"You bet your life this is in the scene!Lowry's been pamming it all in;don't you worry about that!"Jean was startled,but she did not lower her gun from its steady aiming at the three of them.It was just some trick,very likely,meant to throw her off her guard.There were more than the three,and the fourth man probably had her covered with a gun.But she would not turn her head toward his voice,for all that.
"The gentleman called Burns may walk out into the open and explain,if he can,"she announced sharply,her eyes upon the three whom she had captured so easily.
She heard the throaty chuckle again,from somewhere to the left of her.She saw the three men in front of her look at each other with sickly grins.She felt that the whole situation was swinging against her,--that she had somehow blundered and made herself ridiculous.
It never occurred to her that she was in any particular danger;men did not shoot down women in that country,unless they were drunk or crazy,and the man called Burns had sounded extremely sane,humorous even.She heard a rattle of bushes and the soft crunching of footsteps coming toward her.Still she would not turn her head,nor would she lower the gun;if it was a trick,they should not say that it had been successful.
"It's all right,sister,"said the chuckling voice presently,almost at her elbow."This isn't any real,honest-to-John bandit party.We're just movie people,and we're ****** pictures.That's all."He stopped,but Jean did not move or make any reply whatever,so he went on."I must say I appreciate the compliment you paid us in taking it for the real dope,sister--""Don't call me sister again."Jean flashed him a sidelong glance of resentment."You've already done it twice too often.Come around in front where I can see you,if you're what you claim to be.""Well,don't shoot,and I will,"soothed the chuckling voice."My,my,it certainly is a treat to see a real,live Prairie Queen once.Beats ****** them to order--""We'll omit the superfluous chatter,please."Jean looked him over and tagged him mentally with one glance.He did not look like a rustler,--with his fat good-nature and his town-bred personality,and his gray tweed suit and pigskin puttees,and the big cameo ring on his manicured little finger,and his fresh-shaven face as round as the sun above his head and almost as cheerful.Perfectly harmless,but Jean would not yield to the extent of softening her glance or her manner one hundredth of a degree.The more harmless these people,the more ridiculous she had made herself appear.
The chuckly one grinned and removed his soft gray hat,held it against his generous equator,and bowed so low as to set him puffing a little afterward.His eyes,however,appraised her shrewdly.
"Omitting all superfluous chatter,as you suggest,I am Robert Grant Burns,of the Great Western Film Company.These men are also members of that company.
We are here for the purpose of ****** Western pictures,and this little bit of unlawful branding of stock which you were flattering enough to mistake for the real thing,is merely a scene which we were ******."He was about to indulge in what he would have termed a little "kidding"of the girl,but wisely refrained after another shrewd reading of her face.
Jean looked at the three men,who had taken it for granted that they might leave their intimate study of the clay bank and were coming toward her.She looked at the gun she had picked up from the ground,--being loaded with blank cartridges was what had made it look so queer!--and at Robert Grant Burns of the Great Western Film Company,who had put on his hat again and was studying her the way he was wont to study applicants for a position in his company.
"Did you get permission to haze our cattle around like this?"she asked abruptly,to hide how humiliated she really felt.
"Why--no.Just for a few scenes,I did not consider it necessary."Plainly,the chuckly Mr.Burns was taken at a disadvantage.
"But it is necessary.Don't make the mistake,Mr.
