Merton of the Movies Part 29

"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 s.p.a.ces.

"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 where 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 b.u.t.terfly, had come out into the big open s.p.a.ces 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 s.p.a.ces 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 s.p.a.ces, 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!"

CHAPTER XV. A NEW TRAIL

One genial morning a few days later the sun shone in across the desk of Baird while he talked to Merton Gill of the new piece. It was a sun of fairest promise. Mr. Gill's late work was again lavishly commended, and confidence was expressed that he would surpa.s.s himself in the drama shortly to be produced.

Mr. Baird spoke in enthusiastic terms of this, declaring that if it did not prove to be a knock-out--a clean-up picture--then he, Jeff Baird, could safely be called a Chinaman. And during the time that would elapse before shooting on the new piece could begin he specified a certain study in which he wished his actor to engage.

"You've watched the Edgar Wayne pictures, haven't you?"

"Yes, I've seen a number of them."

"Like his work?--that honest country-boy-loving-his--mother-and-little-sister stuff, wearing overalls and tousled hair in the first part, and coming out in city clothes and eight dollar neckties at the last, with his hair slicked back same as a seal?"