Screenland (Nov 1940-Apr 1941)

In the story on Broderick Crawford which we ran last month we told you about his bride, Kay Griffith, but this picture of the two taken on their wedding day did not arrive in time to illustrate the story, so we're running it now to show you how pretty she is. from Little Big Horn to Green River, hit the Grand Canyon and swing on down to Sonora without ever hitting a fence. Boys of that kind take hold and make something out of it. But most boys think that being a cowboy is a picnic, which it ain't. Bigoutfits that hired them would have to have four cowboys to watch 'em, otherwise they'd get lost or twist the herd all up. A boy of that kind would only be a damned nuisance, not knowing how to take care of himself or his horse. Aside from that, there are all the other chances he'd be taking. A cowboy's life is not at all easy, and it sure isn't a safe one. Now, kids have been very fine to me, and I want to be honest with them. So my advice to them would be : Don't leave home to be a cozvboy!" That was getting it straight from a straight-shooter. To glorify himself, Will james wasn't going to glorify a life full of hardship and peril. He was just being his honest self. "I became a cowboy," he was frank to say, "not because I wanted to,_ but because I had to. It was all I knew —it's all I know yet. I was born a cowboy, like my father before me and his father before him. That's what's the matter with me," he added with a twisted smile. "I was born on the sod. By this I mean I was born where my father made camp at Judith Gap, Montana. With my mother, Dad was on his way to Canada with a bunch of cattle, but he never got there because he had to stop and wait for me to come into the world. I'm always getting in the way of people, anyhow. "My mother died when I was a year old. Then, when I was four, Dad was killed in the corral — a longhorn went through him." His right hand brushed his side to sketch a cow country tragedy. "A FrenchCanadian trapper, who adopted me, gave me all the schooling I ever had. The only time I was ever in a little red schoolhouse was when I went there to a shindig. To me words have been photographic from the time I first got them out of old newspapers and year-back-number magazines one win 98 ter in the trapper's cabin up in the Cana-. dian Northwest. They was good company for me, and so was my drawing, when old Bopy would be away for days at a time along his trap line. I was no good at figgers — not even female figgers!" Again the ingratiating grin. "As early as I can remember, I made my first drawing on the rough boards of the ranch-porch with a piece of brand-fire charcoal. I'm telling you these things only so that boys will understand the difference between their life and mine. I don't want them to get any false notions from me. Suppose a poor kid of sixteen found himself stuck out in the Utah Desert and said to himself, 'Well, Bill James said it would be all right.' No, sir, I don't want any boy saying anything like that !" He shook his head so violently that the black mane tumbled over his eyes. "I had to know where to be at the right time and how to do the right thing. Not that I didn't get busted up now and then. But it might easily go worse with a kid who didn't know anything about the game. And most of them probably picture the West as nice fenced-in ranches. But the truth is there's a big scope of country, about two thousand miles of it, that isn't fenced. You really have to know that country. There's a lot of it that's mighty lonely, if you're used to the city. You ride for days without seeing anything move, without hearing a sound, even the flapping of a buzzard or the rattle of a snake. Now a boy who's used to things around him is going to miss them there. And he might get so hungry that he'd be eating the nails out of his shoes — if he had any shoes on. I've gone two or three days without anything but the snow I scooped up in my hand. That was all right with me, because I was used to it. In a case of that kind, there's no riding back for grub. Anyhow, that isn't all of it, not by a long shot. "A good many of the cowboys freeze to death, with cattle and horses froze in their tracks. This means that it's part of our teachin'. Our religion is this : 'Never quit the herd,' regardless. Whether it's a norther or a blizzard, you follow the herd and stay with it till you can turn it and bring it back to the main herd. If you can't, that's just your hard luck, and youre no cowboy." His hand turned like the flip of a card. "That's, one of the things I want to tell you about in the story I'm doing so that the screen can show it. I want to tell, too, about the women of the cow country! They're a brave lot, and they're sure appreciated. You can take anything from a cowman who has sheep— that's not stealing — but you never can take anything from a widow, though you might take the widow herself ! But this saying has another meaning. What it really means is that nothing should ever be taken from the helpless, from anyone who can't handle his stuff. If you do, you don't live long, that's all. So far as age goes, people in New York City, even if they are short on air and light, live longer than folks in the cow country. If you see a cowman who is seventy, you see an old one. He's a real curiosity, a sort of museum piece, and I don't mean dime museum. The only one I know that's as old as that is Juniper Jim. Old Juniper is such a surprise to everybody that boys from other ranches ride over and feel his joints just to see how he's holding out. He's still hunkydory, and all he ever says on the subject of health is, 'How be you?' But if a cowboy is riding broncs and "quits at thirty, he's through. It's like prize-fighting, only worse. There's nothing padded about a horse's hoof. I know, because a bronc once split my head open." He pushed back the hair and showed the scar. "After that for awhile I was blind. And when I quit hard riding 1 nearly died from sudden stop of action. Went from 160 to 140 pounds, and that's where I am now. All I do at rny place on the Yellowstone in Montana is write and draw. How many books have I written? Let's see . . . since 1926 I've done twenty-two books. And I haven t started yet." Which reminded me it was time to get going. That amazing cowboy with words photographed in his mind and pictures leaping out of his fingers kindly swung down the steps with me. "So long," said Will James. "And, say," he finished, "if you run acrost that ice-cream outfit down the pass I sure wish you'd ride .herd on it !" Baby Sandy's mind should be on modeling this cute blue and white nautical dress, but she's only interested in the shadows which her cute figure and little fingers make on the wall. PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. BY THE CUNEO PRESS, INC.