"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.