AT THE BRANDING
Russ did not answer for a moment, but kept on beside the manager through
the long corridor that led to the dining hall. Then, just as the two
entered the room, Russ said:
"I reckon, as they say out here--I reckon, Mr. Pertell, that you're
thinking the same thing I am."
"What's that, Russ?"
"That maybe those International fellows are still on our trail."
"That's what I do think, Russ. Though how they got out here ahead of us
is more than I can tell."
"It would be easy enough. They learned we were coming here, and just
took a short cut. We've been on the road quite a while."
"That must be it, Russ. But you say you had a glimpse of the fellow who
took the camera off the bench. You didn't know him; did you?"
"Never saw him before, as far as I could tell. But there are a lot of
camera operators nowadays, so that isn't strange. The International firm
could hire anyone and send him on here to try and steal some of the
scenes we're depending on. He could pose as a cowboy, too."
"Well, we'll just have to be on our guard, Russ. It won't do to let them
get ahead of us. There's too much at stake."
Nothing was said to the players of the suspicions of Russ and Mr.
Pertell. They wanted to wait and see what happened.
Though the meal at Rocky Ranch was served without any of the elegance
which would have been expected at a hotel, the food was of the best, and
there was plenty of it.
"Ah, again sauerkraut!" cried Mr. Switzer, as he saw a steaming dish
brought on the table, topped with smoking sausages. "Dot is fine alretty
yet!"
"Disgusting!" scoffed Miss Pennington, turning up a nose that in itself
showed a tendency to "tilt."
There was time, in the twilight that followed supper, for the players to
look about the buildings at Rocky Ranch. All the structures, as Mr.
Norton had said, were of only one story. There were broad verandas on
most of them and in comfortable chairs one could take one's ease in
delightful restfulness.
There was a bunk-house for the cowboys, and a separate living apartment
for the Chinese cook and his two assistants, for considerable food was
required at Rocky Ranch, especially with the advent of the film players.
The cowboys, their meal over, gathered in a group and looked curiously
at the visitors. The novelty of seeing the pretty girls and the
well-dressed men appealed to the rough but sterling chaps who had so
little to soften their hard lives.
Nearly every one of them smoked cigarettes, which they rolled skillfully
and quickly.
"Give us a song, Buster!" one of the cowboys called to a comrade. "Tune
up! Bring out that mouth organ, Necktie!"
"What odd names!" remarked Alice to Pete Batso, who constituted himself
a sort of guide to Ruth and her sister.
"They call Dick Jones 'Buster' because he's a good bronco trainer, or
buster," the foreman said. "And Necktie Harry got his handle because
he's so fussy about his ties. I'll wager he's got _three_, all
different," and the foreman seemed to think that a great number.
"You should see our Mr. Towne," laughed Paul, who had joined the girls.
"I guess he must have thirty!"
"Thirty!" cried Pete. "What is he--a wholesale dealer?"
"Pretty nearly," admitted Paul.
"Say, Pete!" called one of the cowboys, "can't some of them actor folks
do a song and dance?"
The foreman looked questioningly at Alice, with whom he was already on
friendly terms because of her happy frankness.
"I'm afraid that isn't in our line," she said.
"I'll do that little sketch I did with Miss Pennington and Miss Dixon,"
offered Paul, who had been in vaudeville. "I've got my banjo and----"
"Ki-yi, fellows! We're going to have a show!" yelled Bow Backus. "Come
on!" and he fired his revolver in the air.
Ruth jumped nervously.
"Here, cut that out!" ordered the foreman to the offending cowboy. "Save
your powder to mill the cattle."
"I begs your pardon, Miss," said the cowboy, humbly. "But I jest
couldn't help it--thinkin' we was goin' to have a little amusement. It's
been powerful dull out here lately. Nothin' to do but shoot the queue
off Ling Foo."
"Oh! you don't do that; do you?" gasped Ruth.
"Don't mind him, Miss," said the foreman, "he's jokin'."
Miss Pennington and Miss Dixon were only too willing to show their
talents to the appreciative audience of cowboys, and with Paul, who
played the banjo, they went through the little sketch, with a side porch
as a stage, and the setting sun as a spotlight.
There were ample sleeping quarters at Rocky Ranch, though the bedrooms
were rather of the camp, or bungalow, type. But there was hot and cold
water and this made up for the lack of many other things.
"Do you think you're going to like it here, Alice?" asked Ruth as they
sat in the room they were to share. Ruth was manicuring her nails, and
Alice was combing her hair.
"Like it? Of course I'm going to like it. Aren't you?"
"Well, it's--er--rather--rough," she hesitated.
"Oh, but it's all so real! There's no sham about anything. They take you
for just what you are worth out here, and not a cent more. There's no
sham!"
"No, that's true. But everything seems so--so different."
"I know--there isn't romance enough for you. You'd like a horseman to
wear a suit of armor, or come prancing up in a top hat and shiny boots.
But these men, in their rough clothes and on their scraggy-looking
ponies, can _ride_. I saw some of them just before supper. They can
ride like the wind and pull up so short that it's a wonder they don't
turn somersaults. I'm going to learn to ride that way."
"Alice, you're not!"
"Well, maybe not so well, of course," the younger girl admitted, as she
finished braiding her hair for the night. "But I'm going to learn. I'll
have to, anyhow, as I'm cast for a riding part in several scenes, and so
are you."
"Well, then, I suppose I'll have to. But I hope I will get a gentle
horse."
"Oh, Pete will see to that."
"Pete? Do you call him by his first name so soon?" asked Ruth rather
shocked, as she shook out her robe, and ran a ribbon through the neck.
"Everyone calls him Pete; why shouldn't I?" laughed Alice. "He's awfully
nice--and he's been married three times!"
"Did you ask him that?"
"No, he told me. He asked me if I'd ever been 'hooked up,' as he called
it."
"Alice DeVere!"
"Well, I couldn't help it. He meant all right. He's old enough to be our
father. Do you think daddy is quite well?" she asked, perhaps to change
the subject.
"Yes, I think the pure air out here is doing him good. His throat seems
much improved. Are those my slippers?" she asked, quickly, as Alice
thrust her pink feet into a pair of worsted "tootsies."
"Indeed they are not. I just took these out of my trunk. There are yours
under your bed."
"Oh, excuse me. I don't believe I shall need anyone to sing me to sleep
to-night," and she yawned comfortably.
There were to be busy times at Rocky Ranch next day, for some cattle
were to be branded, or marked with the hot iron to establish their
ownership, and Mr. Pertell had decided to have some scenes of this, with
his own players worked in as part of the action.
This had already been planned, and after breakfast there was a short
rehearsal of the players, while the cowboys were getting ready for the
branding.
"Now we're ready for you," announced Pete Batso, who was in charge of
the cowboys. "Get your players in position. They're going to rope the
first critter now."
The proper action for the scene was gone through by Ruth, Alice, Paul
and Mr. Sneed, and then one of the cowboys "cut out," or separated from
the rest, a young steer that had not yet been branded.
"Whoop-ee!" yelled the cow puncher as he hurled his lariat and pulled
the animal to the ground. Other cowboys quickly threw their ropes around
the fore and hind legs of the steer and then, with another rope around
the head, the creature was stretched out helpless, ready for the
application of the iron.