one or two, and she had found it impossible to concentrate
her mind upon them. Instead, she had sat and planned what she would do
with the money that was steadily accumulating in the bank; a pitiful
little sum, to be sure, to those who count by the thousands, but
cheering enough to Jean, who had never before had any money of her own.

So she signed the contract and worked that day so light-heartedly that
Robert Grant Burns forgot his pessimism. When the light began to fade
and grow yellow, and the big automobile went purring down the trail to
town, she rode on to the Bar Nothing to find Lite, and tell him how
fortune had come and tapped her on the shoulder.

She did not see Lite anywhere about the ranch, and so she did not put
her hopes and her plans and her good fortune into speech. She did see
her Aunt Ella, who straightway informed her that people were talking
about the way she rode here and there with those painted-up people, and
let the men put their arms around her and make love to her. Her Aunt
Ella made it perfectly plain to Jean that she, for one, did not
consider it respectable. Her Aunt Ella said that Carl was going to do
something about it, if things weren't changed pretty quick.

Jean did not appear to regard her aunt's disapproval as of any
importance whatever, but the words stung. She had herself worried a
little over the love-making scenes which she knew she would now be
called upon to play. Jean, you will have observed, was not given to
sentimental adventurings; and she disliked the idea of letting Lee
Milligan make love to her the way he had made love to Muriel Gay
through picture after picture. She would do it, she supposed, if she
had to; she wanted the salary. But she would hate it intolerably. She
made reply with sarcasm which she knew would particularly irritate her
Aunt Ella, and left the house feeling that she never wanted to enter it
again as long as she lived.

The sight of her uncle standing beside Pard in an attitude of disgusted
appraisement of the new Navajo blanket and the silver-trimmed bridle
and tapideros which Burns had persuaded her to add to her riding
outfit,--for photographic effect,--brought a hot flush of resentment.
She went up quietly enough, however. Indeed, she went up so quietly
that he started when she appeared almost beside him and picked up
Pard's reins, and took the stirrup to mount and ride away. She did not
speak to him at all; she had not spoken to him si