressive word of four letters before he went crawling over half a dozen pairs of knees to do battle for his picture. His picture, you understand. For since he had made it irresistible comedy instead of very mediocre drama, he felt all the pride of creation in his work. That was his picture that had set the Acme people laughing,-they who had come to carp and to talk knowingly of continuity and of technique and dramatic values, and to criticize everything from the sets to the photography. It was his picture; he had made it what it was. So he went as a champion rather than as a culprit to face the powers above him.

  Martinson and Bently Brown were waiting for him near the door. They were not going to stay and see the next picture run, and that, in Luck's opinion, was a bad-weather sign. But he came up to them cheerfully, turning his hat in his fingers to find the front of it before he set it on his head. (These limp, wool, knockabout hats are always more or less confusing, and Luck was fastidious about his apparel.)

  "Ah-Mr. Brown, this is Mr. Lindsay, ah-director who is producing your stories." Martinson's tone was as neutral as he could make it.

  Luck said that he was glad to meet Mr. Brown, which was a lie. At the same instant he found the stitched-down bow on his hat, and from there felt his way to the front. At the same time he decided that there was going to be something doing presently, if Mart's manner meant anything at all. Mart was a peaceable soul, and in the approaching crisis Luck knew he would climb hurriedly upon the fence of neutrality and stay there; and Luck could fight or climb a tree as he chose.

  They went outside, and Luck turned his eyes sidewise and took a look at Bently Brown. He measured him mentally from pigskin puttees to rakish, stiff brimmed Stetson with careful dimples in the crown and a leather hatband stamped with horses' heads and his initials. In a picture, Luck would have cast Bently Brown, costume and all, for a comedy mining engineer or something of that sort. You know the type: He arrives on the stage that is held up, and is always in the employ of the monied octopus, and the cowboys who pursue and capture the bandits have fun afterwards with the engineer,-so much fun that he crawls out of an up-stairs window in the night and departs hastily and forever from that place. You are perfectly familiar with the character, I am sure.

  Luck, after that swift, comprehensive glance, was not greatly alarmed. In that he made his greatest blunder. He should have reckoned with the wounded vanity of the little author who believes himself great. He should have reminded himself that Bently Brown was not a comedy mining engineer, but that touchiest of all mortals, the nearly successful author. He should have taken warning from the stiff-necked, stiff-backed gait of Bently Brown on the short walk to the office. He should have read danger in the blinking lids of his pale eyes, and in his self-conscious manner of looking straight before him.

  In the office, then, luck basely deserted one Luck Lindsay, and left him to fight a losing battle. For Bently Brown was incensed, insulted, and outraged over the manner in whichThe Soul of Littlefoot Law had been filmed. The story had been caricatured out of all semblance to its original self. Littlefoot Law had been shown as having no soul whatever. Instead of being permitted to make the final, supreme sacrifice of his life for the honor of his enemy,-which would have revealed to the audience his possession of a clean white soul in spite of his bad character,-he had been made out a little fiend who would shoot you on the slightest provocation. The girl had been thrust into the background, and the hero had been made into a coward and a paltry villain; they were all desperadoes upon the screen. Never in his life had Bently Brown been made to suffer such an affront. Never had he dreamed that his work would be made a thing to laugh at-

  "They certainly did laugh," Luck lazily interrupted. "And believe me, Mr. Brown, it takes real stuff to collect a laugh out of that bunch. It will be a riot with the public; you can bank on that. By the time I get a few more made and released, you can expect to see your name in the papers without paying advertising rates." Whatever possessed Luck to talk that way to Bently Brown, I cannot say. He surely must have seen that the little, over-costumed author was choking with spleen.

  "It was a farce!" The small, yellow mustache of Bently Brown was twitching comically with the tremble of his lips beneath. "A bald, unmitigated farce!"

  "Surest thing you know," Luck agreed, with that little chuckle of his. "At first I was afraid the crowd wouldn't get it; I didn't know but they might try to take it seriously. Now, I know for certain that it will get over. It will be the cleanest, funniest, farce-comedy series that has ever been filmed." Luck sat up straight and pulled a cigar from his pocket and looked at it absent-mindedly. "Say, those boys of mine are certainly real ones! I wouldn't trade that bunch for the highest-salaried actors you could hand me. Do you know what made that picture such a scream? It was because there wasn't a bit of made-to-order comedy business in the whole film. Those boys didn't think about acting funny just to make folks laugh. They were so doggoned busy having fun with the story and showing up its weak points that they forgot to be self-conscious. If I'd had a regular comedy company working on it, believe me, Mr. Brown, it might have turned out almost as rotten a farce as it would be as a drama!"

  Had Bently Brown owned under his pink skin any of the primitive instincts which he was so fond of portraying in his characters, he would have killed Luck without any further argument or delay.

  Instead of that he spluttered and stormed like a scolding woman. He lifted first one puttee and then the other, and he shook his fist, and he nodded his head violently, and finally was constrained to lift the leather-banded Stetson from his blond hair and wipe the perspiration from his brow with a lavender initialed handkerchief. He said a great deal in a very few minutes, but it was too involved, too incoherent to be repeated here. Luck gathered, however, that he meant to sue the Acme Company for about nine million dollars damages to his feelings and his reputation, ifThe Soul of Littlefoot Law was released in its present form. He battered at Luck's grinning composure with his full supply of invectives. When he perceived that Luck's eyes twinkled more and more while they watched him, and that Luck's smile was threatening to explode into laughter, Bently Brown shook his fist at the two of them, shrilled something about seeing his lawyer at once, and went out and slammed the door.

  "Lor-dee! He'd make a hit in comedy, that fellow," Luck observed placidly, and lighted the cigar he had been holding. "What's he mean-' sue the company'?"

  "He means sue the company," Martinson retorted grimly. "That clause in the contract where we agree to produce his stories in a manner befitting the quality and fame of these several stories in fiction; he's got grounds for action there, and he's going to make the most of it. He's sore, anyway. Some one's been telling him he practically made us a present of his stuff.
"

  "Hell!" said Luck. "Why didn't you say so?"

  "Why didn't you say that you were turning that stuff into farce-comedy?" Martinson came back sharply. "I could have told you it wouldn't get by. I knew Brown wouldn't stand for anything like that; and I knew he could put the gaff into us on that 'manner befitting' clause."

  "It's a wonder you wouldn't have jarred loose from some of that wisdom," Luck observed tartly. "You never gave me any dope at all on this Bently Brown person. You handed me the junk he stung you on-and believe me, as drama he'd have stung you with it as a present!-you handed it to me to film. I made the most of it."

  "You made a mess of it," Martinson corrected peevishly.

  "You laughed," Luck pointed out laconically. Then his eyes twinkled suddenly. "'Laugh and the world laughs with you,'" he quoted shamelessly, and took a long, satisfying suck at his cigar.

  "The world won't step up and pay damages to Bently Brown," Martinson reminded him, "if that picture is released as it stands. How many have you made, so far?"

  "I'm finishing the third; getting funnier, too, as they go along."

  "You've got to cut out that funny business. You'll have to retake this whole thing, Luck; make it straight drama. We can't afford a lawsuit, these hard times-and injunctions tying up the releases, and damages to pay when the thing's thrashed out in court. You'll have to retake this whole picture. Nice bunch of useless expense, I must say, when I've been chasing nickels off the expense account of this company and sitting up nights nursing profits! We'll have to cut salaries now, to break even on this fluke. I've left the payroll alone so far. That's the worst of a break like this. The whole company has got to pay for every blunder from now on."