back of his head and a twinkle in his eyes. He looked up and grinned as they
came reluctantly into the room.

"Time's money from now on, so this is going to be cut short as possible," he
began with his usual dynamic energy showing in his tone and in the movements
of his hands as he gathered up the papers and evened their edges on the table
top. "You fellows know how much you put into the game when we started out to
come here and produce The Phantom Herd, don't you? If you don't, I've got the
figures here. I guess the returns are all in on that picture--and so far She's
brought us twenty-three thousand and four hundred dollars. She went big,
believe me! I sold thirty states. Well, cost of production is-what we put in
the pool, plus the cost of making the prints I got in Los. We pull out the
profits according to what we put in--sabe? I guess that suits everybody,
doesn't it?"

"Sure," one astonished voice gulped faintly. The others were dumb.

"Well, I've figured it out that way--and to make sure I had it right I got
Billy Wilders, a pal of mine that works in a bank there, to figure it himself
and check up after me. We all put in our services--one man's work against
every other man's work, mine same as any of you. Bill Holmes, here, didn't
have any money up, and he was an apprentice--but I'm giving him twenty a week
besides his board. That suit you, Bill?"

"I guess it's all right," Bill answered in his colorless tone.

Luck, being extremely sensitive to tones, cocked an eye up at Bill before he
deliberately peeled, from the roll he drew from his pocket, enough twenty
dollar notes to equal the number of weeks Bill had worked for him. "And that's
paying you darned good money for apprentice work," he informed him drily, a