[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.I've made Burns see that there will be money in it for his company, so he is perfectly willing to let me go ahead with it and do it my way.Our way, Lite, because, once you start with it, you can help me plan things." Whereupon, having said almost everything she could think of that would tend to soften that stubborn look in Lite's face, Jean waited.Lite did a great deal of thinking in the next two or three minutes, but being such a bottled-up person, he did not say half of what he thought; and Jean, closely as she watched his face, could not read what was in his mind.Of Aleck he thought, and the slender chance there was of any one doing what Jean hoped to do; of Art Osgood, and the meager possibility that Art could shed any light upon the killing of Johnny Croft; of the Lazy A, and the probable price that Carl would put upon it if he were asked to sell the ranch and the stock; of the money he had already saved, and the chance that, if he went to Carl now and made him an offer, Carl would accept.He weighed mentally all the various elements that went to make up the depressing tangle of the whole affair, and decided that he would write at once to Rossman, the lawyer who had defended Aleck, and put the whole thing into his hands.He would then know just where he stood, and what he would have to do, and what legal steps he must take.He looked at Jean and grinned a little."I'm not pretty enough for a picture actor," he said whimsically."Better let me be a rustler and wear a mask, if you don't want folks to throw fits.""You'll be what I want you to be," Jean told him with the little smile in her eyes that Lite had learned to love more than he could ever say."I'm going to make us both famous, Lite.Now, come on, Bobby Burns has probably chewed up a whole box of those black cigars, waiting for us to show up."I am not going to describe the making of "Jean, of the Lazy A." It would be interesting, but this is not primarily a story of the motion-picture business, remember.It is the story of the Lazy A and the problem that both Jean and Lite were trying to solve.The Great Western Film Company became, through sheer chance, a factor in that problem, and for that reason we have come into rather close touch with them; but aside from the fact that Jean's photo-play brought Lite into the company and later took them both to Los Angeles, this particular picture has no great bearing upon the matter.Robert Grant Burns had intended taking his company back to Los Angles in August, when the hot winds began to sweep over the range land.But Jean's story was going "big." Jean was throwing herself into the part heart and mind.She lived it.With Lite riding beside her, helping her with all his skill and energy and much enthusiasm, she almost forgot her great undertaking sometimes, she was so engrossed with her work.With his experience, suggesting frequent changes, she added new touches of realism to this story that made the case-hardened audience of the Great Western's private projection room invent new ways of voicing their enthusiasm, when the negative films Pete Lowry sent in to headquarters were printed and given their trial run.They were just well started when August came with its hot winds.They stayed and worked upon the serial until it was finished, and that meant that they stayed until the first October blizzard caught them while they were finishing the last reel.Do you know what they did then? Jean changed a few scenes around at Lite's suggestion, and they went out into the hills in the teeth of the storm and pictured Jean lost in the blizzard, and coming by chance upon the outlaws at their camp, which she and Lite and Lee had been hunting through all the previous installments of the story.It was great stuff,—that ride Jean made in the blizzard,—and that scene where, with numbed fingers and snow matted in her dangling braid, she held up the rustlers and marched them out of the hills, and met Lite coming in search of her.You will remember it, if you have been frequenting the silent drama and were fortunate enough to see the picture.You may have wondered at the realism of those blizzard scenes, and you may have been curious to know how the camera got the effect.It was wonderful photography, of course; but then, the blizzard was real, and that pinched, half frozen look on Jean's face in the close-up where she met Lite was real.Jean was so cold when she turned the rustlers over to Lite that when she started to dismount and fell in a heap,—you remember?—she was not acting at all
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]