steps quickened unconsciously. They were calling his name, back there in
the hall. They were all talking at once and clapping their hands and, as
an interlude, shouting the name of Luck Lindsay. But Luck did not heed.
He wanted to get away by himself. He did not feel as though he could say
anything at all to any one, just then. He had seen his Big Picture, and
he had seen that it was as big and as perfect, almost, as he had dreamed
it. To Luck, at that moment, words would have cheapened it,--even the
words of the old cattlemen.

He went to his hotel and straight up to his room, regardless of the fact
that it would have been to his advantage to mingle with his guests and to
listen to their praise. He went to bed and lay there in the dark,
reliving the scenes of his story. Then, after awhile, he drifted off into
sleep, his first dreamless, untroubled slumber in many a night.

By the time the Convention was assembled the next day, however, he had
recovered his old spirit of driving energy. The chairman had invited him
by telephone to attend the afternoon meeting, and Luck went--to be
greeted by a rousing applause when he walked down the aisle to the
platform where the chairman was waiting for him.

Resolutions had already been passed, the Convention as a body thanking
Luck Lindsay for the privilege of seeing what was in their judgment the
greatest Western picture that had ever been produced. The chairman made a
little speech about the pleasure and the privilege, and presented Luck
with a letter of endorsement and signed with due formality by chairman
and secretary and sealed with the official seal. Attached to the letter
was a copy of the vote of thanks, and you may imagine how Luck smiled
when he saw that!

He stayed a little while, and during the recess which presently was
called he shook hands with many an old-timer whose name stood for a good
deal in the great State of Texas. Then he left them, still smiling over
what he called his good luck, and wired a copy of the letter of
endorsement to all the trade journals, to be incorporated in his
full-page advertising. By another stroke of luck he caught most of the
trade journals before their forms closed for the next issue, so that _The
Phantom Herd_ was speedily heralded throughout the profession as the
first really authentic Western drama ever produced. By still another
stroke of what he called luck, an Associated Press man found him out, and
was pleased to ask him m