The Gutting of Baldy Baines By Darrell S. Willey Suppose (just for the hell of it) that in the opening seconds of the opening scenes of the modern western flicker (horse opera to me and you both) you find some such situation as the following, in which is pictured the terrific sixgun battle between Saddle-boy Kinnkaid, fair-haired boy hero, and Baldy Baines, the boss of the illicit bowlegged league of Wyoming (Rock Springs and U. S. highway 30). The inequality of the battle is apparent. With a bloody yell of madness and life-taking, his big gun barking flame, the lawless renegade rushes upon the youthful Saddleboy. Saddleboy appears more scared than a greenhorn but he stands his ground and faces the unconquerable bandit. ("My gad," said Elko Joe, viewing the event, "the boy is a gonner."). Question: On which of the two fighters do you as a member of the audience place your faith and cash? Logical answer: On Saddleboy Kinnkaid. He has to win; righteousness and all that is good is on his side. Baldy will force him into submission and be about to knee him when Saddleboy, taking a sudden Judo hold (one of the many he learned out of a book as a baby) will .... Answer: Okay, you guessed it. Now suppose you find a little later in the show the "dry gulching" (homicide in a quiet, restful spot) of Saddleboy has compelled Baldy to run from his native Wyoming to the arid bowels of the earth (Nevada in the vicinity of U. S. highway). Diehard Republican comment: Frankly, I am not putting chips down on this. Saddleboy's name was on the title scene. You just cannot kill him off. It would not be right. Answer: You win . . . naturally .... So ... . The suns of Nevada beat down upon the arid regions as Saddleboy, mounted upon his faithful Sparky, pursued his lonely way. Seated in his lofty saddle, his sea blue eyes scour the desert waste (with him seated beneath, of course). Suddenly a solitary horseman appears on the horizon, then a second, another, another, still another, and then seven. An hour later the whole battalion of henchmen swoop down upon him. There is a fierce shout of YIPPEEE, a rattle off sixguns and a few old thirty-thirties. Saddleboy sinks from his saddle to the sands, while the bewildered Sparky shoots off in all directions. The slug has sunk into the right ventricle of the heart. There now, what do you think of that? Is not Saddleboy ready for the burial vault? Comment: I am sorry. Saddleboy is still very much alive. True, the slug has hit him, but it has glanced off against a Bull Durham sack, which he carried in his shirt in case of nicotine starvation, then caromed off a chrome flask he happened to have in his hip pocket, finally flattening itself against a case of grog in his saddlebags. Answering logical comment: But if all this does not kill him, you must admit that he is near death when he is bitten in the desert by a great basin rattler. Plain answer: Silly, that is all right. A kindly Apache will take him to the big chief's tent, where the medicine man of the tribe, Dave Two-Drops, R. N., will cure the hero with a native herb imported from Utah. Question: What will Saddleboy remind the big chief of? Answer: His long lost son, who disappeared years back (when the laundryman came early and stuffed all soiled odds and ends into the hamper himself). But ... . By this time Saddleboy has realized that the audience knows he will probably not die and resolves to quit the desert and return to civilization. The thought of his mother keeps recurring to him, and of his father (step), the gray, stooping old codger. Does he still stoop or has he stopped stooping? At times, too, there arises to mind the thought of another, one fairer than his old man; she whose (but enough; Saddleboy returns to the homestead in Og-den). Question: When Saddleboy returns home to Ogden, what will happen? Answer: This will happen .... He who left the fastest-growing city ten years ago has returned a famous cowhand (made good in Hollywood). But who is this fair item making advances toward him? Can the mere girl, the bright child that shared his early hours of play, can she have grown into this buxom, slim girl, at whose feet half the 25th street tavern owners are kneeling? "Can this be her?" he asks himself. Answer: You bet it is. The girl has not waited half a movie for nothing. Question: Will the course of true love run smooth? Answer: We find Saddleboy on the desert, falling upon the chief's neck and swearing to be a true brave unto him. Saddleboy's ever faithful Sparky crouches at his feet gazing upward in horselike affection. Meanwhile, the ever more buxom yellow-haired maid has come along and is pitching a wigwam in true 25th street style by first jerking a cork from the canteen. Nearby, draped elegantly over the weathered sideboards and propped-up tongue of an old Bain wagon are orange colored strings of jerky. Ah, ha, just possibly all that is left of Baldy Baines, onetime boss of the Wyoming bad men (in the vicinity of highway 30, between Laramie and Rock Springs). He should never have come out to Nevada. Page Twenty-four THE COLLEGE BOOK STORE SUPPORTS STUDENT ACTIVITIES