"Well,you don't seem crazy about it.What's the matter?"Robert Grant Burns stood in his favorite attitude with his hands on his hips and his feet far apart,and looked down at Jean with a secret anxiety in his eyes.Without realizing it in the least,Jean's opinion had come to have a certain weight with Robert Grant Burns."What's wrong with that?"Burns,having sat up until two o'clock to finish that particular scenario to his liking,plainly resented the expression on Jean's face while she read it.
"Oh,nothing,only I'm getting awfully sick of these kidnap-and-rescue,and kiss-in-the-last-scene pictures,and Wild West stuff without a real Western man in the whole thing.I'd like to do something real for a change."Robert Grant Burns grunted and reached for his slighted brain-child."What you want?Mother on,knitting.Girl washing dishes.Lover arrives;they sit on front steps and spoon.Become engaged.Lover hitches up team,girl climbs into wagon,they drive to town.Ten scenes of driving to town.Lover gets out,ties team in front of courthouse.Goes in and gets license.Three scenes of license business.Goes out.
Two scenes of driving to minister and hitching team to gate.One scene of getting to door.One scene getting inside the house.One scene preacher calling his wife and hired girl.One scene `Do you take this woman,'one scene `I do.'Fifteen scenes getting team untied and driving back to ranch.That's about as much pep as there is in real life in the far West,these days.Something like that would suit you,maybe.It don't suit the people who pay good nickels and dimes to get a thrill,though.""Neither does this sort of junk,if they've got any sense.Think of paying nickel after nickel to see Lee Milligan rush to the girl's door,knock,learn the fatal news,stagger back and clap his hand to his brow and say `Great Heaven!GONE!'"Jean,stirred to combat by the sarcasm of Robert Grant Burns,did the stagger and the hand-to-brow and great-heaven scene with a realism that made Pete Lowry turn his back suddenly.
"They've seen Gil abduct me or Muriel seven times in a perfectly impossible manner,and they--oh,why don't you give them something REAL?Things that are thrilling and dangerous and terrible do happen out here,Mr.Burns.Real adventures and real tragedies--"She stopped,and Burns turned his eyes involuntarily toward the kitchen.He had heard all about the history of the Lazy A,though he had been very careful to hide the fact that he had heard it.Jean's glance,following that of her director,was a revealing one.She bit her lip;and in a moment she went on,with her chin held a shade higher and her pride revolting against subterfuge.
"I didn't mean that,"she said quietly."But--well,up to a certain point,I don't mind if you put in real things,if it will be good picture-stuff.You're featuring me,anyway,it seems.Listen."Jean's face changed.Her eyes took that farseeing look of the dreamer.She was looking full at Burns,but he knew that she did not see him at all.She was looking at a mental picture of her own conjuring,he judged.He stood still and waited curiously,wondering,to use his manner of speech,what the girl was going to spring now.
"Listen:Instead of all this impossible piffle,let's start a real story.I--I've--""What kind of a real story?"The tone of Robert Grant Burns was carefully non-committal,but his eyes betrayed his eagerness.The girl did have some real ideas,sometimes!And Robert Grant Burns was not the one to refuse a real idea because it did not come from his own brain.
"Well,"Jean flushed with an adorable shyness at the apparent egotism of her idea,"since you seem to want me for the central figure in everything,suppose we start a story like this:Suppose I am left here at the Lazy A with my mother to take care of and a ranch and a lot of cattle;and suppose it's a hard proposition,because there's really a gang of rustlers that have been running off stock and never getting caught,and they have a grudge against my family and grab our cattle every chance they get.Suppose--suppose they killed my brother when he was about to round them up,and they want to drive me and my mother out of the country.
Scare us out,you know.Well,--"she hesitated and glanced diffidently at the boys who had edged up to listen,--"that would leave room for all kinds of feature stuff.Say that I have just one or two boys that I can depend on,boys that I know are loyal.With an outfit the size of ours,that keeps me in the saddle every day and all day;and I would have some narrow escapes,I reckon.You've got your rustlers all made to order,--only I'd make them up differently,if I were doing it.Have them look real,you know,instead of stagey."(Whereat Robert Grant Burns winced.)"Lee could be one of my loyal cowboys;you'd want some dramatic acting,I reckon,and he could do that.
But I'd want one puncher who can ride and shoot and handle a rope.For that,to help me do the real work in the picture,I want Lite Avery.There are things I can do that you have never had me do,for the simple reason that you don't know the life well enough ever to think of them.Real stunts,not these made-to-order,shoot-the-villain-and-run-to-the-arms-of-the-hero stuff.
I'd have to have Lite Avery;I wouldn't start without him.""Well,go on."Robert Grant Burns still tried to sound non-committal,but he was plainly eager to hear all that she had to say.
"Well,that's the idea.They're trying to drive us out of the country,without really hurting me.And I've got my mind set on staying.Not only that,but I believe they killed my brother,and I'm going to hunt them down and break up their gang or die in the attempt.There's your plot.It needn't be overdone in the least,to have thrills enough.And there would be all kinds of chance for real range-stuff,like the handling of cattle and all that.
"We can use this ranch just as it is,and have the outlaws down next the river.I'm glad you haven't taken any scenes that show the ranch as a whole.