CHAPTER VI
AND THE VILLAIN PURSUED HER
The young man called Gil,--to avoid wasting time in saying GilbertJames Huntley,--mounted in haste and rode warily up the coulee somedistance behind Jean. At that time and in that locality he was quiteanxious that she should not discover him. Gil was not such a badfellow, even though he did play "heavies" in all the pictures whichRobert Grant Burns directed. A villain he was on the screen, and a badone. Many's the man he had killed as cold-bloodedly as the Board ofCensorship would permit. Many's the girlish, Western heart he hadbroken, and many's the time he had paid the penalty to brother, father,or sweetheart as the scenario of the play might decree. Many's thetime he had followed girls and men warily through brush-fringed gulliesand over picturesque ridges, for the entertainment of shop girls andtheir escorts sitting in darkened theaters and watching breathlesslythe wicked deeds of Gilbert James Huntley.
But in his everyday life, Gil Huntley was very good-looking, verygood-natured, and very harmless. His position and his salary as"heavy" in the Great Western Company he owed chiefly to his good actingand his thick eyebrows and his facility for making himself looktreacherous and mean. He followed Jean because the boss told him to doso, in the first place. In the second place, he followed her becausehe was even more interested in her than his director had been, and hehoped to have a chance to talk with her. In his workaday life, GilHuntley was quite accustomed to being discovered in some villainy, andto having some man or woman point a gun at him with more or lessantagonism in voice and manner. But he had never in his life had agirl ride up and "throw down on him" with a gun, actually believing himto be a thief and a scoundrel whom she would shoot if she thought itnecessary. There was a difference. Gil did not take the time ortrouble to analyze the difference, but he knew that he was glad theboss had not sent Johnny or Bill in his place. He did not believe thateither of them would have enough sense to see the difference, and theymight offend her in some way,--though Gil Huntley need not have worriedin the least over any man's treatment of Jean, who was eminentlyqualified to attend to that for herself.
He grinned when he saw her turn the cattle loose down the very nextcoulee and with a final flip of her rope loop toward the hindermostcow, ride on without them. He should have ridden in haste then to tellRobert Grant Burns that the cattle could be brought back in twentyminutes or so and the picture-making go on as planned. It was notlikely that the girl would come back; they could go on with their workand get permission from the girl's uncle afterward. But he did notturn and hurry back. Instead, he waited behind a rock-huddle untilJean was well out of sight,--and while he waited, he took hishandkerchief and rubbed hard at the make-up on his face, which had madehim look sinister and boldly bad. Without mirror or cold cream, he wasnot very successful, so that he rode on somewhat spotted in appearanceand looking even more sinister than before. But he was much morecomfortable in his mind, which meant a good deal in the interview whichhe hoped by some means to bring about.
With Jean a couple of hundred yards in advance, they crossed a littleflat so bare of concealment that Gil Huntley was worried for fear shemight look back and discover him. But she did not turn her head, andhe rode on more confidently. At the mouth of Lazy A coulee, just wherestood the cluster of huge rocks that had at one time come hurtling downfrom the higher slopes, and the clump of currant bushes beneath whichJean used to hide her much-despised saddle when she was a child, shedisappeared from view. Gil, knowing very little of the ways of therange folk, and less of the country, kicked his horse into a swifterpace and galloped after her.
Fifty yards beyond the currant bushes he heard a sound and looked back;and there was Jean, riding out from her hiding-place, and coming afterhim almost at a run. While he was trying to decide what to do aboutit, she overtook him; rather, the wide loop of her rope overtook him.He ducked, but the loop settled over his head and shoulders and pulledtight about the chest. Jean took two turns of the rope around thesaddle horn and then looked him over critically. In spite of herself,she smiled a little at his face, streaked still with grease paint, andat his eyes staring at her from between heavily penciled lids.
"That's what you get for following," she said, after a minute ofstaring at each other. "Did you think I didn't know you were trailingalong behind me? I saw you before I turned the cattle loose, but Ijust let you think you were being real sly and cunning about it. Youdid it in real moving-picture style; did your fat Mr. Robert GrantBurns teach you how? What is the idea, anyway? Were you going toabduct me and lead me to the swarthy chief of your gang, or band, orwhatever you call it?"
Having scored a point against him and so put herself into a good humoragain, Jean laughed at him and twitched the rope, just to remind himthat he was at her mercy. To be haughtily indignant with thishonest-eyed, embarrassed young fellow with the streaky face andheavily-penciled eyelids was out of the question. The wind caught hishigh, peaked-crowned sombrero and sent it sailing like a great,flapping bird to the ground, and he could not catch it because Jean hadhis arms pinioned with the loop.
She laughed again and rode over to where the hat had lodged. GilHuntley, to save himself from being dragged ignominiously from thesaddle, kicked his horse and kept pace with her. Jean leaned far overand picked up the hat, and examined it with amusement.
"If you could just live up to your hat, my, wouldn't you be a villain,though!" she commented, in a soft, drawling voice. "You don't look soterribly blood-thirsty without it; I just guess I'd better keep it fora while. It would make a dandy waste-basket. Do you know, if yourface were clean, I think you'd look almost human,--for an outlaw."
She started on up the trail, nonchalantly leading her captive by therope. Gil Huntley could have wriggled an arm loose and freed himself,but he did not. He wanted to see what she was going to do with him.He grinned when she had her back turned toward him, but he did not sayanything for fear of spoiling the joke or offending her in some way.So presently Jean began to feel silly, and the joke lost its point andseemed inane and weak.
She turned back, threw off the loop that bound his arms to his sides,and coiled the rope. "I wish you play-acting people would keep out ofthe country," she said impatiently. "Twice you've made me actridiculous. I don't know what in the world you wanted to follow mefor,--and I don't care. Whatever it was, it isn't going to do you oneparticle of good, so you needn't go on doing it."
She looked at him full, refused to meet half-way the friendliness ofhis eyes, tossed the hat toward him, and wheeled her horse away."Good-by," she said shortly, and touched Pard with the spurs. She wasout of hearing before Gil Huntley could think of the right thing tosay, and she increased the distance between them so rapidly that beforehe had quite recovered from his surprise at her sudden change of mood,she was so far away that he could not have overtaken her if he hadtried.
He watched her out of sight and rode back to where Burns mouthed a big,black cigar, and paced up and down the level space where he had set theinterrupted scene, and waited his coming.
"Rode away from you, did she? Where'd she take the cattle to? Left'em in the next gulch? Well, why didn't you say so? You boys canbring 'em back, and we'll get to work again. Where'd you say thatspring was, Gil? We'll eat before we do anything else. One thingabout this blamed country is we don't have to be afraid of the light.Got to hand it to 'em for having plenty of good, clear sunlight,anyway?"
He followed Gil to the feeble spring that seeped from under a hugeboulder, and stooped uncomfortably to fill a tin cup. While he waitedfor the trickle to yield him a drink, he cocked his head sidewise andlooked up quizzically at his "heavy."
"You must have come within speaking distance, Gil," he guessedshrewdly. "Got any make-up along? You look like a mild case of themeasles, right now. What did she have to say, anyhow?"
"Nothing," said Gil shortly. "I didn't talk to her at all. I didn'twant to run my horse to death trying to say hello when she didn't wantit that way."
; "Huh!" grunted Robert Grant Burns unbelievingly, and fished a bit ofgrass out of the cup with his little finger. He drank and said no more.