ean looked at him, tempted to consent for the fun there would be in
it. "I'd like to," she told him after a 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 t