autiful, purple machine with
a colored chauffeur in dust-colored uniform. Dewitt was talking easily
of trivial things, and shooting a question now and then over his
shoulder at Robert Grant Burns, who had shed much of his importance and
seemed indefinably subservient toward Mr. Dewitt. Jean turned toward
him abruptly.

"Where's Lite? Did you send some one to help him with Pard?" she asked
with real concern in her voice. "Those three horses aren't used to
towns the size of this, Mr. Burns. Lite is going to have his hands
full with Pard. If you will excuse me, Mr. Dewitt, I think I'll go and
see how he's making out."

Mr. Dewitt glanced over her head and met the delighted grin of Jim
Gates, the publicity manager. The grin said that Jean was "running
true to form," which was a pet simile with Jim Gates, and usually
accompanied that particular kind of grin. There would be an
interesting half column in the next day's papers about Jean's arrival
and her deep concern for Lite and her wonderful horse Pard, but of
course she did not know that.

"I've got men here to help with the horses," Mr. Dewitt assured her,
while he gently urged her into the machine. "They'll be brought right
out to the studio. I'm taking you home with me in obedience to my
wife's, orders. She is anxious to meet the young woman who can
out-ride and out-shoot any man on the screen, and can still be sweet
and feminine and lovable. I'm quoting my wife, you see, though I won't
say those are not my sentiments also."

"Your poor wife is going to receive a shock," said Jean in an
unimpressed tone. "But it's dear of her to want to meet me." Back of
her speech was an irritated impatience that she should be gobbled and
carried off like this, when she was sure that she ought to be helping
Lite get that fool Pard unloaded and safely through the clang and
clatter of the down-town district.

Robert Grant Burns, half facing her on a folding seat, sent her a
queer, puzzled glance from under his eyebrows. Four months had Jean
been working under his direction; four months had he studied her, and
still she puzzled him. She was not ignorant--the girl had been out
among civilized folks and had learned town ways; she was not
stupid--she could keep him guessing, and he thought he knew all the
quirks of human nature, too. Then why, in the name of common sense, did
she take Dewitt and his patronage in this matter-of-fact way, as if it
were his everyday business