Part 11 (1/2)
”No,” said Muriel, ”I haven't.” She might have added that she never roped off any horse, but she did not.
”I'll have to try him out and see what he's like, before I try to rope for a picture. I wonder if there'll be time now?” Jean was pleasantly excited over this new turn of events. She had dreamed of doing many things, but never of helping to make moving pictures. She was eager and full of curiosity, like a child invited to play a new and fascinating game, and she kept wondering what Lite would have to say about her posing for moving pictures. Try to stop her, probably,--and fail, as usual!
When she went out to where the others were grouped in the shade, she gave no sign of any inner excitement or perturbation. She went straight up to Burns and waited for his verdict.
”Do I look like Miss Gay?” she drawled.
The keen eyes of Burns half closed while he studied her.
”No, I can't say that you do,” he said after a moment. ”Walk off toward the corrals,--and, say! Mount the sorrel and start off like you were in a deuce of a hurry. That'll be one scene, and I'd like to see how you do it when you can have your own way about it, and how close up we can make it and have you pa.s.s for Gay.”
”How far shall I ride?” Jean's eyes had a betraying light of interest.
”Oh--to the gate, maybe. Can you get a long shot down the trail to the gate, Pete, and keep skyline in the scene?”
Pete moved the camera, fussed and squinted, and then nodded his head.
”Sure, I can. But you'll have to make it right away, or else wait till to-morrow. The sun's getting around pretty well in front.”
”We'll take it right after this rehearsal, if the girl can put the stuff over right,” Burns muttered. ”And she can, or I'm badly mistaken. Pete, that girl's--” He stopped short, because the shadow of Lee Milligan was moving up to them. ”All right, Miss--say, what's your name, anyway?” He was told, and went on briskly. ”Miss Douglas, just start from off that way,--about where that round rock is. You'll come into the scene a little beyond. Hurry straight up to the sorrel and mount and ride off. Your lover is going to be trapped by the bandits, and you've just heard it and are hurrying to save him. Get the idea?
Now let's see you do it.”
”You don't want me to sob, do you?” Jean looked over her shoulder to inquire. ”Because if I were going to save my lover, I don't believe I'd want to waste time weeping around all over the place.”
Burns chuckled. ”You can cut out the sob,” he permitted. ”Just go ahead like it was real stuff.”
Jean was standing by the rock, ready to start. She looked at Burns speculatively. ”Oh, well, if it were real, I'd run!”
”Go ahead and run then!” Burns commanded.
Run she did, and startled the sorrel so that it took quick work to catch him.
”Camera! She might not do it like that again, ever!” cried Burns.
She was up in the saddle and gone in a flurry of dusts while Robert Grant Burns stood with his hands on his hips and watched her gloatingly.
”Lord! But that girl's a find!” he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, and this time he did not seem to care who heard him. He cut the scene just as Jean pulled up at the gate. ”See how she set that sorrel down on his haunches?” he chuckled to Pete. ”Talk about feature-stuff; that girl will jump our releases up ten per cent., Pete, with the punches I can put into Gay's parts now. How many feet was that scene, twenty-five?”
”Fifteen,” corrected Pete. ”And every foot with a punch in it. Too bad she's got to double for Gay. She's got the face for close-up work, believe me!”
To this tentative remark Robert Grant Burns made no reply whatever. He went off down the path to meet Jean, critically watching her approach to see how nearly she resembled Muriel Gay, and how close she could come to the camera without having the subst.i.tution betrayed upon the screen. Muriel Gay was a leading woman with a certain a.s.sured following among movie audiences. Daring horsewomans.h.i.+p would greatly increase that following, and therefore the financial returns of these Western pictures. Burns was her director, and it was to his interest to build up her popularity. Since the idea first occurred to him, therefore, of using Jean as a subst.i.tute for Muriel in all the scenes that required nerve and skill in riding, he looked upon her as a double for Muriel rather than from the viewpoint of her own individual possibilities on the screen.
”I don't know about your hair,” he told her, when she came up to him and stopped. ”We'll run the negative to-night and see how it shows up.
The rest of the scene was all right. I had Pete make it. I'm going to take some scenes down here by the gate, now, with the boys. I won't need you till after lunch, probably; then I'll have you make that ride down off the bluff and some close-up rope work.”
”I suppose I ought to ride over to the ranch,” Jean said undecidedly.
”And I ought to try out this sorrel if you want me to use him. Would some other day do just--”
”In the picture business,” interrupted Robert Grant Burns dictatorially, ”the working-hours of an actor belong to the director he's working for. If I use you in pictures, your time will belong to me on the days when I use you. I'll expect you to be on hand when I want you; get that?”
”My time,” said Jean resolutely, ”will belong to you if I consider it worth my while to let you have it. Otherwise it will belong to me.”
Burns chuckled. ”Well, we might as well get down to bra.s.s tacks and have things thoroughly understood,” he decided. ”I'll use you as an extra to double for Miss Gay where there's any riding stunts and so on.