"Get up and show her now,"snapped Burns,with some sarcasm and a good deal of exasperation."You seem determined to get into the foreground somehow;get up and go through that scene and show us how a girl gets a saddle on a horse."Jean sat still for ten seconds and deliberated while she looked from him to the horse.Again she made a picture that drove its elusive quality of individuality straight to the professional soul of Robert Grant Burns.
"I will if you'll let me do it the right way,"she said,just when he was thinking she would not answer him.
She did not wait for his assurance,once she had decided to accept the challenge,or the invitation;she did not quite know which he had meant it to be.
"I'm going to bridle him first though,"she informed him."And you can tell that star villain to back out of the way.I don't need him."Still Burns did not say anything.He was watching her,studying her,measuring her,seeing her as she would have looked upon the screen.It was his habit to leave people alone until they betrayed their limitations or proved their talent;after that,if they remained under his direction,he drove them as far as their limitations would permit.
Jean went first and placed the saddle to her liking upon the ground."You want me to act just as if you were going to take a picture of it,don't you?"she asked Burns over her shoulder.She was not sure whether he nodded,but she acted upon the supposition that he did,and took the lead-rope from Gil's hand.
"Shall I be hurried and worried--and shall I sob?"she asked,with the little smile at the corners of her eyes and just easing the line of her lips.
Robert Grant Burns seemed to make a quick decision.
"Sure,"he said."You saw the action as Miss Gay went through it.Do as she did;only we'll let you have your own ideas of saddling the horse."He turned his head toward Pete and made a very slight gesture,and Pete grinned."All ready?Start the action!"After that he did not help her by a single suggestion.
He tapped Pete upon the shoulder,and stood with his feet far apart and his hands on his hips,watching her very intently.
Jean was plainly startled,just at first,by the business-like tone in which he gave the signal.Then she laughed a little."Oh,I forgot.I must be hurried and worried--and I must sob,"she corrected herself.
So she hurried,and every movement she made counted for something accomplished.She picked up the bridle and shortened her hold upon the lead rope,and discovered that the sorrel had a trick of throwing up his head and backing away from the bit.She knew how to deal with that habit,however;but in her haste she forgot to look as worried as Muriel had looked,and so appeared to her audience as being merely determined.She got the bridle on,and then she saddled the sorrel.And for good measure she picked up the reins,caught the stirrup and went up,pivoting the horse upon his hind feet as though she meant to dash madly off into the distance.
But she only went a couple of rods before she pulled him up sharply and dismounted.
"That didn't take me long,did it?"she asked."Icould have hurried a lot more if I had known the horse."Then she stopped dead still and looked at Robert Grant Burns.
"Oh,my goodness,I forgot to sob!"she gasped.
And she caught her hat brim and pulling her Stetson more firmly down upon her head,turned and ran up the path to the house,and shut herself into her room.