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 vil