Jean of the Lazy A ...............................................................................................................................................1

B. M. Bower .............................................................................................................................................1

CHAPTER I. HOW TROUBLE CAME TO THE LAZY A ...................................................................1

CHAPTER II. CONCERNING LITE AND A FEW FOOTPRINTS ......................................................6

CHAPTER III. WHAT A MAN'S GOOD NAME IS WORTH ............................................................11

CHAPTER IV. JEAN............................................................................................................................14

CHAPTER V. JEAN RIDES INTO A SMALL ADVENTURE ...........................................................17

CHAPTER VI. AND THE VILLAIN PURSUED HER.......................................................................21

CHAPTER VII. ROBERT GRANT BURNS GETS HELP ..................................................................23

CHAPTER VIII. JEAN SPOILS SOMETHING ...................................................................................28

CHAPTER IX. A MANSIZED JOB FOR JEAN ................................................................................33

CHAPTER X. JEAN LEARNS WHAT FEAR IS LIKE......................................................................38

CHAPTER XI. LITE'S PUPIL DEMONSTRATES.............................................................................41

CHAPTER XII. TO "DOUBLE" FOR MURIEL GAY........................................................................46

CHAPTER XIII. PICTURES AND PLANS AND MYSTERIOUS FOOTSTEPS ..............................52

CHAPTER XIV. PUNCH VERSES PRESTIGE..................................................................................57

CHAPTER XV. A LEADING LADY THEY WOULD MAKE OF JEAN ..........................................61

CHAPTER XVI. FOR ONCE AT LEAST LITE HAD HIS WAY .....................................................64

CHAPTER XVII. "WHY DON'T YOU GIVE THEM SOMETHING REAL?" ..................................68

CHAPTER XVIII. A NEW KIND OF PICTURE .................................................................................72

CHAPTER XIX. IN LOS ANGELES...................................................................................................77

CHAPTER XX. CHANCE TAKES A HAND ......................................................................................81

HANDS .................................................................................................................................................85

CHAPTER XXII. JEAN MEETS ONE CRISIS AND CONFRONTS ANOTHER .............................88

CHAPTER XXIII. A LITTLE ENLIGHTENMENT............................................................................94

CHAPTER XXIV. THE LETTER IN THE CHAPS .............................................................................97

CHAPTER XXV. LITE COMES OUT OF THE BACKGROUND ...................................................100

CHAPTER XXVI. HOW HAPPINESS RETURNED TO THE LAZY A.........................................103

Without going into a deep, psychological discussion of the elements in men's souls that breed events, we may

say with truth that the Lazy A ranch was as other ranches in the smooth tenor of its life until one day in June,

when the finger of fate wrote bold and black across the face of it the word that blotted out prosperity, content,

Jean, sixteen and a range girl to the last fiber of her being, had gotten up early that morning and had washed

the dishes and swept, and had shaken the rugs of the little livingroom most vigorously. On her knees, with

stiff brush and much soapy water, she had scrubbed the kitchen floor until the boards dried white as kitchen

floors may be. She had baked a loaf of gingerbread, that came from the oven with a most delectable odor, and

had wrapped it in a clean cloth to cool on the kitchen table. Her dad and Lite Avery would show cause for the

baking of it when they sat down, fresh washed and ravenous, to their supper that evening. I mention Jean and

her scrubbed kitchen and the gingerbread by way of proving how the Lazy A went unwarned and

Lite Avery, long and lean and silently content with life, had ridden away with a package of sandwiches, after

a full breakfast and a smile from the slim girl who cooked it, upon the business of the day; which happened to

be a long ride with one of the Bar Nothing riders, down in the breaks along the river. Jean's father, big Aleck

Douglas, had saddled and ridden away alone upon business of his own. And presently, in mid forenoon,

Jean closed the kitchen door upon an immaculately clean house filled with the warm, fragrant odor of her

baking, and in fresh shirt waist and her best ridingskirt and Stetson, went whistling away down the path to

the stable, and saddled Pard, the brown colt that Lite had broken to the saddle for her that spring. In ten

minutes or so she went galloping down the coulee and out upon the trail to town, which was fifteen miles

So Lazy A coulee was left at peace, with scratching hens busy with the feeding of halffeathered chicks, and

a rooster that crowed from the corral fence seven times without stopping to take breath. In the big corral a

sorrel mare nosed her colt and nibbled abstractedly at the pile of hay in one corner, while the colt wabbled

aimlessly up and sniffed curiously and then turned to inspect the rails that felt so queer and hard when he

rubbed his nose against them. The sun was warm, and cloudshadows drifted lazily across the coulee with

the breeze that blew from the west. You never would dream that this was the last day,the last few hours

even,when the Lazy A would be the untroubled home of three persons of whose lives it formed so great a

At noon the hens were hovering their chickens in the shade of the mower which Lite was overhauling during

his spare time, getting it ready for the hay that was growing apace out there in the broad mouth of the coulee.

The rooster was wallowing luxuriously in a dusty spot in the corral. The young colt lay stretched out on the

fat of its side in the sun, sound asleep. The sorrel mare lay beside it, asleep also, with her head thrown up

against her shoulder. Somewhere in a shed a calf was bawling in bored lonesomeness away from its mother

feeding down the pasture. And over all the coulee and the buildings nestled against the bluff at its upper end

was spread that atmosphere of homey comfort and sheltered calm which surrounds always a home that is

Lite Avery, riding toward home just when the shadows were beginning to grow long behind him, wondered if

Jean would be back by the time he reached the ranch. He hoped so, with a vague distaste at finding the place

empty of her cheerful presence. Be looked at his watch; it was nearly four o'clock. She ought to be home by

halfpast four or five, anyway. He glanced sidelong at Jim and quietly slackened his pace a little. Jim was

telling one of those long, rambling tales of the little happenings of a narrow life, and Lite was supposed to be

listening instead of thinking about when Jean would return home. Jim believed he was listening, and drove

"Yes, sir, them's his very words. Art Osgood heard him. He'll do it, too, take it from me, Crofty is shore riled

"Always is," Lite observed, without paying much attention. "I'll turn off here, Jim, and cut across. Got some

He swung away from his companion, whose trail to the Bar Nothing led him straight west, passing the Lazy

A coulee well out from its mouth, toward the river. Lite could save a half mile by bearing off to the north and

entering the coulee at the eastern side and riding up through the pasture. He wanted to see how the grass was

He was in no great hurry, after all; he had merely been bored with Jim's company and wanted to go on alone.

And then he could get the fire started for Jean. Lite's life was running very smoothly indeed; so smoothly that

his thoughts occupied themselves largely with little things, save when they concerned themselves with Jean,

who had been away to school for a year and had graduated from "high," as she called it, just a couple of

weeks ago, and had come home to keep house for dad and Lite. The novelty of her presence on the ranch was

still fresh enough to fill his thoughts with her slim attractiveness. Town hadn't spoiled her, he thought

glowingly. She was the same good little pal,only she was growing up pretty fast, now. She was a young

So, thinking of her with the brightening of spirits which is the first symptom of the worldold emotion called

love, Lite rounded the eastern arm of the bluff and came within sight of the coulee spread before him, shaped

His first involuntary glance was towards the house, and there was unacknowledged expectancy in his eyes.

But he did not see Jean, nor any sign that she had returned. Instead, he saw her father just mounting in haste

at the corral. He saw him swing his quirt down along the side of his horse and go tearing down the trail,

leaving the wire gate flat upon the ground behind him,which was against all precedent.

Lite quickened his own pace. He did not know why big Aleck Douglas should be hitting that pace out of the

coulee, but since Aleck's pace was habitually unhurried, the inference was plain enough that there was some

urgent need for haste. Lite let down the rails of the barred gate from the meadow into the pasture, mounted,

and went galloping across the uneven sod. His first anxious thought was for the girl. Had something

At the stable he looked and saw that Jean's saddle did not hang on its accustomed peg inside the door, and he

breathed freer. She could not have returned, then. He turned his own horse inside without taking off the

saddle, and looked around him puzzled. Nothing seemed wrong about the place. The sorrel mare stood

placidly switching at the flies and suckling her gangling colt in the shady corner of the corral, and the

chickens were pecking desultorily about their feedingground in expectation of the wheat that Jean or Lite

Yet Lite stood just outside the stable, and the sensation that something was wrong grew keener. He was not a

nervous person,you would have laughed at the idea of nerves in connection with Lite Avery. He felt that

something was wrong, just the same. It was not altogether the hurried departure of Aleck Douglas, either, that

made him feel so. He looked at the house setting back there close to the bluff just where it began to curve

rudely out from the narrowest part of the coulee. It was still and quiet, with closed windows and doors to tell

Wolves were many, down in the breaks along the river that spring; and the coyotes were an everpresent evil

among the calves, so that Lite never rode abroad without his sixshooter. He reached back and loosened it in

the holster before he started up the sandy path to the house; and if you knew the Lazy A ranch as well as Lite

knew it, from six years of calling it home, you would wonder at that action of his, which was instinctive and

So he went up through the sunshine of late afternoon that sent his shadow a full rod before him, and he

stepped upon the narrow platform before the kitchen door, and stood there a minute listening. He heard the

mantel clock in the livingroom ticking with the resonance given by a room empty of all other sound.

Because his ears were keen, he heard also the little alarm clock in the kitchen tickticktick on the shelf

Peaceful enough, for all the silence; yet Lite reached back and laid his fingers upon the smooth butt of his

sixshooter and opened the door with his left hand, which was more or less awkward. He pushed the door

On the floor that Jean had scrubbed till it was so white, a man lay dead, stretched upon his back. His eyes

stared vacantly straight up at the ceiling, where a single cobweb which Jean had not noticed swayed in the

aircurrent Lite set in motion with the opening of the door. On the floor, where it had dropped from his hand

perhaps when he fell, a small square piece of gingerbread lay, crumbled around the edges. Tragic halo around

his head, a pool of blood was turning brown and clotted. Lite shivered a little while he stared down at him.

In a minute he lifted his eyes from the figure and looked around the small room. The stove shone black in the

sunlight which the open door let in. On the table, covered with white oilcloth, the loaf of gingerbread lay

uncovered, and beside it lay a knife used to cut off the piece which the man on the floor had not eaten before

he died. Nothing else was disturbed. Nothing else seemed in the least to bear any evidence of what had taken

Lite's thoughts turned in spite of him to the man who had ridden from the coulee as though fiends had

pursued. The conclusion was obvious, yet Lite loyally rejected it in the face of reason. Reason told him that

there went the slayer. For this dead man was what was left of Johnny Croft, the Crofty of whom Jim had

gossiped not more than half an hour before. And the gossip had been of threats which Johnny Croft had made

against the two Douglas brothers,big Aleck, of the Lazy A, and Carl, of the Bar Nothing ranch adjoining.

Suicide it could scarcely be, for Crofty was the type of man who would cling to life; besides, his gun was in

its holster, and a man would hardly have the strength or the desire to put away his gun after he has shot

himself under one eye. Death had undoubtedly been immediate. Lite thought of these things while he stood

there just inside the door. Then he turned slowly and went outside, and stood hesitating upon the porch. He

did not quite know what he ought to do about it, and so he did not mean to be in too great a hurry to do

anything; that was Lite's habit, and he had always found that it served him well.

If the rider had been fleeing from his crime, as was likely, Lite had no mind to raise at once the hue and cry.

An hour or two could make no difference to the dead man,and you must remember that Lite had for six

years called this place his home, and big Aleck Douglas his friend as well as the man who paid him wages for

the work he did. He was half tempted to ride away and say nothing for a while. He could let it appear that he

had not been at the house at all and so had not discovered the crime when he did. That would give Aleck

Douglas more time to get away. But there was Jean, due at any moment now. He could not go away and let

Jean discover that gruesome thing on the kitchen floor. He could not take it up and hide it away somewhere;

He went slowly down the path to the stable, his chin on his chest, his mind grappling with the tragedy and

with the problem of how best he might lighten the blow that had fallen upon the ranch. It was unreal,it was

unthinkable,that Aleck Douglas, the man who met but friendly glances, ride where he might, had done this

thing. And yet there was nothing else to believe. Johnny Croft had worked here on the ranch for a couple of

months, off and on. He had not been steadily employed, and he had been paid by the day instead of by the

month as was the custom. He had worked also for Carl Douglas at the Bar Nothing; back and forth, for one or

the other as work pressed. He was too erratic to be depended upon except from day to day; too prone to

saddle his horse and ride to town and forget to return for a day or two days or a week, as the mood seized him

Lite knew that there had been some dispute when he had left; he had claimed payment for more days than he

had worked. Aleck was a just man who paid honestly what he owed; he was also known to be "close fisted."

He would pay what he owed and not a nickel more,hence the dispute. Johnny had gone away seeming

satisfied that his own figures were wrong, but later on he had quarreled with Carl over wages and other

things. Carl had a bad temper that sometimes got beyond his control, and he had ordered Johnny off the

ranch. This was part of the long, fulldetailed story Jim had been telling. Johnny had left, and he had talked

about the Douglas brothers to any one who would listen. He had said they were crooked, both of them, and

would cheat a workingman out of his pay. He had come back, evidently, to renew the argument with Aleck.

With the easy ways of ranch people, he had gone inside when he found no one at home, hungry, probably,

and not at all backward about helping himself to whatever appealed to his appetite. That was Johnny's

way,a way that went unquestioned, since he had lived there long enough to feel at home. Lite remembered

with an odd feeling of pity how Johnny had praised the first gingerbread which Jean had baked, the day after

her arrival; and how he had eaten three pieces and had made Jean's cheeks burn with confusion at his bold

He had come back, and he had helped himself to the gingerbread. And then he had been shot down. He was

lying in there now, just as he had fallen, and his blood was staining deep the freshscrubbed floor. And Jean

would be coming home soon. Lite thought it would be better if he rode out to meet her, and told her what had

happened, so that she need not come upon it unprepared. There was nothing else that he could bring himself

to do, and his mood demanded action of some sort; one could not sit down at peace with a fresh tragedy like

He had reached the stable when a horse walked out from behind the hay corral and stopped, eyeing him

curiously. It was Johnny's horse. Even as improvident a cowpuncher as Johnny Croft had been likes to own a

"private" horse,one that is his own and can be ridden when and where the owner chooses. Lite turned and

went over to it, caught it by the dragging bridlereins, and led it into an empty stall. He did not know whether

he ought to unsaddle it or leave it as it was; but on second thought, he loosened the cinch in kindness to the

animal, and took off its bridle, so that it could eat without being hampered by the bit. Lite was too thorough a

He led his own horse out, and then he stopped abruptly. For Pard stood in front of the kitchen door, and Jean

was untying a package or two from the saddle. He opened his mouth to call to her; he started forward; but he

was too late to prevent what happened. Before his throat had made a sound, Jean turned with the packages in

the hollow of her arm and stepped upon the platform with that springy haste of movement which belongs to

health and youth and happiness; and before he had taken more than the first step away from his horse, she had

Lite ran, then. He did not call to her. What was the use? She had seen. She had dropped her packages, and

turned and ran to meet him, and caught him by the arm in a panic of horror. Lite patted her hand awkwardly,

"What made you go in there?" came of its own accord from his lips. "That's no place for a girl."

"It's Johnny Croft!" she gasped just above her breath. "Howdid it happen, Lite?"

"I don't know," said Lite slowly, looking down and still patting her hand. "Your father and I have both been

gone all day. I just got back a few minutes ago and found out about it." His tone, his manner and his words

impressed upon Jean the point he wanted her to get,that her father had not yet returned, and so knew

He led her back to where Pard stood, and told her to get on. Without asking him why, Jean obeyed him, with

a shudder when her wide eyes strayed fascinated to the open door and to what lay just within. Lite went up

and pulled the door shut, and then, walking beside her with an arm over Pard's neck, he led the way down to

"You can't stay here," he explained, when she looked at him inquiringly. "Do you want to go over and stay at

Carl's, or would you rather go back to town?" He rode down toward the gate, and Jean kept beside him.

"I'm going to stay with dad," she told him shakily. "If he stays, I'llI'll stay."

"You'll not stay," he contradicted her bluntly. "You can't. It wouldn't be right." And he added

selfreproachfully: "I never thought of your cutting across the bench and riding down the trail back of the

"It's shorter," said Jean briefly. "Iif I can't stay, I'd rather go to town, Lite. I don't like to stay over at Uncle

Therefore, when they reached the mouth of the coulee, Lite turned into the trail that led to town. All down the

coulee the trail had been dug deep with the hoofprints of a galloping horse; and now, on the town trail, they

were as plain as a primer to one schooled in the open. But Jean was too upset to notice them, and for that Lite

was thankful. They did not talk much, beyond the commonplace speculations which tragedy always brings to

the lips of the bystanders. Comments that were perfectly obvious they made, it is true. Jean said it was

perfectly awful, and Lite agreed with her. Jean wondered how it could have happened, and Lite said he didn't

know. Neither of them said anything about the effect it would have upon their future; I don't suppose that

Jean, at least, could remotely guess at the effect. It is certain that Lite preferred not to do so.

They were no more than half way to town when they met a group of galloping horsemen, their coming

In the midst rode Jean's father. Alongside him rode the coroner, and behind him rode the sheriff. The rest of

the company was made up of men who had heard the news and were coming to look upon the tragedy. Lite

"Lucky you was with me all day, up to four o'clock, Lite," Jim said. "That lets you out slick and clean, seeing

the doctor claims he'd been dead six hours when he seen him last night. Croftywhy, Crofty was laying in

there dead when I was talking about him to you! Kinda gives a man the creeps to think of it. Who do you

Jim studied awhile, an ear cocked for the signal that the coroner was ready to begin the inquest. "Say," he

leaned over and whispered in Lite's ear, "where was Aleck at, all day yesterday?"

"Riding over in the bend, looking for blackleg signs," said Lite promptly. "Packed a lunch, same as I did."

The answer seemed to satisfy Jim and to eliminate from his mind any slight suspicion he may have held, but

"I saw Aleck ride into the ranch as I was coming home," he said. As he spoke, his face lightened as with a

Later, when the coroner questioned him about his movements and the movements of Aleck, Lite repeated the

lie as casually as possible. It might have carried more weight with the jury if Aleck Douglas himself had not

testified, just before then, that he had returned about three o'clock to the ranch and pottered around the corral

with the mare and colt, and unsaddled his horse before going into the house at all. It was only when he had

discovered Johnny Croft's horse at the haystack, he said, that he began to wonder where the rider could be.

Lite had not heard this statement, for the simple reason that, being a closely interested person, he had been

invited to remain outside while Aleck Douglas testified. He wondered why the jury,men whom he knew

and had known for years, most of them, looked at one another so queerly when he declared that he had

seen Aleck ride home. The coroner also had given him a queer look, but he had not made any comment.

Aleck, too, had turned his head and stared at Lite in a way which Lite preferred to think he had not

Beyond that one statement which had produced such a curious effect, Lite did not have anything to say that

shed the faintest light upon the matter. He told where he had been, and that he had discovered the body just

before Jean arrived, and that he had immediately started with her to town. The coroner did not cross

question him. Counting from four o'clock, which Jim had already named as the time of their separation, Lite

would have had just about time to do the things he testified to doing. The only thing he claimed to have done

and could not possibly have done, was to see Aleck Douglas riding into the coulee. Aleck himself had

The result was just what was to be expected. Aleck Douglas was placed under arrest, and as a prisoner he

rode back to town alongside the sheriff,an old friend of his, by the way,to where Jean waited

It was Lite who told her. "It'll come out all right," he said, in his calm way that might hide a good deal of

emotion beneath it. "It's just to have something to work from,don't mean anything in particular. It's a funny

way the law has got," he explained, "of arresting the last man that saw a fellow alive, or the first one that sees

Jean studied this explanation dolefully. "They ought to find out the last one that saw him alive," she said

resentfully, "and arrest him, then,and leave dad out of it. There's no sense in the law, if that's the way it

"Well, I didn't make the law," Lite observed, in a tone that made Jean look up curiously into his face.

"Why don't they find out who saw him last?" she repeated. "Somebody did. Somebody must have gone there

with him. Lite, do you know that Art Osgood came into town with his horse all in a lather of sweat, and took

the afternoon train yesterday? I saw him. I met him square in the middle of the street, and he didn't even look

at me. He was in a frightful hurry, and he looked all upset. If I was the law, I'd leave dad alone and get after

Art Osgood. He acted to me," she added viciously, "exactly as if he were running away!"

"He wasn't, though. Jim told me Art was going to leave yesterday; that was in the forenoon. He's going to

Alaska,been planning it all spring. And Carl said he was with Art till Art left to catch the train. Somebody

else from town here had seen him take the train, and asked about him. No, it wasn't Art."

Never before had Lite failed to tell Jean just what she wanted to know. He failed now, and he went away as

though he was glad to put distance between them. He did not know what to think. He did not want to think.

Certainly he did not want to talk, to Jean especially. For lies never came easily to the tongue of Lite Avery. It

was all very well to tell Jean that he didn't know who it was; he did tell her so, and made his escape before

she could read in his face the fear that he did know. It was not so easy to guard his fear from the keen eyes of

his fellows, with whom he must mingle and discuss the murder, or else pay the penalty of having them

Several men tried to stop him and talk about it, but he put them off. He was due at the ranch, he said, to look

Lazy A coulee, when he rode into it, seemed to wear already an air of depression, foretaste of what was to

come. The trail was filled with hoofprints, and cut deep with the wagon that had borne the dead man to town

and to an unwept burial. At the gate he met Carl Douglas, riding with his head sunk deep on his chest. Lite

would have avoided that meeting if he could have done so unobtrusively, but as it was, he pulled up and

waited while Carl opened the wire gate and dragged it to one side. From the look of his face, Carl also would

have avoided the meeting, if he could have done so. He glanced up as Lite passed through.

Carl stopped, leaning against his horse with one hand thrown up to the saddlehorn. He was a small man, not

"Of course I don't! Great question for a brother to ask," Lite retorted sharply. "It's not in Aleck to do a thing

"You heard what I said; take it or leave it." Lite scowled down at Carl. "What was there queer about it?

"If you'd been inside ten minutes before then," Carl told him bluntly, "you'd have heard Aleck say he came

home a full hour or more before you say you saw him ride in. That's what's queer. What made you do that? It

"Well, what are you going to do about it?" Lite slouched miserably in the saddle, and eyed the other without

really seeing him at all. "They can't prove anything on Aleck," he added with faint hope.

"I don't see myself how they can." Carl brightened perceptibly. "His being alone all day is bad; he can't

furnish the alibi you can furnish. But they can't prove anything. They'll turn him loose, the grand jury will;

they'll have to. They can't indict him on the evidence. They haven't got any evidence,not any more than

just the fact that he rode in with the news. No need to worry; he'll be turned loose in a few days." He picked

up the gate, dragged it after him as he went through, and fumbled the wire loop into place over the post. "I

wish," he said when he had mounted with the gate between them, "you hadn't been so particular to say you

"Looks bad all around. I don't see what made you do that;not when you knew Jim and Aleck had both

Lite rode slowly down the road to the stable, and cursed the impulse that had made him blunder so. He had no

compunctions for the lie, if only it had done any good. It had done harm; he could see now that it had. But he

could not believe that it would make any material difference in Aleck's case. As the story had been repeated

to Lite by half a dozen men, who had heard him tell it, Aleck's own testimony had been responsible for the

Men had told Lite plainly that Aleck was a fool not to plead selfdefense, even in face of the fact that Johnny

Croft had not drawn any weapon. Jim had declared that Aleck could have sworn that Johnny reached for his

gun. Others admitted voluntarily that while it would be a pretty weak defense, it would beat the story Aleck

Lite turned the mare and colt into a shed for the night. He milked the two cows without giving any thought to

what he was doing, and carried the milk to the kitchen door before he realized that it would be wasted, sitting

in pans when the house would be empty. Still, it occurred to him that he might as well go on with the routine

of the place until they knew to a certainty what the grand jury would do. So he went in and put away the milk.

After that, Lite let other work wait while he cleaned the kitchen and tried to wash out that brown stain on the

floor. His face was moody, his eyes dull with trouble. Like a treadmill, his mind went over and over the

meager knowledge he had of the tragedy. He could not bring himself to believe Aleck Douglas guilty of the

Johnny Croft, it had been proven at the inquest, rode out from town alone, bent on mischief, if vague,

halfdrunken threats meant anything. He had told more than one that he was going to the Lazy A, but it was

certain that no one had followed him from town. His threats had been for the most part directed against Carl,

it is true; but if he had meant to quarrel with Carl, he would have gone to the Bar Nothing instead of the Lazy

A. Probably he had meant to see both Carl and Aleck, and had come here first, since it was the nearest to

As to enemies, no one had particularly liked Johnny. He was not a likeable sort; he was too "mouthy"

according to his associates. He had quarreled with a good many for slight cause, but since he was so

notoriously blatant and argumentative, no one had taken him seriously enough to nurse any grudge that

would be likely to breed assassination. It was inconceivable to Lite that any man had trailed Johnny Croft to

the Lazy A and shot him down in the kitchen while he was calmly helping himself to Jean's gingerbread.

Still, he must take that for granted or else believe what he steadfastly refused to confess even to himself that

It was nearly dark when he threw out the last pail of water and stood looking down dissatisfied at the result of

his labor, while he dried his hands. The stain was still there, in spite of him, just as the memory of the murder

would cling always to the place. He went out and watered Jean's poppies and sweet peas and pansies, still

He had blundered with his lie that had meant to help. The lie had proven to every man who heard him utter it

that his faith in Aleck's innocence was not strong; it had proven that he did not trust the facts. That hurt Lite,

and made it seem more than ever his task to clear up the matter, if he could. If he could not, then he would

Almost as if he were guarding that gruesome room which was empty now and silent,since the clock had

not been wound and had run down,he sat long upon the narrow platform before the kitchen door and

smoked and stared straight before him. Once he thought he saw a man move cautiously from the corner of the

shed where the youngest calf slept beside its mother, He had been thinking so deeply of other things that he

was not sure, but he went down there, his cigarette glowing in the gloom, and stood looking and listening.

He neither saw nor heard anything, and presently he went back to the house; but his abstraction was broken

by the fancy, so that he did not sit down again to smoke and think. He had thought until his brain felt heavy

and stupid; and the last cigarette he lighted; he threw away, for he had smoked until his tongue was sore. He

For a long time he lay awake. Finally he dropped into a sleep so heavy that it was nearer to a torpor, and it

was the sunlight that awoke him; sunlight that was warm in the room and proved how late the morning was.

He swore in his astonishment and got up hastily, a great deal more optimistic than when he had lain down,

and hurried out to feed the stock before he boiled coffee and fried eggs for himself.

It was when he went in to cook his belated breakfast that Lite noticed something which had no logical

explanation. There were footprints on the kitchen floor that he had scrubbed so diligently. He stood looking at

them, much as he had looked at the stain that would not come out, no matter how hard he scrubbed. He had

not gone in the room after he had pulled the door shut and gone off to water Jean's dowers. He was positive

upon that point; and even if he had gone in, his tracks would scarcely have led straight across the room to the

The tracks led to the cupboard, and were muddled confusedly there, as though the maker had stood there for

some minutes. Lite could not see any sense in that. They were very distinct, just as footprints always show

plainly on clean boards. The floor had evidently been moist still,Lite had scrubbed manfashion, with a

broom, and had not been very particular about drying the floor afterwards. Also he had thrown the water

straight out from the door, and the fellow must have stepped on the moist sand that clung to his boots. In the

Lite went to the cupboard and looked inside it, wondering what the man could have wanted there. It was one

of those oldfashioned "safes" such as our grandmothers considered indispensable in the furnishing of a

kitchen. It held the table dishes neatly piled: dinner plates at the end of the middle shelf, smaller plates next,

then a stack of saucers,the arrangement stereotyped, unvarying since first Lite Avery had taken dishtowel

in hand to dry the dishes for Jean when she was ten and stood upon a footstool so that her elbows would be

higher than the rim of the dishpan. The cherry blossom dinner set that had come from the mailorder house

long ago was chipped now and incomplete, but the familiar rows gave Lite an odd sense of the unreality of

Clearly there was nothing there to tempt a thief, and there was nothing disturbed. Lite straightened up and

looked down thoughtfully upon the top of the cupboard, where Jean had stacked outofdate newspapers and

magazines, and where Aleck had laid a pair of extra gloves. He pulled out the two small drawers just under

the cupboard top and looked within them. The first held pipes and sacks of tobacco and books of cigarette

papers; Lite knew well enough the contents of that drawer. He appraised the supply of tobacco, remembered

how much had been there on the morning of the murder, and decided that none had been taken. He helped

Here were merchants' bills, a few letters of no consequence, a couple of writing tablets, two lead pencils, and

a steel pen and a squat bottle of ink. This was called the writingdrawer, and had been since Lite first came to

the ranch. Here Lite believed the confusion was recent. Jean had been very domestic since her return from

school, and all disorder had been frowned upon. Lately the letters had been stacked in a corner, whereas now

they were scattered. But they were of no consequence, once they had been read, and there was nothing else to

Lite looked down at the tracks and saw that they led into another room, which was Aleck's bedroom. He went

in there, but he could not find any reason for a nightprowler's visit. Aleck's desk was always open. There

was never anything there which he wanted to hide away. His account books and his business correspondence,

such as it was, lay accessible to the curious. There was nothing intricate or secret about the running of the

It occurred to Lite that incriminating evidence is sometimes placed surreptitiously in a suspected man's desk.

He had heard of such things being done. He could not imagine what evidence might be placed here by any

one, but he made a thorough search. He did not find anything that remotely concerned the murder.

He looked through the livingroom, and even opened the door which led from the kitchen into Jean's room,

which had been built on to the rest of the house a few years before. He could not find any excuse for those

He cooked and ate his breakfast absentmindedly, glancing often down at the footprints on the floor, and

occasionally at the brown stain in the center. He decided that he would not say anything about those tracks.

You would think that the bare word of a man who has lived uprightly in a community for fifteen years or so

would be believed under oath, even if his whole future did depend upon it. You would think that Aleck

Douglas could not be convicted of murder just because he had reported that a man was shot down in Aleck's

The report of Aleck Douglas' trial is not the main feature of this story; it is merely the commencement, one

might say. Therefore, I am going to be brief as I can and still give you a clear idea of the situation, and then I

Aleck's position was dishearteningly simple, and there was nothing much that one could do to soften the facts

or throw a new light on the murder. Lite watched, wide awake and eager, many a night for the return of that

prowler, but he never saw or heard a thing that gave him any clue whatever. So the footprints seemed likely

to remain the mystery they had seemed on the morning when he discovered them. He laid traps, pretending to

ride away from the ranch to town before dark, and returning cautiously by way of the trail down the bluff

behind the house. But nothing came of it. Lazy A ranch was keeping its secret well, and by the time the trial

was begun, Lite had given up hope. Once he believed the house had been visited in the daytime, during his

Jean went to Chinook and stayed there, so that Lite saw her seldom. Carl also was away much of the time,

trying by every means he could think of to swing public opinion and the evidence in Aleck's favor. He

prevailed upon Rossman, who was Montana's bestknown lawyer, to defend the case, for one thing. He

seemed to pin his faith almost wholly upon Rossman, and declared to every one that Aleck would never be

convicted. It would be, he maintained, impossible to convict him, with Rossman handling the case; and he

always added the statement that you can't send an innocent man to jail, if things are handled right.

Perhaps he did not, after all, handle things right. For in spite of Rossman, and Aleck's splendid reputation,

and the meager evidence against him, he was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to eight years in

Rossman had made a great speech, and had made men in the jury blink back unshed tears. But he could not

shake from them the belief that Aleck Douglas had ridden home and met Johnny Croft, calmly making

himself at home in the Lazy A kitchen. He could not convince them that there had not been a quarrel, and that

Aleck had not fired the shot in the grip of a sudden, overwhelming rage against Croft. By Aleck's own

statement he had been at the ranch some time before he had started for town to report the murder. By the

word of several witnesses, it had been proven that Croft had left town meaning to collect wages which he

claimed were due him or else he would "get even." His last words to a group out by the hitching pole in front

of the saloon which was Johnny's hangout, were: "I'm going to get what's coming to me, or there'll be one

fine, large bunch of trouble!" He had not mentioned Aleck Douglas by name, it is true; but the fact that he

had been found at the Lazy A was proof enough that he had referred to Aleck when he spoke.

There is no means of knowing just how farreaching was the effect of that impulsive lie which Lite had told

at the inquest. He did not repeat the blunder at the trial. When the district attorney reminded Lite of the

statement he had made, Lite had calmly explained that he had made a mistake; he should have said that he

had seen Aleck ride away from the ranch instead of to it. Beyond that he would not go, question him as they

The judge sentenced Aleck to eight years, and publicly regretted the fact that Aleck had persisted in asserting

his innocence; had he pleaded guilty instead, the judge more than hinted, the sentence would have been made

as light as the law would permit. It was the stubborn denial of the deed in the face of all reason, he said, that

went far toward weaning from the prisoner what sympathy he would otherwise have commanded from the

You know how those things go. There was nothing particularly out of the ordinary in the case; we read of

such things in the paper, and a paragraph or two is considered sufficient space to give so commonplace a

But there was Lite, loyal to his last breath in the face of his secret belief that Aleck was probably guilty; loyal

and blaming himself bitterly for hurting Aleck's cause when he had meant only to help. There was Jean,

dazed by the magnitude of the catastrophe that had overtaken them all; clinging to Lite as to the only part of

her home that was left to her, steadfastly refusing to believe that they would actually take her dad away to

prison, until the very last minute when she stood on the crowded depot platform and watched in dryeyed

misery while the train slid away and bore him out of her life. These things are not put in the papers.

"Come on, Jean." Lite took her by the arm and swung her away from the curious crowd which she did not

see. "You're my girl now, and I'm going to start right in using my authority. I've got Pard here in the stable.

You go climb into your ridingclothes, and we'll hit it outa this darned burg where every man and his dog has

"Where?" Jean held back a little with vague stubbornness against the thought of taking up life again without

Lite gripped her arm a little tighter if anything, and led her across the street and down the high sidewalk that

"We're taking the long way round," he observed "because I'm going to talk to you like a Dutch uncle for

saying things like that. Ihad a talk with your dad last night, Jean. He's turned you over to me to look after

till he gets back. I wish he coulda turned the ranch over, along with you, but he couldn't. That's been signed

over to Carl, somehow; I didn't go into that with your dad; we didn't have much time. Seems Carl put up the

money to pay Rossman,and other things,and took over the ranch to square it. Anyway, I haven't got

anything to say about the business end of the deal. I've got permission to boss you, though, and I'm sure going

to do it to a fareyouwell." He cast a sidelong glance down at her. He could not see anything of her face

except the droop of her mouth, a bit of her cheek, and her chin that promised firmness. Her mouth did not

"I don't care. What is there to boss me about? The world has stopped." Her voice was steady, and it was also

"Right there is where the need of bossing begins. You can't stay in town any longer. There's nothing here to

keep you from going crazy; and the Allens are altogether too sympathetic; nice folks, and they mean

well,but you don't want a bunch like that slopping around, crying all over you and keeping you in mind of

things. I'm going to work for Carl, from now on. You're going out there to the Bar Nothing" He felt a

stiffening of the muscles under his fingers, and answered calmly the signal of rebellion.

"Sure, that's the place for you. Your dad and Carl fixed that up between them, anyway. That's to be your

home; so my saying so is just an extra rope to bring you along peaceable. You're going to stay at the Bar

Nothing. And I'm going to make a top hand outa you, Jean. I'm going to teach you to shoot and rope and

punch cows and ride, till there won't be a girl in the United States to equal you."

"It'll start the world moving again." Lite forced himself to cheerfulness in the face of his own despondency.

"You say it's stopped. It's us that have stopped. We've come to a blind pocket, you might say, in the trail

we've been taking through life. We've got to start in a new place, that's all. Now, I know you're dead game,

Jean; at least I know you used to be, and I'm gambling on school not taking that outa you. You're maybe

thinking about going away off somewhere among strangers; but that wouldn't do at all. Your dad always

counted on keeping you away from town life. I'm just going to ride herd on you, Jean, and see to it that you

go on the way your dad wanted you to go. He can't be on the job, and so I'm what you might call his foreman.

I know how he wants you to grow up; I'm going to make it my business to grow you according to directions."

"Has it struck you that you're liable to have your hands full?" she asked him with a certain drawl that Jean

"Sure! I'll likely have both hand and my hat full of trouble. But she's going to be done according to contract. I

"What maddens me so that I could run amuck down this street, shooting everybody I saw," Jean flared out

suddenly, "is the sickening injustice of it. Dad never did that; you know he never did it." She turned upon him

"Now, that's a bright question to be asking me, ain't it?" Lite rebuked. "That's a real bright, sensible question,

I must say! I reckon you ought to be stood in the corner for that,but I'll let it go this time. Only don't never

Jean looked ashamed. "I could doubt God Himself, right now," she gritted through her teeth.

"Well, don't doubt me, unless you want a scrap on your hands," Lite warned. "I'm sure ashamed of you. We'll

stop here at the stable and get the horses. You can ride sideways as far as the Allens', and get your

ridingskirt and come on. The sooner you are on top of a horse, the quicker you're going to come outa that

It was pitifully amusing to see Lite Avery attempt to bully any one,especially Jean,who might almost be

called Lite's religion. The idea of that long, lank cowpuncher whose shyness was so ingrained that it had

every outward appearance of being a phlegmatic coldness, assuming the duties of Jean's dad and undertaking

to see that she grew up according to directions, would have been funny, if he had not been so absolutely in

His method of comforting her and easing her through the first stage of black despair was unorthodox, but it

was effective. Because she was too absorbed in her own misery to combat him openly, he got her started

toward the Bar Nothing and away from the friends whose enervating pity was at that time the worst influence

possible. He set the pace, and he set it for speed. The first mile they went at a sharp gallop that was not far

from a run, and the horses were breathing heavily when he pulled up, well out of sight of the town, and

There was color in her cheeks, and the dullness was gone from her eyes when she returned his glance

inquiringly. The droop of her lips was no longer the droop of a weak yielding to sorrow, but rather the

beginning of a brave facing of the future. Lite managed a grin that did not look forced.

"I'll make a real range hand outa you yet," he announced confidently. "You remember the roping and

shooting science I taught you before you went off to school? You're going to start right in where you left off

and learn all I know and some besides. I'll make a lady of you yet,darned if I don't."

The still loneliness of desertion held fast the clutter of sheds and old stables roofed with dirt and rotting hay.

The melancholy of emptiness hung like an invisible curtain before the sprawling house with warped,

weatherblackened shingles, and sagging windowframes. You felt the silence when first you sighted the

ranch buildings from the broad mouth of the Lazy A coulee,the broad mouth that yawned always at the

narrow valley and the undulations of the open range, and the purple line of mountains beyond. You felt it

more strongly when you rode up to the gate of barbedwire, spliced here and there, and having an unexpected

stubbornness to harry the patience of men who would pass through it in haste. You grew unaccountably

depressed if you rode on past the stables and corrals to the house, where the door was closed but never

locked, and opened with a squeal of rusty hinges, if you turned the brown earthenware knob and at the same

You might notice the brown spot on the kitchen door where a man had died; you might notice the brown spot,

but unless you had been told the grim story of the Lazy A, you would never guess the spot was a bloodstain.

Even though you guessed and shuddered, you would forget it presently in the amazement with which you

opened the door beyond and looked in upon a room where the chill atmosphere of the whole place could find

This was Jean's room, held sacred to her own needs and uses, in defiance of the dreariness that compassed it

close. A square of old rag carpet covered the center of the floor, and beyond its border the warped boards

were painted a dull, pale green. The walls were ugly with a cheap, flowered paper that had done its best to

fade into inoffensive neutral tints. Jean had helped, where she could, by covering the intricate rose pattern

with old prints cut from magazines and with cheap, pretty souvenirs gleaned here and there and hoarded

jealously. And there were books, which caught the eyes and held them even to forgetfulness of the paper.

You would laugh at Jean's room. Just at first you would laugh; after that you would want to cry, or pat Jean

on her hardmuscled, capable shoulder; but if you knew Jean at all, you would not do either. First you would

notice an old wooden cradle, painted blue, that stood in a corner. A buttoneyed, blankfaced rag doll, the

size of a baby at the fistsucking age, was tucked neatly under the redandwhite patchwork quilt made to fit

the cradle. Hanging directly over the cradle by a stirrup was Jean's first saddle,a cheap pigskin affair with

harsh straps and buckles, that her father had sent East for. Jean never had liked that saddle, even when it was

new. She used to stand perfectly still while her father buckled it on the little buckskin pony she rode; and she

would laugh when he picked her up and tossed her into the seat. She would throw her dad a kiss and go

galloping off down the trail,but when she was quite out of sight around the bend of the benchland, she

would stop and take the saddle off, and hide it in a certain clump of wild currant bushes, and continue her

journey bareback. A kitfox found it one day; that is how the edge of the cantle came to have that queer,

There was an old, black wooden rocker with an oval picture of a ship under full sail, just where Jean's brown

head rested when she leaned back and stared bigeyed down the coulee to the hills beyond. There was an

oldfashioned workbasket always full of stockings that never were mended, and a crumpled dresser scarf

which Jean had begun to hemstitch more than a year ago in a brief spasm of domesticity. There were

magazines everywhere; and you may be sure that Jean had read them all, even to the soap advertisements and

the sanitary kitchens and the vacuum cleaners. There was an old couch with a coarse, Navajo rug thrown over

it, and three or four bright cushions that looked much used. And there were hair macartas and hackamores,

and two pairs of her father's old spurs, and her father's stock saddle and chaps and slicker and hat; and a jelly

glass half full of rattlesnake rattles, and her mother's old checked sunbonnet,the kind with pasteboard

"slats." Half the "slats" were broken. There was a guitar and an old, old sewing machine with a reloading

shotgun outfit spread out upon it. There was a desk made of boxes, and on the desk lay a shotloaded quirt

that more than one rebellious cowhorse knew to its sorrow. There was a rawhide lariat that had parted its

strands in a tussle with a stubborn cow. Jean meant to fix the broken end of the longest piece and use it for a

Somewhere in the desk were verses which Jean had written,dozens of them, and not nearly as bad as you

might think. Jean laughed at them after they were written; but she never burned them, and she never spoke of

them to any one but Lite, who listened with fixed attention and a solemn appreciation when she read them to

On the whole, the room was contradictory. But Jean herself was somewhat contradictory, and the place fitted

her. Here was where she spent those hours when her absence from the Bar Nothing was left unexplained to

any one save Lite. Here was where she drew into her shell, when her Uncle Carl made her feel more than

usually an interloper; or when her Aunt Ella's burden of complaints and worry and headaches grew just a

She never opened the door into the kitchen. There was another just beyond the sewingmachine, that gave an

intimate look into the face of the bluff which formed that side of the coulee wall. There were hollyhocks

along the path that led to this door, and stunted rosebushes which were kept alive with much mysterious

assistance in the way of water and cultivation. There was a little spring just under the foot of the bluff, where

the trail began to climb; and some young alders made a shady nook there which Jean found pleasant on a hot

The rest of the house might be ratridden and desolate. The coulee might wear always the look of emptiness;

but here, under the bluff by the spring, and in the room Jean called hers, one felt the air of occupancy that

When she rode around the bold, outthrust shoulder of the hill which formed the western rim of the coulee,

and went loping up the trail to where the barbedwire gate stopped her, you would have said that Jean had

not a trouble to call her own. She wore her old gray Stetson pretty well over one eye because of the sun

glare, and she was riding on one stirrup and letting the other foot swing free, and she was whirling her quirt

round and round, cartwheel fashion, and whistling an air that every one knows,and putting in certain

At the gate she dismounted without ever missing a note, gave the warped stake a certain twist and jerk which

loosened the wire loop so that she could slip it easily over the post, passed through and dragged the gate with

her, dropping it flat upon the ground beside the trail. There was no stock anywhere in the coulee, and she

would save a little trouble by leaving the gate open until she came out on her way home. She stepped aside to

inspect the meadow lark's nest cunningly hidden under a wild rosebush, and then mounted and went on to the

She turned Pard into the shed where she invariably left him when she came to the Lazy A, and went on up the

grassgrown path to the house. She had the preoccupied air of one who meditates deeply upon things apart;

as a matter of fact, she had glanced down the coulee to its wideopen mouth, and had thrilled briefly at the

wordless beauty of the green spread of the plain and the hazy blue sweep of the mountains, and had come

suddenly into the poetic mood. She had even caught a phrase,"The lazy line of the watchful hills," it

was,and she was trying to fit it into a verse, and to find something beside "rills" that would rhyme with

She followed the path absentmindedly to where she would have to turn at the corner of the kitchen and go

around to the door of her own room; and until she came to the turn she did not realize what was jarring

vaguely and yet insistently upon her mood. Then she knew; and she stopped full and stared down at the loose

sand just before the warped kitchen steps. There were footprints in the path,alien footprints; and they

pointed toward that forbidden door into the kitchen of gruesome memory. Jean looked up frowning, and saw

that the door had been opened and closed again carelessly. And upon the top step, strange feet had pressed a

little caked earth carried from the trail where she stood. There were the smallheeled, pointed prints of a

Jean stood with her quirt dangling loosely from her wrist and glanced back toward the stables and down the

coulee. She completely forgot that she wanted a rhyme for "hills." What were towns people doing here? And

how did they get here? They had not ridden up the coulee; there were no tracks through the gate; and besides,

She twitched her shoulders and went around to the door leading into her own room. The door stood wide

open when it should have been closed. Inside there were evidences of curious inspection. She went hot with

an unreasoning anger when she saw the wideopen door into the kitchen; first of all she went over and closed

that door, her lips pressed tightly together. To her it was as though some wanton hand had forced up the lid of

a coffin where slept her dead. She stood with her back against the door and looked around the room,

breathing quickly. She felt the woman's foolish amusement at the old cradle with the rag doll tucked under

the patchwork quilt, and at her pitiful attempts at adorning the tawdry walls. Without having seen more than

the prints of her shoes in the path, Jean hated the woman who had blundered in here and had looked and

She went over to her desk and stood staring at the litter. A couple of sheets of cheap tablet paper, whereon

Jean had scribbled some verses of the range, lay across the quirt she had forgotten on her last trip. They had

prowled among the papers, even! They had respected nothing of hers, had considered nothing sacred from

their inquisitiveness. Jean picked up the paper and read the verses through, and her cheeks reddened slowly.

Then she discovered something else that turned them white with fresh anger. Jean had an old ledger wherein

she kept a sporadic kind of a diary which she had entitled "More or Less the Record of my Sins." She did not

write anything in it unless she felt like doing so; when she did, she wrote just exactly what she happened to

think and feel at the time, and she had never gone back and read what was written there. Some one else had

read, however; at least the book had been pulled out of its place and inspected, along with her other personal

belongings. Jean had pressed the first windflowers of the season between the pages where she had done her

last scribbling, and these were crumpled and two petals broken, so she knew that the book had been opened

She did not say anything. She straightened the windflowers as best she could, put the book back where it

belonged, and went outside, and down to a lopsided shack which might pass anywhere as a junkshop. She

found some nails and a hammer, and after a good deal of rummaging and some sneezing because of the dust

she raised whenever she moved a pile of rubbish, she found a padlock with a key in it. More dusty search

produced a hasp and some staples, and then she went back and nailed two planks across the door which

opened into the kitchen. After that she fastened the windows shut with nails driven into the casing just above

the lower sashes, and cracked the outer door with twelve penny nails which she clinched on the inside with

vicious blows of the hammer, so that the hasp could not be taken off without a good deal of trouble. She had

pulled a great staple off the door of a useless boxstall, and when she had driven it in so deep that she could

scarcely force the padlock into place over the hasp, and had put the key in her pocket, she felt in a measure

protected from future prowlers. As a final hint, however, she went back to the shop and mixed some paint

with lampblack and oil, and lettered a thin board which she afterwards carried up and nailed firmly across the

outside kitchen door. Hammer in hand she backed away and read the words judicially, her head tilted

The hint was plain enough. She took the hammer back to the shop and led Pard out of the stable and down to

the gate, her eyes watching suspiciously the trail for tracks of trespassers. She closed the gate so thoroughly

with baling wire twisted about a stake that the next comer would have troubles of his own in getting it open

again. She mounted and went away down the trail, sitting straight in the saddle, both feet in the stirrups, head

up, and hat pulled firmly down to her very eyebrows, glances going here and there, alert, antagonistic. No

whistling this time of ragtime tunes with queer little variations of her own; no twirling of the quirt; instead

Pard got the feel of it in a tender part of the flank, and went clean over a narrow washout that could have been

avoided quite easily. No groping for rhythmic phrasings to fit the beauty of the land she lived in; Jean was in

At the mouth of the coulee, she turned to the left instead of to the right, and so galloped directly away from

the Bar Nothing ranch, down the narrow valley known locally as the Flat, and on to the hills that invited her

with their untroubled lights and shadows and the deep scars she knew for canyons.

There were no ranches out this way. The land was too broken and too barren for anything but grazing, so that

she felt fairly sure of having her solitude unspoiled by anything human. Solitude was what she wanted.

Solitude was what she had counted upon having in that little room at the Lazy A; robbed of it there, she rode

And then she came up out of a hollow upon a little ridge and saw three horsemen down in the next coulee.

They were not close enough so that she could distinguish their features, but by the horses they rode, by the

swing of their bodies in the saddles, by all those little, indefinable marks by which we recognize

acquaintances at a distance, Jean knew them for strangers. She pulled up and watched them, puzzled for a

When first she discovered them, they were driving a small bunch of cattle, mostly cows and calves, down out

of a little "draw" to the level bottom of the narrow coulee. While she watched, herself screened effectually by

a clump of bushes, she saw one rider leave the cattle and gallop out into the open, stand there looking toward

the mouth of the coulee, and wave his hand in a signal for the others to advance. This looked queer to Jean,

accustomed all her life to seeing men go calmly about their business upon the range, careless of observation

because they had nothing to conceal. She urged Pard a little nearer, keeping well behind the bushes still, and

Their next performance was enlightening, but incredibly bold for the business they were engaged in. One of

the three got off his horse and started a little fire of dry sticks under a convenient ledge. Another untied the

rope from his saddle, widened the loop, swung it twice over his head and flipped it neatly over the head of a

Jean did not wait to see any more than that; she did not need to see any more to know them for "rustlers."

Brazen rustlers, indeed, to go about their work in broad daylight like that. She was not sure as to the

ownership of the calf, but down here was where the Bar Nothing cattle, and what few were left of the Lazy A,

ranged while the feed was good in the spring, so that the probabilities were that this theft would strike rather

close home. Whether it did or not, Jean was not one to ride away and leave range thieves calmly at work.

She turned back behind the bushy screen, rode hastily along the ridge to the head of the little coulee and

dismounted, leading Pard down a steep bank that was treacherous with loose shale. The coulee was more or

less open, but it had convenient twists and windings; and if you think that Jean failed to go down it quietly

She hurried as much as she dared. She knew that the rustlers would be in something of a hurry themselves,

and she very much desired to ride on them unawares and catch them at that branding, so that there would be

no shadow of a doubt of their guilt. What she would do after she had ridden upon them, she did not quite

So she came presently around the turn that revealed them to her. They were still fussing with the calf, or it

may have been another one,and did not see her until she was close upon them. When they did see her, she

had them covered with her 38caliber sixshooter, that she usually carried with her on the chance of getting a

The three stood up and stared at her, their jaws sagging a little at the suddenness of her appearance, and their

eyes upon the gun. Jean held it steady, and she had all the look of a person who knew exactly what she meant,

and who meant business. She eyed them curiously, noting the fact that they were strangers, and

cowboys,though of a type that she had never seen on the range. She glanced sharply at the beaded,

"Well," she said at length, "turn your backs, you've had a good look at me. Turnyourbacks, I said. Now,

drop those guns on the ground. Walk straight ahead of you till you come to that bank. You needn't look

She leaned a little, sending Pard slowly forward until he was close to the sixshooters lying on the ground.

She glanced down at them quickly, and again at the men who stood, an uneasy trio, with their faces toward

the wall, except when they ventured a glance sidewise or back at her over one shoulder. She glanced at the

cattle huddled in the narrow mouth of the "draw" behind them, and saw that they were indeed Bar Nothing

and Lazy A stock. The horses the three had been riding she did not remember to have seen before.

Jean hesitated, not quite knowing what she ought to do next. So far she had acted merely upon instincts born

of her range life and training; the rest would not be so easy. She knew she ought to have those guns, at any

rate, so she dismounted, still keeping the three in line with her own weapon, and went to where the revolvers

lay on the ground. With her boot toe she kicked them close together, and stooped and picked one up. The last

man in the line turned toward her protestingly, and Jean fired so close to his head that he ducked.

"Believe me, I could kill the three of you if I wanted to, before you could turn around," she informed them

calmly, "so you had better stand still till I tell you to move." She frowned down at the rustler's gun in her

"Hey, Burns," called the man in the middle, without venturing to turn his head, "come out of there and

"Oh, yes, it is!" a voice retorted chucklingly. "You bet your life this is in the scene! Lowry's been pamming it

all in; don't you worry about that!" Jean was startled, but she did not lower her gun from its steady aiming at

the three of them. It was just some trick, very likely, meant to throw her off her guard. There were more than

the three, and the fourth man probably had her covered with a gun. But she would not turn her head toward

"The gentleman called Burns may walk out into the open and explain, if he can," she announced sharply, her

She heard the throaty chuckle again, from somewhere to the left of her. She saw the three men in front of her

look at each other with sickly grins. She felt that the whole situation was swinging against her,that she had

somehow blundered and made herself ridiculous. It never occurred to her that she was in any particular

danger; men did not shoot down women in that country, unless they were drunk or crazy, and the man called

Burns had sounded extremely sane, humorous even. She heard a rattle of bushes and the soft crunching of

footsteps coming toward her. Still she would not turn her head, nor would she lower the gun; if it was a trick,

"It's all right, sister," said the chuckling voice presently, almost at her elbow. "This isn't any real,

honesttoJohn bandit party. We're just movie people, and we're making pictures. That's all." He stopped, but

Jean did not move or make any reply whatever, so he went on. "I must say I appreciate the compliment you

"Don't call me sister again." Jean flashed him a sidelong glance of resentment. "You've already done it twice

too often. Come around in front where I can see you, if you're what you claim to be."

"Well, don't shoot, and I will," soothed the chuckling voice. "My, my, it certainly is a treat to see a real, live

"We'll omit the superfluous chatter, please." Jean looked him over and tagged him mentally with one glance.

He did not look like a rustler,with his fat goodnature and his townbred personality, and his gray tweed

suit and pigskin puttees, and the big cameo ring on his manicured little finger, and his freshshaven face as

round as the sun above his head and almost as cheerful. Perfectly harmless, but Jean would not yield to the

extent of softening her glance or her manner one hundredth of a degree. The more harmless these people, the

The chuckly one grinned and removed his soft gray hat, held it against his generous equator, and bowed so

low as to set him puffing a little afterward. His eyes, however, appraised her shrewdly.

"Omitting all superfluous chatter, as you suggest, I am Robert Grant Burns, of the Great Western Film

Company. These men are also members of that company. We are here for the purpose of making Western

pictures, and this little bit of unlawful branding of stock which you were flattering enough to mistake for the

real thing, is merely a scene which we were making." He was about to indulge in what he would have termed

a little "kidding" of the girl, but wisely refrained after another shrewd reading of her face.

Jean looked at the three men, who had taken it for granted that they might leave their intimate study of the

clay bank and were coming toward her. She looked at the gun she had picked up from the ground,being

loaded with blank cartridges was what had made it look so queer!and at Robert Grant Burns of the Great

Western Film Company, who had put on his hat again and was studying her the way he was wont to study

"Did you get permission to haze our cattle around like this?" she asked abruptly, to hide how humiliated she

"Whyno. Just for a few scenes, I did not consider it necessary." Plainly, the chuckly Mr. Burns was taken

"But it is necessary. Don't make the mistake, Mr. Burns, of thinking this country and all it contains is at the

disposal of any chance stranger, just because we do not keep it under lock and key. You are making rather

free with another man's personal property, when you use my uncle's cattle for your rustling scenes."

"Your uncle? Well, I shall be very glad to make some arrangement with your uncle, if that is customary."

"Why the doubt? Are you in the habit of walking into a man's house, for instance, and using his kitchen to

make pictures without permission? Has it been your custom to lead a man's horses out of his stable whenever

"No, nonothing like that. Sorry to have infringed upon your propertyrights, I am sure." Mr. Burns did not

sound so chuckly now; but that may have been because the three picturerustlers were quite openly pleased

"That the cattle were not as free as the hills?" The quiet voice of Jean searched out the tenderest places in the

selfesteem of Robert Grant Burns. She tossed the blankloaded gun back upon the ground and turned to her

horse. "It does seem hard to impress it upon city people that we savages do have a few rights in this country.

We should have policemen stationed on every hilltop, I suppose, and `No Trespassing' signs planted along

every cowtrail. Even then I doubt whether we could convince some people that we are perfectly human and

While she drawled the last biting sentences, she stuck her toe in the stirrup and went up into the saddle as

easily as any cowpuncher in the country could have done. Robert Grant Burns stood with his hands at his hips

and watched her with the critical eye of the expert who sees in every gesture a picture, effective or

ineffective, good, bad, or merely soso. Robert Grant Burns had never, in all his experience in directing

Western pictures, seen a girl mount a horse with such unconscious ease of every movement.

Jean twitched the reins and turned towards him, looking down at the little group with unfriendly eyes. "I don't

want to seem inhospitable or unaccommodating, Mr. Burns," she told him, "but I fear that I must take these

Mr. Burns did not say whether she was right or wrong in her conjecture. As a matter of fact, he did want to

use them for several more scenes; but he stood silent while Jean, with a chilly bow to the four of them, sent

Pard up the rough bank of the little gulley. Rather, he made no reply to Jean, but he waved his three rustlers

back, retreating himself to where the bank stopped them. And he turned toward the bushes that had at first

hidden him from Jean, waved his hand in an imperative gesture, and called guardedly through cupped palms.

"Take that! All you can get of it!" Which goes far to show why he was considered one of the best directors

So Jean unconsciously made a picture which caused the eyes of Robert Grant Burns to glisten while he

watched. She ignored the men who had so fooled her, and took down her rope that she might swing the loop

of it toward the cattle and drive them back across the gulley and up the coulee toward home. Cattle are

stubborn things at best, and this little bunch seemed determined to seek the higher slopes. Put upon her mettle

because of that little audience down below, a mildly jeering audience at that, she imagined,Jean had

She swung her rope and shouted, weaving back and forth across the gulley, with little lunging rushes now and

then to head off an animal that tried to bolt past her up the hill. She would not have glanced toward Robert

"Great! Great stuff! Get it all, Pete. By George, you can't beat the real thing, can you? 'J get that uphill dash?

Good! Now panoram the drive up the gulleyget it ALL, Peteturn as long as you can see the top of her

hat. My Lord! You wouldn't get stuff like that in ten years. I wish Gay could handle herself like that in the

saddle, but there ain't a leading woman in the business today that could put that over the way she's doing it.

By George! Say, Gil, you get on your horse and ride after her, and find out where she lives. We can't work

any more now, anyway; she's gone off with the cattle. And, say! You don't want to let her get a sight of you,

or she might take a shot at you. And if she can shoot the way she ridesgood night!"

The young man called Gil,to avoid wasting time in saying Gilbert James Huntley, mounted in haste and

rode warily up the coulee some distance behind Jean. At that time and in that locality he was quite anxious

that she should not discover him. Gil was not such a bad fellow, even though he did play "heavies" in all the

pictures which Robert Grant Burns directed. A villain he was on the screen, and a bad one. Many's the man

he had killed as cold bloodedly as the Board of Censorship would permit. Many's the girlish, Western heart

he had broken, and many's the time he had paid the penalty to brother, father, or sweetheart as the scenario of

the play might decree. Many's the time he had followed girls and men warily through brushfringed gullies

and over picturesque ridges, for the entertainment of shop girls and their escorts sitting in darkened theaters

But in his everyday life, Gil Huntley was very good looking, very goodnatured, and very harmless. His

position and his salary as "heavy" in the Great Western Company he owed chiefly to his good acting and his

thick eyebrows and his facility for making himself look treacherous and mean. He followed Jean because the

boss told him to do so, in the first place. In the second place, he followed her because he was even more

interested in her than his director had been, and he hoped to have a chance to talk with her. In his work aday

life, Gil Huntley was quite accustomed to being discovered in some villainy, and to having some man or

woman point a gun at him with more or less antagonism in voice and manner. But he had never in his life had

a girl ride up and "throw down on him" with a gun, actually believing him to be a thief and a scoundrel whom

she would shoot if she thought it necessary. There was a difference. Gil did not take the time or trouble to

analyze the difference, but he knew that he was glad the boss had not sent Johnny or Bill in his place. He did

not believe that either of them would have enough sense to see the difference, and they might offend her in

some way,though Gil Huntley need not have worried in the least over any man's treatment of Jean, who

He grinned when he saw her turn the cattle loose down the very next coulee and with a final flip of her rope

loop toward the hindermost cow, ride on without them. He should have ridden in haste then to tell Robert

Grant Burns that the cattle could be brought back in twenty minutes or so and the picturemaking go on as

planned. It was not likely that the girl would come back; they could go on with their work and get permission

from the girl's uncle afterward. But he did not turn and hurry back. Instead, he waited behind a rockhuddle

until Jean was well out of sight, and while he waited, he took his handkerchief and rubbed hard at the

makeup on his face, which had made him look sinister and boldly bad. Without mirror or cold cream, he

was not very successful, so that he rode on somewhat spotted in appearance and looking even more sinister

than before. But he was much more comfortable in his mind, which meant a good deal in the interview which

With Jean a couple of hundred yards in advance, they crossed a little flat so bare of concealment that Gil

Huntley was worried for fear she might look back and discover him. But she did not turn her head, and he

rode on more confidently. At the mouth of Lazy A coulee, just where stood the cluster of huge rocks that had

at one time come hurtling down from the higher slopes, and the clump of currant bushes beneath which Jean

used to hide her muchdespised saddle when she was a child, she disappeared from view. Gil, knowing very

little of the ways of the range folk, and less of the country, kicked his horse into a swifter pace and galloped

Fifty yards beyond the currant bushes he heard a sound and looked back; and there was Jean, riding out from

her hidingplace, and coming after him almost at a run. While he was trying to decide what to do about it,

she overtook him; rather, the wide loop of her rope overtook him. He ducked, but the loop settled over his

head and shoulders and pulled tight about the chest. Jean took two turns of the rope around the saddle horn

and then looked him over critically. In spite of herself, she smiled a little at his face, streaked still with grease

"That's what you get for following," she said, after a minute of staring at each other. "Did you think I didn't

know you were trailing along behind me? I saw you before I turned the cattle loose, but I just let you think

you were being real sly and cunning about it. You did it in real movingpicture style; did your fat Mr. Robert

Grant Burns teach you how? What is the idea, anyway? Were you going to abduct me and lead me to the

Having scored a point against him and so put herself into a good humor again, Jean laughed at him and

twitched the rope, just to remind him that he was at her mercy. To be haughtily indignant with this honest

eyed, embarrassed young fellow with the streaky face and heavilypenciled eyelids was out of the question.

The wind caught his high, peakedcrowned sombrero and sent it sailing like a great, flapping bird to the

ground, and he could not catch it because Jean had his arms pinioned with the loop.

She laughed again and rode over to where the hat had lodged. Gil Huntley, to save himself from being

dragged ignominiously from the saddle, kicked his horse and kept pace with her. Jean leaned far over and

"If you could just live up to your hat, my, wouldn't you be a villain, though!" she commented, in a soft,

drawling voice. "You don't look so terribly blood thirsty without it; I just guess I'd better keep it for a while.

It would make a dandy wastebasket. Do you know, if your face were clean, I think you'd look almost

She started on up the trail, nonchalantly leading her captive by the rope. Gil Huntley could have wriggled an

arm loose and freed himself, but he did not. He wanted to see what she was going to do with him. He grinned

when she had her back turned toward him, but he did not say anything for fear of spoiling the joke or

offending her in some way. So presently Jean began to feel silly, and the joke lost its point and seemed inane

She turned back, threw off the loop that bound his arms to his sides, and coiled the rope. "I wish you

playacting people would keep out of the country," she said impatiently. "Twice you've made me act

ridiculous. I don't know what in the world you wanted to follow me for,and I don't care. Whatever it was,

She looked at him full, refused to meet halfway the friendliness of his eyes, tossed the hat toward him, and

wheeled her horse away. "Goodby," she said shortly, and touched Pard with the spurs. She was out of

hearing before Gil Huntley could think of the right thing to say, and she increased the distance between them

so rapidly that before he had quite recovered from his surprise at her sudden change of mood, she was so far

He watched her out of sight and rode back to where Burns mouthed a big, black cigar, and paced up and

down the level space where he had set the interrupted scene, and waited his coming.

"Rode away from you, did she? Where'd she take the cattle to? Left 'em in the next gulch? Well, why didn't

you say so? You boys can bring 'em back, and we'll get to work again. Where'd you say that spring was, Gil?

We'll eat before we do anything else. One thing about this blamed country is we don't have to be afraid of the

light. Got to hand it to 'em for having plenty of good, clear sunlight, anyway?"

He followed Gil to the feeble spring that seeped from under a huge boulder, and stooped uncomfortably to fill

a tin cup. While he waited for the trickle to yield him a drink, he cocked his head sidewise and looked up

"You must have come within speaking distance, Gil," he guessed shrewdly. "Got any makeup along? You

look like a mild case of the measles, right now. What did she have to say, anyhow?"

"Nothing," said Gil shortly. "I didn't talk to her at all. I didn't want to run my horse to death trying to say

"Huh!" grunted Robert Grant Burns unbelievingly, and fished a bit of grass out of the cup with his little

"You know the brand, don't you?" the proprietor of the hotel which housed the Great Western Company

asked, with the tolerant air which the sophisticated wear when confronted by ignorance. "Easy enough to

Whereupon Robert Grant Burns rolled his eyes helplessly toward Gil Huntley. "I noticed it at the time,

And Gil, if you would believe me, did not remember, either. He had driven the cattle half a mile or more, had

helped to "steal" two calves out of the little herd, and yet he could not recall the mark of their owner.

So the proprietor of the hotel, an old cowman who had sold out and gone into the hotel business when the

barbedwire came by carloads into the country, pulled a newspaper towards him, borrowed a pencil from

Burns, and sketched all the cattle brands in that part of the country. While he drew one after the other, he did

"Must have been the Bar Nothing, or else the Lazy A cattle you got hold of," he concluded, pointing to the

pencil marks on the margin of the paper. "They range down in there, and Jean Douglas answers your

description of the girl,as far as looks go. She ain't all that wild and dangerous, though. Swing a loop with

any man in the country and ride and all that, been raised right out there on the Lazy A. Say! Why don't you

go out and see Carl Douglas, and see if you can't get the use of the Lazy A for your pictures? Seems to me

that's just the kinda place you want. Don't anybody live there now. It's been left alone ever sincethe trouble

out there. House and barns and corrals,everything you want." He leaned closer with a confidential tone

creeping into his voice, for Robert Grant Burns and his company were profitable guests and should be given

"It ain't but fifteen miles out there; you could go back and forth in your machine, easy. You go out and see

Carl Douglas, anyway; won't do no harm. You offer him a little something for the use of the Lazy A; he'll

take anything that looks like money. Take it from me, that's the place you want to take your pictures in. And,

say! You want a written agreement with Carl. Have the use of his stock included, or he'll tax you extra. Have

everything included," advised the old cowman, with a sweep of his palm and his voice lowered discreetly.

"Won't need to cost you much, not if you don't give him any encouragement to expect much. Carl's that

kind,good fellow enough,but he wantsthebigend. I know him, you bet! And, say! Don't let on to

Carl that I steered you out there. Just claim like you was scouting around, and seen the Lazy A ranch, and

took a notion to it; not too much of a notion, though, or it's liable to come kinda high.

"And, say!" Real enthusiasm for the idea began to lighten his eyes. "If you want good range dope, right out

there's where you can sure find it. You play up to them Bar Nothing boysLite Avery and Joe Morris and

Red. You ought to get some great pictures out there, man. Them boys can sure ride and rope and handle

stock, if that's what you want; and I reckon it is, or you wouldn't be out here with your bunch of actors

They talked a long while after that. Gradually it dawned upon Burns that he had heard of the Lazy A ranch

before, though not by that euphonious title. It seemed worth investigating, for he was going to need a good

location for some exterior ranch scenes very soon, and the place he had half decided upon did not alto

gether please him. He inquired about roads and distances, and waddled off to the hotel parlor to ask Muriel

Gay, his blond leading woman, if she would like to go out among the natives next morning. Also he wanted

her to tell him more about that picturesque place she and Lee Milligan had stumbled upon the day before,

That is how it came to pass that Jean, riding out with big Lite Avery the next morning on a little private

scoutingtrip of their own, to see if that fat moving picture man was making free with the stock again, met

Along every trail which owns certain obstacles to swift, easy passing, there are places commonly spoken of

as "that" place. In his journey to the Bar Nothing, Robert Grant Burns had come unwarned upon that sandy

hollow which experienced drivers approached with a mental bracing for the struggle ahead, and with

tightened lines and whip held ready. Even then they stuck fast, as often as not, if the load were heavy, though

Bar Nothing drivers gaged their loads with that hollow in mind. If they could pull through there without

Robert Grant Burns had come into the hollow unsuspectingly. He had been careening along the prairie road at

a twentymile pace, his mind fixed upon hurrying through his interview with Carl Douglas, so that he would

have time to stop at the Lazy A on the way back to town. He wanted to take a few exterior ranch house

scenes that day, for Robert Grant Burns was far more energetic than his bulk would lead one to suppose. He

had Pete Lowry, his camera man, in the seat beside him. Back in the tonneau Muriel Gay and her mother,

who played the character parts, clung to Lee Mulligan and a colorless individual who was Lowry's assistant,

At the top of the hill which guarded the deceptive hollow, Robert Grant Burns grinned over his shoulder at

his characterwoman. "Wait till we start back; I'll know the road then, and we'll do some traveling!" he

promised darkly, and laid his toe lightly on the brake. It pleased him to be considered a daredevil driver;

that is why he always drove whatever machine carried him. They went lurching down the curving grade into

the hollow, and struck the patch of sand that had worn out the vocabularies of more eloquent men than he.

Robert Grant Burns fed more gas, and the engine kicked and groaned, and sent the wheels bur rowing like

When Jean and Lite came loping leisurely down the hill, the two women were fraying perfectly good gloves

trying to pull "rabbit" brush up by the roots to make firmer foothold for the wheels. Robert Grant Burns was

headandshoulders under the car, digging badgerlike with his paws to clear the front axle, and coming up

now and then to wipe the perspiration from his eyes and puff the purple out of his complexion. Pete Lowry

always ducked his head lower over the jack when he saw the heaving of flesh which heralded these resting

times, so that the boss could not catch him laughing. Lee Milligan was scooping sand upon the other side and

mumbling to himself, with a glance now and then at the trail, in the hope of sighting a good samaritan with

six or eight mules, perhaps. Lee thought that it would take about that many mules to pull them out.

The two riders pulled up, smiling pityingly, just as wellmounted riders invariably smile upon stalled

automobilists. This was not the first machine that had come to grief in that hollow, though they could not

"I guess you wouldn't refuse a little help, about now," Lite observed casually to Lee, who was most in

"We wouldn't refuse a little, but a lot is what we need," Lee amended glumly. "Any ranch within forty miles

of here? We need about twelve good horses, I should say." Lee's experience with sand had been unhappy, and

"Shall we snake 'em out, Jean?" Lite asked her, as if he himself were absolutely indifferent to their plight.

"Oh, I suppose we might as well. We can't leave them blocking the trail; somebody might want to drive past,"

Jean told him in much the same tone, just to tease Lee Milligan, who was looking them over disparagingly.

"We'll be blocking the trail a good long while if we stay here till you move us," snapped Lee, who was rather

Then Robert Grant Burns gave a heave and a wriggle, and came up for air and a look around. He had been

composing a monologue upon the subject of sand, and he had not noticed that strange voices were speaking

"Hello, sis Howdedo, Miss," he greeted Jean guardedly, with a hasty revision of the terms when he saw

how her eyebrows pinched together. "I wonder if you could tell us where we can find teams to pull us out of

"How do you do, Mr. Burns? Lite and I offered to take you out on solid ground, but your man seemed to

"What man was that? Wasn't me, anyway. I think you can do just about anything you start out to do, if you

"Say, you're some rider," he praised tactlessly, and got no reply whatever. Jean merely turned and rode

around to where Lite eased his long legs in the stirrups and waited her pleasure.

"Shall we help them out, Lite?" she asked distinctly. "I think perhaps we ought to; it's a long walk to town."

"I guess we better; won't take but a minute to tie on," Lite agreed, his fingers dropping to his coiled rope.

"Seems queer to me that folks should want to ride in them things when there's plenty of good horses in the

"No accounting for tastes, Lite," Jean replied cheerfully. "Listen. If that thin man will start the engine,he

doesn't weigh more than half as much as you do, Mr. Burns,we'll pull you out on solid ground. And if you

have occasion to cross this hollow again, I advise you to keep out there to the right. There's a little sod to give

your tires a better grip. It's rough, but you could make it all right if you drive carefully, and the bunch of you

get out and walk. Don't try to keep around on the ridge; there's a deep washout on each side, so you couldn't

possibly make it. We can't with the horses, even." Jean did not know that there was a note of superiority in

her voice when she spoke the last sentence, but her listeners winced at it. Only Pete Lowry grinned while he

climbed obediently into the machine to advance his spark and see that the gears were in neutral.

"Don't crank up till we're ready!" Lite expostulated. "These cayuses of ours are pretty sensible, and they'll

stand for a whole lot; but there's a limit. Wait till I get the ropes fixed, before you start the engine. And the

When Jean dismounted and hooked the stirrup over the horn so that she could tighten the cinch, the eyes of

Robert Grant Burns glistened at the "picturestuff" she made. He glanced eloquently at Pete, and Pete gave a

twisted smile and a pantomime of turning the cameracrank; whereat Robert Grant Burns shook his head

"Say, if I had a leading woman" he began discontentedly, and stopped short; for Muriel Gay was standing

quite close, and even through her greasepaint makeup she betrayed the fact that she knew exactly what her

director was thinking, had seen and understood the gesture of the camera man, and was close to tears because

Muriel Gay was a conscientious worker who tried hard to please her director. Sometimes it seemed to her that

her director demanded impossibilities of her; that he was absolutely soulless where pictureeffects were

concerned. Her riding had all along been a subject of discord between them. She had learned to ride very well

along the bridlepaths of Golden Gate Park, but Robert Grant Burns seemed to expect her to ride well, like

One could not blame her for glaring jealously while Jean tightened the cinch and remounted, tying her rope to

the saddle horn, all ready to pull; with her muscles tensed for the coming struggle with the sand,and

perhaps with her horse as well,and with every line of her figure showing how absolutely at home she was

"I've tied my rope, Lite," Jean drawled, with a little laugh at what might happen.

Lite turned his face toward her. "You better not," be warned. "Things are liable to start apopping when that

"Well, then I'll want both hands for Pard. I've taken a couple of halfhitches, anyway."

"You folks want to be ready at the wheels," Lite directed, waiving the argument. "When we start, you all

"All set?" he called to Jean, when Pete Lowry bent his back to start the engine. "Business'll be pickin' up,

It seemed then that everything began to start at once, and to start in different directions. The engine snorted

and pounded so that the whole machine shook with ague. When Pete jumped in and threw in the clutch, there

was a backfire that sounded like the crack of doom. The two horses went wild, as their riders had half

expected them to do. They lunged away from the horror behind them, and the slack ropes tightened with a

jerk. Both were good rope horses, and the strain of the ropes almost recalled them to sanity and their training;

at least they held the ropes tight for a few seconds, so that the machine jumped ahead and veered toward the

Then Pard looked back and saw the thing coming after him, and tried to bolt. When he found that he could

not, because of the rope, he bucked as he had not done since he was a halfbroken broncho. That started Lite

Avery's horse to pitching; and Pete, absorbed in watching what would have made a great picture, forgot to

Robert Grant Burns picked himself out of the sand where he had sprawled at the first wild lunge of the

machine, and saw Pete Lowry, humped over the wheel like any speed demon, go lurching off across the

hollow in the wake of two fearcrazed animals, that threatened at any instant to bolt off at an angle that

Then Lite let his rope slip from the saddlehorn and spurred his horse to one side, out of the danger zone of

"Don't you cut my rope," Jean warned, when she saw him come plunging toward her, knife in hand. "This

Pete came to himself, then, and killed the engine before he landed in the bottom of a yawning, water washed

hole, and Lite rode close and slashed Jean's rope, in spite of her protest; whereupon Pard went off up the,

At long rifle range, he circled and faced the thing that had scared him so, and after a little Jean persuaded him

to go back as far as the trail. Nearer he would not stir, so she waited there for Lite.

"Never even thanked us," Lite grumbled when he came up, his mouth stretched in a wide smile. "That girl

with the kalsomine on her face made remarks about folks butting in. And the fat man talked into his double

chin; dunno what all he was saying. Here's what's left of your rope. I'll get you another one, Jean. I was afraid

"What's the matter over there? Aren't they glad they're out of the sand?" Jean held her horse quiet while she

"Something busted. I guess we done some damage." Lite grinned and watched them over his shoulder.

"You needn't go any further with me, Lite. That fat man's the one that had the cattle. I am going over to the

ranch for awhile, but don't tell Aunt Ella." She turned to ride on up the hill toward the Lazy A, but stopped

for another look at the perturbed motorists. "Well anyway, we snaked them out of the sand, didn't we, Lite?"

"We sure did," Lite chuckled. "They don't seem thankful, but I guess they ain't any worse off than they was

Lite said that because he was not given the power to peer into the future, and so could not know that Fate

herself had sent Robert Grant Burns into their lives; and that, by a somewhat roundabout method, she was

going to use the Great Western Film Company and Jean and himself for her servants in doing a work which

Jean found the padlock key where she had hidden it under a rock ten feet from the door, and let herself into

her room. The peaceful familiarity of its four walls, and the cheerful patch of sunlight lying warm upon the

faded rag carpet, gave her the feeling of security and of comfort which she seldom felt elsewhere.

She wandered aimlessly around the room, brushing the dust from her books and straightening a tiny fold in

the cradle quilt. She ran an investigative forefinger along the seat of her father's saddle, brought the finger

away dusty, pulled one of the stockings from the overflowing basket and used it for a dust cloth. She wiped

and polished the stamped leather with a painstaking tenderness that had in it a good deal of yearning, and

She went next to her desk and fumbled the quirt that lay there still. Then she pulled out the old ledger, picked

up a pencil, and began to write, sitting on the arm of an old, caneseated chair while she did so. As I told you

before, Jean never wrote anything in that book except when her moods demanded expression of some sort;

when she did write, she said exactly what she thought and felt at the time. So if you are permitted to know

what she wrote at this time, you will have had a peep into Jean's hidden, inner life that none of her world save

Lite knew anything about. She wrote rapidly, and she did not always take the trouble to finish her sentences

properly,as if she never could quite keep pace with her thoughts. So this is what that page held when

I don't know what's the matter with me lately. I feel as if I wanted to shoot somebody, or rob a bank or run

awayI guess it's the old trouble nagging at me. I KNOW dad never did it. I don't know why, but I know it

just the sameand I know Uncle Carl knows it too. I'd like to take out his brain and put it into some

scientific machine that would squeeze out his thoughtshope it wouldn't hurt himI'd give him ether,

maybe. What I want is money enough to buy back this place and the stock. I don't believe Uncle Carl spent

as much defending dad as he claims he didnot enough to take the whole ranch anyway. If I had money I'd

find Art Osgood if I had to hunt from Alaska to Africadon't believe he went to Alaska at all. Uncle Carl

thinks so. . . . I'd like the price of that machine I helped drag out of the sandsome people can have anything

they want but all I want is dad back, and this place the way it was before. . . .

If I had any brains I could write something wonderful and be rich and famous and do the things I want to

do but there's no profit in just feeling wonderful things; if I could make the world see and feel what I see

If I could find Art Osgood I believe I could make him tellI know he knows something, even if he didn't do

it himself. I believe he didBut what can you do when you're a woman and haven't any money and must

stay where you're put and can't even get out and do the little you might do, because somebody must have you

around to lean on and tell their troubles to. . . . I don't blame Aunt Ella so much but thank goodness, I can

do without a shoulder to weep on, anyway. What's life for if you've got to spend your days hopping round and

round in a cage. It wouldn't be a cage if I could have dad backI'd be doing things for him all the time and

that would make life worth while. Poor dadfour more years isI can't think about it. I'll go crazy if I do

It was there that she stopped and slammed the book shut, and pushed it back out of sight in the desk. She

picked up her hat and gloves, and went out with blurred eyes, and began to climb the bluff above the little

spring, where a faint, littleused trail led to the benchland above. By following a rock ledge to where it was

broken, and climbing through the crevice to where the trail marked faintly the way to the top, one could in a

few minutes leave the Lazy A coulee out of sight below, and stand on a high level where the winds blew free

Some day, it was predicted, the benchland would be cut into squares and farmed,some day when the

government brought to reality a longtalkedof irrigation project. But in the meantime, the land lay unfenced

and free. One could look far away to the north, and at certain times see the smoke of passing trains through

the valley off there. One could look south to the distant river bluffs, and east and west to the mountains. Jean

often climbed the bluff just for the wide outlook she gained. The cage did not seem so small when she could

stand up there and tire her eyes with looking. Life did not seem quite so purposeless, and she could nearly

She walked aimlessly and yet with a subconscious purpose for ten minutes or so, and her face was turned

directly toward the eastern hills. She stopped on the edge of the bluff that broke abruptly there, and sat down

and stared at the soft purple of the hills and the soft green of the nearer slopes, and at the peaceful blue of the

sky arched over it all. Her eyes cleared of their troubled look and grew dreamy. Her mouth lost its tenseness

and softened to a half smile. She was not looking now into the past that was so full of heartbreak, but into the

She was seeing the Lazy A alive again and all astir with the business of life; and her father saddling Sioux

and riding out to look after the stock. She was seeing herself riding with him,or else cooking the things he

liked best for his dinner when he came back hungry. She sat there for a long, long while and never moved.

A sparrow hawk swooped down quite close to Jean and then shot upward with a little brown bird in its claws,

and startled her out of her castle building. She felt a hot anger against the hawk, which was like the sudden

grasp of misfortune; and a quick sympathy with the bird, which was like herself and dad, caught unawares

and held helpless. But she did not move, and the hawk circled and came back on his way to the nestingplace

in the trees along the creek below. He came quite close, and Jean shot him as he lifted his wings for a higher

flight. The hawk dropped head foremost to the grass and lay there crumpled and quiet.

Jean put back her gun in its holster and went over to where the hawk lay. The little brown bird fluttered

terrifiedly and gave a piteous, small chirp when her hand closed over it, and then lay quite still in her cupped

Jean cuddled it up against her cheek, and talked to it and pitied it and promised it much in the way of fat little

bugs and a warm nest and her tender regard. For the hawk she had no pity, nor a thought beyond the one

investigative glance she gave its body to make sure that she had hit it where she meant to hit it. Lite had

taught her to shoot like that,straight and quick. Lite was a man who trimmed life down to the essentials,

and he had long ago impressed it upon her that if she could not shoot quickly, and hit where she aimed, there

was not much use in her attempting to shoot at all. Jean proved by her scant interest in the hawk how well she

The little brown bird had been gashed in the breast by a sharp talon. Jean was much concerned over the

wound, even though it did not reach any vital organ. She was afraid of septic poisoning, she told the bird; but

added comfortingly: "Thereyou needn't worry one minute over that. I'm almost sure there's a bottle of

peroxide down at the house, that isn't spoiled. We'll go and put some on it right away; and then we'll go

bughunting. I believe I know where there's the fattest, juiciest bugs!" She cuddled the bird against her

cheek, and started back across the wide point of the benchland to where the trail led down the bluff to the

She was wholly absorbed in the trouble of the little brown bird; and the trail, following a crevice through the

rocks and later winding along behind some scant bushes, partially concealed the buildings and the house yard

from view until one was well down into the coulee. So it was not until she was at the spring, looking at the

moist earth there for fat bugs for the bird, that she had any inkling of visitors. Then she heard voices and went

It seemed to her that she was lately fated to come plump into the middle of that fat Mr. Burns' unauthorized

picturemaking. The first thing she saw when she rounded the corner was the camera perched high upon its

tripod and staring at her with its one round eye; and the humorouseyed Pete Lowry turning a crank at the

side and counting in a whisper. Close beside her the two women were standing in animated argument which

"Hey, you're in the scene!" called Pete Lowry, and abruptly stopped counting and turning the crank.

"You're in the scene, sister. Step over here to one side, will you?" The fat director waved his pink cameoed

An old bench had been placed beside the house, under a window. Jean backed a step and sat down upon the

bench, and looked from one to the other. The two women glanced at her wideeyed and moved away with

mutual embracings. Jean lifted her hands and looked at the soft little crest and beady eyes of the bird, to make

sure that it was not disturbed by these strangers, before she gave her attention to the expostulating Mr. Burns.

"Did I spoil something?" she inquired casually, and watched curiously the pulling of many feet of narrow

"About fifteen feet of good scene," Pete Lowry told her dryly, but with that queer, half smile twisting his lips.

Jean looked at him and decided that, save for the company he kept, which made of him a latent enemy, she

might like that lean man in the red sweater who wore a pencil over one ear and was always smiling to himself

about something. But what she did was to cross her feet and murmur a sympathetic sentence to the little

brown bird. Inwardly she resented deeply this bold trespass of Robert Grant Burns; but she meant to guard

against making herself ridiculous again. She meant to be sure of her ground before she ordered them off. The

memory of her humiliation before the supposed rustlers was too vivid to risk a repetition of the experience.

"When you're thoroughly rested," said Robert Grant Burns, in the tone that would have shriveled the soul of

"Thank you. I am pretty tired," she said in that soft, drawly voice that could hide so effectually her meaning.

She leaned her head against the wall and gave a luxurious sigh, and crossed her feet the other way. She

believed that she knew why Robert Grant Burns was growing so red in the face and stepping about so

uneasily, and why the women were looking at her like that. Very likely they expected her to prove herself

crude and uncivilized, but she meant to disappoint them even while she made them all the trouble she could.

She pushed back her hat until its crown rested against the rough boards, and cuddled the little brown bird

against her cheek again, and talked to it caressingly. Though she seemed unconscious of his presence, she

heard every word that Robert Grant Burns was muttering to himself. Some of the words were plain,

mansized swearing, if she were any judge of language. It occurred to her that she really ought to go and find

"I always supposed that fat men were essentially; sweettempered," she observed to the world in general,

Jean did not know that he referred to herself and the unstudied picture she made, sitting there with her hat

pushed back, and the little bird blinking at her from between her cupped palms. But she looked at him

curiously, with an impulse to ask questions about what he was doing with that queerlooking camera, and

how he could inject motion into photography. While she watched, he drew out a narrow, gray strip of film

and made mysterious markings upon it with the pencil, which he afterwards thrust absentmindedly behind

his ear. He closed a small door in the side of the camera, placed his palm over the lens and turned the little

crank several times around. Then he looked at Jean, and from her to the director.

Robert Grant Burns gave a sweeping, downward gesture with both hands,a gesture which his company

"You may not know it," he began in a repressed tone, "but we're in a hurry. We've got work to do. We ain't

here on any pleasure excursion, and you'll be doing me a favor by getting out of the scene so we can go on

Jean sat still upon the bench and looked at him. "I suppose so; but why should I be doing you favors? You

haven't seemed to appreciate them, so far. Of course, I dislike to seem disobliging, or anything like that, but

your tone and manner would not make any one very enthusiastic about pleasing you, Mr. Burns. In fact, I

don't see why you aren't apologizing for being here, instead of ordering me about as if I worked for you. This

benchis my bench. This ranchis where I have lived nearly all my life. I hate to seem vain, Mr. Burns,

but at the same time I think it is perfectly lovely of me to explain that I have a right here; and I consider

myself an angel of patience and graciousness and many other rare virtues, because I have not even hinted that

you are once more taking liberties with other people's property." She looked at him with a smile at the

corners of her eyes and just easing the firmness of her lips, as if the humor of the situation was beginning to

"If you would stop dancing about, and let your naturally sweet disposition have a chance, and would explain

just why you are here and what you want to do, and would ask me nicely,it might help you more than to

The two women exclaimed under their breaths to each other and moved farther away, as if from an

impending explosion. The assistant camera man gurgled and turned his back abruptly. Lee Milligan,

wandering up from the stables, stopped and stared. No one, within the knowledge of those present, had ever

spoken so to Robert Grant Burns; no one had ever dreamed of speaking thus to him. They had seen him when

rage had mastered him and for slighter cause; it was not an experience that one would care to repeat.

Robert Grant Burns walked up to Jean as if he meant to lift her from the bench and hurl her by sheer brute

"Are you going to get out of the way so we can go on?" he asked, in the tone of one who gives a last merciful

"Are you going to explain why you're here, and apologize for your tone and manner, which are extremely

rude?" Jean did not pay his rage the compliment of a glance at him. She was looking at the dainty beak of the

little brown bird, and was telling herself that she could not be bullied into losing control of herself. These two

women should not have the satisfaction of calling her a crude, ignorant, country girl; and Robert Grant Burns

should not have the triumph of browbeating her into yielding one inch of ground. She forced herself to

observe the wonderfully delicate feathers on the bird's head. It seemed more content now in the little nest her

two palms had made for it. Its heart did not flutter so much, and she fancied that the tiny, beadlike eyes were

Robert Grant Burns came to a pause. Jean sensed that he was waiting for some reply, and she looked up at

him. His hand was just reaching out to her shoulder, but it dropped instead to his coat pocket and fumbled for

his handkerchief. Her eyes strayed to Pete Lowry. He was looking upward with that measuring glance which

belongs to his profession, estimating the length of time the light would be suitable for the scene he had

focussed. She followed his glance to where the shadow of the kitchen had crept closer to the bench. Jean was

not stupid, and she had passed through the various stages of the kodak fever; she guessed what was in the

mind of the operator, and when she met his eyes full, she smiled at him sympathetically.

"I should dearly love to watch you work," she said to him frankly. "But you see how it is; Mr. Burns hasn't

got hold of himself yet. If he comes to his senses before he has a stroke of apoplexy, will you show me how

"How much longer will it be before this bench is in the shade?" she asked him next.

"Andhow long do these spasms usually last?" Jean's head tilted toward Robert Grant Burns as

But the camera man had gone as far as was wise, if he cared to continue working for Burns, and he made no

reply whatever. So Jean turned her attention to the man whose bulk shaded her from the sun, and whose

"If you really are anxious to go on making pictures, why don't you stop all that ranting and be sensible about

it?" she asked him. "You can't bully me into being afraid of you, you know. And really, you are making an

"Listen here! Are you going to get off that bench and out of the scene?" By a tremendous effort Robert Grant

"That all depends upon yourself, Mr. Burns. First, I want to know by what right you come here with your

The highest paid director of the Great Western Film Company looked at her long. With her head tilted back,

"Oh, all rightall right," he surrendered finally. "Read that paper. That ought to satisfy you that we ain't

trespassing here or anywhere else. And if you'd kindly,"and Mr. Burns emphasized the word

Jean did not even hear him, once she had the paper in her hands and had begun to read it. So Robert Grant

Burns folded his arms across his heaving chest and watched her and studied her and measured her with his

mind while she read. He saw the pulling together of her eyebrows, and the pinching of her under lip

between her teeth. He saw how she unconsciously sheltered the little brown bird under her left hand in her lap

because she must hold the paper with the other, and he quite forgot his anger against her.

Sitting so, she made a picture that appealed to him. Had you asked him why, he would have said that she was

the type that would photograph well, and that she had a screen personality; which would have been high

Jean read the brief statement that in consideration of a certain sum paid to him that day by Robert G. Burns,

her uncle, Carl Douglas, thereby gave the said Robert G. Burns permission to use the Lazy A ranch and

anything upon it or in any manner pertaining to it, for the purpose of making motion pictures. It was plainly

set forth that Robert G. Burns should be held responsible for any destruction of or damage to the property,

and that he might, for the sum named, use any cattle bearing the Lazy A or Bar O brands for the making of

pictures, so long as he did them no injury and returned them in good condition to the range from which he

Jean recognized her uncle's ostentatious attempt at legal phraseology and knew, even without the evidence of

his angular writing, that the document was genuine. She knew also that Robert Grant Burns was justified in

ordering her off that bench; she had no right there, where he was making his pictures. She forced back the

bitterness that filled her because of her own helplessness, and folded the paper carefully. The little brown bird

chirped shrilly and fluttered a feeble protest when she took away her sheltering hand. Jean returned the paper

"I beg your pardon for delaying your work," she said coldly, and rose from the bench. "But you might have

explained your presence in the first place." She wrapped the bird carefully in her handkerchief so that only its

beak and its bright eyes were uncovered, pulled her hat forward upon her head, and walked away from them

Robert Grant Burns turned slowly on his heels and watched her go, and until she had led out her horse,

mounted and ridden away, he said never a word. Pete Lowry leaned an elbow upon the camera and watched

her also, until she passed out of sight around the corner of the dilapidated calf shed, and he was as silent as

"Some rider," Lee Milligan commented to the assistant camera man, and without any tangible reason

Robert Grant Burns turned harshly to the two women. "Now then, you two go through that scene again. And

when you put out your hand to stop Muriel, don't grab at her, Mrs. Gay. Hesitate! You want your son to get

the warning, but you've got your doubts about letting her take the risk of going. And, Gay, when you read the

letter, try and show a little emotion in your face. You saw how that girl looked see if you can't get that

hurt, bitter look GRADUALLY, as you read. The way she got it. Put in more feeling and not so much

motion. You know what I mean; you saw the girl. That's the stuff that gets over. Ready? Camera!"

Jean was just returning wetlashed from burying the little brown bird under a wildrose bush near the creek.

She had known all along that it would die; everything that she took any interest in turned out badly, it seemed

to her. The wonder was that the bird had lived so long after she had taken it under her protection.

All that day her Aunt Ella had worn a wet towel turbanwise upon her head, and the look of a martyr about to

enter a den of lions. Add that to the habitual atmosphere of injury which she wore, and Aunt Ella was not

what one might call a cheerful companion. Besides, the appearance of the wet towel was a danger signal to

Jean's conscience, and forbade any thought of saddling Pard and riding away from the Bar Nothing into her

own dream world and the great outdoors. Jean's conscience commanded her instead to hang her

ridingclothes in the closet and wear striped percale and a gingham apron, which she hated; and to sweep and

dust and remember not to whistle, and to look sympathetic,which she was not, particularly; and to ask her

Aunt Ella frequently if she felt any better, and if there was anything Jean could do for her. There never was

anything she could do, but conscience and custom required her to observe the ceremony of asking. Aunt Ella

found some languid satisfaction in replying dolorously that there was nothing that anybody could do, and that

You may judge what Jean's mood was that day, when you are told that she came to the point, not an hour

before the bird died, of looking at her aunt with that little smile at the corners of her eyes and just easing her

lips. "Well, you certainly play your part in life with a heap of enthusiasm," she had replied, and had gone out

into the kitchen and whistled when she did not feel in the least like whistling. Her conscience knew Jean

Then she found the bird dead in the little nest she had made for it, and things went all wrong.

She was returning from the burial of the bird, and was trying to force herself back to her normal attitude of

philosophic calm, when she saw her Uncle Carl sitting on the edge of the front porch, with his elbows resting

loosely upon his knees, his head bowed, and his bootheel digging a rude trench in the hardpacked earth.

The sight of him incensed her suddenly. Once more she wished that she might get at his brain and squeeze

out his thoughts; and it never occurred to her that she would probably have found them extremely

commonplace thoughts that strayed no farther than his own little personal business of life, and that they

would easily be translated to the dollar sign. His attitude was one of gloomy meditation, and her own mood

supplied the subject. She watched him for a minute or two, and his abstraction was so deep that he did not

"Uncle Carl, just how much did the Lazy A cost you?" she asked so abruptly that she herself was surprised at

the question. "Or putting it another way, just how many dollars and cents did you spend in defending dad?"

Carl started, which was perfectly natural, and glared at her, which was natural also, when one considers that

Jean had without warning opened a subject tacitly forbidden upon that ranch. His eyes hardened a little while

"What do you want to know for?" he countered, when she persisted in looking at him as though she was

"Because I've a right to know. Some time, within four years,I mean to buy back the Lazy A. I want to

know how much it will take." Until that moment Jean had merely dreamed of some day buying it back. Until

"Where you going to get the money?" Carl looked at her curiously, as if he almost doubted her sanity.

"Rob a bank, perhaps. How much will it take to square things with you? Of course, being a relative, I expect

to be cheated a little. So I am going to adopt sly, sleuthlike methods and find out just how much dad owed

you beforeit happened, and just how much the lawyers charged, and what was the real market value of the

outfit, and all that. Dad told me dad told me that there was something left over for me. He didn't

explainthere wasn't time, and I couldn't listen to dollartalk then. I've gone along all this time, just

drifting and getting used to facts, and taking it for granted that everything is all right"

"Well, what's wrong? Everything is all right, far as I know. I can see what you're driving at"

"And I'm a pretty fair driver, too," Jean cut in calmly. "I'll reach my destination, I think,give me time

"Whatever fool notion you've got in your head, you'd better drop it," Carl told her harshly. "There ain't

anything you can do to better matters. I came out with the worst of it, when you come right down to facts, and

Jean went toward him as if she would strike him with her uplifted hand. "Don't dare say that! How can you

say that,and think of dad? He got the worst of it. He's the one that suffers mostand he's as innocent as

Carl rose from the porch and faced her like an enemy. "What do you mean by that? I know it? If I knew

anything like that, do you think I'd leave a stone unturned to prove it? Do you think"

"I think we both know dad. And some things were not proved,to my satisfaction, at least. And you know

how long the jury was out, and what a time they had agreeing. Some points were weak. It was simply that

they couldn't point to any one else. You know that was it. If I could find Art Osgood"

"What's he got to do with it?" Her uncle leaned a little and peered into her face, which the dusk was veiling.

"That is what I want to find out." Jean's voice was quiet, but it had a quality which he had never before

"That's the trouble with sleeping dogs; they do lie, more often than not. These particular dogs have lied for

nearly three years. I'm going to stir them up and see if I can't get a yelp of the truth out of them."

"Oh, you are!" Carl laughed ironically. "You'll stir up a lot of unpleasantness for yourself and the rest of us, is

what you'll do. The thing's over and done with. Folks are beginning to forget it. You've got a home"

"You get as good as the rest of us get," her uncle reminded her sharply. "I came near going broke myself over

the affair, if you want to know; and you stand there and accuse me of cheating you out of something! I don't

know what in heaven's name you expect. The Lazy A didn't make me rich, I can tell you that. It just barely

helped to tide things over. You've got a home here, and you can come and go as you please. What you ain't

He turned away from her and went into the house, and Jean sat down upon the edge of the porch and stared

Three years on this ranch, seeing her uncle every day almost, living under the same roof with him, talking

with him upon the everyday business of life,and to night, for the first time, the forbidden subject had

been opened. She had said things that until lately she had not realized were in her mind. She had never liked

her uncle, who was so different from her father, but she had never accused him in her mind of unfairness until

she had written something of the sort in her ledger. She had never thought of quarrelling,and yet one could

scarcely call this encounter less than a quarrel. And the strange part of it was that she still believed what she

had said; she still intended to do the things she declared she would do. Just how she would do them she did

not know, but her purpose was hardening and coming cleancut out of the vague background of her mind.

After awhile the dim outline of the highshouldered hills glowed under a yellowing patch of light. Jean sat

with her chin in her palms and watched the glow brighten swiftly. Then some unseen force seemed to be

pushing a bright yellow disk up through a gap in the hills, and the gap was almost too narrow, so that the disk

touched either side as it slid slowly upward. At last it was up, launched fairly upon its leisurely, drifting

journey across to the farther hills behind her. It was not quite round. That was because one edge had scraped

too hard against the side of the hill, perhaps. But warped though it was, its light fell softly upon Jean's face,

She sat there awhile longer, until the slopes lay softly revealed to her, their hollows filled with inky shadows.

She drew a long breath then, and looked around her at the familiar details of the Bar Nothing dwellingplace,

softened a little by the moonlight, but harsh with her memories of unhappy days spent there. She rose and

went into the house and to her room, and changed the hated striped percale for her ridingclothes.

A tall, lank form detached itself from the black shade of the bunkhouse as she went by, hesitated

perceptibly, and then followed her down to the corral. When she had gone in with a rope and later led out

"Where are you going, Jean?" Lite asked her in a tone that was soothing in its friendliness.

"That you, Lite? I'm goingwell, just going. I've got to ride." She pulled Pard's bridle off the peg where she

always hung it, and laid an arm over his neck while she held the bit against his clinched teeth. Pard never did

take kindly to the feel of the cold steel in his mouth, and she spoke to him sharply before his jaws slackened.

"Want me to go along with you?" Lite asked, and reached for his saddle and blanket.

"No, I want you to go to bed." Jean's tone was softer than it had been for that whole day. "You've had all the

riding you need. I've been shut up with Aunt Ella and her favorite form of torture."

"Nothing,only it's a good night for coyotes, and you might get a shot at one. Another thing, a gun's no

"Yes, and you've told me so about once a week ever since I was big enough to pull a trigger," Jean retorted,

with something approaching her natural tone. "Maybe I won't come back, Lite. Maybe I'll camp over home

Lite did not say anything in reply to that. He leaned his long person against a corral post and watched her out

of sight on the trail up the hill. Then he caught his own horse, saddled it leisurely, and rode away.

Jean rode slowly, leaving the trail and striking out across the open country straight for the Lazy A. She had

no direct purpose in riding this way; she had not intended to ride to the Lazy A until she named the place to

Lite as her destination, but since she had told him so, she knew that was where she was going. The

picturepeople would not be there at night, and she felt the need of coming as close as possible to her father;

at the Lazy A, where his thoughts would cling, she felt near to him,much nearer than when she was at the

Bar Nothing. And that the gruesome memory of what had happened there did not make the place seem utterly

A coyote trotted up out of a hollow facing her, stiffened with astonishment, dropped nose and tail, and slid

away in the shadow of the hill. A couple of minutes later Jean saw him sitting alert upon his haunches on a

moonbathed slope, watching to see what she would do. She did nothing; and the coyote pointed his nose to

the moon, yapyapyapped a quavering defiance, and slunk out of sight over the hill crest.

Her mind now was more at ease than it had been since the day of horror when she had first stared black

tragedy in the face. She was passing through that phase of calm elation which follows close upon the heels of

a great resolve. She had not yet come to the actual surmounting of the obstacles that would squeeze hope

from the heart of her; she had not yet looked upon the possibility of absolute failure.

She was going to buy back the Lazy A from her Uncle Carl, and she was going to tear away that atmosphere

of emptiness and desolation which it had worn so long. She was going to prove to all men that her father

never had killed Johnny Croft. She was going to do it! Then life would begin where it had left off three years

ago. And when this deadening load of trouble was lifted, then perhaps she could do some of the glorious,

great things she had all of her life dreamed of doing. Or, if she never did the glorious, great things, she would

at least have done something to justify her existence. She would be content in her cage if she could go round

A level stretch of country lay at the foot of the long bluff, which farther along held the Lazy A coulee close

against its rocky side. The high ridges stood out boldly in the moonlight, so that she could see every rock and

the shadow that it cast upon the ground. Little, soothing night noises fitted themselves into her thoughts and

changed them to waking dreams. Crickets that hushed while she passed them by; the faint hissing of a half

wakened breeze that straightway slept upon the grasses it had stirred; the sleepy protest of some bird which

She came into Lazy A coulee, half fancying that it was a real homecoming. But when she reached the gate

and found it lying flat upon the ground away from the broad tread of the picturepeople's machine, her mind

jarred from dreams back to reality. From sheer habit she dismounted, picked up the spineless thing of stakes

and barbed wire, dragged it into place across the trail, and fastened it securely to the post. She remounted and

"I'll just about have to rob a bank, I guess," she told herself with a grim humor at the tremendous undertaking

to which she had so calmly committed herself. "This is what dad would call a mansized job, I reckon." She

pulled up in the whitelighted trail and stared along the empty, saggingroofed sheds and stables, and at the

corral with its open gate and warped rails and leaning posts. "I'll just about have to rob a bank,or write a

She touched Pard with a rein end and went on slowly. "Robbing a bank would be the quickest and easiest,"

she decided whimsically, as she neared the place where she always sheltered Pard. "But not so ladylike. I

guess I'll write a book. It should be something real thrilly, so the people will rush madly to all the bookstores

to buy it. It should have a beautiful girl, and at least two handsome men,one with all the human virtues,

and the other with all the arts of the devil and the cruel strength of the savage. AndI think some Indians

and outlaws would add several dollars' worth of thrills; or else a ghost and a haunted house. I wonder which

would sell the best? Indians could steal the girl and give her two handsome men a chance to do chapters of

stunts, and the wicked one could find her first and carry her away in front of him on a horse (they do those

"But then, ghosts can be made very creepy, with tantalizing glimpses of them now and then in about every

other chapter, and mysterious hints here and there, and characters coming down to breakfast with white,

drawn faces and haggard eyes. And the wicked one would look over his shoulder and then utter a sardonic

laugh. Sardonic is such an effective word; I don't believe Indians would give him any excuse for sardonic

She swung down from the saddle and led Pard into his stall, that was very black next the manger and very

light where the moon shone in at the door. "I must have lots of moonlight and several stormy sunsets, and the

wind soughing in the branches. I shall have to buy a new dictionary,a big, fat, heavy one with the flags of

all nations and how to measure the contents of an empty hogshead, and the deaf and dumb alphabet, and

everything but the word you want to know the meaning of and whether it begins with ph or an f."

She took the saddle off Pard and hung it up by a stirrup on the rusty spike where she kept it, with the bridle

hung over the stirrup, and the saddle blanket folded over the horn. She groped in the manger and decided that

there was hay enough to last him till morning, and went out and closed the door. Her shadow fell clean cut

upon the rough planks, and she stood for a minute looking at it as if it were a person. Her Stetson hat tilted a

little to one side, her hair fluffed loosely at the sides, leaving her neck daintily slender where it showed above

the turnedback collar of her gray sweater; her shoulders square and capable and yet not too heavy, and the

slim contour of her figure reaching down to the ground. She studied it abstractedly, as she would study

"I don't know what kind of a mess you'll make of it," she said to her shadow, "but you're going to tackle it,

She turned then and went thoughtfully up to the house and into her room, which had as yet been left

The moon shone full into the window that faced the coulee, and she sat down in the old, black wooden rocker

and gazed out upon the familiar, open stretch of sand and scant grassgrowth that lay between the house and

the corrals. She turned her eyes to the familiar bold outline of the bluff that swung round in a crude oval to

the point where the trail turned into the coulee from the southwest. Halfway between the base and the

ragged skyline, the boulder that looked like an elephant's head stood out, white of profile, hooded with black

shade. Beyond was the fat shelf of ledge that had a small cave beneath, where she had once found a nest full

of little, hungry birds and upon the slope beneath the telltale, scattered wingfeathers, to show what fate had

fallen upon the mother. Those birds had died also, and she had wept and given them Christian burial, and had

afterwards spent hours every day with her little rifle hunting the destroyer of that small home. She

remembered the incident now as a small thread in the memorypattern she was weaving.

While the shadows shortened as the moon swung high, she sat and looked out upon the coulee and the bluff

that sheltered it, and she saw the things that were blended cunningly with the things that were not. After a

long while her hands unclasped themselves from behind her head and dropped numbly to her lap. She sighed

and moved stiffly, and knew that she was tired and that she must get some sleep, because she could not sit

down in one spot and think her way through the problems she had taken it upon herself to solve. So she got

up and crept under the Navajo blanket upon the couch, tucked it close about her shoulders, and shut her eyes

Sometime in the still part of the night which comes after midnight, Jean woke slowly from dreaming of the

old days that had been so vivid in her mind when she went to sleep. Just at first she did not know what it was

that awakened her, though her eyes were open and fixed upon the lighted square of the window. She knew

that she was in her room at the Lazy A, but just at first it seemed to her that she was there because she had

always been sleeping in that room. She sighed and turned her face away from the moonlight, and closed her

Half dreaming she opened them again and stared up at the low ceiling. Somewhere in the house she heard

footsteps. Very slowly she wakened enough to listen. They were footsteps,the heavy, measured tread of

some man. They were in the room that had been her father's bedroom, and at first they seemed perfectly

natural and right; they seemed to be her dad's footsteps, and she wondered mildly what he was doing, up at

The footsteps passed from there into the kitchen and stopped in the corner where stood the oldfashioned

cupboard with perforated tin panels in the doors and at the sides, and the little drawers at the top,the kind

that old people call a "safe." She heard a drawer pulled out. Without giving any conscious thought to it, she

knew which drawer it was; it was the one next the wall, the one that did not pull out straight, and so had to

Jean thrilled then with a tremor of fear. She had wakened fully enough to remember. That was not her dad,

out there in the kitchen. She did not know who it was; it was some strange man prowling through the house,

hunting for something. She felt again the tremor of fear that is the heritage of womanhood alone in the dark.

She pulled the Navajo blanket up to her ears with the instinct of the woman to hide, because she is not strong

enough to face and fight the danger that comes in the dark. She listened to the sound of that drawer being

pushed back, and the other drawer being pulled out, and she shivered under the blanket.

Then she reached out her hand and got hold of her sixshooter which she had laid down unthinkingly upon a

chair near the couch. She wondered if she had locked the outside door when she came in. She could not

remember having done so; probably she had not, since it is not the habit of honest ranchdwellers to lock

their doors at night. She wanted to get up and see, and fasten it somehow; but she was afraid the man out

there might hear her. As it was, she reasoned nervously with herself, he probably did not suspect that there

was any one in the house. It was an empty house. And unless he had seen Pard in the closed stall. . . . She

wondered if he had heard Pard there, and had investigated and found him. She wondered if he would come

into this room. She remembered how securely she had nailed up the door from the kitchen, and she breathed

freer. She remembered also that she had her gun, there under her hand. She closed her trembling fingers on

Yet she had no desire, no slightest impulse to get up and see who was there. She was careful not to move,

After a few minutes the man came and tried the door, and Jean lifted herself cautiously upon her elbow and

waited in grim desperation. If he forced that door open, if he came in, she certainly would shoot; and if she

The man did not force the door open, which was perhaps the luckiest thing that ever happened to him. He

fussed there until he must have made sure that it was fastened firmly upon the inside, and then he left it and

went into what had been the livingroom. Jean did not move from her halfsitting position, nor did she

She heard him moving about in the livingroom. Surely he did not expect to find money in an empty house,

or anything else of any commercial value. What was he after? Finally he came back to the kitchen, crossed it,

and stood before the barred door. He pushed against it tentatively, then stood still for a minute and finally

went out. Jean heard him step upon the porch and pull the kitchen door shut behind him. She knew that

squeal of the bottom hinge, and she knew the final gasp and click that proved the latch was fastened. She

heard him step off the porch to the path, she heard the soft crunch of his feet in the sandy gravel as he went

away toward the stable. Very cautiously she got off the couch and crept to the window; and with her gun

gripped tight in her hand, she looked out. But he had moved into a deep shadow of the bluff, and she could

see nothing of him save the deeper shadow of his swiftmoving body as he went down to the corral. Jean

gave a long sigh of nervous relaxation, and crept shivering under the Navajo blanket. The gun she slid under

Soon she heard a horse galloping, and she went to the window again and looked out. The moon hung low

over the bluff, so that the trail lay mostly in the shadow. But down by the gate it swung out in a wide curve to

the rocky knoll, and there it lay moonlighted and empty. She fixed her eyes upon that curve and waited. In a

moment the horseman galloped out upon the curve, rounded it, and disappeared in the shadows beyond. At

that distance and in that deceptive light, she could not tell who it was; but it was a horseman, a man riding at

Jean had thought that the prowler might be some tramp who had wandered far off the beaten path of

migratory humans, and who, stumbling upon the coulee and its empty dwellings, was searching at random for

whatever might be worth carrying off. A horseman did not fit that theory anywhere. That particular horseman

had come there deliberately, had given the house a deliberate search, and had left in haste when he had

finished. Whether he had failed or succeeded in finding what he wanted, he had left. He had not searched the

stables, unless he had done that before coming into the house. He had not forced his way into her room,

probably because he did not want to leave behind him the evidence of his visit which the door would have

Jean stared up in the dark and puzzled long over the identity of that man, and his errand. And the longer she

thought about it, the more completely she was at sea. All the men that she knew were aware that she kept this

room habitable, and visited the ranch often. That was no secret; it never had been a secret. No one save Lite

Avery had ever been in it, so far as she knew,unless she counted those chance trespassers who had prowled

boldly through her most sacred belongings. So that almost any one in the country, had he any object in

searching the house, would know that this room was hers, and would act in that knowledge.

As to his errand. There could be no errand, so far as she knew. There were no missing papers such as plays

and novels are accustomed to have cunningly hidden in empty houses. There was no stolen will, no hidden

treasure, no money, no Rajah's ruby, no ransom of a king; these things Jean named over mentally, and

chuckled at the idea of treasurehunting at the Lazy A. It vas very romantic, very mysterious, she told

herself. And she analyzed the sensation of little wet alligators creeping up her spine (that was her own

simile), and decided that her book should certainly have a ghost in it; she was sure that she could describe

In this wise she recovered her composure and laughed at her fear, and planned new and thrilly incidents for

She would not tell Lite anything about it, she decided. He would try to keep her from coming over here by

herself, and that would precipitate one of those arguments between them that never seemed to get them

anywhere, because Lite never would yield gracefully, and Jean never would yield at all,which does not

She wished, just the same, that Lite was there. It would be much more comfortable if he were near instead of

away over to the Bar Nothing, sound asleep in the bunkhouse. As a selfappointed guardian, Jean

considered Lite something of a nuisance, when he wasn't funny. But as a big, steadynerved friend and

Jean awoke to hear the businesslike buzzing of an automobile coming up from the gate. Evidently they were

going to make pictures there at the house, which did not suit her plans at all. She intended to spend the early

morning writing the first few chapters of that book which to her inexperience seemed a simple task, and to

leave before these people arrived. As it was, she was fairly caught. There was no chance of escaping

unnoticed, unless she slipped out and up the bluff afoot, and that would not have helped her in the least, since

From behind the curtains she watched them for a few minutes. Robert Grant Burns wore a light overcoat,

which made him look pudgier than ever, and he scowled a good deal over some untidylooking papers in his

hands, and conferred with Pete Lowry in a dissatisfied tone, though his words were indistinguishable. Muriel

Gay watched the two covertly, it seemed to Jean, and she also looked dissatisfied over something.

Burns and the camera man walked down toward the stables, studying the bluff and the immediate

surroundings, and still talking together. Lee Milligan, with his paintshaded eyes and his rouged lips and

heavily pencilled eyebrows, came up and stood close to Muriel, who was sitting now upon the bench near

"Burns ought to cut out those scenes, Gay," he began sympathetically. "You can't do any more than you did

yesterday. And believe me, you put it over in good style. I don't see what he wants more than you did."

"What he wants," said Muriel Gay dispiritedly, "is for me to pull off stunts like that girl. I never saddled a

horse in my life till he ordered me to do it in the scene yesterday. Why didn't he tell me far enough ahead so I

could rehearse the business? Latigo! It sounds like some Spanish dish with grated cheese on top. I don't

"He's getting nutty on Western dope," sympathized Lee Milligan. "I don't see where this country's got

anything on Griffith Park for atmosphere, anyway. What did he want to come away up here in this God

forsaken country for? What is there TO it, more than he could get within an hour's ride of Los Angeles?"

"I should worry about the country," said Muriel despondently, "if somebody would kindly tell me what

looping up your latigo means. Burns says that he's got to retake that saddling scene just as soon as the horses

get here. It looks just as simple," she added spitefully, "as climbing to the top of the Berry Building tower and

A warm impulse of helpfulness stirred Jean. She caught up her hat, buckled her gun belt around her from pure

habit, tucked a few loose strands of hair into place, and went out where they were.

"If you'll come down to the stable with me," she drawled, while they were staring their astonishment at her

unexpected appearance before them, "I'll show you how to saddle up. Pard's awfully patient about being

fussed with; you can practice on him. He's mean about taking the bit, though, unless you know just how to

The three of them,Muriel Gay and her mother and Lee Milligan,stared at Jean without speaking. To her

it seemed perfectly natural that she should walk up and offer to help the girl; to them it seemed not so natural.

For a minute the product of the cities and the product of the open country studied each other curiously.

"Come on," urged Jean in her lazily friendly drawl. "It's simple enough, once you get the hang of it." And she

smiled before she added, "A latigo is just the strap that fastens the cinch. I'll show you."

"I'll bet Bobby Burns doesn't know that," said Muriel Gay, and got up from the bench. "It's awfully good of

"I noticed that," said Jean, while Muriel was waiting for a word that would relieve her feelings without being

Burns and Pete Lowry and the assistant had gone down the coulee, still studying the bluff closely. "I've got to

ride down that bluff," Muriel informed Jean, her eyes following her director gloomily. "He asked me last

night if I could throw a rope. I don't know what for; it's an extra punch he wants to put in this picture

somewhere. I wish to goodness they wouldn't let him write his own scenarios; he just lies awake nights,

lately, thinking up impossible scenes so he can bully us afterwards. He's simply gone nutty on the subject of

"Well, it's easy enough to learn how to saddle a horse," Jean told Muriel cheerfully. "First you want to put on

"Burns told me to put on the saddle first; and then he cuts the scene just as I pick up the bridle. The trouble is

"But you ought to bridle him first," Jean insisted. "Supposing you just got the saddle on, and your horse got

startled and ran off? If you have the bridle on, even if you haven't the reins, you can grab them when he

"Well, that isn't the way Burns directed the scene yesterday," Muriel Gay contended. "The scene ends where I

"Then Robert Grant Burns doesn't know. I've seen men put on the bridle last; but it's wrong. Lite Avery, and

Muriel Gay looked at Jean with a weary impatience. "What I have to do," she stated, "is what Burns tells me

Jean faced her, frowning a little. Then she laughed, hung the bridle back on the rusty spike, and took down

the saddle blanket. "We'll play I'm Robert Grant Burns," she said. "I'll tell you what to do: Lay the blanket on

straight,it's shaped to Pard's back, so that ought to be easy,with the front edge coming forward to his

withers; that's not right. Maybe I had better do it first, and show you. Then you'll get the idea."

So Jean, with the best intention in the world, saddled Pard, and wondered what there was about so simple a

process that need puzzle any one. When she had tightened the cinch and looped up the latigo, and explained

to Muriel just what she was doing, she immediately unsaddled him and laid the saddle down upon its side,

"If your saddle isn't hanging up, that's the way it should be put on the ground," she said. "Now you do it. It's

It was easy for Jean, but Muriel did not find it so simple. Jean went through the whole performance a second

time, though she was beginning to feel that nature had never fitted her for a teacher of young ladies. Muriel,

she began to suspect, rather resented the process of being taught. In another minute Muriel confirmed the

Robert Grant Burns returned then, and close behind him rode Gil Huntley and those other desperados who

had helped to brand the calf that other day. Gil was leading a little sorrel with a saddle on,Muriel's horse

evidently. Jean had started back to the house and her own affairs, but she lingered with a very human

She did not know that Robert Grant Burns was perfectly conscious of her presence even when he seemed

busiest, and was studying her covertly even when he seemed not to notice her at all. Of his company, Pete

Lowry was the only one who did know it, but that was because Pete himself was trained in the art of

observation. Pete also knew why Burns was watching Jean and studying her slightest movement and

expression; and that was why Pete kept smiling that little, hidden smile of his, while he made ready for the

"I'd rather work with live things," said Jean after a while. "But I can see where this must be rather fascinating,

"This is working with live things, if anybody wants to know," Pete declared. "Wait till you see Burns in

"About where does the side line come, Pete?" Burns interrupted. "If Gil stands here and holds the horse for

that closeup saddling" He whirled upon Gil Huntley. "Lead that sorrel up here," he commanded. "We'll

This was growing interesting. Jean backed to a convenient pile of old corral posts and sat down to watch,

with her chin in her palms, and her mind weaving shuttlewise back and forth from one person to another,

fitting them all into the pattern which made the whole. She watched Robert Grant Burns walking back and

forth, growling and chuckling by turns as things pleased him or did not please him. She watched Muriel Gay

walk to a certain spot which Burns had previously indicated, show sudden and uncalledfor fear and haste,

She watched Lee Milligan carry the saddle up and throw it down upon the ground, with skirts curled under

"Oh, don't leave it that way," she remonstrated. "Lay it on its side! You'll have the skirts kinked so it never

Muriel Gay gasped and looked from her to Robert Grant Burns. For betraying your country and your flag is

"Bring that saddle over here," commanded Burns, indicating another spot eighteen inches from the first. "And

don't slop it down like it was a bundle of old clothes. Lay it on its side. How many times have I got to tell you

a thing before it soaks into your mind?" Not by tone or look or manner did he betray any knowledge that Jean

Lee Milligan moved the saddle and placed it upon its side, and Burns went to the camera and eyed the scene

critically for its photographic value. He fumbled the script in his hands, cocked an eye upward at the sun,

stepped back, and gave a last glance to make sure that nothing could be bettered by altering the detail.

"How's Gil; outside the line, Pete? All right. Now, Miss Gay, remember, you're in a hurry, and you're worried

half to death. You've just time enough to get there if you use every second. You were crying when the

letterscene closed, and this is about five minutes afterwards; you just had time enough to catch your horse

and lead him out here to saddle him. Register a sob when you turn to pick up the saddle. You ought to do this

all right without rehearsing. Get into the scene and start your action at the same time. Pete, you pick it up just

as she gets to the horse's shoulder and starts to turn. Don't forget that sob, Gay. Ready? Camera!"

Jean was absorbed, fascinated by this glimpse into a new and very busy little world,the world of moving

picture makers. She leaned forward and watched every moment, every little detail. "Grab the horn with your

right hand, Miss Gay!" she cried involuntarily, when Muriel stooped and started to pick up the saddle.

"Register that sob!" bawled Robert Grant Burns, shooting a glance at Jean and stepping from one foot to the

Muriel registered that sob and a couple more before she succeeded in heaving the saddle upon the back of the

flinching sorrel. Because she took up the saddle by horn and cantle instead of doing it as Jean had taught her,

she bungled its adjustment upon the horse's back. Then the sorrel began to dance away from her, and Robert

"Stop the camera!" he barked and waddled irately up to Muriel. "This," he observed ironically, "is drama,

Miss Gay. We are not making slapstick comedy today; and you needn't give an imitation of boosting a

Tears that were real slipped down over the rouge and grease paint on Muriel's cheeks. "Why don't you make

that girl stop butting in?" she flashed unexpectedly. "I'm not accustomed to working under two directors!"

This brought Jean over to where she could lay her hand contritely upon the girl's shoulder. "I'm awfully

sorry," she drawled with perfect sincerity. "I didn't mean to rattle you; but you know you never in the world

could throw the stirrup over free, the way you had hold of the saddle. I thought"

Burns turned heavily around and looked at Jean, as though he had something in his mind to say to her; but,

whatever that something may have been, he did not say it. Jean looked at him questioningly and walked back

"I won't butt in any more," she called out to Muriel. "Only, it does look so simple!" She rested her elbows on

her knees again, dropped her chin into her palms, and concentrated her mind upon the subject of

Muriel recovered her composure, stood beside Gil Huntley at the horse's head just outside the range of the

camera, waited for the word of command from Burns, and rushed into the saddle scene. Burns shouted "Sob!"

and Muriel sobbed with her face toward the camera. Burns commanded her to pick up the saddle, and Muriel

"Oh, you forgot the blanket!" exclaimed Jean, and stopped herself with her hand over her tooimpulsive

The director bowed his head and shook it twice slowly and with much meaning. He did not say anything at

all; no one said anything. Gil Huntley looked at Jean and tried to catch her eye, so that he might give her

some greeting, or at least a glance of understanding. But Jean was wholly concerned with the problem which

confronted Muriel. It was a shame, she thought, to expect a girl,and when she had reached that far she

"It's a shame to expect that girl to do something she doesn't know how to do," she said suddenly to Robert

Grant Burns. "Work at something else, why don't you, and let me take her somewhere and show her how? It's

"Get up and show her now," snapped Burns, with some sarcasm and a good deal of exasperation. "You seem

determined to get into the foreground somehow; get up and go through that scene and show us how a girl gets

Jean sat still for ten seconds and deliberated while she looked from him to the horse. Again she made a

picture that drove its elusive quality of individuality straight to the professional soul of Robert Grant Burns.

"I will if you'll let me do it the right way," she said, just when he was thinking she would not answer him. She

did not wait for his assurance, once she had decided to accept the challenge, or the invitation; she did not

"I'm going to bridle him first though," she informed him. "And you can tell that star villain to back out of the

Still Burns did not say anything. He was watching her, studying her, measuring her, seeing her as she would

have looked upon the screen. It was his habit to leave people alone until they betrayed their limitations or

proved their talent; after that, if they remained under his direction, he drove them as far as their limitations

Jean went first and placed the saddle to her liking upon the ground. "You want me to act just as if you were

going to take a picture of it, don't you?" she asked Burns over her shoulder. She was not sure whether he

nodded, but she acted upon the supposition that he did, and took the leadrope from Gil's hand.

"Shall I be hurried and worriedand shall I sob?" she asked, with the little smile at the corners of her eyes

Robert Grant Burns seemed to make a quick decision. "Sure," he said. "You saw the action as Miss Gay went

through it. Do as she did; only we'll let you have your own ideas of saddling the horse." He turned his head

toward Pete and made a very slight gesture, and Pete grinned. "All ready? Start the action!" After that he did

not help her by a single suggestion. He tapped Pete upon the shoulder, and stood with his feet far apart and

Jean was plainly startled, just at first, by the businesslike tone in which he gave the signal. Then she laughed

a little. "Oh, I forgot. I must be hurried and worriedand I must sob," she corrected herself.

So she hurried, and every movement she made counted for something accomplished. She picked up the bridle

and shortened her hold upon the lead rope, and discovered that the sorrel had a trick of throwing up his head

and backing away from the bit. She knew how to deal with that habit, however; but in her haste she forgot to

look as worried as Muriel had looked, and so appeared to her audience as being merely determined. She got

the bridle on, and then she saddled the sorrel. And for good measure she picked up the reins, caught the

stirrup and went up, pivoting the horse upon his hind feet as though she meant to dash madly off into the

distance. But she only went a couple of rods before she pulled him up sharply and dismounted.

"That didn't take me long, did it?" she asked. "I could have hurried a lot more if I had known the horse." Then

"Oh, my goodness, I forgot to sob!" she gasped. And she caught her hat brim and pulling her Stetson more

firmly down upon her head, turned and ran up the path to the house, and shut herself into her room.

While she breakfasted unsatisfactorily upon soda crackers and a bottle of olives which happened to have been

left over from a previous luncheon, Jean meditated deeply upon the proper beginning of a book. The memory

of last night came to her vividly, and she smiled while she fished with a pair of scissors for an olive. She

would start the book off weirdly with mysterious sounds in an empty room. That, she argued, should fix

By the time she had fished the olive from the bottle, however, her thoughts swung from the artistic to the

material aspect of those mysterious footsteps. What had the man wanted or expected to find? She set down

the olive bottle impulsively and went out and around to the kitchen door and opened it. In spite of herself, she

shuddered as she went in, and she walked close to the wall until she was well past the brown stain on the

floor. She went to the oldfashioned cupboard and examined the contents of the drawers and looked into a

cigarbox which stood open upon the top. She went into her father's bedroom and looked through everything,

which did not take long, since the room had little left in it. She went into the livingroom, also depressingly

dusty and forlorn, but try as she would to think of some article that might have been left there and was now

wanted by some one, she could imagine no reason whatever for that nocturnal visit. At the same time, there

must have been a reason. Men of that country did not ride abroad during the still hours of the night just for

She went out, intending to go back to her literary endeavors; if she never started that book, certainly it would

never make her rich, and she would never be able to make war upon circumstances. She thought of her father

with a twinge of remorse because she had wasted so much time this morning, and she scarcely glanced

toward the picturepeople down by the corrals, so she did not see that Robert Grant Burns turned to look at

"Say," he called, just before she disappeared around the corner. "Wait a minute. I want to talk to you."

Jean waited, and the fat man came up breathing hard because of his haste in the growing heat of the forenoon.

"Say, I'd like to use you in a few scenes," he began abruptly when he reached her. "Gay can't put over the

stuff I want; and I'd like to have you double for her in some riding and roping scenes. You're about the same

size and build, and I'll get you a blond wig for closeups, like that saddling scene. I believe you've got it in

you to make good on the screen; anyway, the practice you'll get doubling for Gay won't do you any harm."

Jean looked at him, tempted to consent for the fun there would be in it. "I'd like to," she told him after a little

"Let the work wait," urged Burns, relieved because she showed no resentment against the proposal. "I want to

get this picture made. It's going to be a hummer. There's punch to it, or there will be, if"

"But you see," Jean's drawl slipped across his eager, domineering voice, "I have to earn some money, lots of

"You'll earn money at this," he told her bluntly. "You didn't think I'd ask you to work for nothing, I hope. I

ain't that cheap. It's like this: If you'll work in this picture and put over what I want, it'll be feature stuff. I'll

pay accordingly. Of course, I can't say just how much,this is just a tryout; you understand that. But if you

can deliver the goods, I'll see that you get treated right. Some producers might play the cheap game just

because you're green; but I ain't that kind, and my company ain't that kind. I'm out after results." Involuntarily

his eyes turned toward the bluff. "There's a ride down the bluff that I want, and a ropingsay, can you throw

Jean laughed. "Lite Avery says I can," she told him, "and Lite Avery can almost write his name in the air with

"If you can make that dash down the bluff, and do the roping I want, whyLord! You'll have to be working

"There's no place here in the coulee where you can ride down the bluff," Jean informed him, "except back of

the house, and that's out of sight. Farther over there's a kind of trail that a good horse can handle. I came

down it on a run, once, with Pard. A man was drowning, over here in the creek, and I was up on the bluff and

happened to see him and his horse turn over, it was during the high water. So I made a run down off the

Robert Grant Burns stood and stared at her as though he did not see her at all. In truth, he was seeing with his

professional eyes a picture of that dash down the bluff. He was seeing a "closeup" of Jean whirling her loop

and lassoing the drowning man just as he had given up hope and was going under for the third time. Lee

Milligan was the drowning man! and the agony of his eyes, and the tenseness of Jean's face, made Robert

"Lord, what featurestuff that would make!" he said under his breath. "I'll write a scenario around that rescue

scene." Whereupon he caught himself. It is not well for a director to permit his enthusiasm to carry him into

injudicious speech. He chuckled to hide his eagerness. "Well, you can show me that location," he said, "and

we'll get to work. You'll have to use the sorrel, of course; but I guess he'll be all right. This saddling scene

will have to wait till I send for a wig. You can change clothes with Miss Gay and get by all right at a distance,

just as you are. A little makeup, maybe; she'll fix that. Come on, let's get to work. And don't worry about the

When he was in that mood, Robert Grant Burns swept everything before him. He swept Jean into his plans

before she had really made up her mind whether to accept his offer or stick to her literary efforts. He had

Muriel Gay up at the house and preparing to change clothes with Jean, and he had Lee Milligan started for

town in the machine with the key to Burns' emergency wardrobe trunk, before Jean realized that she was

"I'm glad you are going to double in that ride down the bluff, anyway," Muriel declared, while she blacked

Jean's brows and put shadows around her eyes. "I could have done it, of course; but mamma is so nervous

about my getting hurt that I hate to do anything risky like that. It upsets her for days."

"There isn't much risk in riding down the bluff," said Jean carelessly. "Not if you've got a good horse. I

"No," said Muriel, "I haven't." She might have added that she never roped off any horse, but she did not.

"I'll have to try him out and see what he's like, before I try to rope for a picture. I wonder if there'll be time

now?" Jean was pleasantly excited over this new turn of events. She had dreamed of doing many things, but

never of helping to make moving pictures. She was eager and full of curiosity, like a child invited to play a

new and fascinating game, and she kept wondering what Lite would have to say about her posing for moving

When she went out to where the others were grouped in the shade, she gave no sign of any inner excitement

"No, I can't say that you do," he said after a moment. "Walk off toward the corrals,and, say! Mount the

sorrel and start off like you were in a deuce of a hurry. That'll be one scene, and I'd like to see how you do it

when you can have your own way about it, and how close up we can make it and have you pass for Gay."

"Ohto the gate, maybe. Can you get a long shot down the trail to the gate, Pete, and keep skyline in the

Pete moved the camera, fussed and squinted, and then nodded his head. "Sure, I can. But you'll have to make

it right away, or else wait till tomorrow. The sun's getting around pretty well in front."

"We'll take it right after this rehearsal, if the girl can put the stuff over right," Burns muttered. "And she can,

or I'm badly mistaken. Pete, that girl's" He stopped short, because the shadow of Lee Milligan was moving

up to them. "All right, Misssay, what's your name, anyway?" He was told, and went on briskly. "Miss

Douglas, just start from off that way,about where that round rock is. You'll come into the scene a little

beyond. Hurry straight up to the sorrel and mount and ride off. Your lover is going to be trapped by the

bandits, and you've just heard it and are hurrying to save him. Get the idea? Now let's see you do it."

"You don't want me to sob, do you?" Jean looked over her shoulder to inquire. "Because if I were going to

save my lover, I don't believe I'd want to waste time weeping around all over the place."

Burns chuckled. "You can cut out the sob," he permitted. "Just go ahead like it was real stuff."

Jean was standing by the rock, ready to start. She looked at Burns speculatively. "Oh, well, if it were real, I'd

She was up in the saddle and gone in a flurry of dusts while Robert Grant Burns stood with his hands on his

"Lord! But that girl's a find!" he ejaculated, and this time he did not seem to care who heard him. He cut the

scene just as Jean pulled up at the gate. "See how she set that sorrel down on his haunches?" he chuckled to

Pete. "Talk about featurestuff; that girl will jump our releases up ten per cent., Pete, with the punches I can

"Fifteen," corrected Pete. "And every foot with a punch in it. Too bad she's got to double for Gay. She's got

To this tentative remark Robert Grant Burns made no reply whatever. He went off down the path to meet

Jean, critically watching her approach to see how nearly she resembled Muriel Gay, and how close she could

come to the camera without having the substitution betrayed upon the screen. Muriel Gay was a leading

woman with a certain assured following among movie audiences. Daring horsewomanship would greatly

increase that following, and therefore the financial returns of these Western pictures. Burns was her director,

and it was to his interest to build up her popularity. Since the idea first occurred to him, therefore, of using

Jean as a substitute for Muriel in all the scenes that required nerve and skill in riding, he looked upon her as a

double for Muriel rather than from the viewpoint of her own individual possibilities on the screen.

"I don't know about your hair," he told her, when she came up to him and stopped. "We'll run the negative

tonight and see how it shows up. The rest of the scene was all right. I had Pete make it. I'm going to take

some scenes down here by the gate, now, with the boys. I won't need you till after lunch, probably; then I'll

"I suppose I ought to ride over to the ranch," Jean said undecidedly. "And I ought to try out this sorrel if you

"In the picture business," interrupted Robert Grant Burns dictatorially, "the workinghours of an actor belong

to the director he's working for. If I use you in pictures, your time will belong to me on the days when I use

"My time," said Jean resolutely, "will belong to you if I consider it worth my while to let you have it.

Burns chuckled. "Well, we might as well get down to brass tacks and have things thoroughly understood," he

decided. "I'll use you as an extra to double for Miss Gay where there's any riding stunts and so on. Miss Gay

is a good actress, but she can't ride to amount to anything. With the clothes and makeup you impersonate

her. See what I mean? And for straight riding I'll pay you five dollars a day; five dollars for your time on the

days that I want to use you. For any feature stuff, like that ride down the bluff, and the roping, and the like of

that, it'll be more. Twenty five dollars for featurestuff, say, and five dollars for straight riding. Get me?"

"I do, yes." Jean's drawl gave no hint of her inner elation at the prospect of earning so much money so easily.

"Well, that part's all right then. By featurestuff, I mean anything I want you to do to put a punch in the story;

"Well, I'll have use for that, too, later on. The more stunts you can pull off, the bigger hits these pictures are

going to make. You see that, of course. And what I've offered you is a pretty good rate; but I expect to get

results. I told you I wasn't any cheap John to work for. Now get this point, and get it right: I'll expect you to

report to me every morning here, at eight o'clock. I may need you that day and I may not, but you're to be on

hand. If I do need you, you get paid for that day, whether it's one scene or twenty you're to work in. If I don't

need you that day, you don't get anything. That's what being an extra means. You start in today, and if you

make the ride down the bluff, it'll be twentyfive today. But you can't go riding off somewhere else, and

maybe not be here when I want you. You're under my orders, like the rest of the company. Get that?"

"I'll try it for a week, anyway," she said. "Obeying your orders will be the hardest part of it, Mr. Burns. I

always want to stamp my foot and say `I won't' when any one tells me I must do something." She laughed

infectiously. "You'll probably fire me before the week's out," she prophesied. "I'll be as meek as possible, but

Burns looked at her queerly and laughed. "I'll take a chance on that," he said, and went chuckling back to the

camera. To have a girl absolutely ignore his position and authority, and treat him in that offhand manner of

Jean went over to where Muriel and her mother were sitting in the shade, and asked Muriel if she would like

to ride Pard out into the flat beyond the corrals, where she meant to try out the sorrel.

"I'd like to use you, anyway," she added frankly, "to practice on. You can ride past, you know, and let me

rope you. Oh, it won't hurt you; and there'll be no risk at all," she hastened to assure the other, when she saw

"I don't want Muriel taking risks like that," put in Mrs. Gay hastily. "That's just why Burns is going to have

you double for her. A leading woman can't afford to get hurt. Muriel, you stay here and rest while you have a

Jean looked at her and turned away. So that was it a leading woman could not afford to be hurt! Some one

else, who didn't amount to anything, must take the risks. She had received her first little lesson in this new

She went straight to Burns, interrupted him in coaching his chief villain for a scene, and asked him if he

could spare a man for half an hour or so. "I want some one to throw a rope over on the run," she explained

Burns chuckled. He knew who was the author of that sentence; he had heard it before. "Well, if you're as fatal

as all that, I can't turn over my leading man for you to practice on, either," he pointed out to her. "What's the

"You won't let me ride out of your sight to round one up," Jean retorted. "There are no calves handy; that's

Whereupon the villains looked at one another queerly, and the chuckle of their director exploded into a full

"I'm going to use all these fellows in a couple of scenes," he told her. "Can't you practice on a post?"

"_I_ don't have to practice. It's the sorrel I want to try out." Jean's voice lost a little of its habitual, soft drawl.

"Well, now look here." Robert Grant Burns caught at the shreds of his domineering manner. "My part of this

business is producing the scenes. You'll have to attend to the gettingready part. Youyou wouldn't expect

"No, now that I recognize your limitations, I shall not ask any help which none of you are able or have the

nerve to give," she returned coolly. "I wish I had Lite here; but I guess Pard and I can handle the sorrel

Robert Grant Burns, his leading man and all his villains stood and watched her walk away from them to the

stable. They watched her lead Pard out and turn him loose in the biggest corral. When they saw her take her

coiled rope, mount the sorrel and ride in, they went, in a hurried group, to where they might look into that

corral. They watched her pull the gate shut after her, lean from the saddle, and fasten the chain hook in its

accustomed link. By the time she had widened her loop and turned to charge down upon unsuspecting Pard,

Robert Grant Burns, his leading man and all his villains were lined up along the widest space between the

"Oh, I thought you were all so terribly busy!" taunted Jean, while her loop was circling over her head. Pard

wheeled just then upon his hind feet, but the loop settled true over his head and drew tight against his

The sorrel lunged and fought the rope, and snorted and reared. It took fully two minutes for Jean to force him

close enough to Pard so that she might flip off the loop. Pard himself caught the excitement and snorted and

galloped wildly round and round the enclosure, but Jean did not mind that; what brought her lips so tightly

together was the performance of the sorrel. While she was coiling her rope, he was making halfhearted buck

jumps across the corral. When she swished the rope through the air to widen her loop, he reared and whirled.

"Say," she drawled to Burns, "I don't know what sort of a picture you're going to make, but if you want any

roping done from this horse, you'll have to furnish meals and beds for your audiences." With that she was off

across the corral at a tearing pace that made the watchers gasp. The sorrel swung clear of the fence. He came

near going down in a heap, but recovered himself after scrambling along on his knees. Jean brought him to a

"I'll have to ask you to raise your price, Mr. Burns, if you want me to run this animal down the bluff," she

stated firmly. "He's just what I thought he was all along: a ridearoundtheblock horse from some livery

"Some people. I get you," Burns cut in drily. "How about that horse of yours? Would you be willing to let me

"If I do the riding, yes. Now, since you're here, and don't seem as busy as you thought you were, I'll show you

She dismounted and called to Pard, and Pard came to her, stepping warily because of the sorrel and the rope.

"Just to save time, will one of you boys go and bring my riding outfit from the stable?" she asked the line at

the fence, whereupon the leading man and all the villains started unanimously to perform that slight service,

"Now, that's a real, typical, liverystable saddle and bridle," she observed to Burns, pointing scornfully at the

sorrel. "I was going to tell you that I'd hate to be seen in a picture riding that outfit, anyway. Now, you watch

how differently Pard behaves with a rope and everything. And you watch the sorrel get what's coming to him.

"You mean throw him?" Burns, in his eagerness, began to climb the corral fence,until he heard a rail crack

under his weight. "Yes, BUST him, if you want to. John Jimpson! if you can rope and throw that sorrel"

Jean did not reply to that halffinished sentence. She was busy saddling Pard; now she mounted and widened

her loop with a sureness of the result that flashed a thrill of expectation to her audience. Twice the loop

circled over her head before she flipped it out straight and true toward the frantic sorrel as he surged by. She

caught him fairly by both front feet and swung Pard half away from him. Pard's muscles stiffened against the

jerk of the rope, and the sorrel went down with a bump. Pard backed knowingly and braced himself like the

"I didn't bust him," she disclaimed whimsically. "He done busted himself!" She touched Pard with her heel

and rode up so that the rope slackened, and she could throw off the loop. "Did you see how Pard set himself?"

she questioned eagerly. "I could have gotten off and gone clear away, and Pard would have kept that horse

from getting on his feet. Now you see the difference, don't you? Pard never would have gone down like that."

"Oh, you'll do," chuckled Robert Grant Burns, "I'll pay you a little more and use you and your horse together.

When Lite objected to her staying altogether at the Lazy A, Jean assured him that she was being terribly

practical and cautious and businesslike, and pointed out to him that staying there would save Pard and herself

the trip back and forth each day, and would give her time, mornings and evenings to work on her book.

Lite, of course, knew all about that soontobefamous book. He usually did know nearly everything that

concerned Jean or held her interest. Whether, after three years of futile attempts, Lite still felt himself entitled

to be called Jean's boss, I cannot say for a certainty. He had grown rather silent upon that subject, and rather

inclined to keep himself in the background, as Jean grew older and more determined in her ways. But

certainly he was Jean's one confidential friend, her pal. So Lite, perforce, listened while Jean told him the

plot of her story. And when she asked him in all earnestness what he thought would be best for the tragic

element, ghosts or Indians, Lite meditated gravely upon the subject and then suggested that she put in both.

That is why Jean lavishly indulged in mysterious footsteps all through the first chapter, and then opened the

second with bloodcurdling warwhoops that chilled the soul of her heroine and led her to suspect that the

Her imagination must have been stimulated by her new work, which called for wild rides after posses and

wilder flights away from the outlaws, while the flash of blank cartridges and the smokepots of disaster by

Jean, of course, was invariably the wild rider who fled in a blond wig and Muriel's clothes from pursuing

villains, or dashed up to the sheriff's office to give the alarm. Frequently she fired the blank cartridges, until

Lite warned her that blank cartridges would ruin her gunbarrel; after which she insisted upon using bullets,

to the secret trepidation of the villains who must stand before her and who could never quite grasp the fact

She would sit in her room at the Lazy A, when the sun and the big, black automobile and the painted workers

were gone, and write feverishly of ghosts and Indians and the fair maiden who endured so much and the

brave hero who dared so much and loved so well. Lee Milligan she visualized as the human wolf who looked

with desire upon Lillian. Gil Huntley became the hero as the story unfolded; and while I have told you

absolutely nothing about Jean's growing acquaintance with these two, you may draw your own conclusions

from the place she made for them in her book that she was writing. And you may also form some idea of

what Lite Avery was living through, during those days when his work and his pride held him apart, and Jean

A letter from the higherups in the Great Western Company, written just after a trial run of the first picture

wherein Jean had worked, had served to stimulate Burns' appetite for the spectacular, so that the stunts

became more and more the features of his pictures. Muriel Gay was likely to become the most famous photo

play actress in the West, he believed. That is, she would if Jean continued to double for her in everything save

Jean did not care just at that time how much glory Muriel Gay was collecting for work that Jean herself had

done. Jean was experiencing the first thrills of seeing her name written upon the face of fat, weekly checks

that promised the fulfillment of her hopes, and she would not listen to Lite when he ventured a remonstrance

against some of the things she told him about doing. Jean was seeing the Lazy A restored to its old time

homelike prosperity. She was seeing her dad there, going tranquilly about the everyday business of the

ranch, holding his head well up, and looking every man straight in the eye. She could not and she would not

let even Lite persuade her to give up risking her neck for the money the risk would bring her.

If she could change these dreams to reality by dashing madly about on Pard while Pete Lowry wound yards

and yards of narrow gray film around something on the inside of his camera, and watched her with that little,

secret smile on his face; and while Robert Grant Burns waddled here and there with his hands on his hips, and

watched her also; and while villains pursued or else fled before her, and Lee Milligan appeared furiously

upon the scene in various guises to rescue her,if she could win her dad's freedom and the Lazy A's

possession by doing these foolish things, she was perfectly willing to risk her neck and let Muriel receive the

She did not know that she was doubling the profit on these Western pictures which Robert Grant Burns was

producing. She did not know that it would have hastened the attainment of her desires had her name appeared

in the cast as the girl who put the "punches" in the plays. She did not know that she was being cheated of her

rightful reward when her name never appeared anywhere save on the payroll and the weekly checks which

seemed to her so magnificently generous. In her ignorance of what Gil Huntley called the movie game, she

was perfectly satisfied to give the best service of which she was capable, and she never once questioned the

Jean started a savings account in the little bank where her father had opened an account before she was born,

and Lite was made to writhe inwardly with her boasting. Lite, if you please, had long ago started a savings

account at that same bank, and had lately cut out poker, and even pool, from among his joys, that his account

might fatten the faster. He had the same object which Jean had lately adopted so zealously, but he did not tell

her these things. He listened instead while Jean read gloatingly her balance, and talked of what she would do

when she had enough saved to buy back the ranch. She had stolen unwittingly the air castle which Lite had

been three years building, but he did not say a word about it to Jean. Wistful eyed, but smiling with his lips,

he would sit while Jean spoiled whole sheets of perfectly good storypaper, just figuring and estimating and

building castles with the dollar sign. If Robert Grant Burns persisted in his mania for "featurestuff" and

"punches" in his pictures, Jean believed that she would have a fair start toward buying back the Lazy A long

before her book was published and had brought her the thousands and thousands of dollars she was sure it

would bring. Very soon she could go boldly to a lawyer and ask him to do something about her father's case.

Just what he should do she did not quite know; and Lite did not seem to be able to tell her, but she thought

she ought to find out just how much the trial had cost. And she wished she knew how to get about setting

Jean was sure that Art Osgood knew something about the murder, and she frequently tried to make Lite agree

with her. Sometimes she was sure that Art Osgood was the murderer, and would argue and point out her

reasons to Lite. Art had been working for her uncle, and rode often to the Lazy A. He had not been friendly

with Johnny Croft,but then, nobody had been very friendly with Johnny Croft. Still, Art Osgood was less

friendly with Johnny than most of the men in the country, and just after the murder he had left the country.

Jean laid a good deal of stress upon the circumstance of Art Osgood's leaving on that particular afternoon,

and she seemed to resent it because no one had tried to find Art. No one had seemed to think his going at that

time had any significance, or any bearing upon the murder, because he had been planning to leave, and had

Jean's mind, as her bank account grew steadily to something approaching dignity, worked back and forth

incessantly over the circumstances surrounding the murder, in spite of Lite's peculiar attitude toward the

subject, which Jean felt but could not understand, since he invariably assured her that he believed her dad was

Sometimes, in the throes of literary composition, she could not think of the word that she wanted. Her eyes

then would wander around familiar objects in the shabby little room, and frequently they would come to rest

upon her father's saddle or her father's chaps: the chaps especially seemed potent reminders of her father, and

drew her thoughts to him and held them there. The worn leather, stained with years of hard usage and

wrinkled permanently where they had shaped themselves to his legs in the saddle, brought his big, bluff

presence vividly before her, when she was in a certain receptive mood. She would forget all about her story,

and the riding and shooting and roping she had done that day to appease the clamorous, professional appetite

of Robert Grant Burns, and would sit and stare, and think and think. Always her thoughts traveled in a wide

circle and came back finally to the starting point: to free her father, and to give him back his home, she must

have money. To have money, she must earn it; she must work for it. So then she would give a great sigh of

relaxed nervous tension and go back to her heroine and the Indians and the mysterious footsteps that marched

on moonlight nights up and down a long porch just outside windows that frequently framed white, scared

faces with wide, horrorstricken eyes which saw nothing of the marcher, though the steps still went up and

It was very creepy, in spots. It was so creepy that one evening when Lite had come to smoke a cigarette or

two in her company and to listen to her account of the day's happenings, Lite noticed that when she read the

"You want to cut out this story writing," he said abruptly, when she paused to find the next page. "It's bad

enough to work like you do in the pictures. This is going a little too strong; you're as jumpy tonight as a

"I'm all right. I'm just doing that for dramatic effect. This is very weird, Lite. I ought to have a green shade on

the lamp, to get the proper effect. I don't you thinkerthose footsteps are terribly mysterious?"

Lite looked at her sharply for a minute. "I sure do," he said drily. "Where did you get the idea, Jean?"

"Out of my head," she told him airily, and went on reading while Lite studied her curiously.

That night Jean awoke and heard stealthy footsteps, like a man walking in his socks and no boots, going all

through the house but never coming to her room. She did not get up to see who it was, but lay perfectly still

and heard her heart thump. When she saw a dim, yellow ray of light under the door which opened into the

kitchen, she drew the blanket over her head, and got no comfort whatever from the feel of her sixshooter

The next morning she told herself that she had given in to a fine case of nerves, and that the mysterious

footsteps of her story had become mixed up with the midnight wanderings of a packrat that had somehow

gotten into the house. Then she remembered the bar of light under the door, and the packrat theory was

She had taken the board off the doorway into the kitchen, so that she could use the cookstove. The man could

have come in if he had wanted to, and that knowledge she found extremely disquieting. She went all through

the house that morning, looking and wondering. The livingroom was now the dressingroom of Muriel and

her mother, and the makeup scattered over the centertable was undisturbed; the wardrobe of the two women

had apparently been left untouched. Yet she was sure that some one had been prowling in there in the night.

She gave up the puzzle at last and went back to her breakfast, but before the company arrived in the big,

black automobile, she had found a stout hasp and two staples, and had fixed the door which led from her

Jean did not tell Lite about the footsteps. She was afraid that he might insist upon her giving up staying at the

Lazy A. Lite did not approve of it, anyway, and it would take very little encouragement in the way of extra

risk to make him stubborn about it. Lite could be very obstinate indeed upon occasion, and she was afraid he

might take a stubborn streak about this, and perhaps ride over every night to make sure she was all right, or

She did not know Lite as well as she imagined, which is frequently the case with the closest of friends. As a

matter of fact, Jean had never spent one night alone on the ranch, even though she did believe she was doing

so. Lite had a homestead a few miles away, upon which he was supposed to be sleeping occasionally to prove

his good faith in the settlement. Instead of spending his nights there, however, he rode over and slept in the

gable loft over the old granary, where no one ever went; and he left every morning just before the sky

lightened with dawn. He did not know that Jean was frightened by the sound of footsteps, but he had heard

the man ride up to the stable and dismount, and he had followed him to the house and watched him through

the uncurtained windows, and had kept his fingers close to his gun all the while. Jean did not dream of

anything like that; but Lite, going about his work with the easy calm that marked his manner always, was

For three years Lite had lain aside the mystery of the footprints on the kitchen floor on the night after the

inquest, as a puzzle he would probably never solve. He had come to remember them as a vagrant incident that

carried no especial meaning. But now they seemed to carry a new significance,if only he could get at the

key. For three years he had gone along quietly, working and saving all he could, and looking after Jean in an

unobtrusive way, believing that Aleck was guilty, and being careful to give no hint of that belief to any

one. And now Jean herself seemed to be leading him unconsciously face to face with doubt and mystery. It

tantalized him. He knew the prowler, and for that reason he was all the more puzzled. What had he wanted or

expected to find? Lite was tempted to face the man and ask him; but on second thought he knew that would

be foolish. He would say nothing to Jean. He thanked the Lord she slept soundly! and he would wait and see

Jean herself was thoughtful all that day, and was slow to lighten her mood or her manner even when Gil

Huntley rode beside her to location and talked enthusiastically of the great work she was doing for a

beginner, and of the greater work she would do in the future, if only she took advantage of her opportunities.

"It can't go on like this forever," he told her impressively for the second time, before he was sure of her

attention and her interest. "Think of you, working extra under a threeday guarantee! Why, you're what's

making the pictures! I had a letter from a friend of mine; he's with the Universal. He'd been down to see one

of our pictures,that first one you worked in. You remember how you came down off that bluff, and how

you roped me and jerked me down off the bank just as I'd got a bead on Lee? Say! that picture was a RIOT!

Gloomy says he never saw a picture get the hand that scene got. And he wanted to know who was doubling

for Gay, up here. You see, he got next that it was a double; he knows darned well Gay never could put over

that line of stuff. The photography was dandy,Pete's right there when it comes to camera work,

anyway,and that run down the bluff, he said, had people standing on their hind legs even before the rope

scene. You could tell it was a girl and no man doubling the part. Gloomy says everybody around the studio

has begun to watch for our releases, and go just to see you ride and rope and shoot. And Gay gets all the

"The trouble is, you don't realize what a raw deal you're getting," he said, with much discontent in his tone.

"As an extra, you're getting fine treatment and fine pay; I admit that. But the point is, you've no business

being an extra. Where you belong is playing leads. You don't know what that means, but I do. Burns is just

using you to boost Muriel Gay, and I say it's the rawest deal I ever saw handed out in the picture game; and

"Now, now, don't get peevish, Gil." Jean's drawl was soft, and her eyes were friendly and amused. So far had

their friendship progressed. "It's awfully dear of you to want to see me a real leading lady. I appreciate it, and

I won't take off that lock of hair I said I'd take when I shoot you in the foreground. Burns wants a real

thrilling effect close up, and he's told me five times to remember and keep my face turned away from the

camera, so they won't see it isn't Gay. If I turn around, there will have to be a retake, he says; and you won't

like that, Gil, not after you've heard a bullet zip past your ear so close that it will fan your hair. Arearen't

"Afraid of you?" Gil's horse swung closer, and Gil's eyes threatened the opening of a tacitly forbidden

"Because if you get nervous and move the least little bit To make it look real, as Bobby described the

scene to me, I've got to shoot the instant you stop to gather yourself for a spring at me. It's that lightning

draw business I have to do, Gil. I'm to stand three quarters to the camera, with my face turned away, watching

you. You keep coming, and you stop just an instant when you're almost within reach of me. In that instant I

have to grab my gun and shoot; and it has to look as if I got you, Gil. I've got to come pretty close, in order to

bring the gun in line with you for the camera. Bobby wants to show off the quick draw that Lite Avery taught

me. That's to be the `punch' in the scene. I showed him this morning what it is like, and Bobby is just tickled

"You haven't seen that quick work, either. It'll look awfully real, Gil, and you mustn't dodge or duck,

whatever you do. It will be just as if you really were a man I'm deadly afraid of, that has me cornered at last

against that ledge. I'm going to do it as if I meant it. That will mean that when you stop and kind of measure

the distance, meaning to grab me before I can do anything, I'll draw and shoot from the level of my belt; no

higher, Gil, or it won't be the lightningdraw as advertised. I won't have time to take a fine aim, you

"Listen!" said Gil, leaning toward her with his eyes very earnest. "I know all about that. I heard you and

Burns talking about it. You go ahead and shoot, and put that scene over big. Don't you worry about me; I'm

going to play up to you, if I can. Listen! Pete's just waiting for a chance to register your face on the film.

Burns has planned his scenes to prevent that, but we're just lying low till the chance comes. It's got to be

dramatic, and it's got to seem accidental. Get me? I shouldn't have told you, but I can't seem to trick you,

"Bobby has told me five times already to remember and keep my face away from the camera," Jean pointed

out the second time. "Makes me feel as if I had lost my nose, or was crosseyed or something. I do feel as if

"No, you wouldn't; all he'd do would be to have a retake of the whole scene, and maybe step around like a

turkey in the snow, and swear to himself. Anyway, you can forget what I've said, if you'll feel more

comfortable. It's up to Pete and me, and we'll put it over smooth, or we won't do it at all. Bobby won't realize

it's happened till he hears from it afterwards. Neither will you." He turned his greasepainted face toward her

hearteningly and smiled as endearingly as the sinister, painted lines would allow.

"Listen!" he repeated as a final encouragement, because he had sensed her preoccupation and had misread it

for worry over the picture. "You go ahead and shoot, and don't bother about me. Make it real. Shoot as close

as you like. If you pink me a little I won't care,if you'll promise to be my nurse. I want a vacation,

It seems to be a popular belief among those who are unfamiliar with the business of making motion pictures

that all dangerous or difficult feats are merely tricks of the camera, and that the actors themselves take no

risks whatever. The truth is that they take a good many more risks than the camera ever records; and that

directors who worship what they call "punch" in their scenes are frequently as tender of the physical safety of

their actors as was Napoleon or any other great warrior who measured results rather than wounds.

Robert Grant Burns had discovered that he had at least two persons in his company who were perfectly

willing to do anything he asked them to do. He had set tasks before Jean Douglas that many a man would

have refused without losing his selfrespect, and Jean had performed those tasks with enthusiasm. She had let

herself down over a nasty bit of the rimrock whose broken line extended half around the coulee bluff, with

only her rope between herself and broken bones, and with her blond wig properly tousled and her face turned

always towards the rock wall, lest the camera should reveal the fact that she was not Muriel Gay. She had

climbed that same rockrim, with the aid of that same rope, and with her face hidden as usual from the

camera. She had been bound and gagged and flung across Gil Huntley's saddle and carried away at a sharp

gallop, and she had afterwards freed herself from her bonds in the semidarkness of a hut that half concealed

her features, and had stolen the knife from Gil Huntley's belt while he slept, and crept away to where the

horses were picketed. In the revealing light of a very fine mooneffect, which was a triumph of Pete's skill,

she slashed a rope that held a highstrung "mustang" (so called in the scenario), and had leaped upon his bare

back and gone hurtling out of that scene and into another, where she was riding furiously over dangerously

rough ground, the whole outlaw band in pursuit and silhouetted against the skyline and the moon (which was

Gil Huntley had also done many things that were risky. Jean had shot at him with real bullets so many times

that her nervousness on this particular day was rather unaccountable to him. Jean had lassoed him and

dragged him behind Pard through brush. She had pulled him from a quicksand bed,made of cement that

showed a strong tendency to "set" about his form before she could rescue him,and she had fought with him

on the edge of a cliff and had thrown him over; and his director, anxious for the "punch" that was his fetish,

had insisted on a panorama of the fall, so that there was no chance for Gil to save himself the bruises he got.

Gil Huntley's part it was always to die a violent death, or to be captured spectacularly, because he was the

Since Jean had become one of the company, he nearly always died at her hands or was captured by her. This

left Muriel Gay unruffled and unhurt, so that she could weep and accept the love of Lee Milligan in the

Jean had never before considered it necessary to warn Gil and implore him not to be nervous, and Gil took

her solicitude as an encouraging sign and was visibly cheered thereby. He knew little of guns and fine

marksmanship, and he did not know that it is extremely difficult to shoot a revolver accurately and

instantaneously; whereas Jean knew very well that Gil Huntley might be thrown off ledges every day in the

The scene was to close a full reel of desperate attempts upon the part of Gil Huntley to win Muriel; such

desperate attempts, indeed, that Muriel Gay spent most of the time sitting at ease in the shade, talking with

Lee Milligan, who was two thirds in love with her and had half his love returned, while Jean played her part

for her. Sometimes Muriel would be called upon to assume the exact pose which Jean had assumed in a

previous scene, for "closeup" that would reveal to audiences Muriel's wellknown prettiness and help to

carry along the deception. Each morning the two stood side by side and were carefully inspected by Robert

Grant Burns, to make sure that hair and costumes were exactly alike in the smallest detail. This also helped to

carry on the deceptionto those who were not aware of Muriel's limitations. Their faces were not at all

This shooting scene was a fitting climax to a long and desperate chase over a difficult trail; so difficult that

Pard stumbled and fell,supposedly with a broken leg,and Jean must run on and on afoot, and climb over

rocks and spring across dangerous crevices. She was not supposed to know where her flight was taking her.

Sometimes the camera caught her silhouetted against the sky (Burns was partial to skyline silhouettes), and

sometimes it showed her quite close,in which case it would be Muriel instead of Jean,clinging

desperately to the face of a ledge (ledges were also favorite scenes), and seeking with hands or feet for a hold

upon the rough face of the rock. During the last two or three scenes Gil Huntley had been shown gaining

So they came to the location where the shooting scene was to be made that morning. Burns, with the camera

and Pete and Muriel and her mother and Lee Milligan, drove to the place in the machine. Jean and Gil

Huntley found them comfortably disposed in the shade, out of range of the camera which Pete was setting up

"There won't be any rehearsal of this," Burns stated at last, stepping back. "When it's done, if you don't

bungle the scene, it'll be done. You stand here, Jean, and kind of lean against the rock as if you're all in from

that chase. You hear Gil coming, and you start forward and listen, and look,how far can she turn, Pete;

"Well, Gil, you come from behind that bush. She'll be looking toward you then without turning too much.

You grin, and come up with that eager, Igotyounow look. Don't hurry too much; we'll give this scene

plenty of time. This is the feature scene. Jean, you're at the end of your rope. You couldn't run another step if

you wanted to, and you're cornered anyway, so you can't get away; get me? You're scared. Did you ever get

"Yes," said Jean simply, remembering last night when she had pulled the blanket over her head.

"Well, you think of that time you were scared. And you make yourself think that you're going to shoot the

thing that scared you. You don't put in half the punch when you shoot blanks; I've noticed that all along. So

that's why you shoot a bullet. See? And you come as close to Gil as you can and not hit him. Gil, when you're

shot, you go down all in a heap; you know what I mean. And Jean, when he falls, you start and lean forward,

looking at him,remember and keep your face away from the camera!and then you start toward him kind

of horrified. The scene stops right there, just as you start towards him. Then Gay takes it up and does the

"All right, now; take your places. Sure your gun is loose so you can pull it quick? That's the feature of this

scene, remember. You want to get it across BIG! And make it real,the scare, and all that. Hey, you women

get behind the camera! Bullets glance, sometimes, and play the very mischief." He looked all around to make

sure that everything was as it should be, faced Jean again, and raised his hand.

Jean had never before been given so much dramatic work to do, and Burns watched her anxiously, wishing

that he dared cut the scene in two and give Muriel that tense interval when Gil Huntley came creeping into

the scene from behind the bush. But after the first few seconds his strained expression relaxed; anxiety gave

Jean stood leaning heavily against the rock, panting from the flight of the day before,for so must emotion

be carried over into the next day when photo players work at their profession. Her face was dropped upon

her arms flung up against the rock in an attitude of complete exhaustion and despair. Burns involuntarily

nodded his head approvingly; the girl had the idea, all right, even if she never had been trained to act a part.

"Come into the scene, Gil!" he commanded, when Jean made a move as though she was tempted to drop

down upon the ground and sob hysterically. "Jean, register that you hear him coming."

Jean's head came up and she listened, every muscle stiffening with fear. She turned her face toward Gil, who

stopped and looked at her most villainously. Gil, you must know, had come from "legitimate" and was a

clever actor. Jean recoiled a little before the leering face of him; pressed her shoulder hard against the ledge

that had trapped her, and watched him in an agony of fear. One felt that she did, though one could not see her

face. Gil spoke a few words and came on with a certain tigerish assurance of his power, but Jean did not

move a muscle. She had backed as far away from him as she could get. She was not the kind to weep and

plead with him. She just waited; and one felt that she was keyed up to the supreme moment of her life.

Gil came closer and closer, and there was a look in his eyes that almost frightened Jean, accustomed as she

had become to his acting a part; there was an intensity of purpose which she instinctively felt was real. She

did not know what it was he had in mind, but whatever it was, she knew what it meant. He was almost within

reach, so close that one saw Jean shrink a little from his nearness. He stopped and gathered himself for a

The two women screamed, though they had been expecting that swift drawing of Jean's gun and the shot that

seemed to sound the instant her hand dropped. Gil stiffened, and his hand flew up to his temple. His eyes

became two staring questions that bored into the soul of Jean. His hand dropped to his side, and his head

Jean dropped her gun and darted toward him, her face like chalk, as she turned it for one horrified instant

toward Burns. She went down on her knees and lifted Gil's head, looking at the red blotch on his temple and

the trickle that ran down his cheek. She laid his head down with a gentleness wholly unconscious, and looked

again at Burns. "I've killed him," she said in a small, dry, flat voice. She put out her hands gropingly and fell

forward across Gil's inert body. It was the first time in her life that Jean had ever fainted.

"Stop the camera!" Burns croaked tardily, and Pete stopped turning. Pete had that little, twisted grin on his

"You sure got the punch that time, Burns," he remarked unfeelingly, while he held his palm over the lens and

"She's fainted! She's hit him!" cried Burns, and waddled over to where the two of them lay. The two women

And then Gil Huntley lifted himself carefully so as not to push Jean upon the ground, and when he was sitting

"How was that for a punch?" he inquired of his director. "I didn't tell her I was going to furnish the

bloodsponge; I thought it might rattle her. I never thought she'd take it so hard"

Robert Grant Burns stopped and looked at him in heavy silence. "Good Lord!" he snapped out at last. "I

dunno whether to fire you off the jobor raise your salary! You got the punch, all right. And the chances are

you've ruined her nerve for shooting, into the bargain." He stood looking down perturbedly at Gil, who was

smoothing Jean's hair back from her forehead after the manner of men who feel tenderly toward the woman

who cries or faints in their presence. "I'm after the punch every time," Burns went on ruefully, "but there's no

use being a hog about it. Where's that waterbag, Lee? Go get it out of the machine. Say! Can't you women

While Muriel and Gil Huntley did what they could to bring Jean back to consciousness and composure,

Robert Grant Burns paced up and down and debated within himself a subject which might have been called

"punch versus prestige." Should he let that scene stand, or should he order a "retake" because Jean had, after

all, done the dramatic part, the "remorse stuff"? Of course, when Pete sent the film in, the trimmers could cut

the scene; they probably would cut the scene just where Gil went down in a decidedly realistic heap. But it

hurt the professional soul of Robert Grant Burns to retake a scene so compellingly dramatic, because it had

Jean was sitting up with her back against the ledge looking rather pale and feeling exceedingly foolish, while

Gil Huntley explained to her about the "bloodsponge" and how he had held it concealed in his hand until the

right moment, and had used it in the interest of realism and not to frighten her, as she might have reason to

suspect. Gil Huntley was showing a marked tendency to repeat himself. He had three times assured her

earnestly that he did not mean to scare her so, when the voice of the chief reminded him that this was merely

"Gil, take that same position you had when you fell. Put a little more blood on your face; you wiped most of

it off. That right leg is sprawled out too far. Draw it up a little. Throw out your left arm a little more. Whoa

Enough is plenty. Now, Gay, you take Jean's gun and hold it down by your side, where her hand dropped

right after she fired. You stand right about here, where her tracks are. Get INTO her tracks! We're picking up

the scene right where Gil fell. She looked straight into the camera and spoiled the rest, or I'd let it go in. Some

acting, if you ask me, seeing it wasn't acting at all." He sent one of his slanteyed glances toward Jean, who

"Lean forward a little, and hold that gun like you knew what it was made for, anyway!" He regarded Muriel

glumly. "Say! that ain't a stick of candy you're trying to hide in your skirt," he pointed out, with an

exasperated, rising inflection at the end of the sentence. "John Jimpson! If I could take you two girls to pieces

and make one out of the two of you, I'd have an actress that could play Western leads, maybe!

"Oh, wellthunder! All you can do is put over the action so they'll forget the gun. Say, you drop it the

second the camera starts. You pick up the action where Jean dropped the gun and started for Gil. See if you

can put it over the way she did. She really thought she'd killed him, remember. You saw the real,

Brutally absorbed in his work he might be; callous to the tragedy in Jean's eyes at what might have happened;

unfeeling in his greedy seizure of her horror as good "stuff" for Muriel Gay to mimic. Yet the man's energy

was dynamic; his callousness was born of his passion for the making of good pictures. He swept even Jean

out of the emotional whirlpool and into the calm, steady current of the work they had to do.

He instructed Pete to count as spoiled those fifteen feet of film which recorded Jean's swift horror. But Pete

Lowry did not always follow slavishly his instructions. He sent the film in as it was, without comment. Then

he and Gil Huntley counted on their fingers the number of days that would probably elapse before they might

hope to hear the result, and exchanged knowing glances now and then when Robert Grant Burns seemed

especially careful that Jean's face should not be seen by the recording eye of the camera. And they waited;

and after awhile they began to show a marked interest in the mail from the west.

Sometimes events follow docilely the plans that would lead them out of the future of possibilities and into the

present of actualities, and sometimes they bring with them other events which no man may foresee unless he

is indeed a prophet. You would never think, for instance, that Gil Huntley and his blood sponge would pull

from the future a chain of incidents that would eventuallywell, never mind what. Just follow the chain of

Pete Lowry and Gil had planned cunningly for a certain readjustment of Jean's standing in the company, for

no deeper reasons than their genuine liking for the girl and a common human impulse to have a hand in the

ordering of their little world. In ten days Robert Grant Burns received a letter from Dewitt, president of the

Great Western Film Company, which amply fulfilled those plans, and, as I said, opened the way for other

There were certain orders from the higherups which Robert Grant Burns must heed. They were, briefly, the

immediate transfer of Muriel Gay to the position of leading woman in a new company which was being sent

to Santa Barbara to make light comedydramas. Robert Grant Burns grunted when he read that, though it was

a step up the ladder for Muriel which she would be glad to take. The next paragraph instructed him to place

the young woman who had been doubling for Miss Gay in the position which Miss Gay would leave vacant.

It was politely suggested that he adapt the leading woman's parts to the ability of this young woman; which

meant that he must write his scenarios especially with her in mind. He was informed that he should feature

the young woman in her remarkable horsemanship, etc. It was pointed out that her work was being noticed in

the Western features which Robert Grant Burns had been sending in, and that other film companies would no

doubt make overtures shortly, in the hope of securing her services. Under separate cover they were mailing a

contract which would effectually forestall such overtures, and they were relying upon him to see that she

signed up with the Great Western as per contract. Finally, it was suggested, since Mr. Dewitt chose always to

suggest rather than to command, that Robert Grant Burns consider the matter of writing a series of short

stories having some connecting thread of plot and featuring this Miss Douglas. (This, by the way, was the

beginning of the serial form of motion picture plays which has since become so popular.)

Robert Grant Burns read that letter through slowly, and then sat down heavily in an old armchair in the hotel

office, lighted one of his favorite fat, black cigars, and mouthed it absently, while he read the letter through

again. He said "John Jimpson!" just above a whisper. He held the letter in his two hands and regarded it

strangely. Then he looked up, caught the quizzical, inquiring glance of Pete Lowry, and beckoned that

secretsmiling individual over to him. "Read that!" he grunted. "Read it and tell me what you think of it."

Pete Lowry read it carefully, and grinned when he handed it back. He did not, however, tell Robert Grant

Burns just exactly what he thought of it. He merely said that it had to come sometime, he guessed.

"She can't put over the dramatic stuff," objected Robert Grant Burns. "She's got the face for it, all right, and

when she registers real emotions, it gets over big. The bottledup kind of people always do. But she's never

"How about that allin stuff, and the listeningand waiting business she put across before she took a shot

at Gil that time she fainted?" Pete reminded him. "If you ask me, that little girl can act."

"Well, whether she can or not, she's got to try it," said Burns with some foreboding. "She's been going big,

with Gay to do all the closeup, dramatic work. The trouble is, Pete, that girl always does as she darn

pleases! If I put her opposite Lee in a scene and tell her to act like she is in love with him, and that he's to kiss

her and she's to kiss back," he flung out his hands expressively. "You must know the rest, as well as I do.

She'd turn around and give me a calldown, and get on her horse and ride off; and I and my picture could go

to thunder, for all of her. That's the point; she ain't been through the mill. She don't know anything about

taking ordersfrom me or anybody else." It is a pity that Lite did not hear that! He might have amended the

statement a little. Jean had been taking orders enough; she knew a great deal about receiving ultimatums. The

trouble was that she seldom paid any attention to them. Lite was accustomed to that, but Robert Grant Burns

"Well, she's sure got the screen personality," Pete defended. "I've said it all along. That girl don't have to act.

Put her in the part, and she is the part! She's got something better than technique, Burns. She's got

"Put her on a horse and she does," Burns conceded gloomily. "But will you tell me what kind of work she'll

make of interior scenes, and love scenes, and all that? You've got to have it, to pad out your story. You can't

let your leading character do a whole two or threereel picture on horseback. There wouldn't be any

contrast. Dewitt don't know that girl the way I do. If he'd had to sidestep and scheme and give in the way

I've done to keep her working, he wouldn't put her playing straight leads, not until she'd had a year or two of

"Taming is a better word," Pete suggested drily. "There'll be fun when she gets to playing love scenes

opposite Lee. You better let him take the heavies, and put Gil in for leads, Burns."

Robert Grant Burns was so cast down by the prospect that he made no attempt to reply, beyond grunting

something about preferring to drive a team of balky mules to making Jean do something she did not want to

do. But, such is the mind trained to a profession, insensibly he drifted away into the world of his imagination,

and began to draw therefrom the first tenuous threads of a plot wherein Jean's peculiar accomplishments were

to be featured. Robert Grant Burns had long ago learned to adjust himself to circumstances which in

themselves were not to his liking. He adjusted himself now to the idea of making Jean the Western star his

That night before he went to bed he wrote a play which had in it fiftytwo scenes. Thirtyfive of them were

what is known technically as exteriors. In most of them Jean was to ride on horseback through wild places.

The rest were dramatic closeups. Robert Grant Burns went over it carefully when it was finished, and

groaning inwardly he cut out two love scenes which were tense, and which Muriel Gay and Lee Milligan

would have "eaten up," as he mentally expressed it. The love interest, he realized bitterly, must be touched

upon lightly in his scenarios from now on; which would have lightened appreciably the heart of Lite Avery, if

he had only known it, and would have erased from his mind a good many depressing visions of Jean as the

Jean did not hesitate five minutes before she signed the contract which Burns presented to her the next

morning. She was human, and she had learned enough about the business to see that, speaking from a purely

professional point of view, she was extremely fortunate. Not every girl, surely, can hope to jump in a few

weeks from the lowly position of an inexperienced "extra" to the supposedly exalted one of leading woman.

And to her that hundred dollars a week which the contract insured her looked a fortune. It spelled home to

her, and the vindication of her beloved dad, of whom she dared not think sometimes, it hurt her so.

Her book was not progressing as fast as she had expected when she began it. She had been working at it

sporadically now for eight weeks, and she had only ten chapters done,and some of these were terribly

short. She had looked through all of the novels that she owned, and had computed the average number of

chapters in each; thirty she decided would be a good, conservative number to write. She had even divided

those thirty into three parts, and had impartially allotted ten to adventure, ten to mystery and horror, and ten

to love making. Such an arrangement should please everybody, surely, and need only be worked out

But, as it happened, comedy would creep into the mystery and horror, which she mentally lumped together as

agony. Adventure ran riot, and straight love making chapters made her sleepy, they bored her so. She had

tried one or two, and she had found it impossible to concentrate her mind upon them. Instead, she had sat and

planned what she would do with the money that was steadily accumulating in the bank; a pitiful little sum, to

be sure, to those who count by the thou sands, but cheering enough to Jean, who had never before had any

So she signed the contract and worked that day so lightheartedly that Robert Grant Burns forgot his

pessimism. When the light began to fade and grow yellow, and the big automobile went purring down the

trail to town, she rode on to the Bar Nothing to find Lite, and tell him how fortune had come and tapped her

She did not see Lite anywhere about the ranch, and so she did not put her hopes and her plans and her good

fortune into speech. She did see her Aunt Ella, who straightway informed her that people were talking about

the way she rode here and there with those paintedup people, and let the men put their arms around her and

make love to her. Her Aunt Ella made it perfectly plain to Jean that she, for one, did not consider it

respectable. Her Aunt Ella said that Carl was going to do something about it, if things weren't changed pretty

Jean did not appear to regard her aunt's disapproval as of any importance whatever, but the words stung. She

had herself worried a little over the lovemaking scenes which she knew she would now be called upon to

play. Jean, you will have observed, was not given to sentimental adventurings; and she disliked the idea of

letting Lee Milligan make love to her the way he had made love to Muriel Gay through picture after picture.

She would do it, she supposed, if she had to; she wanted the salary. But she would hate it intolerably. She

made reply with sarcasm which she knew would particularly irritate her Aunt Ella, and left the house feeling

The sight of her uncle standing beside Pard in an attitude of disgusted appraisement of the new Navajo

blanket and the silvertrimmed bridle and tapideros which Burns had persuaded her to add to her riding

outfit,for photographic effect,brought a hot flush of resentment. She went up quietly enough, however.

Indeed, she went up so quietly that he started when she appeared almost beside him and picked up Pard's

reins, and took the stirrup to mount and ride away. She did not speak to him at all; she had not spoken to him

since that night when the little brown bird had died! Though perhaps that was because she had managed to

"I see you've been staking yourself to a new bridle," Carl began in a tone quite as sour as his look. "You must

Jean swung up into the saddle before she looked at him. "If I did, it's my own affair," she retorted. "I paid for

"Oh, you did! Well, you might have been in better business than paying for that kind of thing. You might," he

sneered up at her, "have been paying for your keep these last three years, if you've got more money of your

Jean could not ride off under the sting of that gratuitous insult. She held Pard quiet and looked down at him

with hate in her eyes. "I expect," she said in a queer, quiet wrath, "to prove before long that my own money

has been paying for my `keep' these last three years; for that and for other things that did not benefit me in the

"I'd like to know what you mean by that!" Carl caught Pard by the bridlerein and looked up at her in a white

fury that startled even Jean, accustomed as she was to his sudden rages that contrasted with his sullen attitude

"What do you think I would mean? Let go my bridle. I don't want to quarrel with you."

"What did you mean by provingwhat do you expect to prove?" His hand was heavy on the rein, so that

Pard began to fret under the restraint. "You've got to quit running around all over the country with them show

folks, and stay at home and behave yourself. You've got to quit hanging out at the Lazy A. I've stood as much

as I'm going to stand of your performances. You get down off that horse and go into the house and behave

Jean scarcely knew what she did, just then. She must have dug Pard with her spurs, because the first thing

that she realized was the lunge he gave. Carl's hold slipped from the rein, as he was jerked sidewise. He made

an ineffective grab at Jean's skirt, and he called her a name she had never heard spoken before in her life. A

rod or so away she pulled up and turned to face him, but the words she would have spoken stuck in her throat.

She had never seen Carl Douglas look like that; she had seen him when he was furious, she had seen him

He called her to come back. He made threats of what he would do if she refused to obey him. He shook his

fist at her. He behaved like a man temporarily robbed of his reason; his eyes, as he came up glaring at her,

Jean felt a tremor of dread while she looked at him and listened to him. He was almost within reach of her

again when she wheeled and went off up the trail at a run. She looked back often, half fearing that he would

get a horse and follow her, but he stood just where she had left him, and he seemed to be still uttering threats

Half a mile she galloped, and met Lite coming home. She glanced over her shoulder before she pulled Pard

down to a walk, and Lite's greeting, as he turned and rode alongside her, was a question. He wanted to know

what was the matter with her. He listened with his old manner of repression while she told him, and he made

"You must have made him pretty sore," he said dispassionately. "I don't think myself that you ought to stay

"And go back to the Bar Nothing?" Jean shivered a little. "Nothing could make me go back there! Lite, you

don't understand. He acted like a crazy man; and I hadn't said anything to stir him up like that. He wasLite,

he scared me! I couldn't stay on the ranch with him. I couldn't be in the same room with him."

"You could," Lite pointed out, "stay in town and go back and forth with the rest of the bunch. It would be a

"It would be a lot worse. There's my book; I wouldn't have any chance to write on that. And there's the

expense. I'm saving every nickel I possibly can, Lite, and you know what for. And there's the bunchI see

enough of them during working hours. I'd go crazy if I had to live with them. Lite, they've put me in playing

leads! I'm to get a hundred dollars a week! Just think of that! And Burns says that I'll have to go back to Los

Angeles with them when they go this fall, because the contract I signed lasts for a year."

She sighed. "I rode over to tell you about it. It seemed to be good news, when I left home. But now, it's just a

part of the black tangle that life's made up of. Aunt Ella started things off by telling me what a disgrace it is

for me to work in these pictures. And Uncle Carl" She shivered in spite of herself. "I just can't understand

Lite rode for some distance before he lifted his head or spoke. Then he looked at Jean, who was staring

He was the bottledup type; the things that hit him hardest he seldom mentioned, so by that rule it might be

inferred that her going hit hard. But his voice was normally calm, and his tone was the tone of authority,

which Jean knew very well, and which nearly always amused her because she firmly believed it to be utterly

He said in the tone of an ultimatum: "If you're bound to stay at the ranch, you've got to have somebody with

you. I'll ride in and get Hepsy Atwood in the morning. You're getting thin. I don't believe you take time to

cook enough to eat. You can't work on soda crackers and sardines. The old lady won't charge much to come

and stay with you. I'll come over after I'm through work tomorrow and help her get things looking a little

"You'll do nothing of the sort." Jean looked at him mutinously. "I'm all right just as I am. I won't have her,

"Sure, it's settled," Lite agreed, with more than his usual pertinacity. "I'll have her out here by noon, and a

"I won't have her, I tell you. You're always trying to make me do things I won't do. Don't be silly."

"Sure not." Lite shifted in the saddle with the air of a man who rides at perfect ease with himself and with the

world. "She'll likely have plenty of bedding of her own," he meditated, after a brief silence.

"I'll haul her out," said Lite in a tone of finality, "but you won't send her back." He paused. "She ain't much

protection, maybe," he remarked somewhat enigmatically, "but it'll beat staying alone nights. Youyou can't

"What do you mean? Do you know about" Jean caught herself on the verge of betrayal.

"You want to keep your gun handy. Just on general principles," Lite remonstrated. "You can't tell; it's away

"Is there anybody else that you'd rather have?" Lite looked at her speculatively.

"No, there isn't. I won't have anybody. It would be a nuisance having some old lady in the house gabbling and

gossiping. I'm not the least bit afraid, except, I'm not afraid, and I like to be alone. I won't have her, Lite."

Lite said no more about it until they reached the house, huddled lonesomely against the barren bluff, its

windows staring black into the dusk. Jean did not seem to expect Lite to dismount, but he did not wait to see

what she expected him to do. In his most matter offact manner he dismounted and turned his horse, still

saddled, into the stable with Pard. He preceded Jean up the path, and went into the kitchen ahead of her;

lighted a match and found the lamp, and set its flame to brightening the dingy room.

Jean had not done much in the way of making that part of the house more attractive. She used the kitchen to

cook in, because the stove was there, and the dishes. She had spread an old braided rug over the brown stain

Without being told, Lite seemed to know all about her secret aversion to the kitchen. He took up the lamp and

went now on a tour of inspection through the house. Jean followed him, wondering a little, and thinking that

this was the way that mysterious stranger came and prowled at night, except that he must have used matches

to light the way, or a candle, since the lamp seemed never to be disturbed. Lite went into all the rooms and

held the lamp so that its brightness searched out all the corners. He looked into the small, stuffy closets. He

stood in the middle of her father's room and seemed to meditate deeply, while Jean stood in the doorway and

watched him inquiringly. He came back finally to the kitchen and looked into the cupboard, as though he was

"You might cook me some supper, Jean," he said, when he had put the lamp on the table. "I see you've got

eggs and bacon. I'm pretty hungry,for a man that had his dinner six or seven hours ago."

Jean cooked supper, and they ate together in the kitchen. It did not seem so gruesome with Lite there, and she

told him some funny things that had happened in her work, and mimicked Robert Grant Burns with an

accuracy of manner and tone that would have astonished that pompous person a good deal and flattered him

not at all. She almost recovered her spirits under the stimulus of Lite's presence, and she quite forgot that he

But when he had wiped the dishes and had taken up his hat to go, Lite proved how tenaciously his mind could

"That mattress in the little bedroom looks all right," he said. "I'll pack it outside before I go, so it will have all

day tomorrow out in the sun. I'll have Hepsy bring her own bedding. Wellso long."

Jean would have sworn in perfect good faith that Lite led his horse out of the stable, mounted it, and rode

away to the Bar Nothing. He did mount and ride away as far as the mouth of the coulee. But that night he

spent in the loft over the shop, and he did not sleep five minutes during the night. Most of the time he spent

leaning against his rolled bedding, smoking and gazing at the silent house where Jean slept. You may

Jean did not see or hear anything more of him, until about four o'clock the next afternoon, when he drove

calmly up to the house and deposited Hepsibah Atwood upon the kitchen steps. He did not wait for Jean to

order them away. He hurried the unloading, released the wagon brake, and drove off. So Jean, coming from

the spring behind the house, really got her first sight of him as he went rattling down to the gate.

Jean stood and looked after him, twitched her shoulders in a mental yielding of the point for the time being,

She was not so old, as years go; fiftyfive or thereabouts. And she could have whispered into Lite's ear

without standing on her toes or asking him to bend his head. Lite was a tall man, at that. She had gray hair

that was frizzy around her brows and at the back of her neck, and she had an Irish disposition without the

The first thing she did was to find an axe and chop a lot of fenceposts into firewood, as easily as Lite

himself could have done it, and in other ways proceeded to make herself very much at home. The next day

she dipped the spring almost dry, and used up all the soap in the house; and for three days went around with

her skirts tucked up and her arms bare and the soles of her shoes soggy from wet floors. Jean kept out of her

way, but she owned to herself that, after all, it was not unpleasant to come home tired and not have to cook a

The third night after Hepsy's arrival, Jean awoke to hear a man's furtive footsteps in her father's room. This

was the fifth time that the prowler had come in the night, and custom had dulled her fear a little. She had not

reached the point yet of getting up to see who it was and what he wanted. It was much easier to lie perfectly

still with her sixshooter gripped in her hand and wait for him to go. Beyond stealthily trying her door and

finding it fastened on the inside, he had never shown any disposition to invade her room

Tonight was as all other nights when he came and made that mysterious search, until he went into the little

bedroom where slept Hepsibah Atwood. Jean listened to the faint creaking of old boards which told her that

he was approaching Hepsy's room, and she wondered if Hepsy would hear him. Hepsy did hear him. There

was a squeak of the old bedstead that told how a hundred and seventytwo pounds of indignant womanhood

"Who's that? Git outa here, or I'll smash you!" There was no fear but a great deal of determination in Hepsy's

The man's footsteps retreated hurriedly. Jean heard the kitchen door open and slam shut with a shrill squeal of

its rusty hinges, and the sound of a man running down the path. She heard Hepsy muttering threats while she

followed to the door and looked out, and she heard the muttering continue while Hepsy returned to bed.

It was very comforting. Jean tucked her gun under her pillow, laughed to herself for having shuddered under

the blankets at the sound of a man so easily put to flight, and went to sleep feeling quite secure and for the

She listened the next morning to Hepsy's colorful account of the affair, but she did not tell Hepsy that the

man had been there before. She did not even tell her that she had heard the disturbance, and was lying with

her gun in her hand ready to shoot if he came into her room. For a girl as frank and outspoken as was Jean,

"Well, you don't seem crazy about it. What's the matter?" Robert Grant Burns stood in his favorite attitude

with his hands on his hips and his feet far apart, and looked down at Jean with a secret anxiety in his eyes.

Without realizing it in the least, Jean's opinion had come to have a certain weight with Robert Grant Burns.

"What's wrong with that?" Burns, having sat up until two o'clock to finish that particular scenario to his

"Oh, nothing, only I'm getting awfully sick of these kidnapandrescue, and kissinthelastscene pictures,

and Wild West stuff without a real Western man in the whole thing. I'd like to do something real for a

Robert Grant Burns grunted and reached for his slighted brainchild. "What you want? Mother on, knitting.

Girl washing dishes. Lover arrives; they sit on front steps and spoon. Become engaged. Lover hitches up

team, girl climbs into wagon, they drive to town. Ten scenes of driving to town. Lover gets out, ties team in

front of courthouse. Goes in and gets license. Three scenes of license business. Goes out. Two scenes of

driving to minister and hitching team to gate. One scene of getting to door. One scene getting inside the

house. One scene preacher calling his wife and hired girl. One scene `Do you take this woman,' one scene `I

do.' Fifteen scenes getting team untied and driving back to ranch. That's about as much pep as there is in real

life in the far West, these days. Something like that would suit you, maybe. It don't suit the people who pay

"Neither does this sort of junk, if they've got any sense. Think of paying nickel after nickel to see Lee

Milligan rush to the girl's door, knock, learn the fatal news, stagger back and clap his hand to his brow and

say `Great Heaven! GONE!'" Jean, stirred to combat by the sarcasm of Robert Grant Burns, did the stagger

and the handtobrow and greatheaven scene with a realism that made Pete Lowry turn his back suddenly.

"They've seen Gil abduct me or Muriel seven times in a perfectly impossible manner, and theyoh, why

don't you give them something REAL? Things that are thrilling and dangerous and terrible do happen out

here, Mr. Burns. Real adventures and real tragedies" She stopped, and Burns turned his eyes involuntarily

toward the kitchen. He had heard all about the history of the Lazy A, though he had been very careful to hide

the fact that he had heard it. Jean's glance, following that of her director, was a revealing one. She bit her lip;

and in a moment she went on, with her chin held a shade higher and her pride revolting against subterfuge.

"I didn't mean that," she said quietly. "But well, up to a certain point, I don't mind if you put in real things,

if it will be good picturestuff. You're featuring me, anyway, it seems. Listen." Jean's face changed. Her eyes

took that farseeing look of the dreamer. She was looking full at Burns, but he knew that she did not see him at

all. She was looking at a mental picture of her own conjuring, he judged. He stood still and waited curiously,

"Listen: Instead of all this impossible piffle, let's start a real story. II've"

"What kind of a real story?" The tone of Robert Grant Burns was carefully noncommittal, but his eyes

betrayed his eagerness. The girl did have some real ideas, sometimes! And Robert Grant Burns was not the

"Well," Jean flushed with an adorable shyness at the apparent egotism of her idea, "since you seem to want

me for the central figure in everything, suppose we start a story like this: Suppose I am left here at the Lazy A

with my mother to take care of and a ranch and a lot of cattle; and suppose it's a hard proposition, because

there's really a gang of rustlers that have been running off stock and never getting caught, and they have a

grudge against my family and grab our cattle every chance they get. Supposesuppose they killed my

brother when he was about to round them up, and they want to drive me and my mother out of the country.

Scare us out, you know. Well," she hesitated and glanced diffidently at the boys who had edged up to

listen,"that would leave room for all kinds of feature stuff. Say that I have just one or two boys that I can

depend on, boys that I know are loyal. With an outfit the size of ours, that keeps me in the saddle every day

and all day; and I would have some narrow escapes, I reckon. You've got your rustlers all made to

order,only I'd make them up differently, if I were doing it. Have them look real, you know, instead of

stagey." (Whereat Robert Grant Burns winced.) "Lee could be one of my loyal cowboys; you'd want some

dramatic acting, I reckon, and he could do that. But I'd want one puncher who can ride and shoot and handle a

rope. For that, to help me do the real work in the picture, I want Lite Avery. There are things I can do that

you have never had me do, for the simple reason that you don't know the life well enough ever to think of

them. Real stunts, not these madetoorder, shootthevillainandruntothearmsofthehero stuff. I'd

"Well, go on." Robert Grant Burns still tried to sound noncommittal, but he was plainly eager to hear all that

"Well, that's the idea. They're trying to drive us out of the country, without really hurting me. And I've got my

mind set on staying. Not only that, but I believe they killed my brother, and I'm going to hunt them down and

break up their gang or die in the attempt. There's your plot. It needn't be overdone in the least, to have thrills

enough. And there would be all kinds of chance for real rangestuff, like the handling of cattle and all that.

"We can use this ranch just as it is, and have the outlaws down next the river. I'm glad you haven't taken any

scenes that show the ranch as a whole. You've stuck to your closeup, greatheaven scenes so much," she

went on with merciless frankness, "that you've really not cheapened the place by showing more than a little

"You might start by making Lee up for my brother, and kill him in the first reel; show the outlaws when they

shoot him and run off with a bunch of stock they're after. Lite can find him and bring him home. Lite would

know just how to do that sort of thing, and make people see it's real stuff. I believe he'd show he was a real

cowpuncher, even to the people who never saw one. There's an awful lot of difference between the real

thing and your actors." She was so perfectly sincere and so matteroffact that the men she criticised could

"You might, for the sake of complications, put a traitor and spy on the ranch. Oh, I tell you! Have Hepsibah

be the mother of one of the outlaws. She wouldn't need to do any acting; you could show her sneaking out in

the dark to meet her son and tell him what she has overheard. And show her listening, perhaps, through the

crack in a door. Mrs. Gay would have to be the mother. Gil says that Hepsibah has the figure of a comedy

cook and what he calls a character face. I believe we could manage her all right, for what little she would

Jean having poured out her inspiration with a fluency born of her first enthusiasm, began to feel that she had

been somewhat presumptuous in thus offering advice wholesale to the highest paid director of the Great

Western Film Company. She blushed and laughed a little, and shrugged her shoulders.

"That's just a suggestion," she said with forced lightness. "I'm subject to attacks of acute imagination,

sometimes. Don't mind me, Mr. Burns. Your scenario is a very nice scenario, I'm sure. Do you want me to be

Robert Grant Burns stood absentmindedly tapping his left palm with the folded scenario which Jean had just

damned by calling it a very nice scenario. Nice was not the adjective one would apply to it in sincere

admiration. Robert Grant Burns himself had mentally called it a hummer. He did not reply to Jean's tentative

Robert Grant Burns was not what one would call petty. He would not, for instance, stick to his own story if

he considered that Jean's was a better one. And, after all, Jean was now his leading woman, and it is not

unusual for a leading woman to manufacture her own plots, especially when she is being featured by her

company. There was no question of hurt pride to be debated within the mind of him, therefore. He was just

"Seems to me your plotidea isn't so much tamer than mine, after all." He tested her shrewdly after a

prolonged pause. "You've got a killing in the first five hundred feet, and outlaws and rustling"

"Oh, but don't you see, it isn't the skeleton that makes the difference; it's the kind of meat you put on the

bones! Paradise Lost would be a howling melodrama, if some of you picturepeople tried to make it. You'd

take this plot of mine and make it just like these pictures I've been working in, Mr. Burns: Exciting and all

that, but not the real West after all; spectacular without being probable. What I mean,I can't explain it to

you, I'm afraid; but I have it in my head." She looked at him with that lightening of the eyes which was not a

smile, really, but rather the amusement which might grow into laughter later on.

"You'd better fine me for insubordination," she drawled whimsically, "and tell me whether it's to be braids or

curls, so I can go and make up." At that moment she saw Gil Huntley beckoning to her with a frantic kind of

furtiveness that was a fair mixture of pinchedtogether eyebrows and slight jerkings of the head, and a

guarded movement of his hand that hung at his side. Gil, she thought, was trying to draw her away before she

"Braids or curls?" she insisted. "And please, sir, I won't do so no more, honest."

Robert Grant Burns looked at her from under his eyebrows and made a sound between his grunt of

indignation and his chuckle of amusement. "Sure you won't?" he queried shortly. "Stay the way you are, if

Jean flashed him a glance of inquiry. Did that mean that she had at last gone beyond the limit? Was Robert

Grant Burns going to FIRE her? She looked at Gil, who was sauntering off with the perfectly apparent

expectation that she would follow him; and Mrs. Gay, who was regarding her with a certain melancholy

conviction that Jean's time as leading woman was short indeed. She pursed her lips with a rueful resignation,

"Say, you mustn't hand out things like that, Jean!" he protested, when they were quite out of sight and hearing

of the others. "Let me give you a tip, girl. If you've got any photoplay ideas that are worth talking about,

"Pick to pieces, you mean," Jean corrected. help it; he's putting on some awfully stagey plots, and they cost

"Listen here. You've got me wrong. That plot of yours could be worked up into a dandy series; the idea of a

story running through a lot of pictures is great. What I mean is, it's worth something. You don't have to give

stuff like that away, make him a present of it, you know. I just want to put you wise. If you've got anything

that's worth using, make 'em pay for it. Put 'er into scenario form and sell it to 'em. You're in this game to

"Sure, you could! No reason why you shouldn't, if you can deliver the goods. Burns has been writing his own

plays to fit his company; but aside from the features you've been putting into it, it's old stuff. He's a darned

good director, and all that, but he hasn't got the knack of building real stories. You see what I mean. If you

"I wonder," said Jean with a sudden small doubt of her literary talents, "if I have!"

"Sure, you have!" Gil's faith in Jean was of the kind that scorns proof. "You see, you've got the dope on the

West, and he knows it. Why, I've been watching how he takes the cue from you right along for his features.

Ever since you told Lee Milligan how to lay a saddle on the ground, Burns has been getting tips; and half the

time you didn't even know you were giving them. Get into this game right, Jean. Make 'em pay for that kind

Jean regarded him thoughtfully, tempted to yield. "Mrs. Gay says a hundred dollars a week"

"It's good pay for a beginner. She's right, and she's wrong. They're featuring you in stuff that nobody else can

do. Who would they put in your place, to do the stunts you've been doing? Muriel Gay was a good actress,

and as good a Western lead as they could produce; and you know how she stacked up alongside you. You're

in a class by yourself, Jean. You want to keep that in mind. They aren't just trying to be nice to you; it's

hardboiled business with the Great Western. You're going awfully strong with the public. Why, my chum

writes me that you're announced ahead on the screen at one of the best theaters on Broadway! `Coming: Jean

Douglas in Soandso.' Do you know what that means? No, you don't; of course not. But let me tell you that

it means a whole lot! I wish I'd had a chance to tip you off to a little business caution before you signed that

contract. That salary clause should have been doctored to make a sliding scale of it. As it is, you're stuck for a

year at a hundred dollars a week, unless you spring something the contract does not cover. Don't give away

any more dope. You've got an idea there, if Burns will let you work up to it. Make 'em pay for it."

"Ohh, Gil!" came the throaty call of Burns; and Gil, with a last, earnest warning, left her hurriedly.

Jean sat down on a rock and meditated, her chin in her palms, and her elbows on her knees. Vague shadows;

of thoughts clouded her mind and then slowly clarified into definite ideas. Unconsciously she had been

growing away from her first formulated plans. She was gradually laying aside the idea of reaching wealth and

fame by way of the storytrail. She was almost at the point of admitting to herself that her story, as far as she

had gone with it, could never be taken seriously by any one with any pretense of intelligence. It was too

unreal, too fantastic. It was almost funny, in the most tragic parts. She was ready now to dismiss the book as

But if she and Lite together could really act a story that had the stamp of realism which she instinctively

longed for, surely it would be worth while. And if she herself could build the picture story they would later

enact before the camera,that would be better, much better than writing silly things about an impossible

Automatically her thoughts swung over to the actual building of the scenes that would make for continuity of

her latelyconceived plot. Because she knew every turn and every crook of that coulee and every board in the

buildings snuggled within it, she began to plan her scenes to fit the Lazy A, and her action to fit the spirit of

the country and those countless small details of life which go to make what we call the local color of the

There never had been an organized gang of outlaws just here in this part of the country, butthere might

have been. Her dad could remember when Sid Cummings and his bunch hung out in the Bad Lands fifty

miles to the east of there. Neither had she ever had a brother, for that matter; and of her mother she had no

more than the indistinct memory of a time when there had been a long, black box in the middle of the

livingroom, and a lot of people, and tears which fell upon her face and tickled her nose when her father held

But she had the country, and she had Lite Avery, and to her it was very, very easy to visualize a story that had

no foundation in fact. It was what she had done ever since she could rememberthe daydreaming that had

"What you doing now?" Robert Grant Burns came around the corner of the house looking for her, half an

hour later, and found her sitting on the doorstep with the old atlas on her knees and her hat far back on her

Jean smiled abstractedly up at him. "Why, I'm whyy, I'm becoming a famous scenario writer! Do you

want me to go and plaster my face with grease paint, and become a mere common leading lady again?"

"No, I don't." Robert Grant Burns chuckled fatly and held out his hand with a big, pink cameo on his little

finger. "Let's see what a famous scenario looks like. What is it,that plot you were telling me awhile ago?"

"Why, yes. I'm putting on the meat." There was a slight hesitation before Jean handed him the pages she had

done. "I expect it's awfully crude," she apologized, with one of her diffident spells. "I'm afraid you'll laugh at

Robert Grant Burns was reading rapidly, mentally photographing the scenes as he went along. He held out his

hand again without looking toward her. "Lemme take your pencil a minute. I believe I'd have a panoram of

the coulee,a long shot from out there in the meadow. And show the brother and you leaving the house and

riding toward the camera; at the gate, you separate. You're going to town, say. He rides on toward the hills.

That fixes you both as belonging here at the ranch, identifies you two and the home ranch both in thirty feet

or so of the film, with a leader that tells you're brother and sister. See what I mean?" He scribbled a couple of

lines, crossed out a couple, and went on reading to where he had interrupted Jean in the middle of a sentence.

"I see you're writing in a part for that Lite Avery; how do you know he'd do it? Or can put it over if he tries?

"Lite," declared Jean with a positiveness that would have thrilled Lite, had he heard her, "can put over

anything he tries to put over. And he'll do it, if I tell him he must!" Which showed what were Jean's ideas, at

"What you going to call it a The Perils of the Prairie, say?" Burns abandoned further argument on the subject

"Oh, no! That's awfully cheap. That would stamp it as a melodrama before any of the picture appeared on the

Robert Grant Burns had not been serious; he had been testing Jean's originality. "Well, what will we call it,

"Oh, we'll call it" Jean nibbled the rubber on her pencil and looked at him with that unseeing, introspective

gaze which was a trick of hers. "We'll call itdoes it hurt if we use real names that we've a right to?" She got

a headshake for answer. "Well, we'll call it,let's just call itJean, of the Lazy A. Would that sound as

"Great! Girl, you're a winner! Jean, of the Lazy A! Say, that title alone will jump the releases ten per cent., if

I know the game. Featuring Jean herself; pictures made right at the Lazy A Ranch. Say, the dope I can give

Thereupon Jean, remembering Gil Huntley's lecture on the commercial side of the proposition, startled his

"How much will the Great Western Film Company pay me extra for furnishing the story I play in? "

"Yes. How much? If it will jump your releases ten per cent. they ought to pay me quite a lot more than they're

"You're doing pretty well as it is," Burns reminded her, with a visible dampening of his eagerness.

"For keeping your cutanddried stories from falling flat, yes. But for writing the kind of play that will have

just as many `punches' and still be true to life, and then for acting it all out and putting in those

punches,that's a different matter, Mr. Burns. And you'll have to pay Lite a decent salary, or I'll quit right

here. I'm thinking up stunts for us two that are awfully risky. You'll have to pay for that. But it will be worth

Gil would have been exuberant over the literal manner in which Jean was taking his advice and putting it to

the test, had he overheard her driving her bargain with Robert Grant Burns. He would have been exuberant,

but he would never have dared to say the things that Jean said, or to have taken the stand that she took.

Robert Grant Burns found himself very much in the position which Lite had occupied for three years. He had

welldefined ideas upon the subject before them, and he had the outer semblance of authority; but his ideas

and his authority had no weight whatever with Jean, since she had made up her mind.

Before Jean left the subject of salary, Robert Grant Burns found himself committed to a promise of an

increase, provided that Jean really "delivered the goods" in the shape of a scenario serial, and did the stunts

Before she settled down to the actual planning of scenes, Robert Grant Burns had also yielded to her demands

for Lite Avery, though you may think that he thereby showed himself culpably weak, unless you realize what

sort of a person Jean was in argument. Without having more than a goodmorning acquaintance with Lite,

Burns agreed to put him on "in stock" and to pay him the salary Jean demanded for him, provided that, in the

tryout of the first picture, Lite should prove he could deliver the goods. Burns was always extremely firm in

the matter of having the "goods" delivered; that was why he was the Great Western's leading director. Mere

dollars he would yield, if driven into a corner and kept there long enough, but he must have results.

These things being settled, they spent about two hours on the doorstep of Jean's room, writing the first reel of

the story; which is to say that Jean wrote, and Burns took each sheet from her hands as it was finished, and

read and made certain technical revisions now and then. Several times he grunted words of approbation, and

"I'll go over and get Lite," she said at last, rubbing the cramp out of her writinghand and easing her

shoulders from their strain of stooping. "There'll be time, while you send the machine after some real hats for

your rustlers. Those toadstool things were never seen in this country till you brought them in your trunk; and

this story is going to be real! Your rustlers won't look much different from the punchers, except that they'll be

riding different horses; we'll have to get some paint somewhere and make a pinto out of that walleyed

cayuse Gil rides mostly. He'll lead the rustlers, and you want the audience to be able to spot him a mile off.

Lite and I will fix the horse; we'll put spots on him like a horse Uncle Carl used to own."

"Maybe you can't get Lite," Burns pointed out, eyeing her over a match blaze. "He never acted to me like he

had the moviefever at all. Passes us up with a nod, and has never showed signs of life on the subject. Lee

can ride pretty well," he added artfully, "even if he wasn't born in the saddle. And we can fake that rope

"All right; you can send the machine in with a wire to your company for a leading woman." Jean picked up

her gloves and turned to pull the door shut behind her, and by other signs and tokens made plain her intention

"He'll come. I told you that before." Jean stopped and looked at her director coldly. "And you'll keep your

word. And we won't have any fake stuff in this, except the spots on the pinto." She smiled then. "We

wouldn't do that, but there isn't a pinto in the country right now that would be what we want. You had better

As it happened, Lite was on his way to the Lazy A, and met Jean in the bottom of the sandy hollow. His eyes

lightened when he saw her come loping up to him. But when she was close enough to read the expression of

his face, it was schooled again to the frank friendship which Jean always had accepted as a matter of course.

"Hello, Lite! I've got a job for you with the movies," Jean announced, as soon as she was within speaking

distance. "You can come right back with me and begin. It's going to be great. We're going to make a real

Western picture, Lite, you and I. Lee and Gil and all the rest will be in it, of course; but we're going to put in

the real West. And we're going to put in the ranch,the REAL Lazy A, Lite. Not these dinky little sets that

Burns has toggled up with bits of the bluff showing for background, but the ranch just as itit used to be."

"I'm writing the scenario myself," she explained, "and that's why you have to be in it. I've written in stuff that

the other boys can't do to save their lives. REAL stuff, Lite! You and I are going to run the ranch and punch

the cows,Lazy A cattle, what there are left of them,and hunt down a bunch of rustlers that have their

hangout somewhere down in the breaks; we don't know just where, yet. The places we'll ride, they'll need an

airship to follow with the camera! I haven't got it all planned yet, but the first reel is about done; we're going

to begin on it this afternoon. We'll need you in the first scenes,just ranch scenes, with you and Lee; he's my

brother, and he'll get killed Now, what's the matter with you?" She stopped and eyed him disapprovingly.

"Why have you got that stubborn look to your mouth? Lite, see here. Before you say a word, I want to tell

you that you are not to refuse this. Itit means money, Lite; for you, and for me, too. And that meansdad

Bite looked at her, looked away and bit his lips. It was long since he had seen tears in Jean's steady, brown

eyes, and the sight of them hurt him intolerably. There was nothing that he could say to strengthen her faith,

absolutely nothing. He did not see how money could free her father before his sentence expired. Her faith in

her dad seemed to Lite a wonderful thing, but he himself could not altogether share it, although he had lately

come to feel a very definite doubt about Aleck's guilt. Money could not help them, except that it could buy

back the Lazy A and restock it, and make of it the home it had been three years ago.

Lite, in the secret heart of him, did not want Jean to set her heart on doing that. Lite was almost in a position

to do it himself, just as he had planned and schemed and saved to do, ever since the day when he took Jean to

the Bar Nothing, and announced to her that he intended to take care of her in place of her father. He had

wanted to surprise Jean; and Jean, with her usual headlong energy bent upon the same object, seemed in a fair

"Lite, you won't spoil everything now, just when I'm given this great opportunity, will you?" Jean's voice was

steady again. She could even meet his eyes without flinching. "Gil says it's a great opportunity, in every way.

It's a series of pictures, really, and they are to be called `Jean, of the Lazy A.' Gil says they will be advertised

a lot, and make me famous. I don't care about that; but the company will pay me more, and that meansthat

means that I can get out and find Art Osgood sooner, andget dad home. And you will have to help. The

whole thing, as I have planned it, depends upon you, Lite. The riding and the roping, and stuff like that, you'll

have to do. You'll have to work right alongside me in all that outdoor stuff, because I am going to quit doing

all those spectacular, stagey stunts, and get down to real business. I've made Burns see that there will be

money in it for his company, so he is perfectly willing to let me go ahead with it and do it my way. Our way,

Lite, because, once you start with it, you can help me plan things." Whereupon, having said almost

everything she could think of that would tend to soften that stubborn look in Lite's face, Jean waited.

Lite did a great deal of thinking in the next two or three minutes, but being such a bottledup person, he did

not say half of what he thought; and Jean, closely as she watched his face, could not read what was in his

mind. Of Aleck he thought, and the slender chance there was of any one doing what Jean hoped to do; of Art

Osgood, and the meager possibility that Art could shed any light upon the killing of Johnny Croft; of the

Lazy A, and the probable price that Carl would put upon it if he were asked to sell the ranch and the stock; of

the money he had already saved, and the chance that, if he went to Carl now and made him an offer, Carl

would accept. He weighed mentally all the various elements that went to make up the depressing tangle of the

whole affair, and decided that he would write at once to Rossman, the lawyer who had defended Aleck, and

put the whole thing into his hands. He would then know just where he stood, and what he would have to do,

He looked at Jean and grinned a little. "I'm not pretty enough for a picture actor," he said whimsically. "Better

"You'll be what I want you to be," Jean told him with the little smile in her eyes that Lite had learned to love

more than he could ever say. "I'm going to make us both famous, Lite. Now, come on, Bobby Burns has

probably chewed up a whole box of those black cigars, waiting for us to show up."

I am not going to describe the making of "Jean, of the Lazy A." It would be interesting, but this is not

primarily a story of the motionpicture business, remember. It is the story of the Lazy A and the problem that

both Jean and Lite were trying to solve. The Great Western Film Company became, through sheer chance, a

factor in that problem, and for that reason we have come into rather close touch with them; but aside from the

fact that Jean's photoplay brought Lite into the company and later took them both to Los Angeles, this

Robert Grant Burns had intended taking his company back to Los Angles in August, when the hot winds

began to sweep over the range land. But Jean's story was going "big." Jean was throwing herself into the part

heart and mind. She lived it. With Lite riding beside her, helping her with all his skill and energy and much

enthusiasm, she almost forgot her great undertaking sometimes, she was so engrossed with her work. With

his experience, suggesting frequent changes, she added new touches of realism to this story that made the

casehardened audience of the Great Western's private projection room invent new ways of voicing their

enthusiasm, when the negative films Pete Lowry sent in to headquarters were printed and given their trial run.

They were just well started when August came with its hot winds. They stayed and worked upon the serial

until it was finished, and that meant that they stayed until the first October blizzard caught them while they

Do you know what they did then? Jean changed a few scenes around at Lite's suggestion, and they went out

into the hills in the teeth of the storm and pictured Jean lost in the blizzard, and coming by chance upon the

outlaws at their camp, which she and Lite and Lee had been hunting through all the previous installments of

the story. It was great stuff,that ride Jean made in the blizzard,and that scene where, with numbed

fingers and snow matted in her dangling braid, she held up the rustlers and marched them out of the hills, and

You will remember it, if you have been frequenting the silent drama and were fortunate enough to see the

picture. You may have wondered at the realism of those blizzard scenes, and you may have been curious to

know how the camera got the effect. It was wonderful photography, of course; but then, the blizzard was real,

and that pinched, half frozen look on Jean's face in the closeup where she met Lite was real. Jean was so

cold when she turned the rustlers over to Lite that when she started to dismount and fell in a heap,you

remember? she was not acting at all. Neither was Lite acting when he plunged through the drift and caught

Jean in his arms and held her close against him just as that scene ended. In the name of realism they cut the

scene, because Lite showed that he forgot all about the outlaws and the part he was playing.

So they finished the picture, and the whole company packed their trunks thankfully and turned their faces and

Jean was not at all sure that she wanted to go. It seemed almost as though she were setting aside her great

undertaking; as though she were weakly deserting her dad when she closed the door for the last time upon her

room and turned her back upon Lazy A coulee. But there were certain things which comforted her; Lite was

going along to look after the horses, he told her just the day before they started. For Robert Grant Burns, with

an eye to the advertising value of the move, had decided that Pard must go with them. He would have to hire

an express car, anyway, he said, for the automobile and the scenery sets they had used for interiors. And there

would be plenty of room for Pard and Lite's horse and another which Robert Grant Burns had used to carry

him to locations in rough country, where the automobile could not go. The car would run in passenger

service, Burns said,he'd fix that,so Lite would be right with the company all the way out.

Jean appreciated all that as a personal favor, which merely proved how unsophisticated she really was. She

did not know that Robert Grant Burns was thinking chiefly of furnishing material for the publicity man to use

in news stories. She never once dreamed that the coming of "Jean, of the Lazy A" and Jean's pet horse Pard,

and of Lite, who had done so many surprising things in the picture, would be heralded in all the Los Angeles

Jean was concerned chiefly with attending to certain matters which seemed to her of vital importance. If she

must go, there was something which she must do first, something which for three years she had shrunk

from doing. So she told Robert Grant Burns that she would meet him and his company in Helena, and

without a word of explanation, she left two days in advance of them, just after she had had another

maddening talk with her Uncle Carl, wherein she had repeated her intention of employing a lawyer.

When she boarded the train at Helena, she did not tell even Lite just where she had been or what she had been

doing. She did not need to tell Lite. He looked into her face and saw there the shadow of the high, stone wall

When she felt bewildered, Jean had the trick of appearing merely reserved; and that is what saved her from

the charge of rusticity when Robert Grant Burns led her through the station gateway and into a small

reception. No less a man than Dewitt, President of the Great Western Film Company, clasped her hand and

held it, while he said how glad he was to welcome her. Jean, unawed by his greatness and the honor he was

paying her, looked up at him with that distracting little beginning of a smile, and replied with that evenmore

distracting little drawl in her voice, and wondered why Mrs. Gay should become so plainly flustered all at

Dewitt took her by the arm, introduced her to a curiouseyed group with a warming cordiality of manner, and

led her away through a crowd that stared and whispered, and up to a great, beautiful, purple machine with a

colored chauffeur in dustcolored uniform. Dewitt was talking easily of trivial things, and shooting a

question now and then over his shoulder at Robert Grant Burns, who had shed much of his importance and

seemed indefinably subservient toward Mr. Dewitt. Jean turned toward him abruptly.

"Where's Lite? Did you send some one to help him with Pard?" she asked with real concern in her voice.

"Those three horses aren't used to towns the size of this, Mr. Burns. Lite is going to have his hands full with

Pard. If you will excuse me, Mr. Dewitt, I think I'll go and see how he's making out."

Mr. Dewitt glanced over her head and met the delighted grin of Jim Gates, the publicity manager. The grin

said that Jean was "running true to form," which was a pet simile with Jim Gates, and usually accompanied

that particular kind of grin. There would be an interesting half column in the next day's papers about Jean's

arrival and her deep concern for Lite and her wonderful horse Pard, but of course she did not know that.

"I've got men here to help with the horses," Mr. Dewitt assured her, while he gently urged her into the

machine. "They'll be brought right out to the studio. I'm taking you home with me in obedience to my wife's,

orders. She is anxious to meet the young woman who can outride and outshoot any man on the screen, and

can still be sweet and feminine and lovable. I'm quoting my wife, you see, though I won't say those are not

"Your poor wife is going to receive a shock," said Jean in an unimpressed tone. "But it's dear of her to want

to meet me." Back of her speech was an irritated impatience that she should be gobbled and carried off like

this, when she was sure that she ought to be helping Lite get that fool Pard unloaded and safely through the

Robert Grant Burns, half facing her on a folding seat, sent her a queer, puzzled glance from under his

eyebrows. Four months had Jean been working under his direction; four months had he studied her, and still

she puzzled him. She was not ignorantthe girl had been out among civilized folks and had learned town

ways; she was not stupidshe could keep him guessing, and he thought he knew all the quirks of human

nature, too. Then why, in the name of common sense, did she take Dewitt and his patronage in this

matteroffact way, as if it were his everyday business to meet strange employees and take them home to his

wife? He glanced at Dewitt and caught a twinkle of perfect understanding in the bright blue eyes of his chief.

Burns made a sound between a grunt and a chuckle, and turned his eyes away immediately; but Dewitt chose

"Oh, but he has," Jean dissented. "He has got me trained so that when he says smile, my mouth stretches itself

automatically. When he says sob, I sob. He just snaps his fingers, Mr. Dewitt, and I sit up and go through my

Mr. Dewitt put up a hand and pulled at his close cropped, white mustache that could not hide the twitching

of his lips. "I have seen," he said drily, and leaned forward for a word with the liveried chauffeur. "Turn up

on Broadway and stop at the Victoria," he said, and the chin of the driver dropped an inch to prove he heard.

Dewitt laid his fingers on Jean's arm to catch her attention. "Do you see that picture on the billboard over

there?" he asked, with a special inflection in his nice, crisp voice. "Does it look familiar to you?"

Jean looked, and pinched her brows together. Just at first she did not comprehend. There was her name in

fancy letters two feet high: "JEAN, OF THE LAZY A." It blared at the passerby, but it did not look familiar

at all. Beneath was a highcolored poster of a girl on a horse. The horse was standing on its hind feet, pawing

the air; its nostrils flared red; its tail swept like a willow plume behind. The machine slowed and stopped for

the traffic signal at the crossing, and still Jean studied the poster. It certainly did not look in the least familiar.

"Is that supposed to be me, on that plumcolored horse?" she drawled, when they slid out slowly in the wake

"Why, don't you like it?" Dewitt looked at Jim Gates, who was again grinning delightedly and surreptitiously

Jean turned upon him a mildly resentful glance. "No, I don't. Pard is not purple; he's brown. And he's got the

dearest white hoofs and a white sock on his left hind foot; and he doesn't snort fire and brimstone, either."

She glanced anxiously at the jam of wagons and automobiles and clanging streetcars. "I don't know,

though," she amended ruefully, "I think perhaps he will, too, when he sees all this. I really ought to have

Dewitt shifted a little, so that he was half facing her, and could look at her without having to turn his head. If

his eyes told anything of his thoughts, the President of the Great Western Film Company was curious to

know how she felt about her position and her sudden fame and the work itself. Before they had worked their

way into the next block, he decided that Jean was not greatly interested in any of these things, and he

The machine slowed, swung to the curb, and crept forward and stopped in front of the Victoria. Dewitt

"I thought you'd like to take a glance at the lobby display the Victoria is making," he said casually. "They are

running the Lazy A series, you know,to capacity houses, too, they tell me. Shall we get out?"

The chauffeur reached back with that gesture of toleration and infinite boredom common to his kind and

Robert Grant Burns started up. "Come on, Jean," he said eagerly. "I don't suppose that eternal calm of yours

Pete Lowry was already out and half way across the pavement. Pete had lain awake in his bed, many's the

night, planning the posing of "stills" that would show Jean at her best; he had visioned them on display in

theater lobbies, and now he collided with a hurrying shopper in his haste to see the actual fulfillment of those

Jean herself was not so eager. She went with the others, and she saw herself pictured on Pard; on her two feet;

and sitting upon a rock with her old Stetson tilted over one eye and her hair tousled with the wind. She was

loading her sixshooter, and talking to Lite, who was sitting on his heels with a cigarette in his fingers,

looking at her with that bottledup look in his eyes. She did not remember when the picture was taken, but

she liked that best of all. She saw herself leaning out of the window of her room at the Lazy A. She

remembered that time. She was talking to Gil outside, and Pete had come up and planted his tripod directly in

front of her, and had commanded her to hold her pose. She did not count them, but she had curious

impressions of dozens of pictures of herself scattered here and there along the walls of the long, coollooking

On a bulletin board in the middle of the entrance, just before the marble boxoffice, it was lettered again in

"It looks awfully queer," said Jean to Mr. Dewitt, who wanted to know what she thought of it all; "they don't

"No, they don't." Dewitt pulled his mustache and piloted her back to the machine. "They don't have to."

"No," echoed Robert Grant Burns, with the fat chuckle of utter content in the knowledge of having achieved

something. "From the looks of things, they don't have to." He looked at Jean so intently that she stared back

at him, wondering what was the matter; and when he saw that she was wondering, he gave a snort.

"Good Lord!" he said to himself, just above a whisper, and looked away, despairing of ever reading the riddle

of Jean's unshakable composure. Was it pose Was the girl phlegmatic,with that face which was so alive

with the thoughts that shuttled back and forth behind those steady, talking eyes of hers? She was not stupid;

Robert Grant Burns knew to his own discomfiture that she was not stupid. Nor was she one to pose; the

absolute sincerity of her terrific frankness was what had worried Robert Grant Burns most. She must know

that she had jumped into the front rank of popular actresses, and stood out before them all,for the time

being, at least. And,he stole a measuring sidelong glance at her, just as he had done thousands of times in

the past four months,here she was in the private machine of the President of the Great Western Film

Company, with that great man himself talking to her as to his honored guest. She had seen herself featured

alone at one of the biggest motionpicture theaters in Los Angeles; so well known that "Jean, of the Lazy A"

was deemed allsufficient as information and advertisement. She had reached what seemed to Robert Grant

Burns the final heights. And the girl sat there, calm, abstracted, actually not listening to Dewitt when he

talked! She was not even thinking about him! Robert Grant Burns gave her another quick, resentful glance,

As a matter of fact, having accepted the fact that she seemed to have made a success of her pictures, her

thoughts had drifted to what seemed to her more vital. Had she done wrong to come away out here, away

from her problem? The distance worried her. She had not even found out who was the mysterious

nightprowler, or what he wanted. He had never come again, after that night when Hepsy had scared him

away. From long thinking about it, she had come to a vague, general belief that his visits were somehow

connected with the murder; but in what manner, she could not even form a theory. That worried her. She

wished now that she had told Lite about it. She was foolish not to have done something, instead of sticking

her head under the bedclothes and just shivering till he left. Lite would have found out who the man was, and

what he wanted. Lite would never have let him come and go like that. But the visits had seemed so absolutely

without reason. There was nothing to steal, and nothing to find. Still, she wished she had told Lite, and let

Then her talk with the great lawyer had been disquieting. He had not wanted to name his fee for defending

her dad; but when he had named it, it did not seem so enormous as she had imagined it to be. He had asked a

great many questions, and most of them puzzled Jean. He had said that he would take up the matter,by

which she believed he meant an investigation of her uncle's title to the Lazy A. He said that he would see her

father, and he told her that he had already been retained to investigate the whole thing, so that she need not

worry about having to pay him a fee. That, he said, had already been arranged, though he did not feel at

liberty to name his client. But he wanted to assure her that everything was being done that could be done.

She herself had seen her father. She shrank within herself and tried not to think of that horrible meeting. Her

soul writhed under the tormenting memory of how she had seen him. She had not been able to talk to him at

all, scarcely. The words would not come. She had said that she and Lite were on their way to Los Angeles,

and would be there all winter. He had patted her shoulder with a tragic apathy in his manner, and had said

that the change would do her good. And that was all she could remember that they had talked about. And then

That is what she was thinking about while the big, purple machine slid smoothly through the tunnel,

negotiated a rough stretch where the streetpavers were at work, and sped purring out upon the boulevard

that stretched away to Hollywood and the hills. That was what she kept hidden behind the "eternal calm" that

so irritated Robert Grant Burns and so delighted Dewitt and so interested Jim Gates, who studied her for what

It was the same when, the next day, Dewitt himself took her over to the big plant which he spoke of as the

studio. It was immense, and yet Jean seemed unimpressed. She was gladder to see Pard and Lite again than

she was to meet the sixhundredaweek star whose popularity she seemed in a fair way to outrival. Men

and women who were "in stock," and therefore within the social pale, were introduced to her and said nice,

hackneyed things about how they admired her work and were glad to welcome her. She felt the warm air of

goodfellowship that followed her everywhere. All of these people seemed to accept her at once as one of

themselves. When she noticed it, she was amused at the way the "extras" stood back and looked at her and

whispered together. More than once she overheard what seemed almost to have become a catchphrase out

Jean was not made of wood, understand. In a manner she recognized all these little tributes, and to a certain

degree she appreciated them. She was glad that she had made such a success of it, but she was glad because it

would help her to take her dad away from that horrible, ghastly place and that horrible, ghastly death inlife

And Burns twitted her ironically because she could not simper and lose her head over the attentions these

people were loading upon her! Save for the fact that in this way she could earn a good deal of money, and

could pay that lawyer Rossman, and trace Art Osgood, she would not have stayed; she could not have

endured the staying. For the easier they made life for her, the greater contrast did they make between her and

Gil brought her a great bunch of roses, unbelievably beautiful and fragrant, and laughed and told her they

didn't look much like those snowdrifts she waded through the last day they worked on the Lazy A serial. For

just a minute he thought Jean was going to throw them at him, and he worried himself into sleeplessness,

poor boy, wondering how he had offended her, and how he could make amends. Could he have looked into

Jean's soul, he would have seen that it was seared with the fresh memory of iron bars and high walls and her

dad who never saw any roses; and that the contrast between their beauty and the terrible barrenness that

Dewitt himself sensed that something was wrong with her. She was not her natural self, and he knew it,

though his acquaintance with her was a matter of hours only. Part of his business it was to study people, to

read them; he read Jean now, in a general way. Not being a clairvoyant, he of course had no inkling of the

very real troubles that filled her mind, though the effect of those troubles he saw quite plainly. He watched

"You've just finished a long, hard piece of work," he said in his crisp, matteroffact way, on the second

morning after her arrival. "There is going to be a delay here while we shape things up for the winter, and it is

my custom to keep my people in the very best condition to work right up to the standard. So you are all going

to have a twoweeks vacation, JeanoftheLazy A. At full salary, of course; and to put you yourself into

the true holiday spirit, I'm going to raise your salary to a hundred and seventyfive a week. I consider you

worth it," he added, with a quieting gesture of uplifted hand, "or you may be sure I wouldn't pay it.

"Get some nice old lady to chaperone you, and go and play. The ocean is good; get somewhere on the beach.

Or go to Catalina and play there. Or stay here, and go to the movies. Go and see `Jean, of the Lazy A,' and

watch how the audience lives with her on the screen. Go up and talk to the wife. She told me to bring you up

for dinner. You go climb into my machine, and tell Bob to take you to the house now. Run along, Jean of the

Jean wanted to cry. She held the roses, that she almost hated for their very beauty and fragrance, close

pressed in her arms, while she went away toward the machine. Dewitt looked after her, thought she meant to

obey him, and turned to greet a great man of the town who had been waiting for five minutes to speak to him.

Jean did not climb into the purple car and tell Bob to drive her to "the house." She walked past it without

even noticing that it stood there, an aristocrat among the other machines parked behind the great studio that

looked like a long, low warehouse. She knew the straightest, shortest trail to the corrals, you may be sure of

Pard was standing in a far corner under a shed, switching his tail methodically at the October crop of flies.

His head lay over the neck of a scrawny little buckskin, for which he had formed a sudden and violent

attachment, and his eyes were half closed while he drowsed in lazy content. Pard was not worrying about

anything. He looked so luxuriously happy that Jean had not the heart to disturb him, even with her comfort

seeking caresses. She leaned her elbows on the corral gate and watched him awhile. She asked a bashful,

gumchewing youth if he could tell her where to find Lite Avery. But the youth seemed never to have heard

of Lite Avery, and Jean was too miserable to explain and describe Lite, and insist upon seeing him. She

walked over to the nearest carline and caught the next street car for the city. Part of her chief's orders at least

she would obey. She would go down to the Victoria and see "Jean, of the Lazy A," but she was not going

because of any impulse of vanity, or to soothe her soul with the applause of strangers. She wanted to see the

ranch again. She wanted to see the dear, familiar line of the old bluff that framed the coulee, and ride again

with Lite through those wild places they had chosen for the pictures. She wanted to lose herself for a little

A huge pipe organ was filling the theater with a vast undertone that was like the whispering surge of a great

wind. Jean went into the soft twilight and sat down, feeling that she had shut herself away from the harsh,

horrible world that held so much of suffering. She sighed and leaned her head back against the curtained

enclosure of the loges, and closed her eyes and listened to the big, sweeping harmonies that were yet so

Down next the river, in a sheltered little coulee, there was a group of great bull pines. Sometimes she had

gone there and leaned against a tree trunk, and had shut her eyes and listened to the vast symphony which the

wind and the water played together. She forgot that she had come to see a picture which she had helped to

create. She held her eyes shut and listened; and that horror of high walls and iron bars that had haunted her

for days, and the aged, broken man who was her father, dimmed and faded and was temporarily erased; the

lightness of her lips eased a little; the tenseness relaxed from her face, as it does from one who sleeps.

But the music changed, and her mood changed with it. She did not know that this was because the story

pictured upon the screen had changed, but she sat up straight and opened her eyes, and felt almost as though

A Mexican series of educational pictures were being shown. Jean looked, and leaned forward with a little

gasp. But even as she fixed her eyes and startled attention upon it, that scene was gone, and she was reading

She must have been asleep, she told herself, and had gotten things mixed up in her dreams. She shook herself

mentally and remembered that she ought to take off her hat; and she tried to fix her mind upon the pictures.

Perhaps she had been mistaken; perhaps she had not seen what she believed she had seen. But what if it

were true? What if she had really seen and not imagined it? It couldn't be true, she kept telling herself; of

course, it couldn't be true! Still, her mind clung to that instant when she had first opened her eyes, and very

Then she had, for the first time in her life, the strange experience of seeing herself as others saw her. The

screen announcement and expectant stir that greeted it caught her attention, and pulled her back from the

whirl of conjecture into which she had been plunged. She watched, and she saw herself ride up to the

foreground on Pard. She saw herself look straight out at the audience with that peculiar little easing of the lips

and the lightening of the eyes which was just the infectious beginning of a smile. Involuntarily she smiled

back at her pictured self, just as every one else was smiling back. For that, you must know, was what had first

endeared her so to the public; the human quality that compelled instinctive response from those who looked

at her. So Jean in the loge smiled at Jean on the screen. Then Litedear, silent, longlegged Lite!came

loping up, and pushed back his hat with the gesture that she knew so well, and spoke to her and smiled; and a

lump filled the throat of Jean in the loge, though she could not have told why. Then Jean on the screen turned

and went riding with Lite back down the trail, with her hat tilted over one eye because of the sun, and with

one foot swinging free of the stirrup in that absolute unconsciousness of pose that had first caught the

attention of Robert Grant Burns and his camera man. Jean in the loge heard the ripple of applause among the

Presently she was back at the Lazy A, living again the scenes which she herself had created. This was the

fourth or fifth picture,she did not at the moment remember just which. At any rate, it had in it that incident

when she had first met the picturepeople in the hills and mistaken Gil Huntley and the other boys for real

rustlers stealing her uncle's cattle. You will remember that Robert Grant Burns had told Pete to take all of that

encounter, and he had later told Jean to write her scenario so as to include that incident.

Jean blushed when she saw herself ride up to those three and "throw down on them" with her gun. She had

been terribly chagrined over that performance! But now it looked awfully real, she told herself with a little

glow of pride. Poor old Gil! They hadn't caught her roping him, anyway, and she was glad of that. He would

have looked absurd, and those people would have laughed at him. She watched how she had driven the cattle

back up the coulee, with little rushes up the bank to head off an unruly cow that had ideas of her own about

the direction in which she would travel. She loved Pard, for the way he tossed his head and whirled the

cricket in his bit with his tongue, and obeyed the slightest touch on the rein. The audience applauded that

Later there was a scene where she had helped Lite Avery and Lee Milligan round up a bunch of cattle and cut

out three or four, which were to be sold to a butcher for money to take her mother to the doctor. Lite rode

close to the camera and looked straight at her, and Jean bit her lips sharply as tears stung her lashes for some

inexplicable reason. Dear old Lite! Every line in his face she knew, every varying, vagrant expression, every

little twitch of his lips and eyelids that meant so much to those who knew him well enough to read his face.

Jean's eyes softened, cleared, and while she looked, her lips parted a little, and she did not know that she was

She was thinking of the day, not long ago, when she had seen a bird fly into the loft over the storehouse, and

she had climbed in a spirit of idle curiosity to see what the bird wanted there. She had found Lite's bed neatly

smoothed for the day, the pillow placed so that, lying there, he could look out through the opening and see

the house and the path that led to it. There was the faint aroma of tobacco about the place. Jean had known at

once just why that bed was there, and almost she knew how long it had been there. She had never once hinted

that she knew; and Lite would never tell her, by look or word, that he was watching her welfare.

Here came Gil, dashing up to the brow of the hill, dismounting and creeping behind a rock, that he might

watch them working with the cattle in the valley below. Jean met his pictured approach with a little smile of

welcome. That was the scene where she told him he got off the horse like a sack of oats, and had shown him

how to swing down lightly and with a perfect balance, instead of coming to the earth with a thud of his feet.

Gil had taken it all in good faith; the camera proved now how well he had followed her instructions. And

afterwards, while the assistant cameraman (with whom Jean never had felt acquainted) shouldered the

camera and tripod, and they all tramped down the hill to another location, there had been a little scene in the

shade of that rock, between Jean and the star villain. She blushed a little and wondered if Gil remembered

that tentative lovemaking scene which Burns had unconsciously cut short with a bellowing order to rehearse

It was wonderful, it was fascinating to sit there and see those days of hard, absorbing work relived in the

story she had created. Jean lost herself in watching how Jean of the Lazy A came and went and lived her life

bravely in the midst of so much that was hard. Jean in the loge remembered how Burns had yelled, "Smile

when you come up; look lighthearted! And then let your face change gradually, while you listen to your

mother crying in there. There'll be a cutback to show her down on her knees crying before Bob's chair. Let

that tired, worried look come into your face,the load's dropping on to your shoulders again,that kind of

dope. Get me?" Jean in the loge remembered how she had been told to do this deliberately, just out of her

imagination. And then she saw how Jean on the screen came whistling up to the house, swinging her quirt by

its loop and with a spring in her walk, and making you feel that it was a beautiful day and that all the meadow

larks were singing, and that she had just had a gallop on Pard that made her forget that she ever looked

Then Jean in the loge looked and saw screenJean's mother kneeling before Bob's chair and sobbing so that

her shoulders shook. She looked and saw screen Jean stop whistling and swinging her quirt; saw her stand

still in the path and listen; saw the smile fade out of her eyes. Jean in the loge thought suddenly of that

moment when she had looked at dad coming in where she waited, and swallowed a lump in her throat. A

woman near her gave a little stifled sob of sympathy when screenJean turned and went softly around the

corner of the house with all the light gone from her face and all the spring gone out of her walk.

Jean in the loge gave a sigh of relaxed tension and looked around her. The seats were nearly all full, and

every one was gazing fixedly forward, lost in the pictured story of Jean on the screen. So that was what all

those madetoorder smiles and frowns meant! Jean had done them at Burns' command, because she had

seen that the others simulated different emotions whenever he told them to. She knew, furthermore, that she

had done them remarkably well; so well that people responded to every emotion she presented to them. She

was surprised at the vividness of every one of those cut anddried scenes. They imposed upon her, even,

after all the work and fussing she had gone through to get them to Burns' liking. And there, in the cool gloom

of the Victoria, Jean for the first time realized to the full the true ability of Robert Grant Burns. For the first

time she really appreciated him and respected him, and was grateful to him for what he had taught her to do.

Her mood changed abruptly when the Jean picture ended. The music changed to the strain that had filled the

great place when she entered, nearly an hour before. Jean sat up straight again and waited, alert, impatient,

anxious to miss no smallest part of that picture which had startled her so when she had first looked at the

screen. If the thing was true which she half believedif it were true! So she stared with narrowed lids, intent,

"Warring Mexico!" That was the name of it; a Lubin special release, of the kind technically called

"educational." Jean held her breath, waiting for the scene that might mean so much to her. There: this must be

Jean had it stamped indelibly upon her brain. She waited, with a quick intake of breath when the picture stood

A "closeup" group of officers and men,and some of the men Americans in face, dress, and manner. But it

was one man, and one only, at whom she looked. Tall he was, and squareshouldered and lean; with his hat

set far back on his head and a half smile curling his lips, and his eyes looking straight into the camera.

Standing there with his weight all on one foot, in that attitude which cowboys call "hipshot." Art Osgood!

She was sure of it! Her hands clenched in her lap. Art Osgood, at Nogales, Mexico. Serving on the staff of

General Kosterlisky. Was the man mad, to stand there publicly before the merciless, revealing eye of a

The man at whom she sat glaring glanced sidewise at some person unseen; and Jean knew that glance, that

turn of the head. He smiled anew and lifted his Americanmade Stetson a few inches above his head and held

it so in salute. Just so had he lifted and held his hat high one day, when she had turned and ridden away from

him down the trail. Jean caught herself just as her lips opened to call out to him in recognition and sharp

reproach. He turned and walked away to where the troopers were massed in the background. It was thus that

she had first glimpsed him for one instant before the scene ended; it was just as he turned his face away that

she had opened her eyes, and thought it was Art Osgood who was walking away from the camera.

She waited a minute, staring abstractedly at the refugees who were presented next. She wished that she knew

when the picture had been taken,how long ago. Her experience with motionpicture making, her listening

to the shoptalk of the company, had taught her much; she knew that sometimes weeks elapse between the

camera's work and the actual projection of a picture upon the theater screens. Still, this was, in a sense, a

news release, and therefore in all probability hurried to the public. Art Osgood might still be at Nogales,

Mexico, wherever that was. He might; and Jean made up her mind and laid her plans while she sat there

She got up quietly and slipped out. She was going to Nogales, Mexico, wherever that was. She was going to

get Art Osgood, and she didn't care whether she had to fight her way clear through "Warring Mexico." She

In the lobby, while she paused with a truly feminine instinct to tip her hat this way and that before the mirror,

and give her hair a tentative pat or two at the back, the grinning face of Lite Avery in his gray Stetson

"Why, Jean!" he mimicked, in the bantering voice that was like home to her. "Don't rush off; haven't seen you

today. Wait till I get you a ticket, and then you come back and help me admire ourselves. I came down on a

long lope when somebody said you caught a street car headed this way. Thought maybe I'd run across you

here. Knew you couldn't stay away much longer from seeing how you look. Ain't too proud to sit alongside a

Jean looked at him understandingly. Lite's exuberance was unusual; but she knew, as well as though he had

told her, that he had been lonesome in this strange city, and that he was overjoyed at the sight of her, who was

his friend. She unpinned her hat which she had been at some pains to adjust at the exact angle decreed by

"Yes, I'll go back with you," she drawled. "I want to see how you like the sight of yourself just as you are.

Itit's good for one, after the first shock wears off." She would not say a word about that Mexican picture,

she thought; but she wanted to see if Lite also would recognize Art Osgood, and feel as sure of his identity as

she had felt. That would make her doubly sure of her self. She could do what she meant to do without any

misgivings whatsoever. She could afford to wait a little while and have the pleasure of Lite's presence beside

her. Lite was homesick and lonesome;she felt it in every tone and in every look;almost as homesick and

lonesome as she was herself. She would not hurt him by going off and leaving him alone, even if she had not

wanted to be with him and to watch the effect that Mexican picture would have upon him. Lite believed Art

Osgood was in the Klondyke. She would wait and see what he believed after he had seen that Nogales picture

She waited. She had missed Lite in the last day or so; she had seemed almost as far away from him as from

the Lazy A. But all the while she talked to him in whispers when he had wanted to discuss the Jean picture,

When it came at last, Jean turned her head and watched Lite. And Lite gave a real start and said something

under his breath, and plucked at her sleeve afterwards to attract her attention.

"Lookquick! That fellow standing there with his arms folded. Skin me alive if it isn't Art Osgood!"

"Sure? Where're your eyes? Look at him! It sure ain't anybody else, Jean. Now, what do you reckon he's

After all, Jean did not have to fight her way clear through "Warring Mexico" and back again, in order to

reach Nogales. She let Lite take her to the snug little apartment which she was to share with Muriel and her

mother, and she fancied that she had been very crafty and very natural in her manner all the while he was

with her, and that Lite did not dream of what she had in her mind to do. At any rate, she watched him stalk

away on his highheeled ridingboots, and she thought that his mind was perfectly at ease. (Jean, I fear,

She caught the next downtown car and went straight to the information bureau of the Southern Pacific,

established for the convenience of the public and the sanity of employees who have something to do besides

She found a young man there who was not averse to talking at length with a young woman who was dressed

trimly in a street suit of the latest fashion, and who had almost entrancing, soft drawl to her voice and a most

fascinating way of looking at one. This young man appeared to know a great deal, and to be almost eager to

pass along his wisdom. He knew all about Nogales, Mexico, for instance, and just what train would next

depart in that general direction, and how much it would cost, and how long she would have to wait in Tucson

for the onceaday train to Nogales, and when she might logically expect to arrive in that squatty little town

that might be said to be really and truly divided against itself. Here the nice young man became facetious.

"Bible tells us a city divided against itself cannot stand," he informed Jean quite gratuitously. "Well, maybe

that's straight goods, too. But Nogales is cut right through at the waist line with the international boundary

line. United States customhouse on one corner of the street, Mexican customhouse in talking distance on the

other corner. Great place for holdups, that!" This was a joke, and Jean smiled obligingly. "First the United

States holds you up, and then the Mexicans. You get it coming and going. Well, Nogales don't have to stand.

Jean was interested, and she did not discourage the nice young man. She let him say all he could think of on

the subject of Nogales and the Federal troops stationed there, and on warring Mexico generally. When she

left him, she felt as if she knew a great deal about the end of her journey. So she smiled and thanked the nice

young man in that soft drawl that lingered pleasantly in his memory, and went over to another window and

bought a ticket to Nogales. She moved farther along to another window and secured a Pullman ticket which

With an impulse of wanting to let her Uncle Carl know that she was not forgetting her mission, she sent him

After that, she went home and packed a suitcase and her sixshooter and belt. She did not, after all, know

just what might happen in Nogales, Mexico, but she meant to bring back Art Osgood if he were to be found

That evening she told Muriel that she was going to run away and have her vacationher "vacation" hunting

down and capturing a murderer who had taken refuge in the Mexican army!and that she would write when

she knew just where she would stop. Then she went away alone in a taxi to the depot, and started on her

journey with a sixshooter jostling a box of chocolates in her suitcase, and with her heart almost light again,

now that she was at last following a clue that promised something at the other end.

It was all just as the nice young man had told her. Jean arrived in Tucson, and she left on time, on the

Lite also arrived in Tucson on time, though Jean did not see him, since he descended from the chair car with

some caution just as she went into the depot. He did not depart on time as it happened; he was thirsty, and he

went off to find something wetter than water to drink, and while he was gone the onceaday train also went

off through the desert. Lite saw the last pair of wheels it owned go clipping over the switch, and he stood in

the middle of the track and swore. Then he went to the telegraph office and found out that a freight left for

Nogales in ten minutes. He hunted up the conductor and did things to his bank roll, and afterwards climbed

into the caboose on the sidetrack. Lite has been so careful to keep in the background, through all these

chapters, that it seems a shame to tell on him now. But I am going to say that, little as Jean suspected it, he

had been quite as interested in finding Art Osgood as had she herself. When he saw her pass through the gate

to the train, in Los Angeles, that was his first intimation that she was going to Nogales; so he had stayed in

the chair car out of sight. But it just shows how great minds run in the same channel; and how, without

Jean stared out over the barrenness that was not like the barrenness of Montana, and tried not to think that

perhaps Art Osgood had by this time drifted on into obscurity. Still, if he had drifted on, surely she could

trace him, since he had been serving on the staff of a general and should therefore be pretty well known.

What she really hated most to think of was the possibility that he might have been killed. They did get killed,

When the shadows of the giant cactus stretched mutilated hands across the desert sand, and she believed that

Nogales was near, Jean carried her suitcase to the cramped dressingroom and took out her sixshooter and

buckled it around her. Then she pulled her coat down over it with a good deal of twisting and turning before

the dirty mirror to see that it looked all right, and not in the least as though a perfect lady was packing a gun.

She went back and dipped fastidious fingers into the box of chocolates, and settled herself to nibble candy

and wait for what might come. She felt very calm and self possessed and sure of herself. Her only fear was

that Art Osgood might have been killed, and his lips closed for all time. So they rattled away through the

Casa del Sonora, whither she went, was an old, two story structure of the truly Spanish type, and it was kept

by a huge, blubbery creature with piggish eyes and a bloated, purple countenance and the palsy. As much of

him as appeared to be human appeared to be Irish; and Jean, after the first qualm of repulsion, when she faced

him over the hotel register, detected a certain kindly solicitude in his manner, and was reassured.

So far, everything had run smoothly, like a well staged play. Absurdly simple, utterly devoid of any element

of danger, any vexatious obstacle to the immediate achievement of her purpose! But Jean was not thrown off

The trip from Tucson had been terribly tiresome; she was weary in every fibre, it seemed to her. But for all

that she intended, sometime that evening, to meet Art Osgood if he were in town. She intended to take him

with her on the train that left the next morning. She thought it would be a good idea to rest now, and to

Perhaps she slept a little while she lay upon the bed and schooled herself to calmness. A band, somewhere,

playing a pulsing Spanish air, brought her to her feet. She went to the window and looked out, and saw that

From the American customhouse just on the opposite corner came Lite Avery, stalking leisurely along in his

highheeled ridingboots. Jean drew back with a little flutter of the pulse and watched him, wondering how

he came to be in Nogales. She had last seen him boarding a car that would take him out to the Great Western

Studio; and now, here he was, sauntering across the street as if he lived here. It was like finding his bed up in

the loft and knowing all at once that he had been keeping watch all the while, thinking of her welfare and

never giving her the least hint of it. That at least was understandable. But to her there was something uncanny

about his being here in Nogales. When he was gone, she stepped out through the open window to the veranda

that ran the whole length of the hotel, and looked across the street into Mexico.

She was, she decided critically, about fifteen feet from the boundary line. Just across the street fluttered the

Mexican flag from the Mexican customhouse. A Mexican guard lounged against the wall, his swarthy face

masklike in its calm. While she leaned over the railing and stared curiously at that part of the street which

was another country, from the hills away to the west, where were camped soldiers,the American

soldiers,who prevented the war from slopping over the line now and then into Arizona, came the clear

notes of a bugle held closepressed against the lips of a United States soldier in snugfitting khaki. The

boom of the sundown salute followed immediately after. In the street below her, Mexicans and Americans

mingled amiably and sauntered here and there, killing time during that bored interval between eating and the

Just beyond the Mexican boundary, the door of a long, adobe cantina was flung open, and a group of men

came out and paused as if they were wondering what they should do next, and where they should go. Jean

looked them over curiously. Mexicans they were not, though they had some of the dress which belonged on

Americans they were; one knew by the set of their shoulders, by the little traits of race which have nothing to

Jean caught her breath and leaned forward. There was Art Osgood, standing with his back toward her and

with one palm spread upon his hip in the attitude she knew so well. If only he would turn! Should she run

down the stairs and go over there and march him across the line at the muzzle of her revolver? The idea

Jean, now that the crisis had arrived, used her woman's wile, rather than the harsher but perhaps less effective

"Oh, Art!" she called, just exactly as she would have called to him on the range, in Montana "Hello, Art!"

Art Osgood wheeled and sent a startled, seeking glance up at the veranda; saw her and knew who it was that

had called him, and lifted his hat in the gesture that she knew so well. Jean's fingers were close to her gun,

though she was not conscious of it, or of the strained, tense muscles that waited the next move.

Art, contrary to her expectations, did the most natural thing in the world. He grinned and came hurrying

toward her with the long, eager steps of one who goes to greet a friend after an absence that makes of that

meeting an event. Jean watched him cross the street. She waited, dazed by the instant success of her ruse,

while he disappeared under the veranda. She heard his feet upon the stairs. She heard him come striding

down the hall to the glasspaneled door. She saw him coming toward her, still grinning in his joy at the

"Jean Douglas! By all that's lucky!" he was exclaiming. "Where in the world did you light down from?" He

came to a stop directly in front of her, and held out his hand in unsuspecting friendship.

"Well, say! This is like seeing you walk out of that picture that's running at the Teatro Palacia. You sure are

making a hit with those moving pictures; made me feel like I'd met somebody from home to stroll in there

If Art Osgood felt any embarrassment over meeting her, he certainly gave no sign of it. He sat down on the

railing, pushed back his hat, and looked as though he was preparing for a real soulfeast of reminiscent

gossip. "Just get in?" he asked, by way of opening wider the channel of talk. He lighted a cigarette and

flipped the match down into the street. "I've been here three or four months. I'm part of the Mexican

revolution, though I don't reckon I look it. We been keeping things pretty well stirred up, down this way. You

looking for picture dope? Lubin folks are copping all kinds of good stuff here. You ain't with them, are you?"

Jean braced herself against slipping into easy conver sation with this man who seemed so friendly and

unsuspicious and so consciencefree. Killing a man, she thought, evidently did not seem to him a matter of

any moment; perhaps because he had since then become a professional killer of men. After planning exactly

how she should meet any contingency that might arise, she found herself baffled. She had not expected to

meet this attitude. She was not prepared to meet it. She had taken it for granted that Art Osgood would shun a

meeting; that she would have to force him to face her. And here he was, sitting on the porch rail and swinging

one spurred and booted foot, smiling at her and talking, in high spirits over the meetingor a genius at

Art came to a pause and looked at her inquiringly. "What's the matter?" he demanded. "You called me up

hereand I sure was tickled to death to come, all right!and now you stand there looking like I was a kid

that had been caught whispering, and must be kept after school. I know the symptoms, believe me! You're

sore about something I've said. What, don't you like to have anybody talk about you being a movie queen?

You sure are all of that. You've got a license to be proud of yourself. Or maybe you didn't know you was

speaking to a Mexican soldier, or something like that." He made a move to rise. "Excuse ME, if I've said

"No, you won't. You'll stay right where you are." His frank acceptance of her hostile attitude steadied Jean.

"Search me." Art studied her curiously. "I never could keep track of what you thought and what you meant,

and I guess you haven't grown any easier to read since I saw you last. I'll be darned if I know what you came

Art Osgood stared, while his cheeks darkened with the flush of confusion. He laughed a little. "I sure wish

that was the truth," he said. "Jean, you never would have to go very far after any man with two eyes in his

"I did," said Jean calmly. "I came after you. I'd have found you if I had to hunt all through Mexico and fight

"Jean!" There was a queer, pleading note in Art's voice. "I wish I could believe that, but I can't. I ain't a fool."

"Yes, you are." Jean contradicted him pitilessly. "You were a fool when you thought you could go away and

Art's fingers had been picking at a loose splinter on the wooden rail whereon he sat. He looked down at it,

jerked it loose with a sharp twist, and began snapping off little bits with his thumb and forefinger. In a minute

he looked up at Jean, and his eyes were different. They were not hostile; they were merely cold and watchful

"Well, somebody did think so. I've thought so for three years, and so I'm here." Jean found that her breath

was coming fast, and that as she leaned back against a post and gripped the rail on either side, her arms were

quivering like the legs of a frightened horse. Still, her voice had sounded calm enough.

Art Osgood sat with his shoulders drooped forward a little, and painstakingly snipped off tiny bits of the

"I shouldn't think you'd want to stir up that trouble after all this while," he said. "But women are queer. I can't

Jean weighed his words, his look, his manner, and got no clue at all to what was going on back of his eyes.

On the surface, he was just a tanned, fairly goodlooking young man who has been reluctantly drawn into an

"Well, I did consider it worth while bothering to hunt you up," she told him flatly. "If you don't think it's

Again his glance went to her face, plainly startled. "Go back with you?" he repeated. "What for?"

"Well" Jean still had some trouble with her breath and to keep her quiet, smooth drawl, "let's make it a

Art's face settled to a certain hardness that still was not hostile. "Becauses don't go," he said. "Not with a girl

"Well, I want you to go because I want to clear things up, about Johnny Croft. It's timeit was cleared up."

Art regarded her fixedly. "Well, I don't see yet what's back of that first BECAUSE," he sparred. "There's

"What do you know?" Art's eyes never left her face, now. They seemed to be boring into her brain. Jean

began to feel a certain confusion. To be sure, she had never had any experience whatever with fugitive

murderers; but no one would ever expect one to act like this. A little more, she thought resentfully, and he

would be making her feel as if she were the guilty person. She straightened herself and stared back at him.

"I know you left because youyou didn't want to stay and facethings. II have felt as if I could kill you,

almost, for what you have done. II don't see how you can SIT there andand look at me that way." She

stopped and braced herself. "I don't want to argue about it. I came here to make you go back and face things.

"Jean, you're all wrong. I don't know what idea you've got, but you may as well get one or two things straight.

Maybe you do feel like killing me; but I don't know what for. I haven't the slightest notion of going back;

Jean looked at him dumbly. She supposed she should have to force him to go, after all. Of course, you

couldn't expect that a man who had committed a crime will admit it to the first questioner; you couldn't

expect him to go back willingly and face the penalty. She would have to use her gun; perhaps even call on

Lite, since Lite had followed her. She might have felt easier in her mind had she seen how Lite was standing

just within the glasspaneled door behind the dimity curtain, listening to every word, and watching every

expression on Art Osgood's face. Lite's hand, also, was close to his gun, to be perfectly sure of Jean's safety.

But he had no intention of spoiling her feeling of independence if he could help it. He had lots of faith in

"What has cropped up, anyway?" Art asked her curiously, as if he had been puzzling over her reasons for

being there. "I thought that affair was settled long ago, when it happened. I thought it was all straight

"To send an innocent man to prison for it? Do you call that straight sailing?" Jean's eyes had in them now a

"What innocent man?" Art threw away the stub of the splinter and sat up straight. "I never knew any innocent

"All I know," said Art, with a certain swiftness of speech that was a new element in his manner, "I'm dead

willing to tell you. I knew Johnny had been around knocking the outfit, and making some threats, and saying

things he had no business to say. I never did have any use for him, just because he was so mouthy. I wasn't

"To hear! You weren't there, when it happened?" Jean was watching him for some betraying emotion, some

sign that she had struck home. She got a quick, sharp glance from him, as if he were trying to guess just how

"Why should I have been there? The last time I was ever at the Lazy A," he stated distinctly, "was the day

before I left. I didn't go any farther than the gate then. I had a letter for your father, and I met him at the gate

"A letter for dad?" It was not much, but it was better than nothing. Jean thought she might lead him on to

"I never read it. Ask your dad what it was about, why don't you? I don't reckon it was anything particular."

"Maybe it was, though." Jean was turning crafty. She would pretend to be interested in the letter, and trip Art

somehow when he was off his guard. "Are you sure that it was the day beforeyou left?"

"Yes." Some high talk in the street caught his attention, and Art turned and looked down. Jean caught at the

chance to study his averted face, but she could not read innocence or guilt there. Art, she decided, was not as

transparent as she had always believed him to be. He turned back and met her look. "I know it was the day

"He opened it and read it." A smile of amused understanding of her finesse curled Art's lips. "And he stuck it

in the pocket of his chaps and went on to wherever he was going." His eyes challenged her impishly.

"Oh, I just wondered." Jean was wondering why he had stopped smiling, all at once, and why he hesitated.

Was he afraid he was going to contradict himself about the day or the errand? Or was he afraid she would ask

"Why don't you ask your dad, if you are so anxious to know all about it?" Art demanded abruptly. "Anyway,

"Ask dad!" Jean's anger flamed out suddenly. "Art Osgood, when I think of dad, I wonder why I don't shoot

you! I wonder how you dare sit there and look me in the face. Ask dad! Dad, who is paying with his life and

"What's that? Paying how?" Art leaned toward her; and now his face was hard and hostile, and so were his

"Who? YOUR FATHER?" Had Art been ready to spring at her and catch her by the throat, he would not have

"My father!" Jean's voice broke upon the word. "And you" She did not attempt to finish the charge.

Art sat looking at her with a queer intensity. "Your father!" he repeated. "Aleck! I never knew that, Jean.

Take my word, I never knew that!" He seemed to be thinking pretty fast. "Where's Carl at?" he asked

"Uncle Carl? He's home, running both ranches. I I never could make Uncle Carl see that you must have

"Been the one that shot Crofty, you mean?" Art gave a short laugh. He got up and stood in front of her.

"Thanks, awfully. Good reason why he couldn't see it! He knows well enough I didn't do it. He knowswho

"Uncle Carl knows? Then why doesn't he tell? It wasn't dad!" Jean took a defiant step toward him. "Art

Art smiled at her with a brief lightening of his eyes. "I believe you would, at that," he said soberly. "But it

"You do! You do know, Art Osgood! And you ran off; and they gave dad eight years"

Art spoke one word under his breath, and that word was profane. "I don't see how that could be," he said after

Jean did not answer. She was biting her lips to keep back the tears. She felt that somehow she had failed; that

Art Osgood was slipping through her fingers, in spite of the fact that he did not seem to fear her or to oppose

her except in the final accusation. It was the lack of opposition, that lack of fear, that baffled her so. Art, she

felt dimly, must be very sure of his own position; was it because he was so close to the Mexican line? Jean

glanced desperately that way. It was very close. She could see the features of the Mexican soldiers lounging

before the cantina over there; through the lighted window of the customhouse she could see a dark faced

officer bending over a littered desk. The guard over there spoke to a friend, and she could hear the words he

Jean thought swiftly. She must not let Art Osgood go back across that street. She could cover him with her

gunArt knew how well she could use it!and she would call for an American officer and have him

arrested. Or, Lite was somewhere below; she would call for Lite, and he could go and get an officer and a

"How soon you going back?" Art asked abruptly, as though he had been pondering a problem and had

reached the solution. "I'll have to get a leave of absence, or go down on the books as a deserter; and I

wouldn't want that. I can get it, all right. I'll go back with you and straighten this thing out, if it's the way you

This, coming so close upon the heels of her own decision, set Jean all at sea again. She looked at him

Art grinned sardonically. "I'll lie any time to help a friend," he admitted frankly. "What I do draw the line at

is lying to help some cowardly cuss doublecross a man. Your father got the doublecross; I don't stand for

anything like that. Not atall!" He heaved a sigh of nervous relaxation, for the last half hour had been keyed

"Say, Jean! Want to go across with me and meet the general? You can make my talk a whole lot stronger by

telling what you came for. I'll get leave, all right, then. And you'll know for sure that I'm playing straight.

You see that twostory 'dobe about halfway down the block,the one with the Mexican flag over it?" He

"Any objections to taking me along with you?" This was Lite, coming nonchalantly toward them from the

doorway. Lite was still perfectly willing to let Jean manage this affair in her own way, but that did not mean

that he would not continue to watch over her. Lite was much like a man who lets a small boy believe he is

driving a skittish team all alone. Jean believed that she was acting alone in this, as in everything else. She had

yet to learn that Lite had for three years been always at hand, ready to take the lines if the team proved too

Art turned and put out his hand. "Why, hello, Lite! Sure, you can come along; glad to have you." He eyed

Lite questioningly. "I'll gamble you've heard all we've been talking about," he said. "That would be you, all

right! So you don't need any wising up. Come on; I want to catch the chief before he goes off somewhere."

To see the three of them go down the stairs and out upon the street and across it into Mexico,which to Jean

seemed very queer,you would never dream of the quest that had brought them together down here on the

border. Even Jean was smiling, in a tired, anxious way. She walked close to Lite and never once asked him

how he came to be there, or why. She was glad that he was there. She was glad to shift the whole matter to

They had a real Mexican dinner in a queer little adobe place where Art advised them quite seriously never to

come alone. They had thick soup with a strange flavor, and Art talked with the waiter in Mexican dialect that

made Jean glad indeed to feel Lite's elbow touching hers, and to know that although Lite's hand rested idly on

his knee, it was only one second from his weapon. She had no definite suspicion of Art Osgood, but all the

same she was thankful that she was not there alone with him among all these dark, sharp eyed Mexicans

Lite ate mostly with his left hand. Jean noticed that. It was the only sign of watchfulness that he betrayed,

unless one added the fact that he had chosen a seat which brought his back against an adobe wall and his face

toward Art and the room, with Jean beside him. That might have been pure chance, and it might not. But Art

A little later they came back to the Casa del Sonora, and Jean went up to her room feeling that a great burden

had been lifted from her shoulders. Lite and Art Osgood were out on the veranda, gossiping of the range, and

in Art's pocket was a month's leave of absence from his duties. Once she heard Lite laugh, and she stood with

one hand full of hairpins and the other holding the brush and listened, and smiled a little. It all sounded very

companionable, very carefree,not in the least as though they were about to clear up an old wrong.

She got into bed and thumped the hard pillow into a little nest for her tired head, and listened languidly to the

familiar voices that came to her mingled with confused noises of the street. Lite was on guard; he would not

lose his caution just because Art seemed friendly and helpfully inclined, and had meant no treachery over in

that queer restaurant. Lite would not be easily tricked. So she presently fell asleep.

Sometime in the night Jean awoke to hear footsteps in the corridor outside her room. She sat up with a start,

and her right hand went groping for her gun. Just for the moment she thought that she was in her room at the

Lazy A, and that the nightprowler had come and was beginning his stealthy search of the house.

Then she heard some one down in the street call out a swift sentence in Spanish, and get a laugh for an

answer. She remembered that she was in Nogales, within talking distance of Mexico, and that she had found

Art Osgood, and that he did not behave like a fugitive murderer, but like a friend who was anxious to help

The footsteps went on down the hall,the footsteps of Lite, who had come and stood for a minute outside

her door to make sure that all was quiet and that she slept. But Jean, now that she knew where she was, lay

wide awake and thinking. Suddenly she sat up again, staring straight before her.

That letter,the letter Art had taken to her father, the letter he had read and put in the pocket of his chaps!

Was that what the man had been hunting for, those nights when he had come searching in that secret, stealthy

way? She did not remember ever having looked into the pocket of her father's chaps, though they had hung in

her room all those three years since the tragedy. Pockets in chaps were not, as a general thing, much used.

Men carried matches in them sometimes, or money. The flap over her dad's chappocket was buttoned down,

She got up and turned on the light, and looked at her watch. She wanted to start then, that instant, for Los

Angeles. She wanted to take her dad's chaps out of her trunk where she had packed them just for the comfort

of having them with her, and she wanted to look and see if the letter was there still. There was no particular

reason for believing that this was of any particular importance, or had any bearing whatever upon the crime.

Her watch said that it was twentyfive minutes after two o'clock. The train, Lite had told her, would leave for

Tucson at sevenfortyfive in the morning. She told herself that, since it was too far to walk, and since she

could not start any sooner by staying up and freezing, she might just as well get back into bed and try to

But she could not sleep. She kept thinking of the letter, and trying to imagine what clue it could possibly give

if she found it still in the pocket. Carl had sent it, Art said. A thought came to Jean which she tried to ignore;

and because she tried to ignore it, it returned with a dogged insistence, and took clearer shape in her mind,

and formed itself into questions which she was compelled at last to face and try to answer.

Was it her Uncle Carl who had come and searched the house at night, trying to find that letter? If it were her

uncle, why was he so anxious to find it, after three years had passed? What was in the letter? If it had any

bearing whatever upon the death of Johnny Croft, why hadn't her dad mentioned it? Why hadn't her Uncle

Carl said something about it? Was the letter just a note about some ranch business? Then why else should any

one come at night and prowl all through the house, and never take anything? Why had he come that first

Jean drew in her breath sharply. All at once, like a flashlight turned upon a dark corner of her mind, she

remembered something about that night. She remembered how she had told her Uncle Carl that she meant to

prove that her dad was innocent; that she meant to investigate the devious process by which the Lazy A ranch

and all the stock had ceased to belong to her or her father; that she meant to adopt sly, sleuthlike methods;

she remembered the very words which she had used. She remembered how bitter her uncle had become. Had

she frightened him, somehow, with her bold declaration that she would not "let sleeping dogs lie" any longer?

Had he remembered the letter, and been uneasy because of what was in it? But what COULD be in it, if it

She remembered her uncle's uncontrolled fury that evening when she had ridden over to see Lite. What had

she said to cause it? She tried to recall her words, and finally she did remember saying something about

proving that her own money had been paying for her "keep" for three years. Then he had gone into that rage,

and she had not at the time seen any connection between her words and his raving anger. But perhaps there

"Oh, my goodness!" she exclaimed aloud. She was remembering the telegram which she had sent him just

before she left Los Angeles for Nogales. "He'll just simply go WILD when he gets that wire!" She recalled

now how he had insisted all along that Art Osgood knew absolutely nothing about the murder; she recalled

also, with an uncanny sort of vividness, Art's manner when he had admitted for the second time that the letter

had been from Carl. She remembered how he had changed when he found that her father was being punished

She did not know, just yet, how all these tangled facts were going to work out. She had not yet come to the

final question that she would presently be asking herself. She felt sure that her uncle knew more, a great

deal more,about Johnny Croft's death than he had appeared to know; but she had not yet reached the point

to which her reasonings inevitably would bring her; perhaps her mind was subconsciously delaying the

She got up and dressed; unfastening her window, she stepped out on the veranda. The street was quiet at that

time in the morning. A sentry stood on guard at the corner, and here and there a light flared in some window

where others were wakeful. But for the most part the town lay asleep. Over in what was really the Mexican

quarter, three or four roosters were crowing as if they would never leave off. The sound of them depressed

Jean, and made her feel how heavy was the weight of her great undertaking,heavier now, when the end

was almost in sight, than it had seemed on that moonlight night when she had ridden over to the Lazy A and

had not the faintest idea of how she was going to accomplish any part of her task which she had set herself.

She shivered, and turned back to get the gay serape which she had bought from an old Mexican woman when

When she came out again, Lite was standing there, smoking a cigarette and leaning against a post.

"You'd better get some sleep, Jean," he reproved her when she came and stood beside him. "You had a pretty

hard day yesterday; and today won't be any easier. Better go back and lie down."

Jean merely pulled the serape snugger about her shoulders and sat down sidewise upon the railing. "I couldn't

sleep," she said. "If I could, I wouldn't be out here; I'd be asleep, wouldn't I? Why don't you go to bed

"Ahh, Art's learned to talk Spanish," he said drily. "I got myself all worked up trying to make out what he

was trying to say in his sleep, and then I found out it wasn't my kinda talk, anyway. So I quit. What's the

Jean stared down at the shadowy street. A dog ran out from somewhere, sniffed at a doorstep, and trotted

over into Mexico and up to the sentry. The sentry patted it on the head and muttered a friendly word or two.

Jean watched him absently. It was all so peaceful! Not at all what one would expect, after seeing pictures of

all those refugees and all those soldiers fighting, and the dead lying in the street in some little town whose

"Did you hear Art tell about taking a letter to dad the day before?" she asked abruptly. "He wasn't telling the

truth, not all the time. But somehow I believe that was the truth. He said dad stuck it in the pocket of his

chaps. I believe it's there yet, Lite. I don't remember ever looking into that pocket. And I believeLite, I

never said anything about it, but somebody kept coming to the house in the night and hunting around through

all the rooms. He never came into my room, so II didn't bother him; but I've wondered what he was after.

"You?" Jean turned her head, so that her eyes shone in the light of a street lamp while she looked up at him.

Lite laughed drily. "I don't think there's much concerns you that I don't know," he confessed. "I saw him, I

guess, every time he came around. He couldn't have made a crooked move,and got away with it. But I

Jean looked at him, touched by the care of her that he had betrayed in those few words. Always she had

accepted him as the one friend who never failed her, but lately,since the advent of the motionpicture

people, to be exact,a new note had crept into his friendship; a new meaning into his watching over her. She

had sensed it, but she had never faced it openly. She pulled her thoughts away from it now.

It was like Jean to come straight to the point. Lite smiled faintly; he knew that question would come, and he

Lite did not say. He knew that question was coming also, but he did not know whether he ought to answer it.

"Then it was that letter he was after." She was silent for a minute, and then she looked at her watch. "And I

can't get at those chaps before tomorrow!" She sighed and leaned back against the post.

"Lite, if it was worth all that hunting for, it must mean something to us. I wonder what it can be; don't you

"No," said Lite slowly, "I don't. And it's something a man don't want to do any guessing about."

This, Jean felt, was a gentle reproof for her own speculations upon the subject. She said no more about the

"I sent him a telegram," she informed Lite irrelevantly, "saying I'd located Art and was going to take him

Lite turned half around and stared down at her. He opened his lips to speak, hesitated, and closed them

without making a sound. He turned away and stared down into the street that was so empty. After a little he

glanced at his own watch, with the same impulse Jean had felt. The hours and minutes were beginning to drag

"You go in," he ordered gently, "and lie down. You'll be all worn out when the time comes for you to get

busy. We don't know what's ahead of us on this trail, Jean. Right now, it's peaceful as Sunday morning down

in Maine; so you go in and get some sleep, while you have a chance, and stop thinking about things. Go on,

Jean smiled a little at the tender, protective note of authority in his voice and manner. Whether she permitted

it or not, Lite would go right on watching over her and taking care of her. With a sudden desire to please him,

she rose obediently. When she passed him, she reached out and gave his arm a little squeeze.

"You cantankerous old tyrant," she drawled in a whisper, "you do love to haze me around, don't you? Just to

spite you, I'll do it!" She went in and left him standing there, smoking and leaning against the post, calm as

the stars above. But under that surface calm, the heart of Lite Avery was thumping violently. His arm

quivered still under the thrill of Jean's fingers. Your bottledup souls are quick to sense the meaning in a tone

or a touch; Jean, whether she herself knew it or not, had betrayed an emotion that set Lite's thoughts racing

out into a golden future. He stood there a long while, staring out upon the darkness, his eyes shining.

Though hours may drag themselves into the past so sluggishly that one is fairly maddened by the snail's pace

of them, into the past they must go eventually. Jean had sat and listened to the wheels of the Golden State

Limited clank over the cryptic phrase that meant so much. "Letterinthechaps! Letterinthe chaps!" was

what they had said while the train pounded across the desert and slid through arroyas and deep cuts which

leveled hills for its passing. "Letter inthechaps! Letterinthechaps!" And then a silence while they

stood by some desolate station where the people were swarthy of skin and black of hair and eyes, and moved

languidly if they moved at all. Then they would go on; and when the wheels had clicked over the switches of

the various side tracks, they would take up again the refrain: "Letterinthechaps! Letter inthechaps!"

Little by little they drew near to Los Angeles. And then they were there, sliding slowly through the yards in a

drab drizzle of one of California's fall rains. Then they were in a taxicab, making for the Third Street tunnel.

Then Jean stared heavyeyed at the dripping palms along the boulevard which led away from the smoke of

the city and into Hollywood, snuggled against the misty hills. "Letterinthechaps!" her tired brain repeated

Then she was in the apartment shared with Muriel Gay and her mother. These two were over at the studio, the

She knelt, still in her hat and coat and with her gloves on, and fitted her trunk key into the lock. And there she

stopped. What if the letter were not in the chaps, after all? What if it were but a trivial note, concerning a

matter long since forgotten; a trivial note that had not the remotest bearing upon the murder?

"Letterinthechaps!" The phrase returned with a mocking note and beat insistently through her brain. She

sat back on the floor and shivered with the chill of a fireless room in California, when a fall rain is at its

In the next room one of the men coughed; afterwards she heard Lite's voice, saying something in an

undertone to Art Osgood. She heard Art's voice mutter a reply. She raised herself again to her knees, turned

Down next the bottom of her big trunk they lay, just as she had packed them away, with her dad's sixshooter

and belt carefully disposed between the leathern folds. She groped with her hands under a couple of riding

skirts and her high, laced boots, got a firm grip on the fringed leather, and dragged them out. She had

forgotten all about the gun and belt until they fell with a thump on the floor. She pulled out the belt, left the

gun lying there by the trunk, and hurried out with the chaps dangling over her arm.

She was pale when she stood before the two who sat there waiting with their hats in their hands and their

faces full of repressed eagerness. Her fingers trembled while she pulled at the stiff, leather flap of the pocket,

"Maybe it ain't there yet," Art hazarded nervously, while they watched her. "But that's where he put it, all

Jean's fingers went groping into the pocket, stayed there for a second or two, and came out holding a folded

Jean sat down suddenly because her knees seemed to bend under her weight. Three yearsand that letter

"Let's see, Jean." Lite reached out and took it from her nerveless fingers. "Maybe it won't amount to anything

Jean tried to hold herself calm. "Read itout loud," she said. "Then we'll know." She tried to smile, and

made so great a failure of it that she came very near crying. The faint crackle of the cheap paper when Lite

unfolded the letter made her start nervously. "Read itno matterwhat it is," she repeated, when she saw

Lite glanced at her sharply, then leaned and took her hand and held it close. His firm clasp steadied her more

than any words could have done. Without further delay or attempt to palliate its grim significance, he read the

If Johnny Croft comes to you with anything about me, kick him off the ranch. He claims he knows a whole

lot about me branding too many calves. Don't believe anything he tells you. He's just trying to make trouble

because he claims I underpaid him. He was telling Art a lot of stuff that he claimed he could prove on me, but

it's all a lie. Send him to me if he comes looking for trouble. I'll give him all he wants.

Art found a heifer down in the breaks that looks like she might have blackleg. I'm going down there to see

about it. Maybe you better ride over and see what you think about it; we don't want to let anything like that

"I kinda thought it was something like that," Art Osgood interrupted her to say. "Now you know that much,

and I'll tell you just what I know about it. It was Carl shot Crofty, all right. I rode over with him to the Lazy

A; I was on my way to town and we went that far together. I rode that way to tell you goodby." He looked at

Jean with a certain diffidence. "I kinda wanted to see you before I went clear outa the country, but you

"Johnny Croft's horse was standing outside the house when we rode up. I guess he must have just got there

ahead of us. Carl got off and went in ahead of me. Johnny was eating a snack when I went in. He said

something to Carl, and Carl flared up. I saw there wasn't anybody at home, and I didn't want to get mixed up

in the argument, so I turned and went on out. And I hadn't more than got to my horse when I heard a shot, and

"Well, Johnny was dead, and there wasn't anything I could do about it. Carl told me to beat it outa the

country, just like I'd been planning; he said it would be a whole lot better for him, seeing I wasn't an eye

witness. He said Johnny started to draw his gun, and he shot in selfdefense; and he said I better go while the

"Well, I thought it over for a minute, and I didn't see where it would get me anything to stay. I couldn't help

Carl any by staying, because I wasn't in the house when it happened. So I hit the trail for town, and never said

anything to anybody." He looked at the two contritely. "I never knew, till you folks came to Nogales looking

for me, that things panned out the way they did. I thought Carl was going to give himself up, and would be

cleared. I never once dreamed he was the kinda mark that would let his own brother take the blame that way."

"I guess nobody did." Lite folded the letter and pushed it back into the envelope. "I can look back now,

though, and see how it come about. He hung back till Aleck found the body and was arrested; and after that

he just simply didn't have the nerve to step out and say that he was the one that did it. He tried hard to save

"The coward! The low, mean coward!" Jean stood up and looked from one to the other, and spoke through

her clinched teeth. "To let dad suffer all this while! Lite, when did you say that train left for Salt Lake? We

can take the taxi back down town, and save time." She was at the door when she turned toward the two again.

"Hurry up! Don't you know we've got to hurry? Dad's in prison all this while! And Uncle Carl,there's no

telling where Uncle Carl is! That wire I sent him was the worst thing I could have done!"

"Or the best," suggested Lite laconically, as he led the way down the hall and out to the raindrenched,

For hours Jean had sat staring out at the drear stretches of desert dripping under the dismal rain that streaked

the car windows. The clouds hung leaden and gray close over the earth; the smoke from the engine trailed a

funereal plume across the greasewood covered plain. Away in the distance a low line of hills stretched

vaguely, as though they were placed there to hold up the sky that was so heavy and dank. Alongside the track

every ditch ran full of claycolored water that wrapped little, ragged wreaths of dirty foam around every

From the smokingroom where he had been for the past two hours with Art Osgood, Lite came unsteadily

down the aisle, heralded as it were by the muffled scream of the whistle at a country crossing. Jean turned

toward him a face as depressed as the desert out there under the rain. Lite, looking at her keenly, saw on her

cheeks the traces of tears. He let himself down wearily into the seat beside her, reached over calmly, and took

"This is likely a snowstorm, up home," he said in his quiet, matteroffact way. "I guess we'll have to make

our headquarters in town till I get things hauled out to the ranch. That's it, when you can't look ahead and see

what's coming. I could have had everything ready to go right on out, only I thought there wouldn't be any use,

before spring, anyway. But if this storm ain't a blizzard up there, a couple of days will straighten things out."

Jean turned her head and regarded him attentively. "Out where?" she asked him bluntly. "What are you

talking about? Have you and Art been celebrating?" She knew better than that. Lite never indulged in liquid

Lite reached into his pocket with the hand that was free, and drew forth a telegram envelope. He released her

hand while he drew out the message, but he did not hand it to her immediately. "I wired Rossman from Los

Angeles," he informed her, "and told him what was up, and asked him to put me up to date on that end of the

line. So he did. I got this back there at that last town." He laid his hand over hers again, and looked down at

"Ever since the trouble," he began abruptly, but still in that quiet, matteroffact way, "I've been playing a

lone hand and kinda holding back and waiting for something to drop. I had that idea all along that you've had

this summer: getting hold of the Lazy A and fixing it up so your dad would have a place to come back to. I

never said anything, because talking don't come natural to me like it does to some, and I'd rather do a thing

"So I hung on to what money I had saved up along; I was going to get me a bunch of cattle and fix up that

homestead of mine some day, and maybe have a little home." His eyes went surreptitiously to her face, and

lingered there wistfully. "So after the trouble I buckled down to work and saved a little faster, if anything. It

looked to me like there wasn't much hope of doing anything for your dad till his sentence ran out, so I never

said anything about it. Long as Carl didn't try to sell it to anybody else, I just waited and got together all the

Jean was chewing a corner of her lip, and was staring out of the window. "I didn't know I was stealing your

`Wasn't anything to telltill there was something to tell. Now, this telegram here,this is what I started out

to talk about. It'll be just as well if you know it before we get to Helena. I showed it to Art, and he thought the

same as I did. You know,or I reckon you don't, because I never said anything, away last summer, along

about the time you went to work for Burns, I got to thinking things over, and I wondered if Carl didn't have

something on his mind about that killing. So I wrote to Rossman. I didn't much like the way he handled your

dad's case, but he knew all the ins and outs, so I could talk to him without going away back at the beginning.

"I wrote and told him how Carl was prowling around through the house nights, and the like of that, and to

"Why wouldn't you wait and let me buy it myself?" Jean asked him with just a shade of sharpness in her

"So I got Rossman started, quite a while back. He thought as I did, that Carl was acting mighty funny. I was

with Carl more than you was, and I could tell he had something laying heavy on his mind. But then, the rest

of us had things laying pretty heavy on our minds, too, that wasn't guilt; so there wasn't any way to tell what

"Now, here's this wire Rossman sent me. You don't want to get the wrong idea, Jean, and feel too bad about

this. You don't want to think you had anything to do with it. Carl was gradually building up to something of

this kind,has been for a long time. His coming over to the ranch nights, looking for that letter that he had

hunted all over for at first, shows he wasn't right in his mind on the subject. But"

"Well, heavens and earth, Lite!" Jean's tone was exasperated more than it was worried. "Why don't you say

what you want to say? What's it all about? Let me read that telegram and be done with it. II should think

you'd know I can stand things, by this time. I haven't shown any weak knees, have I?"

"Well, I hate to pile on any more," Lite muttered defensively. "But you've got to know this. I wish you didn't,

Jean did not say any more. She reached over and with her free hand took the telegram from him. She did not

pull away the hand Lite was holding, however, and the heart of him gave an exultant bound because she let it

lie there quiet under his own. She pinched her brows together over the message, and let it drop into her lap.

Her head went back against the towel covered headrest, and for a minute her eyes closed as if she could not

Lite waited a second, pulled her head over against his shoulder, and picked up the telegram and read it

through slowly, though he could have repeated it word for word with his eyes shut.

"Now, I told you not to worry about this," Lite reminded the girl firmly. "Looks to me like it takes a load off

our hands,Carl's doing what he done. Saves us dragging it all through court again; and, Jean, it'll let your

dad out a whole lot quicker. Sounds kinda coldblooded, maybe, but if you could look at it as good

Jean did not say a word, just then. She did what you might not expect Jean to do, after all her strong

mindedness and her independence: She made an uncertain movement toward sitting up and facing things

calmly, manfashion; then she leaned and dropped her very independent brown head back upon Lite's

shoulder, and behind her handkerchief she cried quietly while Lite held her close.

"Now, that's long enough to cry," he whispered to her, after a season of mental intoxication such as he had

never before experienced. "I started out three years ago to be the boss. I ain't been working at it regular, as

you might say, all the time. But I'm going to wind up that way. I hate to turn you over to your dad without

Jean gave a little gurgle that may have been related to laughter, and Lite's lips quirked with humorous

"I don't guess," he said slowly, "that I'm going to turn you over at all, Jean. Not altogether. I guess I've just

about got to keep you. Ittakes two to make a home, andI've got my heart set on us making a home outa

the Lazy A again; you and me, making a home for us and your dad. Howhow does that sound to you,

"How does it sound, you and me making a home together?" Lite was growing pale, and his hands trembled.

For several minutes Lite did not say a word. They sat there holding hands quite foolishly, and stared out at

"Soon as your dad comes," he said at last, very simply, "we'll be married." He was silent another minute, and

When Lite rapped with his knuckles on the door of the room where she was waiting, Jean stood with her

hands pressed tightly over her face, every muscle rigid with the restraint she was putting upon herself. For

Lite this threeday interval had been too full of going here and there, attending to the manifold details of

untangling the various threads of their broken lifepattern, for him to feel the suspense which Jean had

suffered. She had not done much. She had waited. And now, with Lite and her dad standing outside the door,

she almost dreaded the meeting. But she took a deep breath and walked to the door and opened it.

"Hello, dad," she cried with a nervous gaiety. "Give your dear daughter a kiss!" She had not meant to say that

Tall and gaunt and gray and old; lines etched deep ground his bitter mouth; pale with the tragic prison pallor;

looking out at the world with the somber eyes of one who has suffered most cruelly,Aleck Douglas put out

his thin, shaking arms and held her close. He did not say anything at all; and the kiss she asked for he laid

Lite stood in the doorway and looked at the two of them for a moment. "I'm going down to see about

Jean looked up at him understandingly, and with a certain shyness in her eyes. "If it's all right with dad," she

"Lite's a man!" Aleck stated unsmilingly, with a trace of that apathy which had hurt Jean so in the warden's

In a very few words I can tell you the rest. There were a few things to adjust, and a few arrangements to

make. The greatest adjustment, perhaps, was when Jean begged off from that contract with the Great Western

Company. Dewitt did not want to let her go, but he had read a marked article in a Montana paper that Lite

mailed to him in advance of their return, and he realized that some things are greater even than the needs of a

motionpicture company. He was very nice, therefore, to Jean. He told her by all means to consider herself

free to give her time wholly to her father and her husband. He also congratulated Lite in terms that made

Jean blush and beat a hurried retreat from his office, and that made Lite grin all the way to the hotel. So the

Then there was Pard, that had to leave the little buckskin and take that nerveracking trip back to the Lazy A.

Lite attended to that with perfect calm and a good deal of inner elation. So that detail was soon adjusted.

At the Lazy A there was a great deal to do before the traces of its tragedy were wiped out. We'll have to leave

them doing that work, which was only a matter of time, after all, and not nearly so hard to accomplish as their

attempts to wipe out from Aleck's soul the black scar of those three years. I think, on the whole, we shall

leave them doing that work, too. As much as human love and happiness could do toward wiping out the

24. CHAPTER XXI. JEAN BELIEVES THAT SHE TAKES MATTERS INTO HER OWN HANDS, page = 88