章节正文
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.
"I'm going to use all these fellows in a couple
of scenes," he told her. "Can't you practice on a
post?"
"_I_ don't have to practice. It's the sorrel I
want to try out." Jean's voice lost a little of
its habitual, soft drawl. Really, these picture-people
did seem very dense upon some subjects!
"Well, now look here." Robert Grant Burns caught
at the shreds of his domineering manner. "My part
of this business is producing the scenes. You'll have
to attend to the getting-ready part. You--you
wouldn't expect me to help you put on your make-up,
would you?"
"No, now that I recognize your limitations, I shall
not ask any help which none of you are able or have the
nerve to give," she returned coolly. "I wish I had
Lite here; but I guess Pard and I can handle the
sorrel ourselves. Sorry to have disturbed you."
Robert Grant Burns, his leading man and all his
villains stood and watched her walk away from them to
the stable. They watched her lead Pard out and turn
him loose in the biggest corral. When they saw her
take her coiled rope, mount the sorrel and ride in, they
went, in a hurried group, to where they might look into
that corral. They watched her pull the gate shut after
her, lean from the saddle, and fasten the chain hook
in its accustomed link. By the time she had widened
her loop and turned to charge down upon unsuspecting
Pard, Robert Grant Burns, his leading man and all his
villains were lined up along the widest space between
the corral rails, and Pete Lowry was running over so
as to miss none of the show.
"Oh, I thought you were all so terribly busy!"
taunted Jean, while her loop was circling over her head.
Pard wheeled just then upon his hind feet, but the loop
settled true over his head and drew tight against his
shoulders.
The sorrel lunged and fought the rope, and snorted
and reared. It took fully two minutes for Jean to
force him close enough to Pard so that she might flip
off the loop. Pard himself caught the excitement and
snorted and galloped wildly round and round the
enclosure, but Jean did not mind that; what brought her
lips so tightly together was the performance of the
sorrel. While she was coiling her rope, he was making
half-hearted buck jumps across the corral. When she
swished the rope through the air to widen her loop, he
reared and whirled. She jabbed him smartly with the
spurs, and he kicked forward at her feet.
"Say," she drawled to Burns, "I don't know what
sort of a picture you're going to make, but if you want
any roping done from this horse, you'll have to furnish
meals and beds for your audiences." With that she
was off across the corral at a tearing pace that made the
watchers gasp. The sorrel swung clear of the fence.
He came near going down in a heap, but recovered
himself after scrambling along on his knees. Jean
brought him to a stand before Burns.
"I'll have to ask you to raise your price, Mr. Burns,
if you want me to run this animal down the bluff," she
stated firmly. "He's just what I thought he was all
along: a ride-around-the-block horse from some livery
stable. When it comes to range work, he doesn't know
as much as--"
"Some people. I get you," Burns cut in drily.
"How about that horse of yours? Would you be willing
to let me have the use of him--at so much per?"
"If I do the riding, yes. Now, since you're here,
and don't seem as busy as you thought you were, I'll
show you the difference between this livery-stable beast
and a real rope-horse."
She dismounted and called to Pard, and Pard came
to her, stepping warily because of the sorrel and the
rope. "Just to save time, will one of you boys go and
bring my riding outfit from the stable?" she asked the
line at the fence, whereupon the leading man and all
the villains started unanimously to perform that slight
service, which shows pretty well how Jean stood in
their estimation.
"Now, that's a real, typical, livery-stablesaddle and
bridle," she observed to Burns, pointing scornfully at
the sorrel. "I was going to tell you that I'd hate to
be seen in a picture riding that outfit, anyway. Now,
you watch how differently Pard behaves with a rope and
everything. And you watch the sorrel get what's coming
to him. Shall I `bust' him?"
"You mean throw him?" Burns, in his eagerness,
began to climb the corral fence,--until he heard a rail
crack under his weight. "Yes, BUST him, if you want
to. John Jimpson! if you can rope and throw that
sorrel--"
Jean did not reply to that half-finished sentence.
She was busy saddling Pard; now she mounted and
widened her loop with a sureness of the result that
flashed a thrill of expectation to her audience. Twice
the loop circled over her head before she flipped it out
straight and true toward the frantic sorrel as he surged
by. She caught him fairly by both front feet and
swung Pard half away from him. Pard's muscles stiffened
against the jerk of the rope, and the sorrel went
down with a bump. Pard backed knowingly and braced
himself like the trained rope-horse he was, and Jean
looked at Robert Grant Burns and laughed.
"I didn't bust him," she disclaimed whimsically.
"He done busted himself!" She touched Pard with
her heel and rode up so that the rope slackened, and
she could throw off the loop. "Did you see how Pard
set himself?" she questioned eagerly. "I could have
gotten off and gone clear away, and Pard would have
kept that horse from getting on his feet. Now you see
the difference, don't you? Pard never would have gone
down like that."
"Oh, you'll do," chuckled Robert Grant Burns,
"I'll pay you a little more and use you and your horse
together. Call that settled. Come on, boys, let's get
to work."
CHAPTER XIII
PICTURES AND PLANS AND MYSTERIOUS FOOTSTEPS
When Lite objected to her staying altogether at
the Lazy A, Jean assured him that she was
being terribly practical and cautious and businesslike,
and pointed out to him that staying there would save
Pard and herself the trip back and forth each day, and
would give her time, mornings and evenings to work on
her book.
Lite, of course, knew all about that soon-to-be-famous
book. He usually did know nearly everything that
concerned Jean or held her interest. Whether, after
three years of futile attempts, Lite still felt himself
entitled to be called Jean's boss, I cannot say for a
certainty. He had grown rather silent upon that subject,
and rather inclined to keep himself in the background,
as Jean grew older and more determined in her ways.
But certainly he was Jean's one confidential friend,--
her pal. So Lite, perforce, listened while Jean told
him the plot of her story. And when she asked him in
all earnestness what he thought would be best for the
tragic element, ghosts or Indians, Lite meditated
gravely upon the subject and then suggested that she
put in both. That is why Jean lavishly indulged in
mysterious footsteps all through the first chapter, and
then opened the second with blood-curdling war-whoops
that chilled the soul of her heroine and led her to
suspect that the rocks behind the cabin concealed
the forms of painted savages.
Her imagination must have been stimulated by her
new work, which called for wild rides after posses and
wilder flights away from the outlaws, while the flash
of blank cartridges and the smoke-pots of disaster by
fire added their spectacular effect to a scene now and
then.
Jean, of course, was invariably the wild rider who
fled in a blond wig and Muriel's clothes from pursuing
villains, or dashed up to the sheriff's office to give the
alarm. Frequently she fired the blank cartridges, until
Lite warned her that blank cartridges would ruin her
gun-barrel; after which she insisted upon using bullets,
to the secret trepidation of the villains who must stand
before her and who could never quite grasp the fact that
Jean knew exactly where those bullets were going to
land.
She would sit in her room at the Lazy A, when the
sun and the big, black automobile and the painted
workers were gone, and write feverishly of ghosts and
Indians and the fair maiden who endured so much and
the brave hero who dared so much and loved so well.
Lee Milligan she visualized as the human wolf who
looked with desire upon Lillian. Gil Huntley became
the hero as the story unfolded; and while I have told
you absolutely nothing about Jean's growing acquaintance
with these two, you may draw your own conclusions
from the place she made for them in her book that she
was writing. And you may also form some idea of
what Lite Avery was living through, during those days
when his work and his pride held him apart, and Jean
did "stunts" to her heart's content with these others.
A letter from the higher-ups in the Great Western
Company, written just after a trial run of the first
picture wherein Jean had worked, had served to stimulate
Burns' appetite for the spectacular, so that the stunts
became more and more the features of his pictures.
Muriel Gay was likely to become the most famous photo-
play actress in the West, he believed. That is, she
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.
"I'm going to use all these fellows in a couple
of scenes," he told her. "Can't you practice on a
post?"
"_I_ don't have to practice. It's the sorrel I
want to try out." Jean's voice lost a little of
its habitual, soft drawl. Really, these picture-people
did seem very dense upon some subjects!
"Well, now look here." Robert Grant Burns caught
at the shreds of his domineering manner. "My part
of this business is producing the scenes. You'll have
to attend to the getting-ready part. You--you
wouldn't expect me to help you put on your make-up,
would you?"
"No, now that I recognize your limitations, I shall
not ask any help which none of you are able or have the
nerve to give," she returned coolly. "I wish I had
Lite here; but I guess Pard and I can handle the
sorrel ourselves. Sorry to have disturbed you."
Robert Grant Burns, his leading man and all his
villains stood and watched her walk away from them to
the stable. They watched her lead Pard out and turn
him loose in the biggest corral. When they saw her
take her coiled rope, mount the sorrel and ride in, they
went, in a hurried group, to where they might look into
that corral. They watched her pull the gate shut after
her, lean from the saddle, and fasten the chain hook
in its accustomed link. By the time she had widened
her loop and turned to charge down upon unsuspecting
Pard, Robert Grant Burns, his leading man and all his
villains were lined up along the widest space between
the corral rails, and Pete Lowry was running over so
as to miss none of the show.
"Oh, I thought you were all so terribly busy!"
taunted Jean, while her loop was circling over her head.
Pard wheeled just then upon his hind feet, but the loop
settled true over his head and drew tight against his
shoulders.
The sorrel lunged and fought the rope, and snorted
and reared. It took fully two minutes for Jean to
force him close enough to Pard so that she might flip
off the loop. Pard himself caught the excitement and
snorted and galloped wildly round and round the
enclosure, but Jean did not mind that; what brought her
lips so tightly together was the performance of the
sorrel. While she was coiling her rope, he was making
half-hearted buck jumps across the corral. When she
swished the rope through the air to widen her loop, he
reared and whirled. She jabbed him smartly with the
spurs, and he kicked forward at her feet.
"Say," she drawled to Burns, "I don't know what
sort of a picture you're going to make, but if you want
any roping done from this horse, you'll have to furnish
meals and beds for your audiences." With that she
was off across the corral at a tearing pace that made the
watchers gasp. The sorrel swung clear of the fence.
He came near going down in a heap, but recovered
himself after scrambling along on his knees. Jean
brought him to a stand before Burns.
"I'll have to ask you to raise your price, Mr. Burns,
if you want me to run this animal down the bluff," she
stated firmly. "He's just what I thought he was all
along: a ride-around-the-block horse from some livery
stable. When it comes to range work, he doesn't know
as much as--"
"Some people. I get you," Burns cut in drily.
"How about that horse of yours? Would you be willing
to let me have the use of him--at so much per?"
"If I do the riding, yes. Now, since you're here,
and don't seem as busy as you thought you were, I'll
show you the difference between this livery-stable beast
and a real rope-horse."
She dismounted and called to Pard, and Pard came
to her, stepping warily because of the sorrel and the
rope. "Just to save time, will one of you boys go and
bring my riding outfit from the stable?" she asked the
line at the fence, whereupon the leading man and all
the villains started unanimously to perform that slight
service, which shows pretty well how Jean stood in
their estimation.
"Now, that's a real, typical, livery-stablesaddle and
bridle," she observed to Burns, pointing scornfully at
the sorrel. "I was going to tell you that I'd hate to
be seen in a picture riding that outfit, anyway. Now,
you watch how differently Pard behaves with a rope and
everything. And you watch the sorrel get what's coming
to him. Shall I `bust' him?"
"You mean throw him?" Burns, in his eagerness,
began to climb the corral fence,--until he heard a rail
crack under his weight. "Yes, BUST him, if you want
to. John Jimpson! if you can rope and throw that
sorrel--"
Jean did not reply to that half-finished sentence.
She was busy saddling Pard; now she mounted and
widened her loop with a sureness of the result that
flashed a thrill of expectation to her audience. Twice
the loop circled over her head before she flipped it out
straight and true toward the frantic sorrel as he surged
by. She caught him fairly by both front feet and
swung Pard half away from him. Pard's muscles stiffened
against the jerk of the rope, and the sorrel went
down with a bump. Pard backed knowingly and braced
himself like the trained rope-horse he was, and Jean
looked at Robert Grant Burns and laughed.
"I didn't bust him," she disclaimed whimsically.
"He done busted himself!" She touched Pard with
her heel and rode up so that the rope slackened, and
she could throw off the loop. "Did you see how Pard
set himself?" she questioned eagerly. "I could have
gotten off and gone clear away, and Pard would have
kept that horse from getting on his feet. Now you see
the difference, don't you? Pard never would have gone
down like that."
"Oh, you'll do," chuckled Robert Grant Burns,
"I'll pay you a little more and use you and your horse
together. Call that settled. Come on, boys, let's get
to work."
CHAPTER XIII
PICTURES AND PLANS AND MYSTERIOUS FOOTSTEPS
When Lite objected to her staying altogether at
the Lazy A, Jean assured him that she was
being terribly practical and cautious and businesslike,
and pointed out to him that staying there would save
Pard and herself the trip back and forth each day, and
would give her time, mornings and evenings to work on
her book.
Lite, of course, knew all about that soon-to-be-famous
book. He usually did know nearly everything that
concerned Jean or held her interest. Whether, after
three years of futile attempts, Lite still felt himself
entitled to be called Jean's boss, I cannot say for a
certainty. He had grown rather silent upon that subject,
and rather inclined to keep himself in the background,
as Jean grew older and more determined in her ways.
But certainly he was Jean's one confidential friend,--
her pal. So Lite, perforce, listened while Jean told
him the plot of her story. And when she asked him in
all earnestness what he thought would be best for the
tragic element, ghosts or Indians, Lite meditated
gravely upon the subject and then suggested that she
put in both. That is why Jean lavishly indulged in
mysterious footsteps all through the first chapter, and
then opened the second with blood-curdling war-whoops
that chilled the soul of her heroine and led her to
suspect that the rocks behind the cabin concealed
the forms of painted savages.
Her imagination must have been stimulated by her
new work, which called for wild rides after posses and
wilder flights away from the outlaws, while the flash
of blank cartridges and the smoke-pots of disaster by
fire added their spectacular effect to a scene now and
then.
Jean, of course, was invariably the wild rider who
fled in a blond wig and Muriel's clothes from pursuing
villains, or dashed up to the sheriff's office to give the
alarm. Frequently she fired the blank cartridges, until
Lite warned her that blank cartridges would ruin her
gun-barrel; after which she insisted upon using bullets,
to the secret trepidation of the villains who must stand
before her and who could never quite grasp the fact that
Jean knew exactly where those bullets were going to
land.
She would sit in her room at the Lazy A, when the
sun and the big, black automobile and the painted
workers were gone, and write feverishly of ghosts and
Indians and the fair maiden who endured so much and
the brave hero who dared so much and loved so well.
Lee Milligan she visualized as the human wolf who
looked with desire upon Lillian. Gil Huntley became
the hero as the story unfolded; and while I have told
you absolutely nothing about Jean's growing acquaintance
with these two, you may draw your own conclusions
from the place she made for them in her book that she
was writing. And you may also form some idea of
what Lite Avery was living through, during those days
when his work and his pride held him apart, and Jean
did "stunts" to her heart's content with these others.
A letter from the higher-ups in the Great Western
Company, written just after a trial run of the first
picture wherein Jean had worked, had served to stimulate
Burns' appetite for the spectacular, so that the stunts
became more and more the features of his pictures.
Muriel Gay was likely to become the most famous photo-
play actress in the West, he believed. That is, she
- sentence [´sentəns]
n.判决 vt.宣判；处刑 (初中英语单词) - pointed [´pɔintid] a.尖(锐)的；中肯的 (初中英语单词)
- director [di´rektə] n.指导者；....长；导演 (初中英语单词)
- stable [´steibəl] n.马棚 a.稳固的 (初中英语单词)
- saddle [´sædl] n.鞍子 v.装鞍(于) (初中英语单词)
- fasten [´fɑ:sən] v.扎牢；闩住；钉牢 (初中英语单词)
- charge [tʃɑ:dʒ] v.收费；冲锋 n.费用 (初中英语单词)
- running [´rʌniŋ] a.奔跑的；流动的 (初中英语单词)
- terribly [´terəbli] ad.可怕地 (初中英语单词)
- excitement [ik´saitmənt] n.兴奋；骚动；煽动 (初中英语单词)
- performance [pə´fɔ:məns] n.履行；行为；工作 (初中英语单词)
- firmly [´fə:mli] ad.坚固地，稳定地 (初中英语单词)
- thrill [θril] v.震惊；激动；刺激 (初中英语单词)
- audience [´ɔ:diəns] n.听众；观众；接见 (初中英语单词)
- knowingly [´nəuiŋli] ad.狡黠地，机警地 (初中英语单词)
- eagerly [´i:gəli] ad.渴望地，急切地 (初中英语单词)
- mysterious [mi´stiəriəs] a.神秘的；难以理解的 (初中英语单词)
- altogether [,ɔ:ltə´geðə] ad.完全；总而言之 (初中英语单词)
- imagination [i,mædʒi´neiʃən] n.想象(力) (初中英语单词)
- disaster [di´zɑ:stə] n.灾难，不幸 (初中英语单词)
- maiden [´meidn] n.少女 a.未婚的 (初中英语单词)
- absolutely [´æbsəlu:tli] ad.绝对地；确实 (初中英语单词)
- writing [´raitiŋ] n.书写；写作；书法 (初中英语单词)
- appetite [´æpitait] n.欲望；食欲 (初中英语单词)
- chuckle [´tʃʌkl] vi.&n.轻声笑；暗自笑 (高中英语单词)
- hurried [´hʌrid] a.仓促的，慌忙的 (高中英语单词)
- tightly [´taitli] ad.紧，紧密地 (高中英语单词)
- outfit [´aut,fit] n.装备 vt.供给；装备 (高中英语单词)
- typical [´tipikəl] a.典型的；象征的 (高中英语单词)
- differently [´difrentli] ad.不同地，有差别地 (高中英语单词)
- expectation [,ekspek´teiʃən] n.期待(望)；预期 (高中英语单词)
- frantic [´fræntik] a.发狂的；急忙的 (高中英语单词)
- invariably [in´veəriəbli] ad.不变地；永恒地 (高中英语单词)
- wherein [weər´in] ad.那里面 (高中英语单词)
- actress [´æktris] n.女演员 (高中英语单词)
- calves [kɑ:vz] calf的复数 (英语四级单词)
- coolly [´ku:li] ad.冷(静地)，沉着地 (英语四级单词)
- whereupon [,weərə´pɔn] ad.在什么上面；因此 (英语四级单词)
- cautious [´kɔ:ʃəs] a.小心的；谨慎的 (英语四级单词)
- futile [´fju:tail] a.无用的，无益的 (英语四级单词)
- confidential [,kɔnfi´denʃəl] a.极受信任的；心腹的 (英语四级单词)
- heroine [´herəuin] n.女英雄；女主人公 (英语四级单词)
- spectacular [spek´tækjulə] a.壮观的；惊人的 (英语四级单词)
- habitual [hə´bitʃuəl] a.习惯的，通常的 (英语六级单词)
- unanimously [ju:´næniməsli] ad.一致同意的 (英语六级单词)
- assured [ə´ʃuəd] a.确实的 n.被保险人 (英语六级单词)
- earnestness [´ə:nistnis] n.认真，急切；坚定 (英语六级单词)
- lavishly [´læviʃli] ad.大方地；慷慨地 (英语六级单词)
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