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.