The young man called Gil,--to avoid wasting time in saying Gilbert James Huntley,--mounted in haste and rode warily up the coulee some distance behind Jean.At that time and in that locality he was quite anxious that she should not discover him.Gil was not such a bad fellow,even though he did play "heavies"in all the pictures which Robert Grant Burns directed.A villain he was on the screen,and a bad one.Many's the man he had killed as cold-bloodedly as the Board of Censorship would permit.
Many's the girlish,Western heart he had broken,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 the time he had followed girls and men warily through brush-fringed gullies and over picturesque ridges,for the entertainment of shop girls and their escorts sitting in darkened theaters and watching breathlessly the wicked deeds of Gilbert James Huntley.
But in his everyday life,Gil Huntley was very good-looking,very good-natured,and very harmless.His position and his salary as "heavy"in the Great Western Company he owed chiefly to his good acting and his thick eyebrows and his facility for making himself look treacherous and mean.He followed Jean because the boss told him to do so,in the first place.In the second place,he followed her because he was even more interested in her than his director had been,and he hoped to have a chance to talk with her.In his work-aday life,Gil Huntley was quite accustomed to being discovered in some villainy,and to having some man or woman point a gun at him with more or less antagonism in voice and manner.But he had never in his life had a girl ride up and "throw down on him"with a gun,actually believing him to be a thief and a scoundrel whom she would shoot if she thought it necessary.There was a difference.Gil did not take the time or trouble to analyze the difference,but he knew that he was glad the boss had not sent Johnny or Bill in his place.He did not believe that either of them would have enough sense to see the difference,and they might offend her in some way,--though Gil Huntley need not have worried in the least over any man's treatment of Jean,who was eminently qualified to attend to that for herself.
He grinned when he saw her turn the cattle loose down the very next coulee and with a final flip of her rope loop toward the hindermost cow,ride on without them.He should have ridden in haste then to tell Robert Grant Burns that the cattle could be brought back in twenty minutes or so and the picture-making go on as planned.It was not likely that the girl would come back;they could go on with their work and get permission from the girl's uncle afterward.But he did not turn and hurry back.Instead,he waited behind a rock-huddle until Jean was well out of sight,--and while he waited,he took his handkerchief and rubbed hard at the make-up on his face,which had made him look sinister and boldly bad.Without mirror or cold cream,he was not very successful,so that he rode on somewhat spotted in appearance and looking even more sinister than before.But he was much more comfortable in his mind,which meant a good deal in the interview which he hoped by some means to bring about.
With Jean a couple of hundred yards in advance,they crossed a little flat so bare of concealment that Gil Huntley was worried for fear she might look back and discover him.But she did not turn her head,and he rode on more confidently.At the mouth of Lazy A coulee,just where stood the cluster of huge rocks that had at one time come hurtling down from the higher slopes,and the clump of currant bushes beneath which Jean used to hide her much-despised saddle when she was a child,she disappeared from view.Gil,knowing very little of the ways of the range folk,and less of the country,kicked his horse into a swifter pace 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 after him almost at a run.While he was trying to decide what to do about it,she overtook him;rather,the wide loop of her rope overtook him.He ducked,but the loop settled over his head and shoulders and pulled tight about the chest.