greed to put him on "in
stock" and to pay him the salary Jean demanded for him, provided that,
in the try-out of the first picture, Lite should prove he could deliver
the goods. Burns was always extremely firm in the matter of having the
"goods" delivered; that was why he was the Great Western's leading
director. Mere dollars he would yield, if driven into a corner and kept
there long enough, but he must have results.

These things being settled, they spent about two hours on the doorstep
of Jean's room, writing the first reel of the story; which is to say
that Jean wrote, and Burns took each sheet from her hands as it was
finished, and read and made certain technical revisions now and then.
Several times he grunted words of approbation, and several times he let
his fat, black cigar go out, while he visualized the scenes which
Jean's flying pencil portrayed.

"I'll go over and get Lite," she said at last, rubbing the cramp out of
her writing-hand and easing her shoulders from their strain of
stooping. "There'll be time, while you send the machine after some
real hats for your rustlers. Those toadstool things were never seen in
this country till you brought them in your trunk; and this story is
going to be real! Your rustlers won't look much different from the
punchers, except that they'll be riding different horses; we'll have to
get some paint somewhere and make a pinto out of that wall-eyed cayuse
Gil rides mostly. He'll lead the rustlers, and you want the audience
to be able to spot him a mile off. Lite and I will fix the horse;
we'll put spots on him like a horse Uncle Carl used to own."

"Maybe you can't get Lite," Burns pointed out, eyeing her over a match
blaze. "He never acted to me like he had the movie-fever at all.
Passes us up with a nod, and has never showed signs of life on the
subject. Lee can ride pretty well," he added artfully, "even if he
wasn't born in the saddle. And we can fake that rope work."

"All right; you can send the machine in with a wire to your company for
a leading woman." Jean picked up her gloves and turned to pull the
door shut behind her, and by other signs and tokens made plain her
intention to leave.

"Oh, well, you can see if he'll come. I said I'd try him out, but--"

"He'll come. I told you that before." Jean stopped and looked at her
director coldly. "And you'll keep your word. And we won't have any
fake stuff in this,--except the spots on the pinto." She s