going to
live at the Quirt, Raine, you'll have to learn to keep your mouth shut.
I ain't blaming you--but you told too much to Al Woodruff. Don't talk to
him no more, if he comes here when I'm gone." He put out a hand,
beckoning her to him, sorry for his harshness. Lorraine went to him and
knelt beside him, slipping an arm around his neck while she hid her face
on his shoulder.

"I won't be a nuisance, dad--really, I won't," she said. "I--I can shoot
a gun. I never shot one with bullets in, but I could. And I learned to
do lots of things when I was working in that play West I thought was
real. It isn't like I thought. There's no picture stuff in the real
West, I guess; they don't do things that way. But--what I want you to
know is that if they're fighting you they'll have to fight me, too.

"I don't mean movie stuff, honestly I don't. I'm in this thing now, and
you'll have to count me, same as you count Jim and Sorry. Won't you
please feel that I'm one more in the game, dad, and not just another
responsibility? I'll herd cattle, or do whatever there is to do. And
I'll keep my mouth shut, too. I can't stay here, day after day, doing
nothing but sweep and dust two rooms and fry potatoes and bacon for you
at night. Dad, I'll go _crazy_ if you don't let me into your life!

"Dad, if you knew the stunts I've done in the last three years! It was
make-believe West, but I learned things just the same." She kissed him
on the unshaven cheek nearest her,--and thought of the kisses she had
breathed upon the cheeks of story fathers with due care for the make-up
on her lips. Just because this was real, she kissed him again with the
frank vigor of a child.

"Dad," she said wheedlingly, "I think you might scare up something that
I can really ride. Yellowjacket is safe, but--but you have real _live_
horses on the ranch, haven't you? You must _not_ go judging me by the
palms and the bay windows of the Casa Grande. That's where I've slept,
the last few years when I wasn't off on location--but it's just as
sensible to think I don't know anything else, as it would be for me to
think you can't do anything but skim milk and fry bacon and make
sour-dough bread, just because I've seen you do it!"

Brit laughed and patted her awkwardly on the back. "If you was a boy,
I'd set you up as a lawyer," he said with an attempt at playfulness. "I
kinda thought you could ride. I seen how you piled onto old Yellowjacket
and the way you held your reins