ore 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-stable saddle 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