I. A. R. Wylie

“ The photographer must have run amuck. He had forgotten his business, forgotten the heroine racing hideous Death neck and neck, and had made a picture to please himself—a picture of endless space, of incredible empty distance with the ghosts of mountains shad owing the horizon. He seemed to linger over it, careless of all consequences, to rejoice in it, and all at once young Pobjoy, who had never seen a horizon other than that of chimney-pots, choked, and his small hands grew wet and tense, and his chin thrust itself out. ”

“ He groped under the blanket and drew out cautiously the old, rusty hunting knife which Narbona carried in his belt. Then he crawled out, stark naked as he was, into the sunlight.
It was getting hotter every moment. The sun glared over the top of the eastern mountains. The sand burned under Son-of-His-Father's hard little feet. He ran down to the sluggish stream that crawled amid the withering alfalfa, and heaped handfuls of mud together on the parched bank. He worked hard, snorting and puffing just as the iron beast snorted and puffed when it came up the valley. ”

“ The rain came no more as it had done in the old days; the spring was dying, and the Navajos wandered over the face of the desert, seeking pasture. Only Narbona remained with his dwindling flock of sheep and his one goat. ”

“ But Richards had ceased to hear even the familiar click of the camera. He was looking straight into Son-of-His-Father's face, and what he saw there he did not like. The fellow was playing up now—almost too well. The dawning look of comprehension, the twitching nostrils, the haughty gathering together of the long, lean body, stirred to life some latent antagonism in the white man's blood. This dirty good-for-nothing! This drunken studio loafer! A star part, too. It made one mad. Jamey Pobjoy must be dippy himself. ”

“ The desert hated them. It fought them with cloudburst and sand-storm and treacherous mirage. But there were too many of them. They came again and again like men driven by a desire stronger than the fear of death.
"The Navajo people sinned. Those Above turned their faces from them, so that when the white men came, there was no power in them. The white men have taken our land. They have cast spells over us so that we have become outcasts for them to mock at. Let us live again as men."
The goat trailed past him in the firelight, dragging its rope; the goat, his playfellow, was dead. ”

“ He did not answer when Jamey Pobjoy, lurching down the aisle of the car, spoke to him, but shrank back into himself as though from some painful contact. He had not been drunk for three weeks, and his parched nerves burned and twitched with suffering.
They had not given him a chance to get drunk. They had kept him in the studio, together with a band of fifty other gone-to-seed Indians who habitually hung about the employment yards waiting for easily earned money. They had not had to work much, but had lounged about the lot, gambling or sleeping. ”

“ Jamey's assistant yelled through his megaphone, and the pioneers registered fear and despair. In front of them the long, low line had become a rising cloud of dust, rolling swiftly towards them, and out of it sounded the thunder of hoofs, the beating drum, the tragic, exultant war-cry. ”

“ At the end of three months he had unobtrusively wormed his way into the laboratories, from which he emerged after a short interval as about tenth-assistant to the second camera-man, whose grandfather also came from England and who showed him therefore a tolerant goodwill. For a year Jamey Pobjoy waited. Then on location, one grilling summer's day, miles from the studio, with four hundred expensive supers waiting to begin the battle of Waterloo, his chief fainted, and young Pobjoy stepped into his place. It was the opportunity which comes to every man who deserves it. ”

“ Every day, when the sun had climbed to the top of the sky, an iron beast snorting fire and smoke toiled up the desert valley and stopped, panting, at the wooden depot not a thousand yards from Narbona's hogan. ”

“ Was it true what Narbona and Yunosi had said yesterday, that the pasture was giving out and that the sheep were dying and that the goat must go because she was old and useless and eating more than any of them? Why didn't the rains come as they had done in the time of Barboncita, the great chief? It was because of the White Men and the great iron beast. They were bad medicine—bad medicine. Yunosi said so, and what Yunosi said was true. ”

“ The white men and women climbed out of the iron beast, groaning with the heat and stretching themselves. They stared at Narbona and Yunosi, handled their wares, and grumbled and haggled. They said all Indians were liars and thieves and that the thing wasn't worth half that. ”

“ Good God—they've run amuck—they mean mischief——"
He turned with a gasp and ran, stumbling and blundering, through the sand back to the caravan.
But Jamey Pobjoy, swearing between his teeth, leaped to the camera. The sweat of icy terror ran down his limbs, but in his heart was a delirious joy—a ruthless triumph. The artist in him surged on top, trampling underfoot Lucy May and love and fear of death and common sense. It was real—real! A frightful disaster was rushing down upon them. They had no chance against these madmen. But if only he could make the picture—and what a picture! ”

“ His hands sprawled on their knuckles in the dust.
"Me make 'em great sun-picture," Jamey Pobjoy went on. "Son-of-His-Father plenty big fellow. Gone to the dogs. Fire-water and all. Then White Man like me come along—tell 'em stories of old days when Son-of-His-Father mighty chief and fight White Man and knock spots off him. White Man want to make 'em sun-pictures of great chief, and Son-of-His-Father remember and come back and sing 'em old songs and go out on the war-path. And all time White Man make 'em pictures—real pictures." ”

“ This white man drive your father off your land—he steal 'em cattle—he kill 'em people. Now you come. You ask justice Sabe? You big man. All your fathers great warriors. Look it. And you—Richards"—he swung fiercely round on his leading man—"put pep into it. You've got a bad conscience. You're afraid and uneasy. Feel it. Believe in yourself."
Richards mopped himself desperately. He had never been asked to believe in himself before. He was a movie-actor—straightforward, painstaking, with a collection of labelled, stereotyped gestures. ”

“ The Director taught it to 'em—didn't you, Pobjoy? They're rehearsing. Sounds as though they enjoyed it."
The camera-man groaned. "Well, I shan't cry when they stop. Say, I'll be glad to be tucked up again in my own downy little bed."
But Jamey Pobjoy lay still with his face between his hands. "They're real," he thought. "And we're play-acting humbugs—guying them."
And suddenly the certainty that he was to be a great man and would marry Lucy May did not matter any more. ”

“ Amid frantic jumps and flickerings, a Wild West story unwound itself with its inevitable saloons and sheriffs and cow boys and sweetly efficient heroines with bobbing curls and six-shooters bristling at their waists. ”

“ Humans don't fight like that. Even as missing links they didn't stand about making faces at one another. It's not real."
The director said nothing, because such a thing had never happened to him before, and his everyday vocabulary was obviously inadequate. But the next morning young Pobjoy received an envelope with the pay due him and the intimation that the Constellation Film Company required his services no more.
Lucy May wept for him. But Jamey Pobjoy merely took a wad of manuscript from his desk and went over to the scenario director of the Magnum Opus Players and laid his case before him. ”

“ Shut up."
"I'd like to make pickshures, Pa."
"I'll make a pickshure of you if you don't 'old your noise. Look at every one starin ' at you! Cawn't yer be'ive? The way your ma brings you up fair makes me sick." ”