"Well, it's easy enough to learn how to saddle a horse," Jean told Muriel cheerfully. "First you want to put on the bridle--"

"Burns told me to put on the saddle first; and then he cuts the scene just as I pick up the bridle. The trouble is to get the saddle on right, and then--that latigo dope!"

"But you ought to bridle him first," Jean insisted. "Supposing you just got the saddle on, and your horse got startled and ran off? If you have the bridle on, even if you haven't the reins, you can grab them when he jumps."

"Well, that isn't the way Burns directed the scene yesterday," Muriel Gay contended. "The scene ends where I pick up the bridle."

"Then Robert Grant Burns doesn't know. I've seen men put on the bridle last; but it's wrong. Lite Avery, and everybody who knows--"

Muriel Gay looked at Jean with a weary impatience. "What I have to do," she stated, "is what Burns tells me to do. I should worry about it's being right or wrong; I'm not the producer."

Jean faced her, frowning a little. Then she laughed, hung the bridle back on the rusty spike, and took down the saddle blanket. "We'll play I'm Robert Grant Burns," she said. "I'll tell you what to do: Lay the blanket on straight,--it's shaped to Pard's back, so that ought to be easy,--with the front edge coming forward to his withers; that's not right. Maybe I had better do it first, and show you. Then you'll get the idea."

So Jean, with the best intention in the world, saddled Pard, and wondered what there was about so simple a process that need puzzle any one. When she had tightened the cinch and looped up the latigo, and explained to Muriel just what she was doing, she immediately unsaddled him and laid the saddle down upon its side, with the blanket folded once on top, and stepped close to the manger.