Chapter XI. Lite's Pupil Demonstrates - Page 2

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