The Phantom Herd Part 10

"By gracious, we all are!" Andy declared quickly. "We learned our little lessons when we were building claim shacks for ourselves."

"Good enough! You boys could be stage mechanics as well as leading men,"

Luck grinned. "Add hammers and saws to the outfit. We'd have to build a few interior sets."

Rosemary had her eyebrows tied in little knots, she was thinking so fast.

"I'll write the Little Doctor that she can have my silver teaset," she informed Andy impulsively. "She offered me fifty dollars for it, you know. That would buy lots of beans!"

Luck looked at her, but he did not say what was in his mind. Instead he reached into an inner pocket and drew out his pa.s.sbook, "I've got eighteen hundred and ninety-five dollars in the bank," he announced, reading the figures aloud. "And my car ought to bring three or four thousand,--if I can find the man that tried to buy it a month or so before I took the Injuns back. She's a pippin, boys!--"

"Oh, your lovely, big, white machine!" wailed Rosemary. "Would you have to sell it, Luck? Couldn't we squeak along without that?"

"Aw, you don't want to sell your car!" Pink protested. "I know where I can borrow two or three hundred. Maybe the Old Man--"

"We'll put this thing through alone, if we do it at all," Luck told him bluntly. "Can't afford to work with borrowed capital; the risk is too great. Sure, I'll sell the car. I was thinking of it, anyway," he testified falsely but rea.s.suringly. "We'll need every cent I can raise.

There's chemicals and Lord knows what all; and when we come to making our prints and marketing, why--" he threw out both hands expressively. "If we land in Albuquerque with five thousand dollars and our outfit, we won't have a cent to throw away. At that, we'll have to squeeze every nickel till it hollers, before we're through. Believe me, boys, this is going to be some undertaking!"

"Nice, comfortable way you've got of painting things cheerful," the Native Son drawled ironically.

"That's all right. I want you to realize what it's going to be like before you get in so far you can't back out."

"Aw, who's said anything about backing out?" Happy Jack grumbled.

"Let's get right down to bra.s.s tacks and see how strong we can go on money," Andy suggested, pulling a pencil out of an inner pocket. "Here, girl, you do the bookkeeping while we call off the size of our pile. Put 'er down in this book till you can get another one. You can set me down for two seventy-five--or make it three hundred. I can sc.r.a.pe it up, all right. How about you, Pink? This is hard-boiled figures, now, and no guess work."

Pink blew a mouthful of smoke while he did a little mental calculation.

Then he took his twisted-leather purse and emptied it into his saucer. He investigated all his pockets and added eighty-five cents in small change.

Then he gravely began to count, not disdaining three pennies in the pile.

"I've got seventy-five dollars in the bank," he said. "Add ninety dollars salary, and you have a hundred and sixty-five. Add six dollars and eighty-seven cents, and you have--my pile."

Rosemary twisted her lips and wrote the figures opposite Pink's name.

Next came Weary, then Miguel and Big Medicine and the dried little man who chewed violently upon a wooden toothpick and said he was good for eight hundred, and mebby a little mite more.

They pushed their plates to the table's center to make room for their gesticulating hands and uneasy elbows while they planned ways and means.

They argued over trivial points and left the big ones for Luck to settle.

They talked of light effects and wholesale grocery lists and ray filters and smoke pots and railroad fares and the problem of cutting down their baggage so as to avoid paying excess charges. Luck, once he had taken the mental plunge into the deep waters of so hazardous an enterprise, began to exhibit a most amazing knowledge of the details of picture making.

To save money, he told them, he would be his own camera man. He could do without a "still" camera, because he would enlarge clippings from the different scenes in the negative instead. They'd have to manage the range stuff with only one camera, which would mean more work to get the various effects. But with a telephoto lens and a wide angle lens he could come pretty near putting it over the way he wanted it. "And there'll be no more blank ammunition, boys," he told them. "So you want to fit yourselves out with real sh.e.l.ls. I'm not going very strong on this foreground bullet-effect stuff; we can afford to leave that for the Western four-flushers that can't do anything else. But she's some wild down where we'll be located, so we'll not be packing empty guns, at that.

"And there's another thing," he went on, talking and making notes at the same time. "If we're going to do this, we can't get started any too soon. We may be able to hit a late round-up and get some scenes, which will save rounding up stock ourselves for it. And there's all that winter stuff to make, too; we haven't any more time to throw away than we have money."

"Well, we're ready to hit the trail any time you are," Andy declared.

"To-morrow, if yuh say so. You go ahead with your end of it, Luck, and I'll be straw boss here in camp and get the outfit packed and ready to s.h.i.+p outa here on an hour's notice. I can do it, too--believe me!"

"Do you know," said Rosemary, "I'd let James and Weary buy our winter's supplies and have them sent by freight right on to where we're going.

Things are awfully cheap here. I'll make out a list, and the boys can attend to that to-morrow. And I'll bake up a lot of stuff for lunches on the train, too. We're not going to squander money in the dining car."

"Say, we'll just borry one of them dray teams from the Acme corral, by cripes, and haul our own stuff to the depot!" Big Medicine exclaimed with enthusiasm. "Save us four or five dollars right there!"

Luck rose and reached for his umbrella as though he had just recalled an important engagement. "I think I know where to find a buyer for my machine," he said, "so I'll just get on his trail. To-morrow I'll start getting my camera outfit together. Andy, I'll turn this end of the expedition over to you; that idea of getting food supplies here is all right, within certain limits. Don't buy any cheap, weighty stuff here, because the freight will eat up all you save. But I'll leave that to you folks; I guess you've had experience enough--"

"Considering most of us learned our _a-b-c's_ outa Montgomery-Ward catalogues," Weary observed with a quirk of the lips, "I guess you can safely leave it to the bunch. Range kids are brought up on them Wind-river bibles, as we call mail order catalogues. I'll bet you I can give offhand the freight on anything you can name, from a hair hackamore to a gang plow."

"Fly at it, then," laughed Luck, with his hand on the doork.n.o.b. "I am going to be some busy myself. I'll just turn over the transportation problem to you folks. _Adios_."

"Prepare to ride in the chair car," Rosemary called after him warningly.

"Even a tourist sleeper is going to be too luxurious for us; we're going to squeeze nickels till they just squeal!"

Luck held the door open while he smiled approvingly at her. "That'll be playing the game right from the start. _Adios_, folks."

CHAPTER TEN

UNEXPECTED GUESTS FOR APPLEHEAD

Applehead Forrman was worried over his cat, Compadre, which is Spanish for comrade or something of that sort. It was a blue cat and it was a big cat, and it had a bellicose disposition, and Applehead was anxious because it had lately declared war on a neighboring coyote and had not come out of the battle unscathed. Applehead had heard the disturbance and had gone out with a rifle and dispersed the coyote, but not until Compadre had lost half of his tail and a good deal of his self-a.s.surance. Since that night, almost a week ago, Compadre had been a changed cat. He had sought dark corners and had yowled when the best friend he had in the world tried to coax him out to his meals. Applehead was very patient and very sympathetic, and hunted small game with which to tempt the invalid's appet.i.te.

On this day he had a fat prairie dog which he had shot, and he was carrying it around by a hind leg looking for Compadre and calling "Kitty, kitty, kitty," in the most seductive tones of which his desert-harshened vocal chords were capable. He looked under the squat adobe cabin which held all the odds and ends that had acc.u.mulated about the place, and which he called the "ketch-all." He went over and looked under the water tank where there was shade and coolness. He went to the stable, and from there he returned to the adobe house, squat like the "ketch-all" but larger. There was a hole alongside the fireplace chimney at the end next the hill, and sometimes when Compadre was especially disenchanted with his world, he went into the hole and nursed his grievances in dark seclusion under the house.

Applehead got down upon all fours and called "Kitty, kitty, kitty," with his face close to the hole. It was past noon, and Compadre had not had anything to eat since the night before, when he had lapped up half a saucer of canned milk and had apathetically licked a slice of bacon.

Applehead put his ear to the hole and imagined he heard a faint meow from a far corner. He pushed the prairie dog into the aperture and called "Kitty-kitty-kitty" again coaxingly.

He was so absorbed in his anxious quest that he did not hear the chuckle of two wagons coming up through the sand to the corral. He did not even hear the footsteps of men approaching the house. He did not hear anything at all except a dismal yowl now and then from the darkness. He contorted his long person that he might peer into the gloom. He pushed the prairie dog in as far as he could reach. "Come, kitty-kitty-kitty!"

he coaxed. "Doggone your onery soul, I'm gitting tired of this kinda performance! You can tromp on me just so fur and no further, now I'm a-tellin' yuh. That there tail of yourn needs a fresh rag tied to it, and some salve. But I ain't the burrowin' kind of animal, and I ain't comin' in under there after yuh. Come, kitty-kitty-kitty! Come on outa there 'fore I send a charge of birdshot in after yuh!" His voice changed to a tremulous chant of rising anger. "You wall-eyed, mangy, rat-eatin'

son of a gun, what have I been feedin' yuh fur all these years? You come outa there! If it wasn't for the love uh G.o.d I got in my heart, I'll fill yuh so full of holes the coyotes'll have to make soup of ye! I'll sure spread yuh out so thin your hide'll measure up like a mountain lion! Don't yuh yowl at me like that! Come, kitty-kitty-kitty--ni-ice kitty! Come to your old pard what ketched yuh the fattest young dog on the flat for your dinner. Come on, now; you ain't skeered uh me, sh.o.r.ely! Come on, Compadre--ni-ice kitty!"

"Let me try!" cried Rosemary behind him, her voice startling old Applehead so that he knocked his head painfully on the rock foundation as he jerked himself into a more dignified posture. His eyes widened at the size of the audience grouped behind him, but he had faced more amazing sights than that in his eventful career. He got stiffly to his feet and bowed, the prairie dog dangling limply from his hand.

"Howdy! Howdy! Pleased to meet yuh," he greeted them dazedly. Then he spied Luck standing half behind Weary's tall form, and his embarra.s.sed smile changed to a joyful grin. "Well, danged if it ain't Luck! How are yuh, boy? I was jest thinkin' about you right this morning. What wind blowed you into camp? Come right on in, folks. If you're friends of Luck's, yuh don't need no interduction in this camp. Luck and me's et outa the same skillet months on end together. Come on in. I've et, but they's plenty left." His blue eyes twinkled quizzically over the Happy Family and then went to Luck. "What yuh up to this time, boy? 'Nother wild-west show?"

While they were waiting for coffee to boil, Luck told him what he was up to this time. Told him what it was he meant to do in the way of making a Western picture that should be worthy the West. He did not say a word about needing Applehead's a.s.sistance; he did not need to say a word about that. Applehead himself saw where he would fit into the scheme, and he seemed to take it for granted that Luck saw it also.

"Got all your stuff out from town?" he asked, while he was hunting cups enough to go around. "If yuh ain't, you can send a couple of the boys in with a four-horse team after dinner. I d'no about beds, unless yuh got your own beddin'-rolls with yuh. The missus, she can have a room, and the rest of yuh will have to knock some bunks together. Mebby we can clean out the 'ketch-all' and turn that into a bunk house. One I had, it burnt down last winter; some darn-fool Mexicans got to fightin' in there and kicked the lamp over. It could have a new roof put on, I reckon; the walls is there yet. You can take a look around after you eat, and see what all there is to do. Well, set up, folks; ain't much, but I've throwed my feet under the table fer less and was thankful to git it, now I'm a-tellin' yuh!"

Big Medicine bethought him of the remains of the train lunch which they had frugally saved. He brought that and added it to Applehead's impromptu meal. The sandwiches were mashed flat, and the pickles were limp, and the cake much inclined to crumble, but Applehead gave one look and took off his hat.

"I've et, but I can sh.o.r.e eat again when I git my eyes on cake," he declared exuberantly, and pulled an empty box up to the table for a seat.

"I wisht Compadre could git a smell uh that there fried chicken; it would put new life into him, which he needs after tangling with that there coyote 'tother night."

"We ought to unhitch and give the horses a feed," Luck suggested. "Any particular place?"

"Well, you know where to put them cayuses as well as I do," Applehead mumbled, with his mouth full of cake. "I don't care what yuh do around the danged place. Go along and don't bother me, boy; I'm busy."

"Didn't I tell you how it would be?" Luck reminded Andy and Weary when they were outside. "That old boy is tickled to death to have us here. He sure is a type, too. I'll be using him in the picture. And just tale a look at that corral down there! We'll set up camp this afternoon and round up some horses,--Applehead always keeps a bunch running back here on the mesa,--and to-morrow morning we'll get to work. A couple of you will have to take these teams back this afternoon, too. I'll let you drive the four-horse in, Weary, and lead the other behind. And I'll send the Native Son in with Applehead's team and wagon, so you can haul out a thousand feet of lumber for a stage. Get it surfaced one side,--fourteen-foot boards, sabe? And about twenty-five pounds of eight-penny nails. We've got the tools in our outfit. I wonder which pasture Applehead's team is running in. I'll have one of the boys get them up, unless--"

"Luck Lindsay!" came Rosemary's high, clear treble. "Aren't you boys going to eat any dinner?"