ge
the subject.

"Yes, I think the pure air out here is doing him good. His throat seems
much improved. Are those my slippers?" she asked, quickly, as Alice
thrust her pink feet into a pair of worsted "tootsies."

"Indeed they are not. I just took these out of my trunk. There are yours
under your bed."

"Oh, excuse me. I don't believe I shall need anyone to sing me to sleep
to-night," and she yawned comfortably.

There were to be busy times at Rocky Ranch next day, for some cattle
were to be branded, or marked with the hot iron to establish their
ownership, and Mr. Pertell had decided to have some scenes of this, with
his own players worked in as part of the action.

This had already been planned, and after breakfast there was a short
rehearsal of the players, while the cowboys were getting ready for the
branding.

"Now we're ready for you," announced Pete Batso, who was in charge of
the cowboys. "Get your players in position. They're going to rope the
first critter now."

The proper action for the scene was gone through by Ruth, Alice, Paul
and Mr. Sneed, and then one of the cowboys "cut out," or separated from
the rest, a young steer that had not yet been branded.

"Whoop-ee!" yelled the cow puncher as he hurled his lariat and pulled
the animal to the ground. Other cowboys quickly threw their ropes around
the fore and hind legs of the steer and then, with another rope around
the head, the creature was stretched out helpless, ready for the
application of the iron.

CHAPTER XIV

A WARNING

"Oh, doesn't it hurt them?" faltered Ruth, as creature after creature
was branded.

"No, Miss, hardly at all," Pete Batso assured her. "You see they're used
to being roped, and we don't throw them as hard as it looks, onless it's
an ornery critter that wants to make trouble. And the hot iron doesn't
go in deep. It just sort of crimples up the hair, same as you ladies
frizzes your curls with a hot slate pencil--at least my second wife--no,
it was my third--she used to curl hers that way."

Ruth had difficulty to keep from laughing.

The branding was almost over, and the taking of pictures was nearly at
an end. Russ had obtained some good films, and the action was spirited.

"Here comes a bad one," announced the foreman, as the cow punchers cut
out from the herd a big steer. "That's a vicious critter, all right!"

"Oh, is there any danger?" asked Alice, for she and Ruth had finished
their work. Mr. Bunn and