“Well, dammit, have your real boys!  I never said you shouldn’t.  Weed out the company to suit yourself.  You’ll have to take the Injuns back; nobody else can handle the touch-me-not devils.  You can lay off the company if you want to, and while you’re up there pick up a bunch of cowboys to suit you.  You’re making good, Luck; don’t take it that I’m criticizing anything you’ve done or the way you did it.  You’ve been turning out the best Western stuff that goes on the screen; anybody knows that.  That isn’t the point.  We just simply can’t afford to keep those Indians any longer without retrenching on something else that’s a lot more vital.  You know what they cost as well as I do; you know what present conditions are.  Figure it out for yourself.”

“I don’t have to,” Luck retorted in a worried tone.  “I know what we’re up against.  I know we ought to give them up—­but I sure hate to do it!  Lor-dee, but I can do things with that bunch!  Remember Red Brother?” Luck was off on his hobby, the making of Indian pictures.  “Remember the panoram effect I got on that massacre of the wagon train?  Remember the council-of-war scene, and the close-up of Young-Dog-Howls-At-The-Moon making his plea for the lives of the prisoners?  And the war dance with radium flares in the camp fires to give the light-effect?  That film’s in big demand yet, they tell me.  I’ll never be able to put over stuff like that with made-up actors, Martinson.  You know I can’t.”

“I don’t know; you’re only just beginning to hit your gait, Luck,” the manager soothed.  “You have turned out some big stuff,—­some awful big stuff; but at that you’re just beginning to find yourself.  Now, listen.  You can have your ‘real boys’ you’re always crying for.  I can see what you mean when you pan these fellows you call Main Street cowboys.  What you better do is this:  Close down the company for two weeks, say.  Keep on the ones you want, and let the rest out.  And take these Injuns home, and then get out after your riders.  Numbers and salaries we’ll leave to you.  Go as far as you like; it’s a cinch you’ll get what you want if you’re allowed to go after it.”

So here was Luck, arriving in due time at the railroad.  He said good-by to Young-Dog-Howls-At-The-Moon who had ridden with him, and whose kingly bearing and clean-cut features and impressive pantomime made him a popular screen-Indian, and sat down upon a baggage truck to smoke a cigarette while he waited for the westbound train.

Young-Dog-Howls-At-The-Moon he watched meditatively until that young man had bobbed out of sight over a low hill, the pony Luck had ridden trailing after at the end of the lead-rope.  Luck’s face was sober, his eyes tired and unsmiling.  He had done that much of his task:  he had returned the Indians, and automatically wiped a very large item of expense from the accounts of the Acme Film Company.  He did not like to dwell, however, on the cost to his own pride in his work.