The Phantom Herd | Page 9

a
brimstone smell. We're all plumb halter-broke and so tame we--"
"You look all right to me, brother," Luck told him in that convincing
tone he had.
"Well, same to you," Andy retorted with a frank heartiness he was not

in the habit of bestowing upon strangers. "I feel as if I'd worked with
you. Pink was with me when we saw that picture, and we both hollered
'Go to it!' right out loud, when you gathered up the ribbons and yanked
off the brake and went off hell-popping and smiling back over your
shoulder at us. It was your size and that smile of yours that made me
remember you. You looked like a kid when you mounted to the boot;
and you drove down off smiling, and you had one helanall of a trip, and
you drove off that grade looking like you was trying to commit suicide
and was smiling still when you pulled up at the post-office. By gracious,
I--"
Luck gave a little chuckle deep in his throat. "I did all that smiling the
day before I drove off the grade," he confessed, looking from one to the
other. "I don't guess I'd have smiled quite so sweet, maybe, if I'd
waited."
"Is that the way you make moving pictures, hind-side-foremost?" Andy,
his back to the table, lifted himself over the rim to a comfortable seat
and began to make himself a cigarette.
"Yes, or both ways from the middle, just as it happens." Luck was
always ready to talk pictures. "In that stage-driver picture I made all the
scenes before I made that drive,--for two reasons. Biggest one was that
I wanted to be sure of having it all made, in case something went
wrong on that feature drive; get me? Other was plain, human
bullheadedness. Some of the four-flushers I was cursed with in the
company,--because they were cheap and I had to balance up what I was
paying the Injuns,--they kept eyeing that bluff where I said I'd come
down with the coach, and betting I wouldn't, and talking off in corners
about me just stalling. I just let 'em sweat. I made the start, and I made
the finish. I drove right to where I looked down off the
pinnacle--remember?--and saw the outlaw gang at the foot of the grade;
I made all the 'dissolves,' and where I went back and captured 'em and
brought 'em in to camp. But I didn't drive off the grade into the gulch
till last thing, as luck would have it. Good thing, too. That old coach
was sure some busted, and I wasn't doing any more smiles till I grew
some hide."

Andy Green licked his cigarette and let his honest gray eyes wander
from Luck to the darkly handsome face of the Native Son. "Sounds
most as exciting as holding down a homestead, anyway. Don't you
think so, Mig? And say! It's sure a pity we can't put off some things in
real life till we get all set and ready to handle 'em!"
"That's right." Luck's face sobered as the idea caught his imagination.
"That's dead right; how well I know it!"
Andy smoked and swung his feet and regarded Luck with interest. "It's
against my religious principles to go poking my nose into the other
fellow's business," he said after a minute, "but I'm wondering if there's
anything in this God-forsaken country to bring a fellow like you here
deliberate. I'm wondering if you meant to stop, or if you just leaned too
far out the car window on your way through town."
For a half minute Luck looked up at him. He had expected a
preparatory winning of the confidence of the men whom he sought. He
had planned to lead up gradually to his mission, in case he found his
men. But in that half minute he threw aside his plan as a weak, puerile
wasting of time, and he answered Andy Green truthfully.
"No, I didn't fall off the train," he drawled. "I just grabbed my grip and
beat it when they told me where I was. I'm out on a still hunt for some
real boys. Some that can ride and shoot and that know cow-science so
well they don't have to glad up in cowboy clothes and tie red bandanna
bibs on to make folks think they're range broke."
"And yet you're wasting time in this tame little granger wart on the
map!"
"No, not wasting time," smiled Luck serenely. "A little old
trunk-juggler up the trail told me about the Flying U outfit that is still
sending their wagons out when the grass gets green. I stopped off to
give the high-sign to the boys, and say howdy, and swap yarns, and
maybe haze some of 'em