CHAPTER XVII

TALK IS CHEAP

That time we went, we could see just how the camp was on account of it being daytime. That lean-to thing looked just like I thought it would. But there wasn’t any other tent. There was a place where I thought one had been. I said to the other fellows that I guessed some of the movie people had gone away.

Sandy said, “Well, there’s four of them here anyway.”

Those four were sitting outside the lean-to. There were three kind of young men and a fellow about like us. They were just sitting there like as if they were resting. The three big fellows sat in a row on a board that was laid across a couple of stumps. The boy was sprawled on the ground in front of them. Right near them was a high three-legged thing--you know, like a camera stands on. Jiminies, I’ll say that lean-to did look like a robber’s den all right. The canvas sides of it weren’t there. All the lean-to was that second time we saw it was just a roof sticking out from the side of the chasm, all covered with brush and with brush hanging part way down the three sides of it. As we came near we saw a box standing on a rock--it had pieces of red chalk in it.

Pee-wee whispered to me, he said, “That’s what they use to mark their faces with.”

I said, “Pee-wee is scared of them, now that we’re here.”

“I’ll show you if I am,” the kid said.

With that he marched right up ahead of us and he said, “I bet I know who you are. You’re the moving picture people that are _on location_ here, and I know what on location means. You’re making that play about the Cumberland Mountains.”

One of the grown-up fellows said, “That’s a pretty good bet. Who wins?”

“Because in Bagley Center they told us about you,” the kid said.

“Well _now_!” one of the men said.

“And I bet I know who that boy is too,” Pee-wee said. “That’s Bunko Bravado only I bet it isn’t his real name--I bet you. And if that’s a scout shirt he’s got he has no right to wear it because there’s a law that says so--even President Coolidge says so--you can’t wear a regular official scout shirt unless you’re a Scout.”

The men all looked at each other and they started laughing. One of them winked at the boy and he started laughing too. Jiminy, even Dub and Sandy and I started laughing.

“Can we see you do some acting?” Pee-wee asked them. “I bet one of you is the director, hey?”

“Every time he hits the mark,” one of the young men said. “Now which one of us is Harold Lloyd? See if you can tell him when he hasn’t got his glasses on.”

First off, Pee-wee was kind of shocked. Then he looked at them very hard and he said, “None of you is Harold Lloyd.”

“Isn’t it wonderful?” one of the men said. “Again he is right.”

“And anyway Harold Lloyd isn’t so smart,” Pee-wee said. “Because anyway he doesn’t really do those things. Do you think I’d be scared of him if he was here? Even Douglas Fairbanks says Scouts are the smartest. But anyway I’d like to see you--how you do things.”

The boy on the ground said, “Go on, talk some more.”

“Sure thing, talk some more,” one of the men said. “We’re taking a rest this afternoon. We got all tired out this morning stopping a bear from jumping on one of our horses.”

“Where’s the bear?” Pee-wee said.

“He’s taking his afternoon nap,” the man said.

“Talk low so you won’t wake him,” the boy said. “The horse has gone to a meeting of the Paramount directors.”

“Yes and you dope bears, that’s the way you do it,” Pee-wee said.

“But don’t tell anybody, will you?” the boy said.

“Will you tell me your real no fooling name?” Pee-wee asked him. “I bet it isn’t Bunko Bravado.”

“It’s Timothy Timid,” one of the young men said. “Only you mustn’t ever let it leak out. We had him swallow a spiral spring so he could make big leaps. Now he goes by leaps and bounds.”

“Did he have to jump across this chasm anywhere?” Pee-wee asked them. “Down there where it’s narrow, I mean.”

One of the men said to him, “You just wait for the sixteen reel picture to be released next fall, _The Daredevil of the Cumberland Hills_. Do you see that place up there? Where there’s a rock sticking out? He leaps with sublime abandon across that----”

“Is she the heroine?” Pee-wee piped up.

“_Good night!_” I said. “Excuse me while I faint.” Dub and Sandy both started laughing. And Bunk what’s-his-name started rolling on the ground, laughing too. _Sublime abandon._ Oh boy!

“You think you’re so smart laughing,” Pee-wee said to the boy hero. “Just because you get a lot of money and have your picture in the papers and all that and you think you can jolly Boy Scouts that find kidnapped children I can prove it by a scoutmaster----”

“Zip goes the fillum,” one of the young men said.

“I bet if you really did jump across there in the picture it was only a rag dummy--I bet it only looked as if you did. Because anyway William S. Hart is so smart with pistols, a bandit took five hundred dollars away from him. And I know a Scout that doubled for a feller like you that has a crazy name and gets a lot of money because people are fools.”

One of the young men kind of winked at young Bravado or whatever his name was, and he said, “Will you take that from a Boy Scout, Dan Daraway? Call his bluff! Show him what’s what in the movies. Don’t let him get away with it that you ever had anybody double for you. Why remember in the _Demon of the Deep_ how you dived to the bottom of the ocean? These Scouts are a bunch of false alarms. Give him a call, for the honor of our profession--the second biggest industry in the United States!”

I didn’t know whether to laugh or not. Even Pee-wee was kind of flabbergasted.

One of those young men said, “We’ve had enough knocks about the movies. Now the Boy Scouts are jumping down our throats. Well here’s a good chance to test it out between the Boy Bluffs of America and the second largest industry in the United States. What do you say, Reckless?”

The boy wonder--gee he seemed to have all kinds of names--he got up slowly and brushed some grass off him and he said, “Come ahead, Boy Scout. Put up or shut up. I’ll give you one that will make your hair curl.”

And there we stood gaping at him while he walked off kind of careless like across the chasm.

“Well,” I said, “that’s that.”

“He’s bluffing,” Sandy whispered to me.

“He’s just jollying the kid,” Dub whispered.

“There he goes,” one of the young men said.

And the next thing we knew Pee-wee was running after him.

“Looks like we’ll have a nice day for finishing to-morrow,” one of those young men said.

“What time is Gloria Swanson going to be here?” another one asked.

The other one said, “Why she’s coming with Milton Sills. I suppose they’ll drive up to the Center.”

“They bringing the Indians with them?” one of the fellows asked.

“That’s the way _I_ understand it,” another one said.