Page:Wilson - Merton of the Movies (1922).djvu/261

 you've thought up this costume to sort of puzzle the little lady."

The girl herself was in the short, fringed buckskin skirt, with knife and revolvers in her belt. Off in the hills day after day she had worn this costume in those active scenes he had not witnessed. Now she was merely coy. He followed her out on the hillside with only a little trouble from the spurs—indeed he fell but once as he approached her—and the little drama of the lovers, at last united, was touchingly shown.

In the background, as they stood entwined, the poor demented old mother was seen. With mop and bucket she was cleansing the side of a cliff, but there was a happier look on the worn old face.

"Glance around and see her," called Baird. "Then explain to the girl that you will always protect your mother, no matter what happens. That's it. Now the clench—kiss her slow! That's it. Cut!"

Merton's part in the drama was ended. He knew that the company worked in the hills another week and there were more close-ups to take in the dance-hall, but he was not needed in these. Baird congratulated him warmly.

"Fine work, my boy! You've done your first picture, and with Miss Montague as your leading lady I feel that you're going to land ace-high with your public. Now all you got to do for a couple of weeks is to take it easy while we finish up some rough ends of this piece. Then we'll be ready to start on the new one. It's pretty well doped out, and there's a big part in it for you—big things to be done in a big way, see what I mean?"

"Well, I'm glad I suited you," Merton replied. "I tried to give the best that was in me to a sincere interpretation of that fine part. And it was a great surprise to me. I never thought I'd be working for you, Mr. Baird, and of course I wouldn't have been if you had kept on doing those comedies. I never would have wanted to work in one of them."