of the Lazy A, though he
had been very careful to hide the fact that he had heard it. Jean's
glance, following that of her director, was a revealing one. She bit
her lip; and in a moment she went on, with her chin held a shade higher
and her pride revolting against subterfuge.

"I didn't mean that," she said quietly. "But--well, up to a certain
point, I don't mind if you put in real things, if it will be good
picture-stuff. You're featuring me, anyway, it seems. Listen."
Jean's face changed. Her eyes took that farseeing look of the dreamer.
She was looking full at Burns, but he knew that she did not see him at
all. She was looking at a mental picture of her own conjuring, he
judged. He stood still and waited curiously, wondering, to use his
manner of speech, what the girl was going to spring now.

"Listen: Instead of all this impossible piffle, let's start a real
story. I--I've--"

"What kind of a real story?" The tone of Robert Grant Burns was
carefully non-committal, but his eyes betrayed his eagerness. The girl
did have some real ideas, sometimes! And Robert Grant Burns was not
the one to refuse a real idea because it did not come from his own
brain.

"Well," Jean flushed with an adorable shyness at the apparent egotism
of her idea, "since you seem to want me for the central figure in
everything, suppose we start a story like this: Suppose I am left here
at the Lazy A with my mother to take care of and a ranch and a lot of
cattle; and suppose it's a hard proposition, because there's really a
gang of rustlers that have been running off stock and never getting
caught, and they have a grudge against my family and grab our cattle
every chance they get. Suppose--suppose they killed my brother when he
was about to round them up, and they want to drive me and my mother out
of the country. Scare us out, you know. Well,--" she hesitated and
glanced diffidently at the boys who had edged up to listen,--"that
would leave room for all kinds of feature stuff. Say that I have just
one or two boys that I can depend on, boys that I know are loyal. With
an outfit the size of ours, that keeps me in the saddle every day and
all day; and I would have some narrow escapes, I reckon. You've got
your rustlers all made to order,--only I'd make them up differently, if
I were doing it. Have them look real, you know, instead of stagey."
(Whereat Robert Grant Burns winced.) "Lee could be one of my loyal
cowboys; you'd wa