ome within speaking distance, Gil," he guessed
shrewdly. "Got any make-up along? You look like a mild case of the
measles, right now. What did she have to say, anyhow?"

"Nothing," said Gil shortly. "I didn't talk to her at all. I didn't
want to run my horse to death trying to say hello when she didn't want
it that way."

"Huh!" grunted Robert Grant Burns unbelievingly, and fished a bit of
grass out of the cup with his little finger. He drank and said no more.

CHAPTER VII

ROBERT GRANT BURNS GETS HELP

"You know the brand, don't you?" the proprietor of the hotel which
housed the Great Western Company asked, with the tolerant air which the
sophisticated wear when confronted by ignorance. "Easy enough to
locate the outfit, by the cattle brand. What was it?"

Whereupon Robert Grant Burns rolled his eyes helplessly toward Gil
Huntley. "I noticed it at the time, but--what was that brand, Gil?"

And Gil, if you would believe me, did not remember, either. He had
driven the cattle half a mile or more, had helped to "steal" two calves
out of the little herd, and yet he could not recall the mark of their
owner.

So the proprietor of the hotel, an old cowman who had sold out and gone
into the hotel business when the barbed-wire came by carloads into the
country, pulled a newspaper towards him, borrowed a pencil from Burns,
and sketched all the cattle brands in that part of the country. While
he drew one after the other, he did a little thinking.

"Must have been the Bar Nothing, or else the Lazy A cattle you got hold
of," he concluded, pointing to the pencil marks on the margin of the
paper. "They range down in there, and Jean Douglas answers your
description of the girl,--as far as looks go. She ain't all that wild
and dangerous, though. Swing a loop with any man in the country and
ride and all that,--been raised right out there on the Lazy A. Say!
Why don't you go out and see Carl Douglas, and see if you can't get the
use of the Lazy A for your pictures? Seems to me that's just the kinda
place you want. Don't anybody live there now. It's been left alone
ever since--the trouble out there. House and barns and
corrals,--everything you want." He leaned closer with a confidential
tone creeping into his voice, for Robert Grant Burns and his company
were profitable guests and should be given every inducement to remain
in the country.

"It ain't but fifteen miles out there; you could go back and forth in