Charles E. Van Loan

“ I've crawled miles and miles on my stomach, collecting red ants and wood-ticks that I couldn't scratch because the camera was looking at me. I've charged till I was black in the face. I'm a veteran of Bull Run, Antietam, Lookout Mountain, Shiloh, the Wilderness, Gettysburg—and I held Grant's hawss at Appomattox and loaned him the makings of a cigarette. ”

“ They won't stand for anything else. We've got to pull some stunts in order to make this next picture stand up. This swimming stuff is easy. You know how a horse acts when he gets beyond his depth, don't you?"
"Not—not exactly," said Hale.
"Well, it practically amounts to the same thing as walking on his hind legs. He's feeling for bottom—see?—and kind of treading water. Soon as you feel him going out from under you take hold of the pommel with one hand and let him tow you. Then, when you're almost across, Buck jumps out of the willows and fires once. ”

“ One man passes upon all the film turned out by the various directors, and his word is final. A shake of the head may cancel days of hard work and entail additional expense of hundreds of dollars. On this particular day Bill Cartwright, projecting-room expert and also the Western representative of the Titan Company, had summoned Jimmy Montague to the theater of judgment, there to witness, in a completed and assembled picture, the initial appearance of A. Lester Hale as a movie star. ”

“ That's the sort of a rough rider Hale is."
"You sure spoke an armful then!" said Buck. "Montague usually figures on twenty or twenty-five runs a day. This Clarence guy fooled round so much that we only did five—one down the hill, one through water, and three dinky little gallops on level ground, 'most as exciting as a female riding school out for the afternoon. A whole day's work wasted—all them extry men to pay; and it's my bet that we'll get make-overs on the entire bunch." ”

“ A few years ago we faked the Western stuff and got by with it, but nowadays audiences are too well educated and too wise. They've been brought up on the real thing and they won't stand for the hunk. Every company out here has got real riders and ropers, and everybody will be looking for Hale to do the same sort of stuff—and he can't! ”

“ And they positively cost me a fortune in photographs."
"You've got a few left, I see," said Montague, looking about him. No less than eight different poses of the great stage Westerner were displayed in various parts of the room. "If the newspaper men hunt you it's better than hiring a press agent to hunt them."
"I dare say," remarked Hale carelessly. "It's a nuisance, though. Reporters run in at all times; they seem to have no respect for privacy, no finer feelings, no——"
A thin, sad young man came in from the other room and waited at Hale's elbow.
"Well, James, what is it now?" ”

“ He's got the theater idea about the star dressing-room and he thinks he's entitled to it here. Wait till I get him out on a location somewhere when there ain't any women round—and I'll make him change his clothes in a bunch of cactus or behind a horse!"
"Pass out your saddle, Mr. Hale," called Montague. "I'll have one of the boys put it on Teddy. He's the best-looking horse we've got. We're going to make the outdoor stuff first, while the carpenters get the interiors ready. We'll go into the hills and make some runs." ”

“ I'll be there with my hair in a braid!" said Buck.
V As the big studio touring car bummed swiftly along the foothill road Jimmy Montague, in the tonneau with A. Lester Hale, his valet and two suitcases, maintained a cheerful flow of conversation, apparently unmindful of the somewhat sulky silence of his star.
"There is really not the slightest danger in the world," said Montague. "In the first place the horse can swim like a——"
"But I understood you to say the water wasn't deep!" interrupted Hale. ”

“ About his slender waist was strapped a heavy cartridge belt, from which swung a stamped-leather holster, sheltering a pearl-handled and gold-plated forty-five caliber revolver—the same that had barked death to many a villain in the last act, and caused thousands of matinée girls to cover their ears and squeak with pleasurable fright. ”

“ Ten thousand dollars is a lot of money."
"So I've been told," remarked Jimmy, "and it seems to me that a man who saves it ought to be entitled to salvage." He took his departure, chewing earnestly on an unlighted cigar.
Jimmy Montague did not go authoring; he went motoring instead, which, for a moving picture director, is much the same thing. All the world is truly a stage for those who ransack it for the scenery round which the flickering dramas are built.
There are seasons of the year when deep running water is scarce in Southern California, hut Jimmy Montague knew where to look ”

“ As soon as a scene is photographed the film goes to the developing room, and when the negative is dry it is flashed upon a screen and scrutinised for defects. At times the action of the players is at fault or the camera man has erred, but more often the condition of the film itself presents a reason for rejection. ”

“ The poor sucker can't even set still on a hawss without worryin' all over his face. What would he do in some of them real tough runs and chases that Jim Montague frames up for us—lickety-split down the side of a cañon! ”

“ Come on, you noble heroes! The camera guy has got the box threaded up and ready for business. I'll bet anybody three to one we have to make that last charge all over again."
II James Montague, producing director for the Titan Company and a person of considerable importance in the moving-picture world—which is rather a larger world than most people think—put on kid gloves and a stiff hat and went downtown to call upon A. Lester Hale as soon as he was advised that the star had arrived from New York. Jimmy was the sort of a man who would go barehanded before kings and emperors ”

“ Hale," he says, 'please remember that in this business we don't leave nothing to the imagination. This ain't the stage,' he says. 'This is real scenery and real water. We don't have no canvas rivers in the movies. When we go into the water we get wet. I've had my whole company overboard in the Pacific Ocean. This creek is only three feet deep and I guess you can stand it. We'll make the run now, if you please.'
"Well, Four Flush wasn't the least mite tickled, but he saw he was up against it; so he climbs down off his hawss and begins to peel his chaps. ”

“ It's a high price for cheese."
The next morning A. Lester Hale, bag, baggage and valet, arrived at the Titan studio. Jimmy Montague, in a dirty slouch hat, disreputable chaps and high-heeled boots, welcomed him cheerfully.
"I play the heavies in the "Western pictures," said Montague in explanation. "That's why I'm made up. This will be your dressing-room, Mr. Hale." It was the one the director had just vacated, consequently the best allotted to the men. "Get on your cowpuncher togs and don't make your face up very much." ”

“ Can't you see your Uncle Buck's heart is cracked plumb in two?"
"What cracked it?" asked Leslie, a man of few words but keen perceptions. "Got a new lookin'-glass in the extry men's dressing room?"
"I've seen the difference between a phony and the real thing," said Buck. "So will you when you get a flash at that new leadin' man. Chaps lined with kid—hair on 'em a foot long; solid gold smoke-pole; Kansas City boots; silver spurs that weigh a couple of pounds apiece ”

“ His sombrero was of the softest gray beaver, eighteen inches across the brim, with a twelve-inch crowm—price, thirty-five dollars. The band was of gold filigree, studded with tourmalines. His quirt was stiff with gold cord.
Buck Parvin took one long look and went out behind the developing room to express his feelings.
"Don't cuss like that, Buck," said Ben Leslie, the property man. "You won't catch no fish."
"Look at me!" said Buck tragically. "I used to be the niftiest thing on the Coast in the cow-puncher line, didn't I? ”

“ This is too good to be told without music. The first run we made was down a little pitch in the road and off into the brush. We was chasin' a hawss thief—that Mexican extry man. Well, sir, Mister Four Flush takes a look at the hill we had to come down and begins to holler. He said it was too steep. After that he had to know whether Teddy was surefooted. That was a warm one to pull on the best stunt hawss in the movie business, hey?
"Well, Jim finally got him ribbed up to make the run. There wasn't no rehearsal—didn't need none, for it was just straight riding stuff. ”

“ The negatives are good, but the picture itself is hopeless. Your runs and chases haven't got any life in 'em. You're away over on your footage, and this fellow Hale is impossible. Yes—worse than that! Even in the studio stuff he kills half the scenes he gets into. ”

“ I wouldn't have believed it, either, if I hadn't seen it. 'Get back!' Jim yells at him. 'Can't you see you're spoilin' this picture?'
" 'What do I care for your darned ole picture?' howls Four Flush. 'You told me to ride through them weeds and I done it. Now look at these chaps! They're a solid mass of stickers.'
" 'That's what chaps are for,' says Jim. 'Don't you know that film costs money? And you ought to have waited until the run was over!'
"Well, they had it hot and heavy ”