“The squirrel’s done it,” whispered the girl after the opening scene. It seemed to her that Merton Gill on the screen might overhear her comment.

Even Baird was low-toned. “Looks so,” he agreed.

“If that ain’t Parmalee then I’ll eat all the hard-boiled eggs on the lot.”

Baird rubbed his hands. “It’s Parmalee plus,” he corrected.

“Oh, Mother, Mother!” murmured the girl while the screen revealed the actor studying his photographs.

“He handled all right in that spot,” observed Baird.

“He’ll handle right—don’t worry. Ain’t I told you he’s a natural born trouper?”

The mail was abandoned in humorous despair. The cigarette lighted in a flawless Parmalee manner, the smoke idly brushed aside. “Poor, silly little girls,” the actor was seen to say. The girl gripped Baird’s arm until he winced. “There, old Pippin! There’s your million, picked right up on the lot!”

“Maybe,” assented the cooler Baird, as they left the projection room.

“And say,” asked the girl, “did you notice all morning how he didn’t even bat an eye when you spoke to him, if the camera was still turning? Not like a beginner that’ll nearly always look up and get out of the picture.”

“What I bet,” observed Baird, “I bet he’d ‘a’ done that album stuff even better than he did if I’d actually put his own pictures in, the way I’m going to for the close-ups. I was afraid he’d see it was kidding if I did, or if I told him what pictures they were going to be. But I’m darned now if I don’t think he’d have stood for it. I don’t believe you’ll ever be able to peeve that boy by telling him he’s good.”

The girl glanced up defensively as they walked.

“Now don’t get the idea he’s conceited, because he ain’t. Not one bit.”

“How do you know he ain’t?”

“I just want to give you the general dope of the piece before you go on,” said Baird, in the shelter of high canvas backing. “You’re the only son of a widowed mother and both you and she are toiling to pay off the mortgage on the little home. You’re the cashier of this business establishment, and in love with the proprietor’s daughter, only she’s a society girl and kind of looks down on you at first. Then, there’s her brother, the proprietor’s only son. He’s the clerk in this place. He doesn’t want to work, but his father has made him learn the business, see? He’s kind of a no-good; dissipated; wears flashy clothes and plays the races and shoots craps and drinks. You try to reform him because he’s idolized by his sister that you’re in love with.

“But you can’t do a thing with him. He keeps on and gets in with a rough crowd, and finally he steals a lot of money out of the safe, and just when they are about to discover that he’s the thief you see it would break his sister’s heart so you take the crime on your own shoulders. After that, just before you’re going to be arrested, you make a getaway—because, after all, you’re not guilty—and you go out West to start all over again—”

“Out there in the big open spaces?” suggested Merton, who had listened attentively.

“Exactly,” assented Baird, with one of those nervous spasms that would now and again twitch his lips and chin. “Out there in the big open spaces where men are men—that’s the idea. And you build up a little gray home in the West for yourself and your poor old mother who never lost faith in you. There’ll be a lot of good Western stuff in this—Buck Benson stuff, you know, that you can do so well—and the girl will get out there some way and tell you that her brother finally confessed his crime, and everything’ll be Jake, see what I mean?”

“Yes, sir; it sounds fine, Mr. Baird. And I certainly will give the best that is in me to this part.” He had an impulse to tell the manager, too, how gratified he was that one who had been content with the low humour of the Buckeye comedies should at last have been won over to the better form of photodrama. But Baird was leading him on to the set; there was no time for this congratulatory episode.

Indeed the impulse was swept from his mind in the novelty of the set now exposed, and in the thought that his personality was to dominate it. The scene of the little drama’s unfolding was a delicatessen shop. Counters and shelves were arrayed with cooked foods, salads, cheeses, the latter under glass or wire protectors. At the back was a cashier’s desk, an open safe beside it. He took his place there at Baird’s direction and began to write in a ledger.

“Now your old mother’s coming to mop up the place,” called Baird. “Come on, Mother! You look up and see her, and rush over to her. She puts down her bucket and mop, and takes you in her arms. She’s weeping; you try to comfort her; you want her to give up mopping, and tell her you can make enough to support two, but she won’t listen because there’s the mortgage on the little flat to be paid off. So you go back to the desk, stopping to give her a sad look as she gets down on the floor. Now, try it.”

A very old, bent, feeble woman with a pail of water and cloths tottered on. Her dress was ragged, her white hair hung about her sad old face in disorderly strands. She set down her bucket and raised her torn apron to her eyes.

“Look up and see her,” called Baird. “A glad light comes into her eyes. Rush forward—say ‘Mother’ distinctly, so it’ll show. Now the clench. You’re crying on his shoulder, Mother, and he’s looking down at you first, then off, about at me. He’s near crying himself. Now he’s telling you to give up mopping places, and you’re telling him every little helps.

“All right, break. Get to mopping, Mother, but keep on crying. He stops for a long look at you. He seems to be saying that some day he will take you out of such work. Now he’s back at his desk. All right. But we’ll do it once more. And a little more pathos, Merton, when you take the old lady in your arms. You can broaden it. You don’t actually break down, but you nearly do.”

The scene was rehearsed again, to Baird’s satisfaction, and the cameras ground. Merton Gill gave the best that was in him. His glad look at first beholding the old lady, the yearning of his eyes when his arms opened to enfold her, the tenderness of his embrace as he murmured soothing words, the lingering touch of his hand as he left her, the manly determination of the last look in which he showed a fresh resolve to release her from this toil, all were eloquent of the deepest filial devotion and earnestness of purpose.

Back at his desk he was genuinely pitying the old lady. Very lately, it was evident, she had been compelled to play in a cabaret scene, for she smelled strongly of cigarettes, and he could not suppose that she, her eyes brimming with anguished mother love, could have relished these. He was glad when it presently developed that his own was not to be a smoking part.

“Now the dissipated brother’s coming on,” explained Baird. “He’ll breeze in, hang up his hat, offer you a cigarette, which you refuse, and show you some money that he won on the third race yesterday. You follow him a little way from the desk, telling him he shouldn’t smoke cigarettes, and that money he gets by gambling will never do him any good. He laughs at you, but you don’t mind. On your way back to the desk you stop by your mother, and she gets up and embraces you again.

“Take your time about it—she’s your mother, remember.”

The brother entered. He was indeed dissipated appearing, loudly dressed, and already smoking a cigarette as he swaggered the length of the shop to offer Merton one. Merton refused in a kindly but firm manner. The flashy brother now pulled a roll of bills from his pocket and pointed to his winning horse in a racing extra. The line in large type was there for the close-up—“Pianola Romps Home in Third Race.”

Followed the scene in which Merton sought to show this youth that cigarettes and gambling would harm him. The youth remained obdurate. He seized a duster and, with ribald action, began to dust off the rows of cooked food on the counters. Again the son stopped to embrace his mother, who again wept as she enfolded him. The scene was shot.

Step by step, under the patient coaching of Baird, the simple drama unfolded. It was hot beneath the lights, delays were frequent and the rehearsals tedious, yet Merton Gill continued to give the best that was in him. As the day wore on, the dissipated son went from bad to worse. He would leave the shop to place money on a horse race, and he would seek to induce the customers he waited on to play at dice with him. A few of them consented, and one, a coloured man who had come to purchase pigs’-feet, won at this game all the bills which the youth had shown to Merton on entering.

There were moments during this scene when Merton wondered if Baird were not relapsing into Buckeye comedy depths, but he saw the inevitable trend of the drama and the justification for this bit of gambling. For the son, now penniless, became desperate. He appealed to Merton for a loan, urging it on the ground that he had a sure thing thirty—to-one shot at Latonia. At least these were the words of Baird, as he directed Merton to deny the request and to again try to save the youth from his inevitable downfall. Whereupon the youth had sneered at Merton and left the place in deep anger.

There followed the scene with the boy’s sister, only daughter of the rich delicatessen merchant, who Merton was pleased to discover would be played by the Montague girl. She entered in a splendid evening gown, almost too splendid, Merton thought, for street wear in daylight, though it was partially concealed by a rich opera cloak. The brother being out, Merton came forward to wait upon her.

“It’s like this,” Baird explained. “She’s just a simple New York society girl, kind of shallow and heartless, because she has never been aroused nor anything, see? You’re the first one that’s really touched her heart, but she hesitates because her father expects her to marry a count and she’s come to get the food for a swell banquet they’re giving for him. She says where’s her brother, and if anything happened to him it would break her heart. Then she orders what she wants and you do it up for her, looking at her all the time as if you thought she was the one girl in the world.

“She kind of falls for you a little bit, still she is afraid of what her father would say. Then you get bolder, see? You come from behind the counter and begin to make love, talking as you come out—so-and-so, so-and-so, so-and-so—Miss Hoffmeyer, I have loved you since the day I first set eyes on you—so-and-so, so-and-so, so-and-so, I have nothing to offer but the love of an honest man—she’s falling for it, see? So you get up close and grab her—cave-man stuff. Do a good hard clench—she’s yours at last; she just naturally sags right down on to you. You’ve got her.

“Do a regular Parmalee. Take your time. You’re going to kiss her and kiss her right. But just as you get down to it the father busts in and says what’s the meaning of this, so you fly apart and the father says you’re discharged, because his daughter is the affianced wife of this Count Aspirin, see? Then he goes back to the safe and finds all the money has been taken, because the son has sneaked in and grabbed out the bundle and hid it in the ice-box on his way out, taking only a few bills to get down on a horse. So he says call the police—but that’s enough for now. Go ahead and do that love scene for me.”

Slowly the scene was brought to Baird’s liking. Slowly, because Merton Gill at first proved to be diffident at the crisis. For three rehearsals the muscular arm of Miss Montague had most of the clenching to do. He believed he was being rough and masterful, but Baird wished a greater show of violence. They had also to time this scene with the surreptitious entrance of the brother, his theft of the money which he stuffed into a paper sack and placed in the ice-box, and his exit.

The leading man having at last proved that he could be Harold Parmalee even in this crisis, the scene was extended to the entrance of the indignant father. He was one of those self-made men of wealth, Merton thought, a short, stout gentleman with fiery whiskers, not at all fashionably dressed. He broke upon the embrace with a threatening stick. The pair separated, the young lover facing him, proud, erect, defiant, the girl drooping and confused.

The father discharged Merton Gill with great brutality, then went to the safe at the back of the room, returning to shout the news that he had been robbed by the man who would have robbed him of his daughter. It looked black for Merton. Puzzled at first, he now saw that the idolized brother of the girl must have taken the money. He seemed about to declare this when his nobler nature compelled him to a silence that must be taken for guilt.

The erring brother returned, accompanied by several customers. “Bring a detective to arrest this man,” ordered the father. One of the customers stepped out to return with a detective. Again Merton was slightly disquieted at perceiving that the detective was the cross-eyed man. This person bustled about the place, tapping the cooked meats and the cheeses, and at last placed his hand upon the shoulder of the supposed thief. Merton, at Baird’s direction, drew back and threatened him with a blow. The detective cringed and said: “I will go out and call a policeman.”

The others now turned their backs upon the guilty man. Even the girl drew away after one long, agonized look at the lover to whose embrace she had so lately submitted. He raised his arms to her in mute appeal as she moved away, then dropped them at his side.

“Give her all you got in a look,” directed Baird. “You’re saying: ‘I go to a felon’s cell, but I do it all for you.’ Dream your eyes at her.” Merton Gill obeyed.

The action progressed. In this wait for the policeman the old mother crept forward. She explained to Merton that the money was in the ice-box where the real thief had placed it, and since he had taken the crime of another upon his shoulders he should also take the evidence, lest the unfortunate young man be later convicted by that; she also urged him to fly by the rear door while there was yet time. He did these things, pausing for a last embrace of the weeping old lady, even as the hand of the arriving policeman was upon the door.

“All for to-day, except some close-ups,” announced Baird when this scene had been shot. There was a breaking up of the group, a relaxation of that dramatic tension which the heart-values of the piece had imposed. Only once, while Merton was doing some of his best acting, had there been a kind of wheezy tittering from certain members of the cast and the group about the cameras.

Baird had quickly suppressed this. “If there’s any kidding in this piece it’s all in my part,” he announced in cold, clear tones, and there had been no further signs of levity. Merton was pleased by this manner of Baird’s. It showed that he was finely in earnest in the effort for the worth-while things. And Baird now congratulated him, seconded by the Montague girl. He had, they told him, been all that could be expected.

“I wasn’t sure of myself,” he told them, “in one scene, and I wanted to ask you about it, Mr. Baird. It’s where I take that money from the ice-box and go out with it. I couldn’t make myself feel right. Wouldn’t it look to other people as if I was actually stealing it myself? Why couldn’t I put it back in the safe?”

Baird listened respectfully, considering. “I think not,” he announced at length. “You’d hardly have time for that, and you have a better plan. It’ll be brought out in the subtitles, of course. You are going to leave it at the residence of Mr. Hoffmeyer, where it will be safe. You see, if you put it back where it was, his son might steal it again. We thought that out very carefully.”

“I see,” said Merton. “I wish I had been told that. I feel that I could have done that bit a lot better. I felt kind of guilty.”

“You did it perfectly,” Baird assured him.

“Kid, you’re a wonder,” declared the Montague girl. “I’m that tickled with you I could give you a good hug,” and with that curious approach to hysteria she had shown while looking at his stills, she for a moment frantically clasped him to her. He was somewhat embarrassed by this excess, but pardoned it in the reflection that he had indeed given the best that was in him. “Bring all your Western stuff to the dressing room tomorrow,” said Baird.

Western stuff—the real thing at last! He was slightly amazed later to observe the old mother outside the set. She was not only smoking a cigarette with every sign of relish, but she was singing as she did a little dance step. Still she had been under a strain all day, weeping, too, almost continuously. He remembered this, and did not judge her harshly as she smoked, danced, and lightly sang,

CHAPTER XIV. OUT THERE WHERE MEN ARE MEN

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!”