trembly" to walk. Besides, it is always safer to be in the
saddle among the lot of Western steers.

"Oh, what a narrow escape!" panted Miss Dixon.

"It was," agreed Alice. "But it shows you what cowboys can do! It was
just splendid!" she cried to Baldy Johnson, who was riding beside her.

"Glad you liked it, Miss," he responded, breathing hard, "but it was
rather hot work all around."

"You're not hurt; are you, girls?" cried Mr. DeVere as he came up to
them, having had no part in the drama, but having heard in the ranch
house of the real stampede.

"Not a bit, Daddy!" answered Alice. "I don't believe the steers would
have trampled us anyhow."

"Well," remarked Baldy, slowly. "I don't want to scare you; but for a
minute there I thought it was all up with you--I did for a fact."

"Some stampede!" cried Paul, as he rode up, looking almost like a cowboy
himself.

"And some film!" laughed Russ, delighted that he had gotten one of the
real stampede, now that his friends were out of danger.

"But I can't understand it," said Mr. Norton. "What started the cattle
off the second time? They were really frightened at something."

"Did you see those men over that way?" asked the ranch owner, pointing
in the direction where he had observed the retreating cowboy band.

"I saw 'em," admitted Pete, "but I thought they were some of our boys
that you'd sent up to the North pasture."

"They weren't from Rocky Ranch!" declared the owner of the Circle Dot
outfit.

"Well, if they were strange punchers, maybe they frightened our steers,"
suggested Baldy.

"They might have," admitted Mr. Norton. "But I was thinking that perhaps
they were rustlers, trying to ride off a bunch, and they became
frightened when they saw us all on hand."

"It might be," admitted Pete Batso. "I'll have a look around after we
get the critters in the corral."

Ruth and Alice, as well as Miss Pennington and Miss Dixon, were so
nervous and upset that it was thought advisable not to attempt any more
pictures that day.

Most of the members of the Comet Film Company sat about the ranch house,
talking over recent events, or studying parts for new plays. Some of the
cowboys went off on the trail, trying to find traces of the strange men,
but they returned unsuccessful.

The next days were spent in getting simple scenes about Rocky Ranch, no
very hard work being done. These scenes would afterward be interspersed
with more elaborate ones.

When moving p