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. Ared-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--Iguess 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.
