One by one, as their names stood upon his list, Luck called the boys forward
and with exaggerated deliberation peeled off fifty-dollar notes and
one-hundred-dollar notes to take their breath and speech from them.

With Billy Wilders, his friend in the bank, to help him, he had boyishly built
that roll for just this heart-warming little ceremony. He might have written
checks to square the account of each, but he wanted to make their eyes stand
out, just as he was doing. He had looked forward to this half hour more
eagerly than any of them guessed; he had, with his eyes closed, visualized
this scene over more than one cigarette, his memory picturing vividly another
scene wherein these same young men had cheerfully emptied their pockets and
planned many small personal sacrifices that he, Luck Lindsay, might have money
enough to come here to New Mexico and make his one Big Picture. Luck felt that
nothing less than a display of the profits in real money could ever quite
balance that other scene when all the Happy Familyhad in the world went in the
pot and they mourned because it was so little.

"Aw, I betche Luck robbed a bank er something!" Happy Jack stuttered with an
awkward attempt to conceal his delight when his name was called, his
investment was read and the little sheaf of currency that represented his
profit was laid in his outstretched palm.

"It's me for the movies if this is the way they pan out," Weary declared
gleefully. "Mamma! I didn't know there was so much money in the world!"

"I'll bet he milked Los Angeles dry of paper money," Andy Green asserted
facetiously, thumbing his small fortune gloatingly. "Holding out anything for
yourself, Luck? We don't want to be hogs."