ne as she swung her horse back from the
edge and disappeared. "I'd cut the whole scene out if I didn't know what
a rider she is," he added to the others, more uneasy than he cared to
own. "But it would hurt her a heap more if I wouldn't let her ride where
Jean rode. She's proud; awfully proud and sensitive."

"I'm glad you're letting her do it," Jean said sympathetically. "She'd
hate me if you hadn't. But I'm going to watch her with my eyes shut,
just the same. It's an awfully mean place in spots."

"She'll make it, all right," Luck declared. But his tone was not so
confident as his words, and he was manifestly reluctant to place the
whistle to his lips. He fussed with his script, and he squinted into
the viewfinder, and he made certain for the second time just where the
side-lines came, and thrust half an inch deeper in the sandy soil the
slender stakes which would tell Annie-Many-Ponies where she must guide
the pinto when she came tearing down to foreground. But he could delay
the signal only so long, unless he cut out the scene altogether.

"Get back, over on that side, Bill," he commanded harshly. "Leave her
plenty of room to pass that side of the camera. All ready, Pete?" Then,
as if he wanted to have it over with as soon as possible, he whistled
once, waited while he might have counted twenty, perhaps, and sent
shrilling through the sunshine the signal that would bring her.

They watched, holding their breaths in fearful expectancy. Then they saw
her flash into view and come galloping down along the edge of the ridge
where the hill fell away so steeply that it might be called a cliff.
Indian fashion, she was whipping the pinto down both sides with the end
of her reins. Her slim legs hung straight, her moccasined toes pointing
downward. One corner of her red-and-green striped blanket flapped out
behind her. Haste--the haste of the pursuer--showed in every movement,
every line of her figure.

She came to the descent, and the pinto, having no desire for applause
but a very great hankering for whole bones in his body, planted his
forefeet and slid to a stop upon the brink. His snort came clearly down
to those below who watched.

"He won't tackle it," Pete Lowry predicted philosophically while he
turned the camera crank steadily round and round and held himself ready
to "panoram" the scene if the pinto bolted.

But the pinto, having Annie-Many-Ponies to reckon with, did not bolt.
The braided rein-end of her squa