The Phantom Herd | Page 2

with their arms folded, watching
him gravely. The squaws pushed straggling locks from their eyes that
they might watch him also. The papooses were chewing gum and

staring at him solemnly. Old Mrs. Ghost-Dog, she of the ponderous
form and plaid blanket that Luck had used with such good effect in the
foreground of his atmosphere scenes, lifted up her voice suddenly, and
wailed after him in high-keyed lament that she would see his face no
more; and Luck felt a sudden contraction of the throat while he waved
his hand to them and rode away.
Well, now he must go on to the next job, which he hoped would be
more pleasant than this one had been. Luck hated to give up those
Indians. He liked them, and they liked him,--though that was not the
point. He had done good work with them. When he directed the scenes,
those Indians did just what he wanted, and just the way he wanted it
done; Luck was too old a director not to know the full value of such
workers.
But the Acme Film Company, caught with the rest of the world in the
pressure of hard times, wanted to economize. The manager had pointed
out to Luck, during the course of an evening's discussion, that these
Indians were luxuries in the making of pictures, and must be taken off
the payroll for the good of the dividends. The manager had contended
that white men and women, properly made up, could play the part of
Indians where Indians were needed; whereas Indians could never be
made to play the part of white men and women. Therefore, since white
men and women were absolutely necessary. Why keep a bunch of
Indians around eating up profits? The manager had sense on his side, of
course. Other companies were making Indian pictures occasionally
with not a real Indian within miles of the camera, but Luck Lindsay
groaned inwardly, and cursed the necessity of economizing. For Luck
had one idol, and that idol was realism. When the scenario called for
twenty or thirty Indians, Luck wanted Indians,--real, smoke-tanned,
blanketed bucks and squaws and papooses; not made-up whites who
looked like animated signs for cigar stores and acted like,--well, never
mind what Luck said they acted like.
"I can take the Injuns back," he conceded, "and worry along somehow
without them. But if you want me to put on any more Western stuff,
you'll have to let me weed out some of these Main Street cowboys that

Clements wished on to me, and go out in the sagebrush and round up
some that ain't all hair hatbands and high-heeled boots and bluff. I've
got to have some whites to fill the foreground, if I give up the Injuns; or
else I quit Western stuff altogether. I've been stalling along and keeping
the best of the bucks in the foreground, and letting these said riders
lope in and out of scenes and pile off and go to shooting soon as the
camera picks them up, but with the Injuns gone, the whites won't get
by.
"Maybe you have noticed that when there was any real riding, I've had
the Injuns do it. And do you think I've been driving that stagecoach
hell-bent from here to beyond because I'd no other way to kill time?
Wasn't another darned man in the outfit I'd trust, that's why. If I take
the Indians back, I've got to have some real boys." Luck's voice was
plaintive, and a little bit desperate.
"Well, dammit, have your real boys! I never said you shouldn't. Weed
out the company to suit yourself. You'll have to take the Injuns back;
nobody else can handle the touch-me-not devils. You can lay off the
company if you want to, and while you're up there pick up a bunch of
cowboys to suit you. You're making good, Luck; don't take it that I'm
criticizing anything you've done or the way you did it. You've been
turning out the best Western stuff that goes on the screen; anybody
knows that. That isn't the point. We just simply can't afford to keep
those Indians any longer without retrenching on something else that's a
lot more vital. You know what they cost as well as I do; you know what
present conditions are. Figure it out for yourself."
"I don't have to," Luck retorted in a worried tone. "I know what we're
up against. I know we ought to give them up--but I sure hate to do it!
Lor-dee, but I can do things with that bunch! Remember Red Brother?"
Luck was off on his hobby, the making of Indian pictures. "Remember
the panoram effect I got on that massacre of the wagon train?
Remember the council-of-war scene, and the close-up of
Young-Dog-Howls-At-The-Moon