Jean of the Lazy A

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She heard him moving about in the living-room.
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 swift-moving 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 the pillow, and her fingers rested still upon the
cool comfort of the butt.

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 moon-lighted 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 night in haste, and with some purpose in
mind.

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 given, or because he feared to disturb the
contents of Jean's room.

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 treasure-hunting 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 with
extreme vividness the effect of a ghost upon her various
characters.

In this wise she recovered her composure and laughed
at her fear, and planned new and thrilly incidents for
her novel.

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 make
for peace.

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 bunk-house. As a self-appointed guardian, Jean
considered Lite something of a nuisance, when he wasn't
funny. But as a big, steady-nerved friend and comrade,
he certainly was a comfort.

CHAPTER XI

LITE'S PUPIL DEMONSTRATES

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 Pard was in the stable.

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 untidy-looking 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 paint-shaded eyes and his rouged lips and heavily
pencilled eyebrows, came up and stood close to Muriel,
who was sitting now upon the bench near Jean's window.

"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 believe he knows himself what he meant."

"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 doing a leap to a passing airship. In
fact, I'd choose the leap."

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 take hold of him. Come on."

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 you; Mr. Burns is so--"

"I noticed that," said Jean, while Muriel was
waiting for a word that would relieve her feelings without
being too blunt.

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
punches."

"Well, it's easy enough to learn how to saddle a
horse," Jean told Muriel cheerfully. "First you want
to put on the bridle--"

"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 to get the saddle on right, and then--that
latigo dope!"

"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 jumps."

"Well, that isn't the way Burns directed the scene
yesterday," Muriel Gay contended. "The scene ends
where I pick up the bridle."

"Then Robert Grant Burns doesn't know. I've seen
men put on the bridle last; but it's wrong. Lite Avery,
and everybody who knows--"

Muriel Gay looked at Jean with a weary impatience.
"What I have to do," she stated, "is what Burns tells
me to do. I should worry about it's being right or
wrong; I'm not the producer."

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, with the blanket folded once on top, and stepped
close to the manger.

"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 easy."

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 suspicion.

"I think I've got it now," she said coolly. "Thank
you ever so much."

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 curiosity
to see what they were all going to do.

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 day's work
and explained to Jean the mechanical part of making
moving-pictures.

"I'd rather work with live things," said Jean after
a while. "But I can see where this must be rather
fascinating, too."

"This is working with live things, if anybody wants
to know," Pete declared. "Wait till you see Burns in
action; handling bronks is easy compared to--"

"About where does the side line come, Pete?" Burns
interrupted. "If Gil stands here and holds the horse
for that close-up saddling--" He whirled upon Gil
Huntley. "Lead that sorrel up here," he commanded.
"We'll have to cut off his head so the halter won't
show. Now, how's that?"

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
shuttle-wise 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 uncalled-for fear and haste,
and go through a pantomime of throwing the saddle on
the sorrel.

She watched Lee Milligan carry the saddle up and
throw it down upon the ground, with skirts curled under
and stirrups sprawling.

"Oh, don't leave it that way," she remonstrated.
"Lay it on its side! You'll have the skirts kinked so
it never will set right."

Muriel Gay gasped and looked from her to Robert
Grant Burns. For betraying your country and your
flag is no crime at all compared with telling your
director what he must do.

"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 had spoken, and Muriel decided
that he could not have heard.

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 letter-scene 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.

"Don't--oh, it looks as if you were picking up a
wash-boiler! I told you--"

"Register that sob!" bawled Robert Grant Burns,
shooting a glance at Jean and stepping from one foot to
the other like a fat gobbler in fresh-fallen snow.

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 Grant Burns swore under his breath.

"Stop the camera!" he barked and waddled irately
up to Muriel. "This," he observed ironically, "is
drama, Miss Gay. We are not making slap-stick
comedy to-day; and you needn't give an imitation of
boosting a barrel over a fence."

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!"

She registered another sob which the camera never got.

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
to the pile of posts.

"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
picture-plays in the making.

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 picked up the saddle and flung it
spitefully upon the back of the sorrel.

"Oh, you forgot the blanket!" exclaimed Jean, and
stopped herself with her hand over her too-impulsive
mouth, just as Burns stopped the camera.

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 straightway put the thought into
speech, as was her habit.

"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 simple--"

"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 a saddle on a horse."

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 quite know which he had meant it to be.

"I'm going to bridle him first though," she informed
him. "And you can tell that star villain to back out
of the way. I don't need him."

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 would permit.

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 lead-rope from Gil's hand.

"Shall I be hurried and worried--and shall I sob?"
she asked, with the little smile at the corners of her
eyes and just easing the line of her lips.

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 his hands on his hips, watching her
very intently.

Jean was plainly startled, just at first, by the
business-like tone in which he gave the signal. Then she
laughed a little. "Oh, I forgot. I must be hurried
and worried--and 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 she stopped dead still and looked at
Robert Grant Burns.

"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.

CHAPTER XII

TO "DOUBLE" FOR MURIEL GAY

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 firmly the interest of the reader right
at the start.

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 old-fashioned cupboard
and examined the contents of the drawers and looked
into a cigar-box 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 living-room, 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 the love of riding. Most of them went to
bed at dark and slept until dawn.

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 picture-people down by the corrals, so she
did not see that Robert Grant Burns turned to look at
her and then started hurriedly up the path to the house.

"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 close-ups, 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."

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