Jean of the Lazy A

by B. M. Bower

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!