Page:Wilson - Merton of the Movies (1922).djvu/167

 He stood aside as the two boys brought out the cooking utensils, the rifle, the miners' tools, to stow them in a waiting handcart. When they had loaded this vehicle they trundled it on up the narrow street of the Western town. Yet they went only a little way, halting before one of the street's largest buildings. A sign above its wooden porch flaunted the name Crystal Palace Hotel. They unlocked its front door and took the things from the cart inside.

From the street the watcher could see them stowing these away. The room appeared to contain a miscellaneous collection of articles needed in the ruder sort of photodrama. Emptying their cart, they returned with it to the cabin for another load. Merton Gill stepped to the doorway and peered in from apparently idle curiosity. He could see a row of saddles on wooden supports; there were kitchen stoves, lamps, painted chairs, and heavy earthenware dishes on shelves. His eyes wandered over these articles until they came to rest upon a pile of blankets at one side of the room. They were neatly folded, and they were many.

Down before the cabin he could see the handcart being reloaded, by Jimmie and his helper. Otherwise the street was empty. The young man at the doorway stepped lightly in and regarded the windows on either side of the door. He sauntered to the street and appeared to be wondering what he would examine next in this curious world. He passed Jimmie and the other boy returning with the last load from the cabin. He noted at the top of the load the mattress on which he had lain for three nights and the blankets that had warmed him. But he was proved not to be so helpless as he had thought. Again he knew where a good night's rest might be had by one using ordinary discretion.

Again that day, the fourth of his double life, he went the mad pace, a well-fed, carefree youth, sauntering idly from stage to stage, regarding nonchalantly the joys and griefs, the twistings of human destiny there variously unfolded. Not only was he this to the casual public notice; to himself he was this, at least consciously. True, in those nether regions of