Jean had it stamped indelibly upon her brain.She waited,with a quick intake of breath when the picture stood out with a sudden clarity before her eyes.
A "close-up"group of officers and men,--and some of the men Americans in face,dress,and manner.But it was one man,and one only,at whom she looked.Tall he was,and square-shouldered and lean;with his hat set far back on his head and a half smile curling his lips,and his eyes looking straight into the camera.Standing there with his weight all on one foot,in that attitude which cowboys call "hipshot."Art Osgood!She was sure of it!Her hands clenched in her lap.Art Osgood,at Nogales,Mexico.Serving on the staff of General Kosterlisky.Was the man mad,to stand there publicly before the merciless,revealing eye of a motion-picture camera?Or did his vanity blind him to the risk he was taking?
The man at whom she sat glaring glanced sidewise at some person unseen;and Jean knew that glance,that turn of the head.He smiled anew and lifted his American-made Stetson a few inches above his head and held it so in salute.Just so had he lifted and held his hat high one day,when she had turned and ridden away from him down the trail.Jean caught herself just as her lips opened to call out to him in recognition and sharp reproach.He turned and walked away to where the troopers were massed in the background.It was thus that she had first glimpsed him for one instant before the scene ended;it was just as he turned his face away that she had opened her eyes,and thought it was Art Osgood who was walking away from the camera.
She waited a minute,staring abstractedly at the refugees who were presented next.She wished that she knew when the picture had been taken,--how long ago.
Her experience with motion-picture making,her listening to the shop-talk of the company,had taught her much;she knew that sometimes weeks elapse between the camera's work and the actual projection of a picture upon the theater screens.Still,this was,in a sense,a news release,and therefore in all probability hurried to the public.Art Osgood might still be at Nogales,Mexico,wherever that was.He might;and Jean made up her mind and laid her plans while she sat there pinning on her hat.
She got up quietly and slipped out.She was going to Nogales,Mexico,wherever that was.She was going to get Art Osgood,and she didn't care whether she had to fight her way clear through "Warring Mexico."She would find him and get him and bring him back.
In the lobby,while she paused with a truly feminine instinct to tip her hat this way and that before the mirror,and give her hair a tentative pat or two at the back,the grinning face of Lite Avery in his gray Stetson appeared like an apparition before her eyes.She turned quickly.
"Why,Lite!"she said,a little startled.
"Why,Jean!"he mimicked,in the bantering voice that was like home to her."Don't rush off;haven't seen you to-day.Wait till I get you a ticket,and then you come back and help me admire ourselves.I came down on a long lope when somebody said you caught a street car headed this way.Thought maybe I'd run across you here.Knew you couldn't stay away much longer from seeing how you look.Ain't too proud to sit alongside a rough-neck puncher,are you?"Jean looked at him understandingly.Lite's exuberance was unusual;but she knew,as well as though he had told her,that he had been lonesome in this strange city,and that he was overjoyed at the sight of her,who was his friend.She unpinned her hat which she had been at some pains to adjust at the exact angle decreed by fashion.
"Yes,I'll go back with you,"she drawled."I want to see how you like the sight of yourself just as you are.
It--it's good for one,after the first shock wears off."She would not say a word about that Mexican picture,she thought;but she wanted to see if Lite also would recognize Art Osgood,and feel as sure of his identity as she had felt.That would make her doubly sure of her self.She could do what she meant to do without any misgivings whatsoever.She could afford to wait a little while and have the pleasure of Lite's presence beside her.Lite was homesick and lonesome;--she felt it in every tone and in every look;--almost as homesick and lonesome as she was herself.She would not hurt him by going off and leaving him alone,even if she had not wanted to be with him and to watch the effect that Mexican picture would have upon him.Lite believed Art Osgood was in the Klondyke.She would wait and see what he believed after he had seen that Nogales picture She waited.She had missed Lite in the last day or so;she had seemed almost as far away from him as from the Lazy A.But all the while she talked to him in whispers when he had wanted to discuss the Jean picture,she was waiting,just waiting,for that Nogales picture.
When it came at last,Jean turned her head and watched Lite.And Lite gave a real start and said something under his breath,and plucked at her sleeve afterwards to attract her attention.
"Look--quick!That fellow standing there with his arms folded.Skin me alive if it isn't Art Osgood!""Are you sure?"Jean studied him.
"Sure?Where're your eyes?Look at him!It sure ain't anybody else,Jean.Now,what do you reckon he's doing down in Mexico?"
