CHAPTER TWENTY

“SHE’S SHAPING UP LIKE A BANK ROLL”

“Well,” said Luck to the Happy Family, “we’ve come this far along the trail, and now I’m stuck again.  Bank won’t loan any more on the camera, and I’ve got a dollar and six bits to market The Phantom Herd with!  Everything’s fine so far; she’s advertised,—­or will be when the magazines come out,—­and she’s got some good press notices to back her up; but she ain’t outa the woods yet.  I’ve got to raise some money somehow.  I hate to ask poor old Applehead—­”

“Pore old Applehead, my granny!” bawled Big Medicine, laughing his big haw-haw. “Pore ole Applehead’s sure steppin’ high these days.  He’d mortgage his ranch and feel like a millionaire, by cripes!  His ole Come-Paddy cat jest natcherally walloped the tar outa Shunky Cheestely, and Applehead seen him doin’ it.  Come-Paddy, he’s hangin’ out in the house now, by cripes, ’cept when he takes a sashay down to the stable lookin’ fer more.  And Shunky, he’s bedded down under the Ketch-all, when he ain’t hittin’ fer the tall timber with his tail clamped down between his legs.  Honest to grandma, Luck, you couldn’t hit Applehead at a better time.  He’ll borry money er do anything yuh care to ask, except shut up that there cat uh hisn.”

“Well, luck may come my way; I’ll just sit tight a few days and see,” said Luck.  “When that positive film comes, I’ll have to rustle money somewhere to get it outa the express office, so we can make more prints.  And—­”

“And grind our daylights out again on that there drum that never does git wound up?” groaned Big Medicine, and felt his biceps tenderly.

“We won’t rush the next job quite so hard,” Luck soothed, perfectly amiable and easy to live with, now that the worst was over.  “We made a darn good set of prints, just the same; boys, you oughta seen that picture!  I’ve a good mind to get some house here in town to run it; say, I might raise some money that way, if I can’t do it any other.”  And then his enthusiasm cooled.  “Town isn’t big enough for a long-enough run,” he considered disgustedly.  “I’m past the two-bit stage of the game now.”

“Well, you ask Applehead to raise the money,” advised Weary.  “Or one of us will write to Chip for some.  Mamma!  The world’s full of money!  Seems like it ought to be easy to get hold of some.”

“It is—­but it ain’t,” Luck stated somewhat ambiguously, and turned the talk to his meeting with the old-timers, and prepared to “sit tight” and wait for his god Good Luck to smile upon him.

The smile arrived at noon the next day, in the form of a wire from Philadelphia.  Luck read it and gave a whoop of joy quite at variance with his usual surface calm.

Can Offer You Fifteen Hundred Dollars for Pennsylvania Rights The Phantom Herd Usual Ten Cents Per Foot Positive Prints if Accepted Wire at Once and Ship to This Point