glanced rapidly over the meagerly described scenes which were to his
imagination so full of color.

"Pam. bleak mesa--snow--cattle drifting before wind. Dale and Johnny dis.
riding to foreground. Reg. cold--horses leg-weary--boys all in--"

To Luck, sitting there in his pajamas as close as he could get to a
slow-warming steam radiator, those curtailed sentences projected his
mental self into a land of cold and snow and biting wind, where the
cattle drifted dismally before the storm. Andy Green and Miguel Rapponi
were riding slowly toward him on shuffling horses as bone-weary as their
masters. Snow was packed in the wrinkles of the boys' clothing. Snow was
packed in the manes and tails of the horses that moved with their heads
drooping in utter dejection. "Boys all in," said the script laconically.
Luck, staring at the little thread of escaping steam from the radiator
valve, saw Andy and the Native Son drooping in the saddles, swaying
stiffly with the movements of their mounts. He saw them to the last
little detail,--to the drift of snow on their hatbrims and the tiny
icicles clinging to the high collars of their sourdough coats, where
their breath had frozen.

If he could get a company to let him put that on, he would not care, he
told himself, if he never made another picture in his life. If he could
get a company to send him and the boys where that stuff could be found--

Well, it was only eight o'clock in the morning, a rainy morning at that,
when all good movie people would lie late in bed for the pure luxury of
taking their ease. But Luck, besides acting upon strong convictions and
then paying the price without whimpering, never let an impulse grow stale
from want of use. He reached for the fat telephone directory and searched