sure.

"Shall we help them out, Lite?" she asked distinctly. "I think perhaps
we ought to; it's a long walk to town."

"I guess we better; won't take but a minute to tie on," Lite agreed,
his fingers dropping to his coiled rope. "Seems queer to me that folks
should want to ride in them things when there's plenty of good horses
in the country."

"No accounting for tastes, Lite," Jean replied cheerfully. "Listen.
If that thin man will start the engine,--he doesn't weigh more than
half as much as you do, Mr. Burns,--we'll pull you out on solid ground.
And if you have occasion to cross this hollow again, I advise you to
keep out there to the right. There's a little sod to give your tires a
better grip. It's rough, but you could make it all right if you drive
carefully, and the bunch of you get out and walk. Don't try to keep
around on the ridge; there's a deep washout on each side, so you
couldn't possibly make it. We can't with the horses, even." Jean did
not know that there was a note of superiority in her voice when she
spoke the last sentence, but her listeners winced at it. Only Pete
Lowry grinned while he climbed obediently into the machine to advance
his spark and see that the gears were in neutral.

"Don't crank up till we're ready!" Lite expostulated. "These cayuses of
ours are pretty sensible, and they'll stand for a whole lot; but
there's a limit. Wait till I get the ropes fixed, before you start the
engine. And the rest of you all be ready to give the wheels a lift.
You're in pretty deep."

When Jean dismounted and hooked the stirrup over the horn so that she
could tighten the cinch, the eyes of Robert Grant Burns glistened at
the "picture-stuff" she made. He glanced eloquently at Pete, and Pete
gave a twisted smile and a pantomime of turning the camera-crank;
whereat Robert Grant Burns shook his head regretfully and groaned again.

"Say, if I had a leading woman--" he began discontentedly, and stopped
short; for Muriel Gay was standing quite close, and even through her
grease-paint make-up she betrayed the fact that she knew exactly what
her director was thinking, had seen and understood the gesture of the
camera man, and was close to tears because of it all.

Muriel Gay was a conscientious worker who tried hard to please her
director. Sometimes it seemed to her that her director demanded
impossibilities of her; that he was absolutely soulless where
picture-effects were concerned. Her riding