Not a word did Luck say to the Happy Family about his big opportunity. Instead, he avoided them half guiltily, and he filled the next day and the one after that by seeing, or trying to see, the head of every motion picture company in that part of the State. He even sent a night letter to a big company at Santa Barbara. Always he stipulated that he must take his own cowboys with him and have a free hand in the production of Western pictures--since he did not mean to risk having another irate author descend upon him with threats of a lawsuit.
By three o'clock of the day when he was to give Dewitt his decision, Luck was convinced that the two conditions he never failed to mention were as two iron bars across every trail that might otherwise have been open to him. No motion picture company seemed to feel that it needed seven inexperienced men on its payroll. A few general managers suggested letting them work as extras, but the majority could not see the proposition at all. They were more willing to give Luck the free hand which he demanded, had negotiations ever reached that far, which they did not.
The Happy Family, Luck was forced to admit to himself, was a very serious handicap for an out-of-work director to carry at the beginning of the rainy season. He did his best, and he spent two sleepless nights over the doing, but he simply could not land them anywhere. He talked himself hoarse for them, he painted them geniuses all; he declared that they would make themselves and their company--supposing they were accepted--famous for Western pictures. He worked harder to place them in the business than he would ever work to find himself a job, and he failed absolutely.
Dewitt's eyes questioned him the moment he stood inside the office. Dewitt had heard something of Luck's efforts since their last meeting; and although he admired Luck the more for his loyalty, he felt quite certain that now he was convinced of his defeat, Luck would hesitate no longer over stepping into the official shoes of Robert Grant Burns, who was lying on his broad back, and shouting pitifully futile commands to his company and asking an imaginary camera-man questions which were as Greek to the soft-footed nurse. Dewitt, having just come from a visit to Burns, had a vivid mental picture of that ward in the Sister's hospital. But alongside that picture was another, quite as vivid, of Luck Lindsay standing beside Pete Lowry's camera with a script in his hand, explaining to Jean Douglas the business of some particular scene.
"Well?" queried Dewitt, and motioned Luck to a chair.
"Well," Luck echoed, and stopped for a breath. "No use wasting time, Mr. Dewitt. I can't take any position that doesn't include the Flying U boys. I'm certainly sorry that prevents my accepting your offer. I appreciate all it would mean for me and for my Big Picture to be with you. But--some things mean more--"
"You're under no obligations to tie your own hands just because theirs are not free," Dewitt reminded him sharply.
"I know I'm not."
"Can you figure where it will be to their advantage for you to refuse a good position just because they happen to be out of work?"
"I'm not trying to figure anything like that. Some things don't have to be figured. Some things just are! Do you see what I mean? Those boys didn't wait to do any figuring. When I quit the Acme, they quit--just as a matter of course. If I were as loyal to them as they have been to me, Mr. Dewitt, I wouldn't have taken two days to give you my answer. I'd have told you day before yesterday what I'm telling you now."
Dewitt did not reply at once. When he did speak he seemed to be answering an argument within himself.
"I can't let my own boys go to make room for yours. That is absolutely out of the question. There is a little matter of loyalty there, also."
"I know there is. I don't know that I should want you to let them go. We're both in the same position almost. And we're at a deadlock, Mr. Dewitt. I'm certainly sorry that I can't sign up with you."
"So am I, young man. So am I. Come back if things shape themselves so you can see your way clear to directing my Western company. I've an idea your boys will be going back to their ranches before the holidays. In case they do, let me hear from you."
That was more than Luck had any right to expect, and he had the sense to realize it. He thanked Dewitt and promised, and went away with something of a load off his mind. He could go now and face the Happy Family without feeling himself another Judas.
He found them sitting around waiting for their supper and trying to invent new words to fit their disgust with the Acme Film Company. They greeted Luck as though they had not seen him for a month.
"Bully for you, Luck!" Andy shouted, and gave him an approving slap on the shoulder that sent him skating dangerously toward the table. "Best job in town just came a-running up to you and says, 'Please take me!'--so they say. That right?"
"Yeah--what about this here Great Western gitting its loop on you first thing?" bawled Big Medicine gleefully. "By cripes, that's sure one on the Acme bunch! They'll wisht they wasn't quite so fresh, givin' that little tin imitation of an author so much rope. Me 'n' Pink was over to the studio to-day; honest to grandma, they was a sick lookin' bunch around there. Me 'n' Pink sure throwed it into 'em too, about letting the only real man they had git away from 'em the way they done."
"My gorry, son, I sure am tickled to see yuh light with both feet under yuh, like they say you done. I heard tell the Great Western's going to let yuh put on your own pitcher; I guess them Acme folks'll feel kinda foolish when they see it," declared the dried little man, grinning over his pipe.
Luck was fighting his bewilderment and framing a demand for explanations when Rosemary bustled in from the kitchen.
"Oh, but we're glad, Luck Lindsay!" she began in her quick, emphatic way. "We all feel like a million dollars over your good luck. We're going to have fried chicken and strawberry shortcake for supper, too, just for a celebration. I knew you'd come out and tell us all about it. So sit right down, everybody, and keep still so Luck can tell us just what everybody said to the other fellow, and how Dewitt happened to get hold of him so quickly. Is it true? The boys heard you were going to get two hundred dollars a week!"
"Not get it--no." Luck unfolded his napkin with fingers that shook a little. "I was offered it, but I'm not going to take it."
"Not--why, Luck Lindsay!" Rosemary very nearly dropped her new percolator.
"Y' ain't?"
"Aw, gwan! Only reason I wouldn't take two hundred a week would be because I'd drop dead at the chance and couldn't."
"Well, listen. There's one point that hasn't spilled into studio gossip yet," Luck managed to slip into the uproar. "I didn't take the place. There were some details we couldn't get together on, so I thanked him and turned it down."
There was silence, while the Happy Family stared at him.
"What dee-tails was them?" Big Medicine demanded belligerently. "Way I heard it--"
"Studio gossip," Luck interrupted hastily. "You can't depend on anything you hear passed around amongst the extras. We failed to agree on certain technical details. I haven't any more job than a jack rabbit; let it go at that. What have you fellows been doing?"
"Us? Why, the Acme's goin' to give us absent, treatment from now on," Andy stated cheerfully. "They're paying us thirty a week apiece to stay away from 'em--and I sure never earned money easier than that. Clements is going to take orders from that so-called author, and he told me straight out that they'll be using actors in those stories."
"They'll need 'em," Luck commented drily. "You're in luck that they don't want you to work. Any other news?"
"You bet they's other news!" roared Big Medicine, goggling across the table at Luck. "I rustled me a job, by cripes! Soon as this rain's over, I'm goin' to cash in my face fer two dollars a day with the Sunset. Feller over there wants me bad fer atmosphere in a pitcher he's goin' to make of the Figy Islands. Feller claims he can clothe me in a nigger wig and a handful of grass and get more atmosphere, by cripes, to the square inch--"
Rosemary gasped and bolted for the kitchen. When she came back, red-faced and still gurgling spasmodically, Pink was relating his experiences with another company. He and the Native Son and Weary, it transpired, were duly enrolled upon the extra list and were reasonably sure of a day's work now and then. Rosemary had paid her Japanese maid and let her go, and Andy was going to help her with the housework until the industrial problem was solved. She listened for a minute and then made a suggestion of her own.
"We're all in the same boat," she said, "and by just sticking together, I know we'll come out swimmingly. Why don't you leave the hotel, and come out here and batch with us, Luck? It would be so much cheaper; and I can turn that couch in the kitchen into a bed, easy as anything. I'd like to shake that Great Western Company for acting the way they have with you. Think of offering a man a two-hundred-a-week position and then haggling--"
"Say, Luck," the dried little man spoke up suddenly, "how much does one of them there camaries cost? I'd be willin' to chip in and help buy one; and, by gorry, we could make some movin' pitchers of our own and sell 'em, if we caji't do no better." He craned his neck and peered the length of the table at Luck. "Ain't no law ag'in it, is there?" he challenged.
"No, there's no law against it." Luck closed his lips against further comment. The idea was like a sudden blow upon the door of his imagination.
The Happy Family looked at one another inquiringly. They had never thought of doing anything like that. The dried little man may have meditated much upon the subject, but he certainly had not given a hint of it to any of them.
"Oh, why couldn't you boys do that?" Rosemary exclaimed breathlessly.
Luck stirred his coffee carefully and did not look up. "Don't run away with the idea that you can buy a camera for twenty or thirty dollars," he quelled. "A camera, complete with tripod, lenses, magazines, and cases, would cost about fourteen hundred dollars--at least."
That, as he had expected it to do, rather feazed the Happy Family for a few minutes. They became interested in the food they were eating, and their eyes did not stray far from their plates.
"I can ante two hundred," Weary remarked at last with elaborate carelessness, reaching for more butter.
"See yuh and raise yuh fifty," Andy Green retorted briskly. "I've got a wife that's learning me to save money."
"You can count my chips for all I got." Pink's dimples showed briefly. "I'll go through my pockets when I get filled up, and see how rich I am. But, anyway, there's a couple of hundred I know I've got,--counting Acme handouts and all."
"We-ell--" the dried little man laid down his fork to rub his chin thoughtfully, "I never had much call to spend money in Sioux, North-Dakoty. I batched and lived savin'. I can put in half of that fourteen hundred--mebby a little mite more."
"Well, by cripes, I got a boy t' look out fer, and I ain't rich as some, but all I got goes in the pot!" cried Big Medicine impulsively.
Luck leaned back in his chair and regarded the flushed faces enigmatically. "This is all good material for an argument on our financial standing," he said, "but if you're taking yourselves seriously, let me tell you something before you go any farther. Buying a camera is only a starter. Besides, I wouldn't play with little stuff and compete with these big, established companies releasing on regular programs. Say, for the sake of argument, that we cooperate and go into this; all I'd handle would be features,--State's rights stuff. (Make big four-or-five reelers, and sell the rights in as many States as possible; that's what it amounts to.) But it isn't a thing to play with, boys. Let's do our joking about something else."
Rosemary set her two elbows upon the table, clasped her hands together, and dropped her chin upon them so that she was looking at Luck from under her eyebrows. That pose meant determination and an argumentative mood.
"I've been doing a little mental arithmetic," she began. "Also I've done a little thinking. I know now what spoiled that Great Western offer for you, Luck Lindsay. It was because they wouldn't take the boys too. And you turned it down because you--oh, they're the 'technical details,' young man! You see? Your eyes give you away. I knew it, once the idea popped into my head. What do you think of a fellow like that, boys? Refused a two-hundred-a-week position because he couldn't get you fellows a job too."
"That two hundred seems to worry you a good deal," Luck muttered, crimson to his collar.
"Now don't interrupt, because I shall keep right on talking just the same. I've a lot more to say. Do you realize that the donations these boys have made already amounts to over fifteen hundred dollars? And that does not include Happy Jack or Miguel, because they haven't--"
"Aw, gwan! I never had a chanct to git a word in edgeways," Happy hurriedly defended his seeming parsimony. "I'm willin' to chip in."
"Well, the point is this: Why not all put in what you can, and just go out where there are cattle, and make your Big Picture, Luck Lindsay? We could live in the country cheaper than we can here: and there wouldn't be anything to buy but grub,--just a bag of beans and some flour and coffee. I'd be willing to starve for the sake of making that Big Picture!"
"By gracious, there's our transportation money, too!" Andy broke another short silence. "Three hundred and fifty, right there in a lump."
"Let it stay transportation money, too!" Rosemary advised quickly. "It can transport you fellows to where Luck wants to make his picture."
They waited then for Luck to speak, but he was too busy thinking. On his shoulders would rest the responsibility of the outfit. On his word they would rely absolutely and without question. It was no light matter to lead these men into a venture which would take their time, more hard, heart-breaking work than they could possibly foresee, and the last dollar they possessed. He was sorely tempted to try it, but for their sakes he knew he must not let their enthusiasm sweep away his sober judgment. Had they owned but half his experience it would be different; but their very ignorance of the game hampered his decision.
"Well, boss, how about it?" Andy urged. "Are yuh game to try her a whirl? We haven't got much, but what we've got is yours if you want to tackle it. We'll be right with you--till hell's no bigger than a bullet ladle."
"That's just what holds me back. I'd certainly hate to lead you up against a losing proposition, boys. And if I went into it, I'd go in over my eyebrows; if I didn't make good I wouldn't have the price of a tag on a ten-cent sack of Bull Durham when I quit; so I couldn't pay you back--"
"Aw, thunder! Think we never set into a poker game in our lives? Think we're in the habit of hollerin' for our chips back when we lose? What's the matter with yuh, anyway?" cried Big Medicine wrathfully.
"Why, of course we share the risk of losing!" Rosemary scowled at him indignantly. "We'll go in over our eyebrows, too,--and stand on our toes long as we can, to keep our scalp locks showing above water!" Her brown eyes twinkled a swift glance around the table. "If you think these boys are quitters, Luck Lindsay, you just ought to have been around when they were hanging on to their homesteads! I could tell you things--"
"You say buying a camera is just a starter. How much do you figure it would cost to make our Big Picture? Cutting out salaries and all such little luxuries, what would the actual expenses be--making a rough guess?" Weary leaned forward over his plate and forgot all about his tempting wedge of shortcake.
Luck pushed back his plate and smiled his smile. "For the Big Picture," he began, while the Happy Family leaned to listen, "there'd be the camera and outfit,--I could pick up some things second hand,--we'll call that fourteen hundred and fifty. Then there would be at least five thousand feet of film: perforated raw stock I could get for about three and three quarter cents a foot. Say a couple, of hundred dollars for that. We'd need at least three dozen radium flares for our night scenes; they cost close around twenty dollars a dozen. And one or two light diffusers,--that's just to get us started with an outfit, remember. Then there'd be our transportation to Albuquerque, New Mexico. I know that country, and I know what I can do there. I'd hit straight for a ranch I know between Bear Canyon and Rincon Arroyo--belongs to an old fellow that sure is a character, too, in his way. Old bachelor, he is; got some cattle and horses, and round-pole corrals and the like of that. I know old Applehead Forrman like I know my right hand; we'd make Applehead's place our headquarters--see? Exterior stuff we'd have right there, ready to shoot without any expense. As for interiors,--say! any of you fellows handy with hammer and saw?"
"By gracious, we all are!" Andy declared quickly. "We learned our little lessons when we were building claim shacks for ourselves."
"Good enough! You boys could be stage mechanics as well as leading men," Luck grinned. "Add hammers and saws to the outfit. We'd have to build a few interior sets."
Rosemary had her eyebrows tied in little knots, she was thinking so fast. "I'll write the Little Doctor that she can have my silver teaset," she informed Andy impulsively. "She offered me fifty dollars for it, you know. That would buy lots of beans!"
Luck looked at her, but he did not say what was in his mind. Instead he reached into an inner pocket and drew out his passbook, "I've got eighteen hundred and ninety-five dollars in the bank," he announced, reading the figures aloud. "And my car ought to bring three or four thousand,--if I can find the man that tried to buy it a month or so before I took the Injuns back. She's a pippin, boys!--"
"Oh, your lovely, big, white machine!" wailed Rosemary. "Would you have to sell it, Luck? Couldn't we squeak along without that?"
"Aw, you don't want to sell your car!" Pink protested. "I know where I can borrow two or three hundred. Maybe the Old Man--"
"We'll put this thing through alone, if we do it at all," Luck told him bluntly. "Can't afford to work with borrowed capital; the risk is too great. Sure, I'll sell the car. I was thinking of it, anyway," he testified falsely but reassuringly. "We'll need every cent I can raise. There's chemicals and Lord knows what all; and when we come to making our prints and marketing, why--" he threw out both hands expressively. "If we land in Albuquerque with five thousand dollars and our outfit, we won't have a cent to throw away. At that, we'll have to squeeze every nickel till it hollers, before we're through. Believe me, boys, this is going to be some undertaking!"
"Nice, comfortable way you've got of painting things cheerful," the Native Son drawled ironically.
"That's all right. I want you to realize what it's going to be like before you get in so far you can't back out."
"Aw, who's said anything about backing out?" Happy Jack grumbled.
"Let's get right down to brass tacks and see how strong we can go on money," Andy suggested, pulling a pencil out of an inner pocket. "Here, girl, you do the bookkeeping while we call off the size of our pile. Put 'er down in this book till you can get another one. You can set me down for two seventy-five--or make it three hundred. I can scrape it up, all right. How about you, Pink? This is hard-boiled figures, now, and no guess work."
Pink blew a mouthful of smoke while he did a little mental calculation. Then he took his twisted-leather purse and emptied it into his saucer. He investigated all his pockets and added eighty-five cents in small change. Then he gravely began to count, not disdaining three pennies in the pile. "I've got seventy-five dollars in the bank," he said. "Add ninety dollars salary, and you have a hundred and sixty-five. Add six dollars and eighty-seven cents, and you have--my pile."
Rosemary twisted her lips and wrote the figures opposite Pink's name. Next came Weary, then Miguel and Big Medicine and the dried little man who chewed violently upon a wooden toothpick and said he was good for eight hundred, and mebby a little mite more.
They pushed their plates to the table's center to make room for their gesticulating hands and uneasy elbows while they planned ways and means. They argued over trivial points and left the big ones for Luck to settle. They talked of light effects and wholesale grocery lists and ray filters and smoke pots and railroad fares and the problem of cutting down their baggage so as to avoid paying excess charges. Luck, once he had taken the mental plunge into the deep waters of so hazardous an enterprise, began to exhibit a most amazing knowledge of the details of picture making.
To save money, he told them, he would be his own camera man. He could do without a "still" camera, because he would enlarge clippings from the different scenes in the negative instead. They'd have to manage the range stuff with only one camera, which would mean more work to get the various effects. But with a telephoto lens and a wide angle lens he could come pretty near putting it over the way he wanted it. "And there'll be no more blank ammunition, boys," he told them. "So you want to fit yourselves out with real shells. I'm not going very strong on this foreground bullet-effect stuff; we can afford to leave that for the Western four-flushers that can't do anything else. But she's some wild down where we'll be located, so we'll not be packing empty guns, at that.
"And there's another thing," he went on, talking and making notes at the same time. "If we're going to do this, we can't get started any too soon. We may be able to hit a late round-up and get some scenes, which will save rounding up stock ourselves for it. And there's all that winter stuff to make, too; we haven't any more time to throw away than we have money."
"Well, we're ready to hit the trail any time you are," Andy declared. "To-morrow, if yuh say so. You go ahead with your end of it, Luck, and I'll be straw boss here in camp and get the outfit packed and ready to ship outa here on an hour's notice. I can do it, too--believe me!"
"Do you know," said Rosemary, "I'd let James and Weary buy our winter's supplies and have them sent by freight right on to where we're going. Things are awfully cheap here. I'll make out a list, and the boys can attend to that to-morrow. And I'll bake up a lot of stuff for lunches on the train, too. We're not going to squander money in the dining car."
"Say, we'll just borry one of them dray teams from the Acme corral, by cripes, and haul our own stuff to the depot!" Big Medicine exclaimed with enthusiasm. "Save us four or five dollars right there!"
Luck rose and reached for his umbrella as though he had just recalled an important engagement. "I think I know where to find a buyer for my machine," he said, "so I'll just get on his trail. To-morrow I'll start getting my camera outfit together. Andy, I'll turn this end of the expedition over to you; that idea of getting food supplies here is all right, within certain limits. Don't buy any cheap, weighty stuff here, because the freight will eat up all you save. But I'll leave that to you folks; I guess you've had experience enough--"
"Considering most of us learned our a-b-c's outa Montgomery-Ward catalogues," Weary observed with a quirk of the lips, "I guess you can safely leave it to the bunch. Range kids are brought up on them Wind-river bibles, as we call mail order catalogues. I'll bet you I can give offhand the freight on anything you can name, from a hair hackamore to a gang plow."
"Fly at it, then," laughed Luck, with his hand on the doorknob. "I am going to be some busy myself. I'll just turn over the transportation problem to you folks. Adios."
"Prepare to ride in the chair car," Rosemary called after him warningly. "Even a tourist sleeper is going to be too luxurious for us; we're going to squeeze nickels till they just squeal!"
Luck held the door open while he smiled approvingly at her. "That'll be playing the game right from the start. Adios, folks."
