CLIFFORD ARMYTAGE, THE OUTLAW
Dawn brought the wide stretches of the Holden lot into gray relief.
It lightened the big yellow stages and crept down the narrow street of the Western town where only the ghosts of dead plays stalked. It burnished the rich fronts of the Fifth Avenue mansions and in the next block illumined the rough sides of a miner's cabin.
With more difficulty it seeped through the blurred glass of the one window in this structure and lightened the shadows of its interior to a pale gray. The long-handled frying-pan rested on the hearth where the little girl had left it. The dishes of the overnight meal were still on the table; the vacant chairs sprawled about it; and the rifle was in its place above the rude mantel; the picks and shovels awaited the toil of a new day. All seemed as it had been when the director had closed the door upon it the previous night.
But then the blankets in the lower bunk were seen to heave and to be thrust back from the pale face of Merton Gill. An elbow came into play, and the head was raised. A gaze still vague with sleep travelled about the room in dull alarm. He was waking up in his little room at the Patterson house and he couldn't make it look right. He rubbed his eyes vigorously and pushed himself farther up.
His mind resumed its broken threads. He was where he had meant to be from the moment he had spied the blankets in those bunks.
In quicker alarm, now, he reached for his watch. Perhaps he had slept too late and would be discovered--arrested, jailed! He found his watch on the floor beside the bunk. Seven o'clock. He was safe.
He could dress at leisure, and presently be an early-arriving actor on the Holden lot. He wondered how soon he could get food at the cafeteria. Sleeping in this mountain cabin had cursed him with a ravenous appetite, as if he had indeed been far off in the keen air of the North Woods.
He crept from the warm blankets, and from under the straw mattress--in which one of the miners had hidden the pouch of nuggets--he took his newly pressed trousers. Upon a low bench across the room was a battered tin wash--basin, a bucket of water brought by the little girl from the spring, and a bar of yellow soap. He made a quick toilet, and at seven-thirty, a good hour before the lot would wake up, he was dressed and at the door.
It might be chancy, opening that door; so he peered through a narrow crack at first, listening intently. He could hear nothing and no one was in sight. He pushed the latch--string through its hole, then opened the door enough to emit his slender shape.
A moment later, ten feet from the closed door, he stood at ease, scanning the log cabin as one who, passing by, had been attracted by its quaint architecture. Then glancing in both directions to be again sure that he was unobserved, he walked away from his new home.
He did not slink furtively. He took the middle of the street and there was a bit of swagger to his gait. He felt rather set up about this adventure. He reached what might have been called the lot's civic centre and cast a patronizing eye along the ends of the big stages and the long, low dressing--room building across from them.
Before the open door of the warehouse he paused to watch a truck being loaded with handsome furniture--a drawing room was evidently to be set on one of the stages. Rare rugs and beautiful chairs and tables were carefully brought out. He had rather a superintending air as he watched this process. He might have been taken for the owner of these costly things, watching to see that no harm befell them. He strolled on when the truck had received its load. Such people as he had met were only artisans, carpenters, electricians, property-men. He faced them all confidently, with glances of slightly amused tolerance. They were good men in their way but they were not actors--not artists.
In the neatly landscaped little green place back of the office building a climbing rose grew on a trellis. He plucked a pink bud, fixed it in his lapel, and strolled down the street past the dressing rooms. Across from these the doors of the big stages were slid back, and inside he could see that sets were being assembled.
The truckload of furniture came to one of these doors and he again watched it as the stuff was carried inside.
For all these workmen knew, he might presently be earning a princely salary as he acted amid these beautiful objects, perhaps attending a reception in a Fifth Avenue mansion where the father of a beautiful New York society girl would tell him that he must first make good before he could aspire to her hand. And he would make good--out there in the great open spaces, where the girl would come to him after many adventures and where they would settle to an untroubled future in the West they both loved.
He had slept; he knew where--with luck--he could sleep again; and he had money in his pocket for several more ample meals. At this moment he felt equal to anything. No more than pleasantly aware of his hunger, sharpened by the walk in this keen morning air, he made a nonchalant progress toward the cafeteria. Motor cars were now streaming through the gate, disgorging other actors--trim young men and beautiful young women who must hurry to the dressing rooms while he could sit at ease in a first-class cafeteria and eat heavily of sustaining foods. Inside he chose from the restricted menu offered by the place at this early hour and ate in a leisurely, almost condescending manner. Half-a-dozen other early comers wolfed their food as if they feared to be late for work, but he suffered no such anxiety. He consumed the last morsel that his tray held, drained his cup of coffee, and jingled the abundant silver coin in his pocket.
