From the dressing room the following morning, arrayed in the Buck Benson
outfit, unworn since that eventful day on the Gashwiler lot, Merton
accompanied Baird to a new set where he would work that day. Baird
was profuse in his admiration of the cowboy embellishments, the maroon
chaps, the new boots, the hat, the checked shirt and gay neckerchief.
“I’m mighty glad to see you so sincere in your work,” he assured Merton.
“A lot of these hams I hire get to kidding on the set and spoil the
atmosphere, but don’t let it bother you. One earnest leading man, if
he’ll just stay earnest, will carry the piece. Remember that--you got a
serious part.”
“I’ll certainly remember,” Merton earnestly assured him.
“Here we are; this is where we begin the Western stuff,” said Baird.
Merton recognized the place. It was the High Gear Dance Hall where the
Montague girl had worked. The name over the door was now “The Come
All Ye,” and there was a hitching rack in front to which were tethered
half-a--dozen saddled horses.
Inside, the scene was set as he remembered it. Tables for drinking
were about the floor, and there was a roulette wheel at one side. A
red-shirted bartender, his hair plastered low over his brow, leaned
negligently on the bar. Scattered around the room were dance-hall girls
in short skirts, and a number of cowboys.
“First, I’ll wise you up a little bit,” said Baird. “You’ve come out
here to work on a ranche in the great open spaces, and these cowboys all
love you and come to town with you every time, and they’ll stand by
you when the detective from New York gets here. Now--let’s see--I guess
first we’ll get your entrance. You come in the front door at the head
of them. You’ve ridden in from the ranche. We get the horseback stuff
later. You all come in yelling and so on, and the boys scatter, some to
the bar and some to the wheel, and some sit down to the tables to have
their drinks and some dance with the girls. You distribute money to them
from a paper sack. Here’s the sack.” From a waiting property boy he took
a paper sack. “Put this in your pocket and take it out whenever you need
money.
“It’s the same sack, see, that the kid put the stolen money in, and
you saved it after returning the money. It’s just a kind of an idea of
mine,” he vaguely added, as Merton looked puzzled at this.
“All right, sir.” He took the sack, observing it to contain a rude
imitation of bills, and stuffed it into his pocket.
“Then, after the boys scatter around, you go stand at the end of the
bar. You don’t join in their sports and pastimes, see? You’re serious;
you have things on your mind. Just sort of look around the place as if
you were holding yourself above such things, even if you do like to give
the boys a good time. Now we’ll try the entrance.”
Cameras were put into place, and Merton Gill led through the front door
his band of rollicking good fellows. He paused inside to give them bills
from the paper sack. They scattered to their dissipations. Their leader
austerely posed at one end of the bar and regarded the scene with
disapproving eyes. Wine, women, and the dance were not for him. He
produced again the disillusioned look that had won Henshaw.
“Fine,” said Baird. “Gun it, boys.”
The scene was shot, and Baird spoke again: “Hold it, everybody; go on
with your music, and you boys keep up the dance until Mother’s entrance,
then you quit and back off.”
Merton was puzzled by this speech, but continued his superior look,
breaking it with a very genuine shock of surprise when his old mother
tottered in at the front door. She was still the disconsolate creature
of the day before, bedraggled, sad-eyed, feeble, very aged, and still
she carried her bucket and the bundle of rags with which she had mopped.
Baird came forward again.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you. Of course you had your old mother follow you
out here to the great open spaces, but the poor old thing has cracked
under the strain of her hard life, see what I mean? All her dear ones
have been leaving the old nest and going out over the hills one by
one-you were the last to go-and now she isn’t quite right, see?
“You have a good home on the ranche for her, but she won’t stay put. She
follows you around, and the only thing that keeps her quiet is mopping,
so you humour her; you let her mop. It’s the only way. But of course it
makes you sad. You look at her now, then go up and hug her the way you
did yesterday; you try to get her to give up mopping, but she won’t, so
you let her go on. Try it.”
Merton went forward to embrace his old mother. Here was tragedy indeed,
a bit of biting pathos from a humble life. He gave the best that was in
him as he enfolded the feeble old woman and strained her to his breast,
murmuring to her that she must give it up-give it up.
The old lady wept, but was stubborn. She tore herself from his arms
and knelt on the floor. “I just got to mop, I just got to mop,” she was
repeating in a cracked voice. “If I ain’t let to mop I git rough till
I’m simply a scandal.”
It was an affecting scene, marred only by one explosive bit of coarse
laughter from an observing cowboy at the close of the old mother’s
speech. Merton Gill glanced up in sharp annoyance at this offender.
Baird was quick in rebuke.
“The next guy that laughs at this pathos can get off the set,” he
announced, glaring at the assemblage. There was no further outbreak and
the scene was filmed.
There followed a dramatic bit that again involved the demented mother.
“This ought to be good if you can do it the right way,” began Baird.
“Mother’s mopping along there and slashes some water on this Mexican’s
boot-where are you, Pedro? Come here and get this. The old lady sloshes
water on you while you’re playing monte here, so you yell Carramba or
something, and kick at her. You don’t land on her, of course, but
her son rushes up and grabs your arm--here, do it this way.” Baird
demonstrated. “Grab his wrist with one hand and his elbow with the other
and make as if you broke his arm across your knee-you know, like you
were doing joojitsey. He slinks off with his broken arm, and you just
dust your hands off and embrace your mother again.
“Then you go back to the bar, not looking at Pedro at all. See? He’s
insulted your mother, and you’ve resented it in a nice, dignified,
gentlemanly way. Try it.”
Pedro sat at the table and picked up his cards. He was a foul-looking
Mexican and seemed capable even of the enormity he was about to commit.
The scene was rehearsed to Baird’s satisfaction, then shot. The weeping
old lady, blinded by her tears, awkward with her mop, the brutal
Mexican, his prompt punishment.
The old lady was especially pathetic as she glared at her insulter from
where she lay sprawled on the floor, and muttered, “Carramba, huh? I
dare you to come outside and say that to me!”
“Good work,” applauded Baird when the scene was finished. “Now we’re
getting into the swing of it. In about three days here we’ll have
something that exhibitors can clean up on, see if we don’t.”
The three days passed in what for Merton Gill was a whirlwind of
dramatic intensity. If at times he was vaguely disquieted by a suspicion
that the piece was not wholly serious, he had only to remember the
intense seriousness of his own part and the always serious manner of
Baird in directing his actors. And indeed there were but few moments
when he was even faintly pricked by this suspicion. It seemed a bit
incongruous that Hoffmeyer, the delicatessen merchant, should arrive on
a bicycle, dressed in cowboy attire save for a badly dented derby hat,
and carrying a bag of golf clubs; and it was a little puzzling how
Hoffmeyer should have been ruined by his son’s mad act, when it would
have been shown that the money was returned to him. But Baird explained
carefully that the old man had been ruined some other way, and was
demented, like the poor old mother who had gone over the hills after her
children had left the home nest. And assuredly in Merton’s own action
he found nothing that was not deeply earnest as well as strikingly
dramatic. There was the tense moment when a faithful cowboy broke upon
the festivities with word that a New York detective was coming to search
for the man who had robbed the Hoffmeyer establishment. His friends
gathered loyally about Merton and swore he would never be taken from
them alive. He was induced to don a false mustache until the detective
had gone. It was a long, heavy black mustache with curling tips, and
in this disguise he stood aloof from his companions when the detective
entered.
The detective was the cross-eyed man, himself now disguised as Sherlock
Holmes, with a fore-and-aft cloth cap and drooping blond mustache.
He smoked a pipe as he examined those present. Merton was unable to
overlook this scene, as he had been directed to stand with his back
to the detective. Later it was shown that he observed in a mirror the
Mexican whom he had punished creeping forward to inform the detective of
his man’s whereabouts. The coward’s treachery cost him dearly. The hero,
still with his back turned, drew his revolver and took careful aim by
means of the mirror.
This had been a spot where for a moment he was troubled. Instead of
pointing the weapon over his shoulder, aiming by the mirror, he was
directed to point it at the Mexican’s reflection in the glass, and to
fire at this reflection. “It’s all right,” Baird assured him. “It’s
a camera trick, see? It may look now as if you were shooting into the
mirror but it comes perfectly right on the film. You’ll see. Go on,
aim carefully, right smack at that looking-glass--fire!” Still somewhat
doubting, Merton fired. The mirror was shattered, but a dozen feet back
of him the treacherous Mexican threw up his arms and fell lifeless, a
bullet through his cowardly heart. It was a puzzling bit of trick-work,
he thought, but Baird of course would know what was right, so the
puzzle was dismissed. Buck Benson, silent man of the open, had got the
scoundrel who would have played him false.
A thrilling struggle ensued between Merton and the hellhound of justice.
Perceiving who had slain his would-be informant, the detective came to
confront Merton. Snatching off his cap and mustache he stood revealed as
the man who had not dared to arrest him at the scene of his crime. With
another swift movement he snatched away the mustache that had
disguised his quarry. Buck Benson, at bay, sprang like a tiger upon his
antagonist. They struggled while the excited cowboys surged about them.
The detective proved to be no match for Benson. He was borne to earth,
then raised aloft and hurled over the adjacent tables.
This bit of acting had involved a trick which was not obscure to Merton
like his shot into the mirror that brought down a man back of him.
Moreover, it was a trick of which he approved. When he bore the
detective to earth the cameras halted their grinding while a dummy in
the striking likeness of the detective was substituted. It was a light
affair, and he easily raised it for the final toss of triumph.
“Throw it high as you can over those tables and toward the bar,” called
Baird. The figure was thrown as directed.
“Fine work! Now look up, as if he was still in the air, now down, now
brush your left sleeve lightly with your right hand, now brush your
right sleeve lightly with your left hand.
“All right--cut. Great, Merton! If that don’t get you a hand I don’t
know what will. Now all outside for the horseback stuff!”
Outside, the faithful cowboys leaped into their saddles and urged their
beloved leader to do the same. But he lingered beside his own horse,
pleading with them to go ahead. He must remain in the place of danger
yet awhile for he had forgotten to bring out his old mother. They
besought him to let them bring her out, but he would not listen. His
alone was the task.
Reluctantly the cowboys galloped off. As he turned to re-enter the
dance-hall he was confronted by the detective, who held two frowning
weapons upon him. Benson was at last a prisoner.
The detective brutally ordered his quarry inside. Benson, seeing he was
beaten, made a manly plea that he might be let to bid his horse good-by.
The detective seemed moved. He relented. Benson went to his good old
pal.
“Here’s your chance for a fine bit,” called Baird. “Give it to us now
the way you did in that still. Broaden it all you want to. Go to it.”
Well did Merton Gill know that here was his chance for a fine bit. The
horse was strangely like Dexter upon whom he had so often rehearsed
this bit. He was a bony, drooping, sad horse with a thin neck. “They’re
takin’ ye frum me, old pal--takin’ ye frum me. You an’ me has seen
some tough times an’ I sort o’ figgered we’d keep on together till the
last--an’ now they got me, old pal, takin’ me far away where ye won’t
see me no more--”
“Go to it, cowboy--take all the footage you want!” called Baird in a
curiously choked voice.
The actor took some more footage. “But we got to keep a stiff upper lip,
old pal, you and me both. No cryin’, no bustin’ down. We had our last
gallop together, an’ we’re at the forkin’ of th’ trail. So we got to be
brave--we got to stand the gaff.”
Benson released his old pal, stood erect, dashed a bit of moisture from
his eyes, and turned to the waiting detective who, it seemed, had also
been strangely moved during this affecting farewell. Yet he had not
forgotten his duty. Benson was forced to march back into the Come All Ye
Dance Hall. As he went he was wishing that Baird would have him escape
and flee on his old pal.
And Baird was a man who seemed to think of everything, or perhaps he
had often seen the real Buck Benson’s play, for it now appeared that
everything was going to be as Merton Gill wished. Baird had even
contrived an escape that was highly spectacular.
Locked by the detective in an upper room, the prisoner went to the
window and glanced out to find that his loyal horse was directly
beneath him. He would leap from the window, alight in the saddle after a
twenty-foot drop, and be off over the border. The window scene was shot,
including a flash of the horse below. The mechanics of the leap itself
required more time. Indeed, it took the better part of a morning to
satisfy Baird that this thrilling exploit had been properly achieved.
From a lower window, quite like the high one, Merton leaped, but only to
the ground a few feet below.
“That’s where we get your take-off,” Baird explained.
“Now we get you lighting in the saddle.” This proved to be a more
delicate bit of work. From a platform built out just above the faithful
horse Merton precariously scrambled down into the saddle. He glanced
anxiously at Baird, fearing he had not alighted properly after the
supposed twenty-foot drop, but the manager appeared to be delighted with
his prowess after the one rehearsal, and the scene was shot.
“It’s all jake,” Baird assured him. “Don’t feel worried. Of course
we’ll trick the bit where you hit the saddle; the camera’ll look out for
that.”
One detail only troubled Merton. After doing the leap from the high
window, and before doing its finish where he reached the saddle, Baird
directed certain changes in his costume. He was again to don the false
mustache, to put his hat on, and also a heavy jacket lined with sheep’s
wool worn by one of the cowboys in the dance-hall. Merton was pleased
to believe he had caught the manager napping here. “But Mr. Baird, if I
leap from the window without the hat or mustache or jacket and land
on my horse in them, wouldn’t it look as if I had put them on as I was
falling?”
Baird was instantly overcome with confusion. “Now, that’s so! I swear I
never thought of that, Merton. I’m glad you spoke about it in time. You
sure have shown me up as a director. You see I wanted you to disguise
yourself again--I’ll tell you; get the things on, and after we shoot you
lighting in the saddle we’ll retake the window scene. That’ll fix it.”
Not until long afterward, on a certain dread night when the earth was to
rock beneath him, did he recall that Baird had never retaken that window
scene. At present the young actor was too engrossed by the details of
his daring leap to remember small things. The leap was achieved at last.
He was in the saddle after a twenty-foot drop. He gathered up the reins,
the horse beneath him coughed plaintively, and Merton rode him out of
the picture. Baird took a load off his mind as to this bit of riding.
“Will you want me to gallop?” he asked, recalling the unhappy experience
with Dexter.
“No; just walk him beyond the camera line. The camera’ll trick it up all
right.” So, safely, confidently, he had ridden his steed beyond the
lens range at a curious shuffling amble, and his work at the Come All Ye
Dance Hall was done.
Then came some adventurous days in the open. In motor cars the company
of artists was transported to a sunny nook in the foothills beyond
the city, and here in the wild, rough, open spaces, the drama of
mother-love, sacrifice, and thrills was further unfolded.
First to be done here was the continuation of the hero’s escape from the
dance-hall. Upon his faithful horse he ambled along a quiet road until
he reached the shelter of an oak tree. Here he halted at the roadside.
“You know the detective is following you,” explained Baird, “and you’re
going to get him. Take your nag over a little so the tree won’t mask
him too much. That’s it. Now, you look back, lean forward in the saddle,
listen! You hear him coming. Your face sets--look as grim as you can.
That’s the stuff--the real Buck Benson stuff when they’re after him.
That’s fine. Now you get an idea. Unlash your rope, let the noose
out, give it a couple of whirls to see is everything all right. That’s
it--only you still look grim--not so worried about whether the rope is
going to act right. We’ll attend to that. When the detective comes in
sight give about three good whirls and let her fly. Try it once. Good!
Now coil her up again and go through the whole thing. Never mind about
whether you’re going to get him or not. Remember, Buck Benson never
misses. We’ll have a later shot that shows the rope falling over his
head.”
Thereupon the grim-faced Benson, strong, silent man of the open, while
the cameras ground, waited the coming of one who hounded him for a
crime of which he was innocent. His iron face was relentless. He leaned
forward, listening. He uncoiled the rope, expertly ran out the noose,
and grimly waited. Far up the road appeared the detective on a galloping
horse. Benson twirled the rope as he sat in his saddle. It left his
hand, to sail gracefully in the general direction of his pursuer.
“Cut!” called Baird. “That was bully. Now you got him. Ride out into
the road. You’re dragging him off his horse, see? Keep on up the road;
you’re still dragging the hound. Look back over your shoulder and light
your face up just a little--that’s it, use Benson’s other expression.
You got it fine. You’re treating the skunk rough, but look what he was
doing to you, trying to pinch you for something you never did. That’s
fine--go ahead. Don’t look back any more.”
Merton was chiefly troubled at this moment by the thought that someone
would have to double for him in the actual casting of the rope that
would settle upon the detective’s shoulders. Well, he must practise
roping. Perhaps, by the next picture, he could do this stuff himself. It
was exciting work, though sometimes tedious. It had required almost
an entire morning to enact this one simple scene, with the numerous
close-ups that Baird demanded.
The afternoon was taken up largely in becoming accustomed to a pair of
old Spanish spurs that Baird now provided him with. Baird said they
were very rare old spurs which he had obtained at a fancy price from an
impoverished Spanish family who had treasured them as heirlooms. He said
he was sure that Buck Benson in all his vast collection did not possess
a pair of spurs like these. He would doubtless, after seeing them worn
by Merton Gill in this picture, have a pair made like them.
The distinguishing feature of these spurs was their size. They were
enormous, and their rowels extended a good twelve inches from Merton’s
heels after he had donned them.
“They may bother you a little at first,” said Baird, “but you’ll get
used to them, and they’re worth a little trouble because they’ll stand
out.”
The first effort to walk in them proved bothersome indeed, for it was
made over ground covered with a low-growing vine and the spurs caught
in this. Baird was very earnest in supervising this progress, and even
demanded the presence of two cameras to record it.
“Of course I’m not using this stuff,” he said, “but I want to make a
careful study of it. These are genuine hidalgo spurs. Mighty few men in
this line of parts could get away with them. I bet Benson himself would
have a lot of trouble. Now, try it once more.”
Merton tried once more, stumbling as the spurs caught in the
undergrowth. The cameras closely recorded his efforts, and Baird
applauded them. “You’re getting it--keep on. That’s better. Now try to
run a few steps--go right toward that left-hand camera.”
He ran the few steps, but fell headlong. He picked himself up, an
expression of chagrin on his face.
“Never mind,” urged Baird. “Try it again. We must get this right.” He
tried again to run; was again thrown. But he was determined to please
the manager, and he earnestly continued his efforts. Benson himself
would see the picture and probably marvel that a new man should have
mastered, apparently with ease, a pair of genuine hidalgos.
“Maybe we better try smoother ground,” Baird at last suggested after
repeated falls had shown that the undergrowth was difficult. So the
cameras were moved on to the front of a ranche house now in use for the
drama, and the spur lessons continued. But on smooth ground it appeared
that the spurs were still troublesome. After the first mishap here
Merton discovered the cause. The long shanks were curved inward so that
in walking their ends clashed. He pointed this out to Baird, who was
amazed at the discovery.
“Well, well, that’s so! They’re bound to interfere. I never knew that
about hidalgo spurs before.”
“We might straighten them,” suggested the actor.
“No, no,” Baird insisted, “I wouldn’t dare try that. They cost too much
money, and it might break ‘em. I tell you what you do, stand up and
try this: just toe in a little when you walk--that’ll bring the points
apart. There--that’s it; that’s fine.”
The cameras were again recording so that Baird could later make his
study of the difficulties to be mastered by the wearer of genuine
hidalgos. By toeing in Merton now succeeded in walking without disaster,
though he could not feel that he was taking the free stride of men out
there in the open spaces.
“Now try running.” directed Baird, and he tried running; but again the
spurs caught and he was thrown full in the eyes of the grinding camera.
He had forgotten to toe in. But he would not give up. His face was set
in Buck Benson grimness. Each time he picked himself up and earnestly
resumed the effort. The rowels were now catching in the long hair of his
chaps.
He worked on, directed and cheered by the patient Baird, while the two
camera men, with curiously strained faces, recorded his failures. Baird
had given strict orders that other members of the company should remain
at a distance during the spur lessons, but now he seemed to believe that
a few other people might encourage the learner. Merton was directed to
run to his old mother who, bucket at her side and mop in hand, knelt on
the ground at a little distance. He was also directed to run toward
the Montague girl, now in frontier attire of fringed buckskin. He made
earnest efforts to keep his feet during these essays, but the spurs
still proved treacherous.
“Just pick yourself up and go on,” ordered Baird, and had the cameras
secure close shots of Merton picking himself up and going carefully on,
toeing in now, to embrace his weeping old mother and the breathless girl
who had awaited him with open arms.
He was tired that night, but the actual contusions he had suffered in
his falls were forgotten in the fear that he might fail to master the
hidalgos. Baird himself seemed confident that his pupil would yet excite
the jealousy of Buck Benson in this hazardous detail of the screen art.
He seemed, indeed, to be curiously satisfied with his afternoon’s work.
He said that he would study the film carefully and try to discover just
how the spurs could be mastered.
“You’ll show ‘em yet how to take a joke,” he declared when the puzzling
implements were at last doffed. The young actor felt repaid for his
earnest efforts. No one could put on a pair of genuine hidalgos for the
first time and expect to handle them correctly.
There were many days in the hills. Until this time the simple drama had
been fairly coherent in Merton Gill’s mind. So consecutively were the
scenes shot that the story had not been hard to follow. But now came
rather a jumble of scenes, not only at times bewildering in themselves,
but apparently unrelated.
First it appeared that the Montague girl, as Miss Rebecca Hoffmeyer, had
tired of being a mere New York society butterfly, had come out into the
big open spaces to do something real, something worth while. The ruin
of her father, still unexplained, had seemed to call out unsuspected
reserves in the girl. She was stern and businesslike in such scenes as
Merton was permitted to observe. And she had not only brought her ruined
father out to the open spaces but the dissipated brother, who was still
seen to play at dice whenever opportunity offered. He played with the
jolly cowboys and invariably won.
Off in the hills there were many scenes which Merton did not overlook.
“I want you to have just your own part in mind,” Baird told him. And,
although he was puzzled later, he knew that Baird was somehow making
it right in the drama when he became again the successful actor of that
first scene, which he had almost forgotten. He was no longer the Buck
Benson of the open spaces, but the foremost idol of the shadowed stage,
and in Harold Parmalee’s best manner he informed the aspiring Montague
girl that he could not accept her as leading lady in his next picture
because she lacked experience. The wager of a kiss was laughingly made
as she promised that within ten days she would convince him of her
talent.
Later she herself, in an effective scene, became the grimfaced Buck
Benson and held the actor up at the point of her two guns. Then,
when she had convinced him that she was Benson, she appeared after an
interval as her own father; the fiery beard, the derby hat with its
dents, the chaps, the bicycle, and golf bag. In this scene she seemed to
demand the actor’s intentions toward the daughter, and again overwhelmed
him with confusion, as Parmalee had been overwhelmed when she revealed
her true self under the baffling disguise. The wager of a kiss was
prettily paid. This much of the drama he knew. And there was an
affecting final scene on a hillside.
The actor, arrayed in chaps, spurs, and boots below the waist was, above
this, in faultless evening dress. “You see, it’s a masquerade party at
the ranche,” Baird explained, “and you’ve thought up this costume to
sort of puzzle the little lady.”
The girl herself was in the short, fringed buckskin skirt, with knife
and revolvers in her belt. Off in the hills day after day she had worn
this costume in those active scenes he had not witnessed. Now she was
merely coy. He followed her out on the hillside with only a little
trouble from the spurs--indeed he fell but once as he approached
her--and the little drama of the lovers, at last united, was touchingly
shown.
In the background, as they stood entwined, the poor demented old mother
was seen. With mop and bucket she was cleansing the side of a cliff, but
there was a happier look on the worn old face.
“Glance around and see her,” railed Baird. “Then explain to the girl
that you will always protect your mother, no matter what happens. That’s
it. Now the clench--kiss her--slow! That’s it. Cut!”
Merton’s part in the drama was ended. He knew that the company worked
in the hills another week and there were more close-ups to take in the
dance-hall, but he was not needed in these. Baird congratulated him
warmly.
“Fine work, my boy! You’ve done your first picture, and with Miss
Montague as your leading lady I feel that you’re going to land ace-high
with your public. Now all you got to do for a couple of weeks is to take
it easy while we finish up some rough ends of this piece. Then we’ll be
ready to start on the new one. It’s pretty well doped out, and there’s
a big part in it for you--big things to be done in a big way, see what I
mean.”
“Well, I’m glad I suited you,” Merton replied. “I tried to give the best
that was in me to a sincere interpretation of that fine part. And it
was a great surprise to me. I never thought I’d be working for you, Mr.
Baird, and of course I wouldn’t have been if you had kept on doing those
comedies. I never would have wanted to work in one of them.” “Of course
not,” agreed Baird cordially. “I realized that you were a serious
artist, and you came in the nick of time, just when I was wanting to be
serious myself, to get away from that slap-stick stuff into something
better and finer. You came when I needed you. And, look here, Merton, I
signed you on at forty a week--”
“Yes, sir: I was glad to get it.”
“Well, I’m going to give you more. From the beginning of the new picture
you’re on the payroll at seventy-five a week. No, no, not a word--” as
Merton would have thanked him. “You’re earning the money. And for the
picture after that--well, if you keep on giving the best that’s in you,
it will be a whole lot more. Now take a good rest till we’re ready for
you.”
At last he had won. Suffering and sacrifice had told. And Baird had
spoken of the Montague girl as his leading lady--quite as if he were a
star. And seventy-five dollars a week! A sum Gashwiler had made him work
five weeks for. Now he had something big to write to his old friend,
Tessie Kearns. She might spread the news in Simsbury, he thought. He
contrived a close-up of Gashwiler hearing it, of Mrs. Gashwiler hearing
it, of Metta Judson hearing it.
They would all be incredulous until a certain picture was shown at the
Bijou Palace, a gripping drama of mother-love, of a clean-limbed young
American type wrongfully accused of a crime and taking the burden of it
upon his own shoulders for the sake of the girl he had come to love; of
the tense play of elemental forces in the great West, the regeneration
of a shallow society girl when brought to adversity by the ruin of her
old father; of the lovers reunited in that West they both loved.
And somehow--this was still a puzzle--the very effective weaving in
and out of the drama of the world’s most popular screen idol, played so
expertly by Clifford Armytage who looked enough like him to be his twin
brother.
Fresh from joyous moments in the projection room, the Montague girl
gazed at Baird across the latter’s desk, Baird spoke.
“Sis, he’s a wonder.”
“Jeff, you’re a wonder. How’d you ever keep him from getting wise?”
Baird shrugged. “Easy! We caught him fresh.”
“How’d you ever win him to do all those falls on the trick spurs, and
get the close-ups of them? Didn’t he know you were shooting?”
“Oh!” Baird shrugged again. “A little talk made that all jake. But what
bothers me--how’s he going to act when he’s seen the picture?”
The girl became grave. “I’m scared stiff every time I think of it. Maybe
he’ll murder you, Jeff.”
“Maybe he’ll murder both of us. You got him into it.”
She did not smile, but considered gravely, absently.
“There’s something else might happen,” she said at last. “That boy’s got
at least a couple of sides to him. I’d rather he’d be crazy mad than
be what I’m thinking of now, and that’s that all this stuff might just
fairly break his heart. Think of it--to see his fine honest acting
turned into good old Buckeye slap-stick! Can’t you get that? How’d you
like to think you were playing Romeo, and act your heart out at it, and
then find out they’d slipped in a cross-eyed Juliet in a comedy make-up
on you? Well, you can laugh, but maybe it won’t be funny to him. Honest,
Jeff, that kid gets me under the ribs kind of. I hope he takes it
standing up, and goes good and crazy mad.”
“I’ll know what to say to him if he does that. If he takes it the other
way, lying down, I’ll be too ashamed ever to look him in the eye again.
Say, it’ll be like going up to a friendly baby and soaking it with a
potato masher or something.”
“Don’t worry about it, Kid. Anyway, it won’t be your fault so much as
mine. And you think there’s only two ways for him to take it, mad or
heart broken? Well, let me tell you something about that lad--he might
fool you both ways. I don’t know just how, but I tell you he’s an actor,
a born one. What he did is going to get over big. And I never yet saw a
born actor that would take applause lying down, even if it does come
for what he didn’t know he was doing. Maybe he’ll be mad--that’s natural
enough. But maybe he’ll fool us both. So cheerio, old Pippin! and let’s
fly into the new piece. I’ll play safe by shooting the most of that
before the other one is released. And he’ll still be playing straight in
a serious heart drama. Fancy that, Armand!”