work with critical mind and impartial, and with his conscience like his
body at ease. The thing had certainly started off with zip enough, since
zip was what Mart claimed the Public demanded.

The next scene was a continuation of the one before,--the camera man
having evidently recovered himself and gotten to work again. The Happy
Family, still surging and still shooting two guns apiece at the pale
moon, were shown entering the saloon door four abreast and with the rest
crowding for place. Still there was zip; all kinds of zip. The Happy
Family nudged and grinned in the dusk and were very much pleased with
themselves as XY cowboys seeking mild entertainment in town.

Some one behind remarked upon the surging and the shooting, and Big
Medicine turned his head quickly and sent a hoarse stage whisper in the
general direction of the mumble.

"Ah-h, that there ain't anything! Luck never let us turn ourselves loose
there a-tall. You wait, by cripes, till yuh see us where we git warmed up
and strung out proper! You wait! Honest to gran'--" It was Luck's elbow
that stopped him by the simple expedient of cutting off his wind. Big
Medicine gave a grunt and said no more.

Thereafter, the Happy Family discovered that there was a certain
continuity in the barbaric performances in which Luck had grinningly
encouraged them to indulge themselves. They beheld themselves engaged in
various questionable enterprises, and they laughed in naïve enjoyment as
certain bloodcurdling traits in their characters were depicted with
startling vividness. Accented by make-up and magnified on the screen, the
goggling, frog-like ugliness of Big Medicine became like unto ogres of
childish memory; his smile was a thing to make one's back hair stand up