Motion Picture Story Magazine (Aug 1911-Jan 1912)

24 THE MOTION PICTURE STORY MAGAZINE "We'll see about that, my girl," and they both started, as old LaReau, Jean 's father and Chief of the roving band of gypsies, stepped out of the thicket. A look of doubt grew in the Chief's eyes, as he noted the lift of the head set so proudly on Lola's fine shoulders, and he turned uncertainly to Jean, with stern authority. "Come on here, git on with yer work," he said, curtly, "them mustangs are clean fagged yit from the pull yesterday. ' ' For a moment Lola watched the retreating figures with a look of mingled scorn and fright, then she sprang across the brook and flew into the shelter of the great forest. The morning sun was high, as Frank Carter, following the Red Man's Trail, which led across the southwest boundary of Cy Wharton's ranch, in the valley of the Shoshone, came upon a small, rocky stream. "Gee! but this is dandy," and slipping from his mare, Carter let her drink from a shallow of limpid water. Pulling off his coat, his flannel sleeves rolled back, showing the splendidly knit muscles of two perfect forearms, he threw himself beneath a tree. "I'm glad dad has pulled away from Lenox at last, and hiked out here," he ruminated, "a fellow gets so bloomin' tired of the everlasting society stunt in the East!" ' ' But say, old girl, ' ' and he turned and scratched the white nose of the mare cropping the grass beside him; "wouldn't it be great if you and I were to cut loose from polite society for keeps and turn cowpuncher? Wharton says he'll put me thru my paces at his outfit on the Lonesome Pine. What do you think, Missy?" questioned Frank, springing to his jaddle again, and turning Missy's head to cross the narrow ford. Daintily as a young girl, Missy picked her way over the rough bed, Carter caressing her sleek neck, until she caught a shoe on a jagged rock just as they reached the narrow strip of beach, and horse and rider were thrown. Both came quickly to their feet, but Frank found that his right wrist had been given a hard wrench. He examined Missy and found that she had nearly cast a shoe on her left forefoot. Picking up a thin stone, with which to free her, he started to pry off the shoe, but his right hand refused to grip the stone, which fell with a clatter among its fellows. "I reckon this is a knockout this trip, and fifteen miles yet to the ranch if it's a rod," he continued, as he pulled out his watch and noted it was already high noon. "Gad! old lady, it's the slow and leisurely for ours," he mused, as he climbed the bank, leading the dejected mare, and again picked up the trail. Deeper and deeper into the quiet wood the lithe, graceful figure of the young gypsy girl sped. Now and then she lifted herself to the mossy trunk of some fallen tree, then sprang lightly as a fawn into the tangle of fern, and pushed on, the warm sunshine falling in golden blots over the mossy mold her little feet spurned in their hurried flight. At length she sank, a pathetic little heap, beneath a giant oak, and, leaning her tear-wet face against its friendly trunk, sobbed out her young grief into the listening ear of the Great Mother. " Oh ! I can never go back to them — and I never will!" she moaned, clenching her little sunburned hands, her gray eyes flashing thru hot tears. Suddenly she tilted her head, listening, like a wild bird, to the beat of a horse's hoofs on the trail. She lifted herself, sitting erect, as young Carter, one arm hanging inert at his side, hurried up to her, still leading Missy. "Why are you weeping? — are you hurt ? " he asked anxiously, noting the girl's distress and moving quickly toward her. "No, I'm not hurt," she answered, recognizing him as a stranger, and ignoring his first question, "but you are, I'm afraid, and badly, too," looking from his limp arm to the