The Phantom Herd | Page 7

and the

probable amount of footage it would require, and debated whether it
should be "shot" with two cameras or three to get scenes from different
angles. A stampede it should be,--a real stampede of fear-frenzied
range cattle in the mad flight of terror; not a bunch of galloping tame
cows urged to foreground by shouting and rock-throwing from beyond
the side lines of the scene. It would be hard to get, and it could not be
rehearsed before the camera was turned on it. Luck decided that it
should be shot from three angles, at least, and if he could manage it he
would have a "panoram" of the whole thing from a height.
The porter came apologetically with his big whisk broom and told Luck
that they would all presently be gazing at Dry Lake, or words which
carried that meaning. So Luck permitted himself to be whisked from a
half dollar while his thoughts were "in the field" with his camera men
and company, shooting a real stampede from various angles and trying
to manage so that the dust should not obscure the scene. After a rain--of
course! Just after a soaking rain, he thought, while he gathered up his
time-table and a magazine that held his precious figures, and followed
the porter out to the vestibule while the train slowed.
It was in this mood that Luck descended to the Dry Lake depot
platform and looked about him. He had no high expectation of finding
here what he sought. He was simply making sure, before he left the
country behind him, that he had not "overlooked any bets." His mind
was open to conviction even while it was prepared against
disappointment; therefore his eyes were as clear of any prejudice as
they were of any glamour. He saw things as they were.
On the side track, then, stood a string of cars loaded with wool, as his
nose told him promptly. Farms there were none, but that was because
the soil was yellow and pebbly and barren where it showed in great
bald spots here and there; you would not expect to raise cabbages
where a prairie dog had to forage far for a living. Behind the depot, the
prairie humped a huge, broad shoulder of bluff wrinkled along the
forward slope of it like the folds of a full fashioned skirt. There, too,
the soil was bare,--clipped to the very grass roots by hundreds upon
hundreds of hungry sheep whose wool, very likely, was crowding those

cars upon the siding. Luck wasted neither glances nor thought upon the
scene. Dry Lake was like many, many other outworn "cow towns"
through which he had passed; changed without being bettered; all of
the old life taken out of it in the process of its taming.
He threw his grip into the waiting, three-seated spring wagon that
served as a hotel bus, climbed briskly after it, and glanced ahead to
where he saw the age-blackened boards of the stockyards. Cattle--and
then came the sheep. So runs the epitaph of the range, and it was
written plainly across Dry Lake and its surroundings.
They went up a dusty trail and past the yawning wings of the
stockyards where a bunch of sheep blatted now in the thirst of
mid-afternoon. They stopped before the hotel where, in the old days,
many a town-hungry puncher had set his horse upon its haunches that
he might dismount in a style to match his eagerness. Luck climbed out
and stood for a minute looking up and down the sandy street that slept
in the sun and dreamed, it may be, of rich, unforgotten moments when
the cow-punchers had come in off the range and stirred the sluggish
town to a full, brief life with their rollicking. Across the street was
Rusty Brown's place, with its narrow porch deserted of loafers and its
windows blinking at the street with a blankness that belied the things
they had looked upon in bygone times.
A less experienced man than Luck would have been convinced by now
that here was no place to go seeking "real boys." But Luck had been a
range man himself before he took to making motion pictures; he knew
range towns as he knew men,--which was very well indeed. He looked,
as he stood there, not disgusted but mildly speculative. Two horses
were tied to the hitching rail before Rusty Brown's place. These horses
bore saddles and bridles, and, if you know the earmarks, you can learn
a good deal about a rider just by looking at his outfit. Neither saddle
was new, but both gave evidence of a master's pride in his gear. They
were well-preserved saddles. They had the conservative swell of fork
that told Luck almost to a year how old