The Moving Picture Girls Snowbound
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Laura Lee Hope >> The Moving Picture Girls Snowbound
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The latter seemed to be caught by the foot on the rail, though how this
was possible was difficult to understand, as the rail was flat.
The motorman was doing his best to stop the car, but the rails were
slippery and it was easily seen that he could not do it. Then he added
his shouts to those of the others.
"Oh, he'll be killed!" cried Alice, covering her face with her hands.
Ruth had also turned aside.
"No, he won't!" cried Russ, with conviction. "They'll get him off, I
think. There! He's free! I guess they took off his shoe."
As he spoke the girls looked, and they saw the man fall in a peculiar
way, to one side, so as to be out of the path of the car, which swept
past him. The vehicle, however, seemed to hit him, but of this neither
Russ nor the girls could be sure.
"That's a queer accident," murmured Russ, as he started toward the scene
of it. "Come on, girls."
Ruth and Alice went with him. There was a little crowd about the fallen
man, and at the sight of the fellow's face Alice suddenly cried:
"Look! That is Dan Merley!"
CHAPTER VI
NEW PLANS
Alice's announcement caused her sister to start in surprise. Ruth looked
as if she could not understand, and Alice repeated:
"See, the man who fell is Dan Merley--the one who says daddy owes him
five hundred dollars."
"I believe you're right!" agreed Russ, who had had a good look at the
impudent fellow the night he invaded the DeVere rooms. "And I know one
of those other men--at least by sight. His name is Jagle. Let's see what
is going on here."
Fortunately no very large crowd gathered, so the girls felt it would be
proper for them to remain, particularly as the accident was not of a
distressing nature.
The motorman had stopped his car and had run back to the scene with the
conductor.
"What's the matter here? What did you want to get in the way of the car
for, anyhow?" demanded the motorman. He was nervously excited, and the
reaction at finding, after all, he had not killed a man, made him rather
angry.
"Matter? Matter enough, I should say!" replied one of the men with
Merley. "My friend is badly hurt. Someone get an ambulance! Fripp, you
call one."
"That was Jagle who spoke," Russ whispered to the girls. "But I don't
know the other one."
"He doesn't seem to be badly hurt," remarked the motorman. The
conductor, with a little pad and pencil, was getting the names of
witnesses to be used in case suit was brought. This is always done by
street car companies, in order to protect themselves.
"Hurt? Of course he's hurt!" exclaimed the man Russ called Jagle. "See
that cut on his head!"
There was a slight abrasion on Merley's forehead, but it did not seem at
all serious.
"Aren't you hurt, Dan?" asked Jagle.
"Of course I am!" was the answer. "I'm hurt bad, too. Get me home, Jim."
"If he's hurt the best place for him is a hospital," remarked the
motorman. "But I can't see where he's hurt."
"I can't walk, I tell you," whined Merley, and he attempted to get up,
but fell back. One of his friends caught him in his arms.
"There, you see! Of course he's hurt!" declared Jagle. "Go call an
ambulance, Fripp."
"I'll get an ambulance if he really needs one," spoke a policeman, who
had just come up on seeing the crowd. "Where are you hurt?"
"Something's the matter with my legs," declared Merley. "I can't use my
right one, and the left one is hurt, too. My foot got caught between the
rail and a piece of ice, and I couldn't get loose. My friends tried to
help me, but they couldn't get me away in time. I'm hurt, and I'm hurt
bad, I tell you! I think one of my legs must be run over."
"Nothing like that!" declared the motorman. "There's been no legs run
over by my car!"
That was very evident.
"Get me away from here," groaned Merley.
"Well, if you're really hurt I'll call an ambulance and have you taken
to the hospital," offered the policeman as he went to turn in a call.
"I sure am hurt," insisted Merley. "Why, I can hardly move now," and he
seemed to stiffen all over, though there was no visible sign of injury.
"Why doesn't someone get a doctor?" a boy in the crowd asked.
"There'll be one in de hurry-up wagon!" exclaimed another urchin. "A
feller in a white suit--dem's doctors. I know, cause me fadder was in de
'ospital onct."
Merley's two friends carried him to a drug store not far from the scene
of the accident. Ruth and Alice shrank back as he was borne past them,
for they feared he might recognize them, and cause a scene. But if he
saw them, which is doubtful, he gave no sign.
"Here comes de hurry-up wagon!" cried the lad who had thus designated
the ambulance. "Let's see 'em shove him on de stretcher! Say dis is
great!"
"I think we had better be going, Alice, dear," said Ruth. "Daddy
wouldn't like us to be in this crowd."
"Oh, I want to stay and see what happens. Besides, it might be
important," Alice objected. "This is Dan Merley, who might make trouble
for papa. We ought to see what happens to him. I think that whole
accident was queer. He didn't seem to be hit at all, and yet he says he
can't move. We ought to stay."
"If you want to go, I'll stay and let you know what happens," offered
Russ. "I don't mind."
"Perhaps that would be best," said Ruth.
"All right," agreed Alice, and she and her sister, with a last look at
the crowd around the ambulance, started for their apartment.
Russ came along a little later.
"What happened?" asked Ruth, when he had knocked on the door of their
hall and had been admitted.
"Not much," he replied. "They took Merley home, instead of to a
hospital. He wouldn't go to an institution, he said."
"Did those other two men go with him?" asked Alice.
"Who, Fripp and Jagle? No, they wouldn't be allowed to ride on the
ambulance. But they got a taxicab and went off in that. I heard Jagle
say to the ambulance surgeon, that he was a doctor, and that he'd attend
his friend when he got him home."
"Is Jagle a doctor?" asked Alice. "He didn't look like one."
"He's a _sort_ of doctor," Russ replied. "I think he's a quack, myself.
I wouldn't have him for a sick cat. But he calls himself a doctor and
surgeon. So that's all that happened."
"It was enough, anyhow," remarked Ruth. "I don't like to see anybody
hurt."
"I'm not so sure that fellow _was_ hurt," said Russ, slowly.
"What do you mean?" Alice asked, curiously.
"Well, he might have _imagined_ he was. I guess he was pretty well
scared at seeing that car come down on him. But I watched when he was
put in the ambulance and he seemed as well as either of his friends.
Only he kept insisting that he could not walk."
"It was certainly a queer accident," said Alice. "But, in spite of the
fact that he is a bad man, and wants to make trouble for daddy, I hope
he isn't seriously hurt."
"I don't believe it is serious," said Russ. "But it might easily have
been, though, if he had fallen in front of the car instead of away from
it."
"Well, there is nothing that hasn't its good side," remarked Ruth.
"Emerson's idea of the law of compensation works out very nicely in this
case."
"Kindly translate, sister mine," invited Alice, laughingly.
"Why, you know Emerson holds that one advantage makes up for each
defect. In this case Merley has had an accident--a defect. That may
cause him to stop annoying daddy--a distinct advantage to us."
"Oh, Ruth, how queer you are!" exclaimed Alice with a laugh. "I never
heard of such an idea."
"Who was this Emerson--a moving picture fellow?" asked Russ.
"No, he was a great writer," explained Ruth. "I'll let you take one of
his books."
"I wish you would," said Russ, seriously. "I never had much of a chance
to get an education, but I like to know things."
"So do I," agreed Ruth. "I never tire of Emerson."
Mr. DeVere was surprised when he heard about the accident to Merley.
"I can't understand it," said the girls' father. "He must have been
hurt, and yet--er--was he in a sensible condition, Russ?"
"Oh, yes, he seemed to be himself, all right," the young moving picture
operator replied, thoughtfully. "I haven't gotten to the bottom of it
myself."
And indeed it developed that there was a strange plot back of the
accident--a plot which involved the moving picture girls in an amazing
way, as will soon appear.
But puzzle over the odd accident as they might, neither Mr. DeVere, his
daughters, nor Russ could understand what it involved.
"At any rate, as you say, Ruth," the actor remarked with a smile, "there
is some compensation. He may not annoy me for some time; and,
meanwhile, I may think of a plan to prove I really paid that money."
"I hope so, Daddy!" she exclaimed. "Is your throat any better?"
"Yes, much," he replied with a smile. "Dr. Rathby is going to try a new
kind of spray treatment, and I had the first one this afternoon. It
helped me wonderfully."
"That's good!" exclaimed Alice.
The next day's papers contained a slight reference to the accident. It
was not important enough to warrant much space, and about all that was
said was that Merley claimed to have received an injury that made him
helpless, though its nature was a puzzle to the physician sent around by
the street car company.
"Well, if he's helpless, and the Lord knows I wish that to no man," said
Mr. DeVere, reverently, "he will not come here bothering you girls
again. If he confines his attacks to me I do not so much mind, but he
must leave you alone."
"That's what I say!" cried Russ.
When Mr. DeVere and his daughters arrived at the moving picture studio
that afternoon, for they were not to report until then, they found
notices posted, requesting all members of the company to remain after
rehearsal to hear an "important announcement."
"I wonder what it can be?" said Ruth.
"Probably it's about the new plans Mr. Pertell has been working on,"
suggested Alice.
"I think so," Russ said. He knew something of them, but had not
permission to reveal them.
And this proved to be the case. After the day's work was ended, and it
included the filming of several scenes for important dramas, Mr. Pertell
called his players together, and said:
"Ladies and gentlemen--also Tommy and Nellie, for you will be in on
this, I hope--we are going to leave New York City again, and be together
in a new place to make a series of plays."
"Leave New York!" gasped Miss Pennington.
"I hope we don't go to Oak Farm again!" cried Miss Dixon. "I want to be
in some place where I can get a lobster now and then."
"There will be no lobsters at Deerfield!" said Mr. Pertell, with a
smile, "unless there are some of the canned variety."
"How horrid!" complained Miss Pennington.
"Will there be deers there?" asked Tommy, with big eyes.
"I think there will, sonny," answered the manager.
"Reindeers--like Santa Claus has?" little Nellie wanted to know.
"Well, I guess so!" laughed Mr. Pertell. "At any rate, I plan to take
you all there."
"Where is Deerfield, if one may ask?" inquired Miss Dixon, pertly.
"Deerfield is a sort of backwoods settlement, in one of our New England
States," explained the manager. "It is rather isolated, but I want to go
there to get some scenes for moving pictures with good snow, and ice
effects as backgrounds."
"Are there good hotels there?" Miss Pennington demanded.
"We are going to stop in a big hunting lodge, that I have hired for the
occasion," Mr. Pertell replied. "I think you will like it very much."
"Hold on! One moment!" exclaimed Mr. Sneed, the grouchy actor. "You may
count me out of this! I shall go to no backwoods, in the middle of
winter, and freeze. I cannot stand the cold. I shall resign at once!"
"One moment. Before you decide that, I have something else to say to
you," said Mr. Pertell, and there was a smile on his face.
CHAPTER VII
OFF TO THE WOODS
The moving picture players looked curiously at the manager, and then at
Mr. Sneed. They were used to this action on his part, and also on the
part of Mr. Bunn--that of resigning when anything did not suit them. But
matters with either of them seldom went farther than the mere threat.
"I know it will not be as pleasant, as regards weather conditions, at
Elk Lodge, Deerfield, as it was at Oak Farm," said Mr. Pertell. "But the
lodge is a big building, very quaint and picturesque, I have been told,
and it has all the comforts, and many of the conveniences, of life.
There are big, open fireplaces, and plenty of logs to burn. So you will
not freeze."
"Open fires are always cold," complained Mr. Sneed. "You roast on one
side, and freeze on the other."
"Oh, I think it won't be quite as bad as that," laughed the manager.
"But that is not all I have to say. In consideration of the fact that
there will be some inconveniences, in spite of all I can do, I am
willing to make an increase of ten per cent. in the salaries of all of
you, including Tommy and Nellie," and he smiled at the two children.
"Oh, goodie! I'm going!" cried the small lad.
"So'm I," voiced his sister.
There was a moment of silence, while all the members of the company
looked at Mr. Sneed, who had raised the first contention. He seemed to
think that it was necessary for him to say something.
"Ah--ahem!" he began.
"Yes?" spoke Mr. Pertell, questioningly.
"In view of all the facts, and er--that I would have to give two weeks'
notice, and under all the circumstances, I think--er--I will withdraw my
resignation, if you will allow me," the grouchy actor went on, in a
lofty manner.
"Ah!" laughed Mr. Pertell. "Then we will consider it settled, and you
may all begin to pack up for Elk Lodge as soon as you please."
"When are we to leave?" asked Mr. DeVere.
"In a few days now. I have one more play I want to stage in New York,
and then we will leave for the country where we can study snow and ice
effects to better advantage than here. We want to get out into the open.
Russ, I must have a talk with you about films. I think, in view of the
fact that the lights out in the open, reflected by the snow, will be
very intense and high, a little change in the film and the stop of the
camera will be necessary."
"I think so myself," agreed the young moving picture operator. "In fact,
I have been working on a little device that I can attach to our cameras
to cut down the amount of light automatically. It consists of a selenium
plate with a battery attachment----"
"Oh, spare us the dreadful details!" interrupted Miss Pennington, who
was of a rather frivolous nature.
"Well, there is no longer need of detaining you," spoke Mr. Pertell.
"Work for the day is over. We will meet again to-morrow and film 'A
Mother's Sorrow,' and that will be the last New York play for some time.
I presume it will take a week to get ready to go to Deerfield, as there
are many details to look after."
"Oh, I just can't wait until it's time to go to the backwoods!" cried
Alice, as she and Ruth were on their way home that evening. "Aren't you
crazy about it, sister mine?"
"Well, not exactly _crazy_, Alice. You do use such--er--such strong
expressions!"
"Well, I have strong feelings, I suppose."
"I know, but you must be more--more conservative."
"I know you were going to say 'lady-like,' but you didn't dare," laughed
Alice.
"Well, consider it said, my dear," went on Ruth, in all seriousness, for
she felt that she must, in a measure, play the part of a mother to her
younger sister.
"I don't want to consider anything!" laughed Alice, "except the glorious
fun we are going to have. Oh, Ruth, even the prospect of that dreadful
Dan Merley making daddy pay the debt over again can't dampen my spirits
now. I'm so happy!"
She threw her arms about Ruth and attempted a few turns of the one-step
glide.
"Oh, stop! I'm slipping!" cried Ruth, for the sidewalk was icy. "Alice,
let me go!"
"Not until you take a few more steps! Now dip!"
"But, Alice! I'm going to fall! I know I am! There! I told you----"
But Ruth did not get a chance to use the favorite expression of Mr.
Sneed, if such was her intention. For she really was about to fall when
a young man, who was passing, caught her, and saved her from a tumble.
"Oh!" she gasped, in confusion, as she recovered her balance.
"I beg your pardon," laughed the young fellow, with sparkling eyes.
"I should beg yours!" faltered Ruth, with a blush.
"It was all my fault--I wanted her to dance!" cried Alice, willing to
accept her share of the blame.
"Yes, this weather makes one feel like dancing," the young fellow
agreed, and then with a bow he passed on.
"Alice how could you?" cried Ruth.
"How could I what?"
"Make me do that."
"I didn't mean to. Really, he was nice; wasn't he? And say, did you
notice his eyes?"
"Oh, Alice, you are hopeless!" and Ruth had to laugh.
The two moving picture girls reached home without further mishap, if
mishap that could be called, though all the way Alice insisted on
waltzing about happily, and trying in vain to get Ruth to join in, and
try the new steps. Passersby more than once turned to look at the two
pretty girls, who made a most attractive picture.
The drama next day was successfully filmed and then followed a sort of
week's vacation, while the picture players prepared for the trip to the
woods.
They were to go by train to Hampton Junction, the nearest station to
Deerfield. This last was only a small settlement once the center of an
important lumber industry, but now turned into a hunting preserve, owned
by a number of rich men. As the Lodge was not in use this season, Mr.
Pertell had engaged it for his company.
In due time the baggage was all packed, the various "properties" had
been shipped by Pop Snooks and everything was ready for the trip. The
journey from the railroad station at Hampton Junction to Elk Lodge, in
Deerfield, was to be made in big four-horse sleds, several of them
having been engaged, for it was reported that the snow was deep in the
woods. Winter had set in with all its severity there.
Finally all the members of the company were gathered at the Grand
Central Terminal, New York. The players attracted considerable
attention, for there was that air of the theater about them which always
seems so fascinating to the outsider, who knows so little of the really
hard work that goes on behind the footlights. Most of the glitter is in
front, in spite of appearances.
"Why, it's like setting off for Oak Farm!" remarked Alice, as she stood
beside her sister, Paul and Russ.
"Only there isn't any mystery in prospect," spoke Paul. "I wonder how
the Apgars are getting on, now that their farm is safe?"
"They're probably sitting about a warm fire, talking about it," Russ
said.
"There may be just as much of a mystery in the backwoods as there was at
Oak Farm, if we can only come across it," suggested Alice. "I wish we
could discover something queer."
"Oh, Alice!" protested Ruth.
Mr. Sneed was observed to be walking about, peering at the various sign
boards on which the destination of trains was given.
"What are you looking for?" asked Russ.
"I want to see that we don't start out on track thirteen as we did when
we went to Oak Farm, and had the wreck," the actor answered. "I've had
enough of hoodoos."
"You're all right this time--we leave from track twenty-seven," called
Mr. Pertell. "All aboard for Deerfield and Elk Lodge!"
CHAPTER VIII
A BREAKDOWN
There was snow everywhere. Never could Ruth, Alice, and the other
members of the Comet Film Company remember so much at one time. They
seemed to have entered the Polar regions.
Along the tracks of the railroad the white flakes were piled in deep
drifts, and when they swept out from a patch of woodland, and had a view
across the fields, or down into some valley, they could see a long,
unbroken stretch of white.
"It sure is some snow," observed Russ, who sat in the seat with Ruth,
while Paul had pre-empted a place beside Alice. This last in spite of
the fact that Miss Dixon invitingly had a seat ready for the young actor
beside herself. But she was forced to be content with a novel for
companionship.
"Yes, and we're going to get more snow," remarked Mr. Sneed, who sat
behind Russ. "We'll get so much that the train will be delayed, and
we'll have to stay on it all night; that's what will happen."
"Und ve vill starf den; ain't dot so?" inquired Mr. Switzer, with a
jolly laugh from across the aisle. "Ve vill starf alretty; vill ve not,
mine gloomy friendt?"
"We sure will," predicted the grouch of the company. "They took the
dining car off at the last station, and I understand there isn't another
one to be had until we get to Hampton Junction. We sure will starve!"
"Ha! Dot is vot ve vill _not_ do!" laughed Mr. Switzer, with conviction.
"See, I haf alretty t'ought of dot, und I haf provided. Here are
pretzels!" and he produced a large bag of them from his grip. "Ve vill
not starf!"
"Ha! Pretzels!" scoffed Mr. Sneed. "I never eat them!"
"Maybe you vill before you starf!" chuckled Mr. Switzer, as he replaced
them. "I like dem much!"
The other members of the company laughed--all but Mr. Sneed and
Wellington Bunn. The former went forward to consult a brakeman as to the
prospects of the train becoming snowbound, while Mr. Bunn, who wore his
tall hat, and was bundled up in a fur coat, huddled close to the window,
and doubtless dreamed of the days when he had played Shakespearean
roles; and wondered if he would play them again.
The train went on, not that any great speed was attained, for the grade
was up hill, and there had been heavy storms. There was also the
prospect of more snow, and this, amid the rugged hills of New England,
was not reassuring.
"But we expect hard weather up here," said Mr. Pertell to his company.
"The more snow and ice we have, the better pictures we can get."
"That's right!" agreed Russ.
"Humph! I'm beginning to wish I hadn't come," growled Mr. Sneed, who had
received information from a brakeman to the effect that trains were
often snowbound in that part of the State.
A few feathery flakes began falling now, and there was the promise of
more in the clouds overhead, and in the sighing of the North wind.
"Does your throat hurt you much, Daddy?" asked Ruth, as she noticed her
father wrapping a silk handkerchief closer about his neck.
"Just a little; I think it is the unusual cold," he replied. "But I do
not mind it. The air is sharper here than in New York; but it is drier.
Perhaps it may do me good. I think I will use my spray," and he got out
his atomizer.
There were not many passengers beside the members of the film
theatrical company in the car in which Ruth and her sister rode. Among
them, however, were two young ladies, about the age of Alice, and as
Ruth went down the aisle once, to get a drink of water, she noted that
one of the strangers appeared to be ill.
"Pardon me," spoke Ruth, with ready sympathy, "but can I do anything to
help you?"
"She has a bad headache," replied the other. "My sister always gets one
when she travels. Fortunately we have not much farther to go."
"Oh, Helen, I shall be so glad when we get there," said the suffering
one.
"Never mind, Mabel, we will soon be there," soothed the other.
"If you don't mind--I'd like to give you my smelling salts," offered
Ruth. "They always help me when I have a headache, which is seldom, I'm
glad to say."
"I wish I could say that," murmured the afflicted one.
"Suppose you let me give the bottle to you," suggested Ruth. "I'll have
my sister bring some spirits of cologne, too. Then you can bathe your
head."
"You are very kind," responded the other.
Soon the four girls were in the ladies' compartment of the parlor car in
which the picture company was traveling. There was a lounge there, and
on this the girl called Mabel was soon receiving the ministrations of
the others.
Her head was bathed in the fragrant cologne, and the use of the smelling
salts relieved the slight feeling of indisposition that accompanied the
headache.
"I feel so much better now," she declared, after a little. "I--I think I
could sleep."
"That would be the best thing for you, my dear," said Ruth, as she
smoothed her hair. "Come," she whispered to the others, "we will sit
back here and let her rest," and she motioned them to come into the
curtained-off recess of the compartment.
There the other girl said that she and her sister were on their way to
visit relatives over the holidays. They were Mabel and Helen Madison, of
New York.
"And right after Christmas we're going to Florida," Helen confided to
Ruth and Alice.
"Oh, it must be lovely there, under the palms!" exclaimed the latter. "I
do so want to go."
"It is quite a contrast to this, I should imagine," remarked Ruth, as
she gazed out of the window on the snowy scene.
"Does your company ever get as far as Florida?" asked Helen, for Ruth
and Alice had told her their profession.
"We haven't yet," replied Ruth, "though once, when we were small, daddy
played in St. Augustine, and we were there. But I don't remember
anything about it."
"We are going to a little resort on Lake Kissimmee," said Helen Madison.
"Perhaps we may see you there, if you ever make pictures in Florida."
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