beau. That was Bert Stacy. Poor old
Bert! He was lots older than me; about thirty, I guess. He was white all
through. You always kind of remind me of him. Sort of a feckless dub he
was, too; kind of honest and awkward--you know. He was the one got me
doing stunts. He wasn't afraid of anything. Didn't know it was even
in the dictionary. That old scout would go out night or day and break
everything but his contract. I was twelve when I first knew him and he
had me doing twisters in no time. I caught on to the other stuff pretty
good. I wasn't afraid, either, I'll say that for myself. First I was
afraid to show him I was afraid, but pretty soon I wasn't afraid at all.

"We pulled off a lot of stuff for different people. And of course I got
to be a big girl and three years ago when I was eighteen Bert wanted
us to be married and I thought I might as well. He was the only one I
hadn't been afraid of. So we got engaged. I was still kind of afraid to
marry any one, but being engaged was all right. I know we'd got along
together, too, but then he got his with a motorcycle.

"Kind of funny. He'd do anything on that machine. He'd jump clean over
an auto and he'd leap a thirty-foot ditch and he was all set to pull a
new one for Jeff Baird when it happened. Jeff was going to have him
ride his motorcycle through a plate-glass window. The set was built and
everything ready and then the merry old sun don't shine for three days.
Every morning Bert would go over to the lot and wait around in the fog.
And this third day, when it got too late in the afternoon to shoot even
if the sun did show, he says to me, 'c'mon, hop up and let's take a ride
down to the beach.' So I hop to the back seat and off we start and on a
ninety-foot paved boulevard what does Bert do but get caught in a jam?
It was an ice wagon that finally bumped us over. I was shook up and
scraped here and there. But Bert was finished. That's the funny part.
He'd got it on this boulevard, but back on the lot he'd have rode
through that plate-glass window probably without a scratch. And just
because the sun didn't shine that day, I wasn't engaged any more. Bert
was kind of like some old sea-captain that comes back to shore after
risking his life on the ocean in all kinds of storms, and falls into a
duck-pond and gets drowned."

She sat a long time staring out over the landscape, still holding
his hand. Inside the fence before the farmhouse three of the New York
villains were