Jean of the Lazy A

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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 silence. "I really would love it. But I've got
some work that I must do."

"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 it. There's something I need it for. It's--
important."

"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 try-out; 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 roping--say, can you throw a rope?"

Jean laughed. "Lite Avery says I can," she told
him, "and Lite Avery can almost write his name in
the air with a rope."

"If you can make that dash down the bluff, and do
the roping I want, why--Lord! You'll have to be
working a gold mine to beat what I'd be willing to pay
for the stuff."

"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 point, and got to him in time to rope him
out. You might use that trail."

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 "close-up" 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
Grant Burns draw a long breath.

"Lord, what feature-stuff 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
make-up, maybe; she'll fix that. Come on, let's get to
work. And don't worry about the salary; I'll tell you
to-night what it'll be, after I see you work."

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
actually going to do things for the camera to make into
a picture.

"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 wonder if that sorrel is rope broke. Have you ever
roped off him?"

"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 pictures. Try to stop her, probably,--and
fail, as usual!

When she went out to where the others were grouped
in the shade, she gave no sign of any inner excitement
or perturbation. She went straight up to Burns and
waited for his verdict.

"Do I look like Miss Gay?" she drawled.

The keen eyes of Burns half closed while he studied
her.

"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."

"How far shall I ride?" Jean's eyes had a betraying
light of interest.

"Oh--to the gate, maybe. Can you get a long shot
down the trail to the gate, Pete, and keep skyline in the
scene?"

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 to-morrow. 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, Miss--say,
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 run!"

"Go ahead and run then!" Burns commanded.

Run she did, and startled the sorrel so that it took
quick work to catch him.

"Camera! She might not do it like that again,
ever!" cried Burns.

She was up in the saddle and gone in a flurry of dusts
while Robert Grant Burns stood with his hands on his
hips and watched her gloatingly.

"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 feature-stuff; that girl
will jump our releases up ten per cent., Pete, with the
punches I can put into Gay's parts now. How many
feet was that scene, twenty-five?"

"Fifteen," corrected Pete. "And every foot with
a punch in it. Too bad she's got to double for Gay.
She's got the face for close-up work, believe me!"

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
to-night 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 have you make that ride down off the bluff
and some close-up rope work."

"I suppose I ought to ride over to the ranch," Jean
said undecidedly. "And I ought to try out this sorrel
if you want me to use him. Would some other day do
just--"

"In the picture business," interrupted Robert Grant
Burns dictatorially, "the working-hours 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 you. I'll expect you to be on hand when I want
you; get that?"

"My time," said Jean resolutely, "will belong to
you if I consider it worth my while to let you have it.
Otherwise it will belong to me."

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 make-up 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 feature-stuff, 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. What, she wondered, would Lite say to that?

"Well, that part's all right then. By feature-stuff,
I mean anything I want you to do to put a punch in
the story; anything from riding bucking horses and
shooting--say can you shoot?"

"Yes, I think so."

"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 to-day, and if you make the ride down the bluff,
it'll be twenty-five to-day. 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 if we quarrel,--well, you know
how sweet-tempered I can be!"

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 off-hand manner
of equality was a new experience to Robert Grant
Burns, terror among photo-players.

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 refusal in Muriel's eyes. "I'll not take any turns
around the horn, you know."

"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 chance. Goodness knows it's hard enough, at
best, to work under Burns."

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 business.

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
naively, "to try out this sorrel."

Burns regarded her somberly; he hated to be interrupted
in his work.

"Ain't there anybody else you can rope?" he wanted
to know. "Where's Gay?"

"`A leading woman,'" quoted Jean serenely,
"`can't afford to get hurt!'"

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 matter with a calf or something?"

"You won't let me ride out of your sight to round
one up," Jean retorted. "There are no calves handy;
that's why I asked for a man."

Whereupon the villains looked at one another queerly,
and the chuckle of their director exploded into a full-
lunged laugh.

"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. Really, these picture-people
did seem very dense upon some subjects!

"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 getting-ready part. You--you
wouldn't expect me to help you put on your make-up,
would you?"

"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 ourselves. Sorry to have disturbed you."

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 corral rails, and Pete Lowry was running over so
as to miss none of the show.

"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
shoulders.

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
half-hearted buck jumps across the corral. When she
swished the rope through the air to widen her loop, he
reared and whirled. She jabbed him smartly with the
spurs, and he kicked forward at her feet.

"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 stand before Burns.

"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 ride-around-the-block horse from some livery
stable. When it comes to range work, he doesn't know
as much as--"

"Some people. I get you," Burns cut in drily.
"How about that horse of yours? Would you be willing
to let me have the use of him--at so much per?"

"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 the difference between this livery-stable beast
and a real rope-horse."

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, which shows pretty well how Jean stood in
their estimation.

"Now, that's a real, typical, livery-stable 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. Shall I `bust' 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 half-finished 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 trained rope-horse he was, and Jean
looked at Robert Grant Burns and laughed.

"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. Call that settled. Come on, boys, let's get
to work."

CHAPTER XIII

PICTURES AND PLANS AND MYSTERIOUS FOOTSTEPS

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 soon-to-be-famous
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 blood-curdling war-whoops
that chilled the soul of her heroine and led her to
suspect that the rocks behind the cabin concealed
the forms of painted savages.

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 smoke-pots of disaster by
fire added their spectacular effect to a scene now and
then.

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
gun-barrel; 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 that
Jean knew exactly where those bullets were going to
land.

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
did "stunts" to her heart's content with these others.

A letter from the higher-ups 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 the straight dramatic work.

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 home-like 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 applause.

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 pay-roll 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 justice of Robert Grant Burns.

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