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.

CHAPTER XIV

A WARNING

"Oh, doesn't it hurt them?" faltered Ruth, as creature after creature was branded.

"No, Miss, hardly at all," Pete Batso a.s.sured her. "You see they're used to being roped, and we don't throw them as hard as it looks, onless it's an ornery critter that wants to make trouble. And the hot iron doesn't go in deep. It just sort of crimples up the hair, same as you ladies frizzes your curls with a hot slate pencil--at least my second wife--no, it was my third--she used to curl hers that way."

Ruth had difficulty to keep from laughing.

The branding was almost over, and the taking of pictures was nearly at an end. Russ had obtained some good films, and the action was spirited.

"Here comes a bad one," announced the foreman, as the cow punchers cut out from the herd a big steer. "That's a vicious critter, all right!"

"Oh, is there any danger?" asked Alice, for she and Ruth had finished their work. Mr. Bunn and Paul were engaged in the final scenes, not far from the place of the branding.

"Oh, don't worry. That critter won't get away from the boys," the foreman a.s.sured her. "It's a steer that some of the other ranchmen around here tried to claim for theirs. They changed the brand by burnin'

an arrow over our circle and dot. Now we've got to put our brand on again. The steer knows what's comin', I guess."

Indeed the animal did, for it resisted, for some time, the efforts of the cowboys to separate it from the rest of the bunch. But finally it was forced out into an open s.p.a.ce, and there quickly roped and thrown.

"Lively now, boys!" called the foreman. "We've got to clear out of here right after this, and look after that bunch of critters by Sweet.w.a.ter Brook. I hear the rustlers have been after them. So get a move on."

"What are rustlers?" asked Alice, who seldom let pa.s.s a chance to acquire information.

"Cattle stealers, Miss. Ornery, mean men who trade on the rights of others. But we'll snub 'em if we get hold of 'em!"

The branding of the big steer was quickly done and then the restraining ropes were cast off so that it might get up. With a deep bellow the animal sprang to its feet. It stood still for a moment and then, with a snort, it wheeled around and made straight for Mr. Bunn.

For a moment the veteran actor stood still. Fortunately, some little distance separated him from the steer. Otherwise he might have been impaled on its short horns.

"Run! Run!" cried Pete Batso. "Get out the way, and give the boys a chance to rope him!"

Mr. Bunn needed no second call. He sprang to one side, in time to avoid a sweep of the horns, and started to run. The steer, evidently connecting the actor with the recent branding, made after him, and then began a chase that might have resulted seriously.

"Stop him! Save me! Do something!" cried Mr. Bunn, as he raced about, keeping just ahead of the angry steer.

"Just a minute--we'll rope him!" cried the foreman. But the trouble was that the cowboys nearest the scene had just pulled their lariat from the branded beast and the ropes were not coiled in readiness for throwing.

The foreman himself had left his at the ranch house.

On rushed Mr. Bunn. On came the steer, and only a little way behind the actor. The distance was lessening every second.

"He ought to be on a horse--then he wouldn't have any trouble," declared the foreman. "Lively there, Buster--get that critter!"