"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.