ng works
on your mind. Cutting out the frills, you see things. You see a herd
drifting before a storm, maybe,--a blizzard like yesterday, with your pal
riding point. You try to come up with it--no herd there. You come to
yourself and go back home. Then maybe some black night you're brooding
before a fire like this--I can get a great firelight effect on your face,
sitting like this"--Luck, actor that he was, made Andy see just how the
scenes would look--"have a flare in the fire to throw the light back on
you; see what I mean? And outside a thunderstorm is rolling up. A bright
flash of lightning startles you. You go to the door and open it; you see
the herd drifting past with Mig trailing along on his horse--black
shadows, and then standing out clear in the lightning--"

"How the deuce--"

"I'll do that with 'lap dissolves' and double exposures. Lots of work
that will be, and careful work, but the result will be--why, Lord! It
will be immense! That herd and the lone rider haunt you till you're on
the edge of being crazy. Then I'll bring out somehow that it's a nervous
condition, which of course it is. And I'll bring old Dave in strong; he
follows you some night, and he finds out what you're after. You tell
him--make a clean breast of your rustling, see? Just unburden your mind
to your dad. He's big enough to see that he isn't altogether clear of
guilt himself, for sending you off the way he did. Anyway, that pulls you
out of it. The phantom herd and rider pass over the sky line some
night--Lord, I can see what a picture I can get out of that!--and out of
your life."

"Unh-hunh--that's a heap better than your first story, Luck."

"Andy, are you boys going to talk all night?" the voice of Rosemary came
plaintively from the next room.

"Here. You go back to bed," Luck generously commanded. "I just wanted to
get your idea of what it sounds like. I'll block it out before I turn in.
Go on, now."

So Luck wrote his new story of _The Phantom Herd_ that night. He had a
midnight supper of warmed-over coffee and cold bean sandwiches, but he
did not have any sleep. When he had finished with a last big, artistic
scene that made his pulse beat faster in the writing of it, the white
world outside was growing faintly pink under the rising sun.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

A LETTER FROM CHIEF BIG TURKEY

Annie-Many-Ponies, keen of eye when her heart directed her glances, saw
the Kyle postmark on a letter while Applehead was sorti