LITMIR.BIZ

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was, stood in the light of her flaming camp fire and prayed to her gods before she went to meet her lover. She rehearsed it once before Luck lighted the radium flares. Then, in the searing heat of that white-hot flame, which will melt rock as a candle melts, Annie-Many-Ponies crossed herself, and then lifted her young face and bare arms to the heavens and prayed as the priest in the mission school had taught her,—a real prayer in her own Indian tongue, while Luck turned the crank and gloated professionally in her beauty.

      The Happy Family, watching her, remembered that it was Christmas morning; remembered oddly, in the midst of their work, the old, old story of the three Wise Men and the Star, and of the Wonder-Child in the manger. Something there was in the voice and the face of Annie-Many-Ponies that suggested it. Something there was of adoration in her upturned glance, as if she too were looking for the Star.

      They did not talk much after that, and when they did, their voices were lower than usual. They banked the fire with sand, and Bill Holmes shouldered the camera with its precious store of scenes. As they trooped silently down to the house and to their beds, they felt something of the magnitude of life, something of the mystery. Behind them, treading noiselessly in her beaded deerskin moccasins, Annie-Many-Ponies followed like a houseless wraith of the plains, the little black dog at her heels.

Chapter Sixteen. “The Chances is Slim and Gittin’ Slimmer”

       Table of Contents

      “Must be going to snow,” Weary observed with a sly twinkle, “‘cause Paddy cat has got his tail brustled up bigger than a trapped coon.”

      “Aw, that’s because Shunky Cheestely chased him all the way up from the corral a minute ago,” Happy Jack explained the phenomenon. “I betcher he swaps ends some uh these times and gives that dog the s’prise of his life. He come purty near makin’ a stand t’night.”

      “We-ell, when he does turn on that thar mongrel purp, they’s goin’ to be some dawg scattered around over the premises—now I’m tellin’ yuh!” Applehead cocked his eye toward Annie-Many-Ponies and nodded his head in solemn warning. “He’s takin’ a mighty long chance, every time he turns that thar trick uh chasin’ Compadre all over the place; and them that thinks anything uh that thar dawg—”

      “I betcher it’s goin’ to snow, all right,” Happy Jack interrupted the warning. “Chickydees was swarmin’ all over the place, t’day.”

      “We-ell, now, yuh don’t want to go too much on them chickydees,” Applehead dissented. “Change uh wind’ll set them flockin’ and chirpin’. Ain’t ary flake uh snow in the wind t’day, fur’s I kin smell—and I calc’late I kin smell snow fur’s the next one.”

      “Oh, let’s not talk about snow; that’s getting to be a painful subject on this ranch,” Rosemary pleaded, while she placed twelve pairs of steel knives and forks on the long, white-oilcloth-covered table.

      “‘Painful subject’ is right,” Luck stated grimly, glancing up from the endless figuring and scribbling which seemed to occupy all his time indoors that was not actually given over to eating and sleeping. “If you don’t begin to smell snow pretty quick, Applehead, I can see where The Phantom Herd don’t have any phantom herd.” The corners of his mouth quirked upward, though his smile was becoming almost a stranger to his face.

      “We-ell, I dunno’s you can blame me because it don’t snow. I can’t make it snow if it takes a notion not to snow—”

      “Oh, come and eat, and never mind the snow,” called Rosemary impatiently.

      “We’ve got to mind the snow—or we don’t eat much longer!” Luck laid aside his papers with the tired gesture which betrays heavy anxiety. “The whole punch of the picture depends on that blizzard and what it leads up to. It’s getting close to March,—this is the twentieth of February,—and the Texas Cattleman’s Convention meets the first of April. I’ve got to have the picture done by then, so as to show it and get their endorsement as a body, in order to boost the sales up where they belong.”

      “Mamma!” Weary looked up at him, open-eyed. “How long have you had that notion in your head,—showing the picture to the Cattlemen’s Convention? I never heard of it.”

      “I might say quite a few things you haven’t heard me say before,” Luck retorted, so harassed that he never knew how sharp a snub he had given. “I’ve had that in mind from the start; ever since I read when and where the convention would meet this spring. We’ve got to have that blizzard, and we’ve got to have it before many more days.”

      “Oh, well, we’ll have it,” Rosemary soothed, as she would have comforted a child. “I just know March will come in like a roaring lion! Have some beans. They’re different, to-night. I cooked them with plain salt pork instead of bacon. You can’t imagine what a difference it makes!”

      Luck was on the point of snapping out something that would have hurt her feelings. He did not want baby-soothing. It did not comfort him in the least to have her assure him that it would snow, when he knew she had absolutely no foundation for such an assurance. But just before he spoke, he remembered how bravely she had been smiling at hardships that would have broken the spirit of most women, so he took the beans and smiled at her, and did not speak at all.

      Trouble, that month, was riding Luck hard. The blizzard that was absolutely vital to his picture-plot seemed as remote as in June. Other storms had come to delay his work without giving him the benefit of any spectacular effect. There had been days of whooping wind, when even the saddle strings popped in the air like whiplashes, and he could not “shoot” interior scenes because he could not shelter his stage from the wind, and everything blew about in a most maddening manner to one who is trying, for instance, to portray the calmness of a ranch-house kitchen at supper time.

      There had been days of lowering clouds which brought nothing but exasperating little flurries of what Applehead called “spit snow,”—flurries that passed before Luck could get ready for a scene. There had been one terrific sand storm which had nearly caught them in the open. But Applehead had warned them, and Luck, fortunately for them all, had heeded the warning. They had reached shelter just before the full force of the storm had struck them, and for six hours the air was a hell of sand in violent flight through the air. For six hours they could not see as far as the stable, and the rooms were filled with an impalpable haze of dust which filtered through minute crevices under the roof and around the doors and windows.

      Luck, when that storm broke, was worried over his negative drying in the garret, until he had hurried up the ladder to see what might be done. He had found the film practically dry, and had carried it down in much relief to his dark room which, being light-proof, was also practically dust-proof.

      There had been other vexations, but there had been fine, clear days as well. Luck had used those fine days to their full capacity for yielding him picture-light. Could he have been certain of getting his “blizzard stuff” now, he would have left but his one load of financial worry. That was a heavy one, but he felt he could carry it with a better grace if only he could be sure that his picture would be completed in time.

      “Pass the beans, Luck,” Pink broke into his abstraction. “Seems like I’ve had beans before, this week, but I’ll try them another whirl, anyway.”

      “Ever try syrup on ‘em?” old Dave Wiswell looked up from his plate to inquire. “Once you git to likin’ ‘em that way, they go pretty good for a change.”

      Pink, anxious for variety in the monotonous menu, but doubtful of the experiment, poured a teaspoon of syrup over a teaspoon of beans, conveyed the mixture to his mouth, and made a hurried trip to the door. “Say! was that a joke?” he demanded, when he returned grimacing to his place.

      “Joke? No, ain’t no joke about that,” the dried little man testified earnestly. “Once you git to likin’ ‘em that way—”

      Pink scowled suspiciously. “I’ll take mine straight,” he

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