Chapter XII. To "Double" for Muriel Gay - Page 2

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