e book
off weirdly with mysterious sounds in an empty room. That, she argued,
should fix firmly the interest of the reader right at the start.

By the time she had fished the olive from the bottle, however, her
thoughts swung from the artistic to the material aspect of those
mysterious footsteps. What had the man wanted or expected to find?
She set down the olive bottle impulsively and went out and around to
the kitchen door and opened it. In spite of herself, she shuddered as
she went in, and she walked close to the wall until she was well past
the brown stain on the floor. She went to the old-fashioned cupboard
and examined the contents of the drawers and looked into a cigar-box
which stood open upon the top. She went into her father's bedroom and
looked through everything, which did not take long, since the room had
little left in it. She went into the living-room, also depressingly
dusty and forlorn, but try as she would to think of some article that
might have been left there and was now wanted by some one, she could
imagine no reason whatever for that nocturnal visit. At the same time,
there must have been a reason. Men of that country did not ride abroad
during the still hours of the night just for the love of riding. Most
of them went to bed at dark and slept until dawn.

She went out, intending to go back to her literary endeavors; if she
never started that book, certainly it would never make her rich, and
she would never be able to make war upon circumstances. She thought of
her father with a twinge of remorse because she had wasted so much time
this morning, and she scarcely glanced toward the picture-people down
by the corrals, so she did not see that Robert Grant Burns turned to
look at her and then started hurriedly up the path to the house.

"Say," he called, just before she disappeared around the corner. "Wait
a minute. I want to talk to you."

Jean waited, and the fat man came up breathing hard because of his
haste in the growing heat of the forenoon.

"Say, I'd like to use you in a few scenes," he began abruptly when he
reached her. "Gay can't put over the stuff I want; and I'd like to
have you double for her in some riding and roping scenes. You're about
the same size and build, and I'll get you a blond wig for close-ups,
like that saddling scene. I believe you've got it in you to make good
on the screen; anyway, the practice you'll get doubling for Gay won't
do you any harm."

J