"You know the brand, don't you?" the proprietor of the hotel which housed the Great Western Company asked, with the tolerant air which the sophisticated wear when confronted by ignorance. "Easy enough to locate the outfit, by the cattle brand. What was it?"
Whereupon Robert Grant Burns rolled his eyes helplessly toward Gil Huntley. "I noticed it at the time, but--what was that brand, Gil?"
And Gil, if you would believe me, did not remember, either. He had driven the cattle half a mile or more, had helped to "steal" two calves out of the little herd, and yet he could not recall the mark of their owner.
So the proprietor of the hotel, an old cowman who had sold out and gone into the hotel business when the barbed-wire came by carloads into the country, pulled a newspaper towards him, borrowed a pencil from Burns, and sketched all the cattle brands in that part of the country. While he drew one after the other, he did a little thinking.
"Must have been the Bar Nothing, or else the Lazy A cattle you got hold of," he concluded, pointing to the pencil marks on the margin of the paper. "They range down in there, and Jean Douglas answers your description of the girl,--as far as looks go. She ain't all that wild and dangerous, though. Swing a loop with any man in the country and ride and all that,--been raised right out there on the Lazy A. Say! Why don't you go out and see Carl Douglas, and see if you can't get the use of the Lazy A for your pictures? Seems to me that's just the kinda place you want. Don't anybody live there now. It's been left alone ever since--the trouble out there. House and barns and corrals,--everything you want." He leaned closer with a confidential tone creeping into his voice, for Robert Grant Burns and his company were profitable guests and should be given every inducement to remain in the country.
"It ain't but fifteen miles out there; you could go back and forth in your machine, easy. You go out and see Carl Douglas, anyway; won't do no harm. You offer him a little something for the use of the Lazy A; he'll take anything that looks like money. Take it from me, that's the place you want to take your pictures in. And, say! You want a written agreement with Carl. Have the use of his stock included, or he'll tax you extra. Have everything included," advised the old cowman, with a sweep of his palm and his voice lowered discreetly. "Won't need to cost you much,--not if you don't give him any encouragement to expect much. Carl's that kind,--good fellow enough,--but he wants--the--big--end. I know him, you bet! And, say! Don't let on to Carl that I steered you out there. Just claim like you was scouting around, and seen the Lazy A ranch, and took a notion to it; not too much of a notion, though, or it's liable to come kinda high.
"And, say!" Real enthusiasm for the idea began to lighten his eyes. "If you want good range dope, right out there's where you can sure find it. You play up to them Bar Nothing boys--Lite Avery and Joe Morris and Red. You ought to get some great pictures out there, man. Them boys can sure ride and rope and handle stock, if that's what you want; and I reckon it is, or you wouldn't be out here with your bunch of actors looking for the real stuff."
They talked a long while after that. Gradually it dawned upon Burns that he had heard of the Lazy A ranch before, though not by that euphonious title. It seemed worth investigating, for he was going to need a good location for some exterior ranch scenes very soon, and the place he had half decided upon did not altogether please him. He inquired about roads and distances, and waddled off to the hotel parlor to ask Muriel Gay, his blond leading woman, if she would like to go out among the natives next morning. Also he wanted her to tell him more about that picturesque place she and Lee Milligan had stumbled upon the day before,--the place which he suspected was none other than the Lazy A.
That is how it came to pass that Jean, riding out with big Lite Avery the next morning on a little private scouting-trip of their own, to see if that fat moving-picture man was making free with the stock again, met the man unexpectedly half a mile from the Bar Nothing ranch-house.
Along every trail which owns certain obstacles to swift, easy passing, there are places commonly spoken of as "that" place. In his journey to the Bar Nothing, Robert Grant Burns had come unwarned upon that sandy hollow which experienced drivers approached with a mental bracing for the struggle ahead, and with tightened lines and whip held ready. Even then they stuck fast, as often as not, if the load were heavy, though Bar Nothing drivers gaged their loads with that hollow in mind. If they could pull through there without mishap, they might feel sure of having no trouble elsewhere.
Robert Grant Burns had come into the hollow unsuspectingly. He had been careening along the prairie road at a twenty-mile pace, his mind fixed upon hurrying through his interview with Carl Douglas, so that he would have time to stop at the Lazy A on the way back to town. He wanted to take a few exterior ranch-house scenes that day, for Robert Grant Burns was far more energetic than his bulk would lead one to suppose. He had Pete Lowry, his camera man, in the seat beside him. Back in the tonneau Muriel Gay and her mother, who played the character parts, clung to Lee Mulligan and a colorless individual who was Lowry's assistant, and gave little squeals whenever the machine struck a bigger bump than usual.
At the top of the hill which guarded the deceptive hollow, Robert Grant Burns grinned over his shoulder at his character-woman. "Wait till we start back; I'll know the road then, and we'll do some traveling!" he promised darkly, and laid his toe lightly on the brake. It pleased him to be considered a dare-devil driver; that is why he always drove whatever machine carried him. They went lurching down the curving grade into the hollow, and struck the patch of sand that had worn out the vocabularies of more eloquent men than he. Robert Grant Burns fed more gas, and the engine kicked and groaned, and sent the wheels burrowing like moles to where the sand was deepest. Axles under, they stuck fast.
When Jean and Lite came loping leisurely down the hill, the two women were fraying perfectly good gloves trying to pull "rabbit" brush up by the roots to make firmer foothold for the wheels. Robert Grant Burns was head-and-shoulders under the car, digging badger-like with his paws to clear the front axle, and coming up now and then to wipe the perspiration from his eyes and puff the purple out of his complexion. Pete Lowry always ducked his head lower over the jack when he saw the heaving of flesh which heralded these resting times, so that the boss could not catch him laughing. Lee Milligan was scooping sand upon the other side and mumbling to himself, with a glance now and then at the trail, in the hope of sighting a good samaritan with six or eight mules, perhaps. Lee thought that it would take about that many mules to pull them out.
The two riders pulled up, smiling pityingly, just as well-mounted riders invariably smile upon stalled automobilists. This was not the first machine that had come to grief in that hollow, though they could not remember ever to have seen one sunk deeper in the sand.
"I guess you wouldn't refuse a little help, about now," Lite observed casually to Lee, who was most in evidence.
"We wouldn't refuse a little, but a lot is what we need," Lee amended glumly. "Any ranch within forty miles of here? We need about twelve good horses, I should say." Lee's experience with sand had been unhappy, and his knowledge of what one good horse could do was slight.
"Shall we snake 'em out, Jean?" Lite asked her, as if he himself were absolutely indifferent to their plight.
"Oh, I suppose we might as well. We can't leave them blocking the trail; somebody might want to drive past," Jean told him in much the same tone, just to tease Lee Milligan, who was looking them over disparagingly.
"We'll be blocking the trail a good long while if we stay here till you move us," snapped Lee, who was rather sensitive to tones.
Then Robert Grant Burns gave a heave and a wriggle, and came up for air and a look around. He had been composing a monologue upon the subject of sand, and he had not noticed that strange voices were speaking on the other side of the machine.
"Hello, sis-- How-de-do, Miss," he greeted Jean guardedly, with a hasty revision of the terms when he saw how her eyebrows pinched together. "I wonder if you could tell us where we can find teams to pull us out of this mess. I don't believe this old junk-wagon is ever going to do it herself."
"How do you do, Mr. Burns? Lite and I offered to take you out on solid ground, but your man seemed to think we couldn't do it."
"What man was that? Wasn't me, anyway. I think you can do just about anything you start out to do, if you ask me."
"Thank you," chilled Jean, and permitted Pard to back away from his approach.
"Say, you're some rider," he praised tactlessly, and got no reply whatever. Jean merely turned and rode around to where Lite eased his long legs in the stirrups and waited her pleasure.
"Shall we help them out, Lite?" she asked distinctly. "I think perhaps we ought to; it's a long walk to town."
"I guess we better; won't take but a minute to tie on," Lite agreed, his fingers dropping to his coiled rope. "Seems queer to me that folks should want to ride in them things when there's plenty of good horses in the country."
"No accounting for tastes, Lite," Jean replied cheerfully. "Listen. If that thin man will start the engine,--he doesn't weigh more than half as much as you do, Mr. Burns,--we'll pull you out on solid ground. And if you have occasion to cross this hollow again, I advise you to keep out there to the right. There's a little sod to give your tires a better grip. It's rough, but you could make it all right if you drive carefully, and the bunch of you get out and walk. Don't try to keep around on the ridge; there's a deep washout on each side, so you couldn't possibly make it. We can't with the horses, even." Jean did not know that there was a note of superiority in her voice when she spoke the last sentence, but her listeners winced at it. Only Pete Lowry grinned while he climbed obediently into the machine to advance his spark and see that the gears were in neutral.
"Don't crank up till we're ready!" Lite expostulated. "These cayuses of ours are pretty sensible, and they'll stand for a whole lot; but there's a limit. Wait till I get the ropes fixed, before you start the engine. And the rest of you all be ready to give the wheels a lift. You're in pretty deep."
When Jean dismounted and hooked the stirrup over the horn so that she could tighten the cinch, the eyes of Robert Grant Burns glistened at the "picture-stuff" she made. He glanced eloquently at Pete, and Pete gave a twisted smile and a pantomime of turning the camera-crank; whereat Robert Grant Burns shook his head regretfully and groaned again.
"Say, if I had a leading woman--" he began discontentedly, and stopped short; for Muriel Gay was standing quite close, and even through her grease-paint make-up she betrayed the fact that she knew exactly what her director was thinking, had seen and understood the gesture of the camera man, and was close to tears because of it all.
Muriel Gay was a conscientious worker who tried hard to please her director. Sometimes it seemed to her that her director demanded impossibilities of her; that he was absolutely soulless where picture-effects were concerned. Her riding had all along been a subject of discord between them. She had learned to ride very well along the bridle-paths of Golden Gate Park, but Robert Grant Burns seemed to expect her to ride--well, like this girl, for instance, which was unjust.
One could not blame her for glaring jealously while Jean tightened the cinch and remounted, tying her rope to the saddle horn, all ready to pull; with her muscles tensed for the coming struggle with the sand,--and perhaps with her horse as well,--and with every line of her figure showing how absolutely at home she was in the saddle, and how sure of herself.
"I've tied my rope, Lite," Jean drawled, with a little laugh at what might happen.
Lite turned his face toward her. "You better not," he warned. "Things are liable to start a-popping when that engine wakes up."
"Well, then I'll want both hands for Pard. I've taken a couple of half-hitches, anyway."
"You folks want to be ready at the wheels," Lite directed, waiving the argument. "When we start, you all want to heave-ho together. Good team-work will do it.
"All set?" he called to Jean, when Pete Lowry bent his back to start the engine. "Business'll be pickin' up, directly!"
"All set," replied Jean cheerfully.
It seemed then that everything began to start at once, and to start in different directions. The engine snorted and pounded so that the whole machine shook with ague. When Pete jumped in and threw in the clutch, there was a backfire that sounded like the crack of doom. The two horses went wild, as their riders had half expected them to do. They lunged away from the horror behind them, and the slack ropes tightened with a jerk. Both were good rope horses, and the strain of the ropes almost recalled them to sanity and their training; at least they held the ropes tight for a few seconds, so that the machine jumped ahead and veered toward the firmer soil beside the trail, in response to Pete's turn of the wheel.
Then Pard looked back and saw the thing coming after him, and tried to bolt. When he found that he could not, because of the rope, he bucked as he had not done since he was a half-broken broncho. That started Lite Avery's horse to pitching; and Pete, absorbed in watching what would have made a great picture, forgot to shut off the gas.
Robert Grant Burns picked himself out of the sand where he had sprawled at the first wild lunge of the machine, and saw Pete Lowry, humped over the wheel like any speed demon, go lurching off across the hollow in the wake of two fear-crazed animals, that threatened at any instant to bolt off at an angle that would overturn the car.
Then Lite let his rope slip from the saddle-horn and spurred his horse to one side, out of the danger zone of the other, while he felt frantically in his pockets for his knife.
"Don't you cut my rope," Jean warned, when she saw him come plunging toward her, knife in hand. "This is--fine training--for Pard!"
Pete came to himself, then, and killed the engine before he landed in the bottom of a yawning, water-washed hole, and Lite rode close and slashed Jean's rope, in spite of her protest; whereupon Pard went off up the slope as though witches were riding him hard.
At long rifle range, he circled and faced the thing that had scared him so, and after a little Jean persuaded him to go back as far as the trail. Nearer he would not stir, so she waited there for Lite.
"Never even thanked us," Lite grumbled when he came up, his mouth stretched in a wide smile. "That girl with the kalsomine on her face made remarks about folks butting in. And the fat man talked into his double chin; dunno what all he was saying. Here's what's left of your rope. I'll get you another one, Jean. I was afraid that gazabo was going to run over you, is why I cut it."
"What's the matter over there? Aren't they glad they're out of the sand?" Jean held her horse quiet while she studied the buzzing group.
"Something busted. I guess we done some damage." Lite grinned and watched them over his shoulder.
"You needn't go any further with me, Lite. That fat man's the one that had the cattle. I am going over to the ranch for awhile, but don't tell Aunt Ella." She turned to ride on up the hill toward the Lazy A, but stopped for another look at the perturbed motorists. "Well anyway, we snaked them out of the sand, didn't we, Lite?"
"We sure did," Lite chuckled. "They don't seem thankful, but I guess they ain't any worse off than they was before. Anyway, it serves them right. They've no business here acting fresh."
Lite said that because he was not given the power to peer into the future, and so could not know that Fate herself had sent Robert Grant Burns into their lives; and that, by a somewhat roundabout method, she was going to use the Great Western Film Company and Jean and himself for her servants in doing a work which Fate had set herself to do.
