The Moving Picture Girls in War Plays

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"Yes, that's nice. Well, I'm to ride along and be pursued by some
Confederate guerrillas. It's a race, and I decide to take a short cut,
not knowing the Confederates have burned the bridge. I have to leap my
horse down an embankment and ford the stream. I'm getting ready for the
jump now--that's why I'm padding myself. For Petro--that's my
horse--might slip or stumble in jumping down that embankment, and I want
to be ready to roll out of the way. It's much more comfortable to roll
in a padded suit--like a football player's--than in your ordinary
clothes. Your friend, Russ Dalwood, told me to do this, and I think it
is a good idea."

"It's sure to be if Russ told you, isn't it, Ruth?" asked Alice, with a
mischievous look at her sister, who had just come in.

"How should I know?" was the cool response. "I suppose Mr. Dalwood knows
what he is doing, though."

"Oh, how very formal we are all of a sudden," mocked Alice. "You two
haven't quarreled, have you?"

"Silly," returned Ruth, blushing.

"Are you really going to jump your horse down a cliff?" asked Alice.

"I really am," was the smiling answer. "There is to be no fake about
this. But really there is little danger. I am so used to horses."

"Yes, and I marvel at you," put in Ruth. "Where did you learn it all?"

"I don't know. It seems to come natural to me."

"You must have lived on a ranch a long time," ventured Ruth.

"Did I? Well, perhaps I did. Say, lace this up the back for me, that's a
dear," and she turned around so that Alice or Ruth could fasten a
corset-like pad that covered a large part of her body. It would not
show under her dress, but would be a protection in case of a fall.

Alice and Ruth were so greatly interested in the coming perilous leap of
Estelle's that they did not pursue their inquiries about her life on a
ranch, though Alice casually remarked that it was strange she did not
speak more about it.

The two DeVere girls had no part in this one scene, and they went to
watch it, safely out of range of the cameras. For there were to be two
snapping this jump, to avoid the necessity of a retake in case one film
failed.

"All ready now!" called Mr. Pertell, when there had been several
rehearsals up to the actual point of making the jump. Estelle had raced
out of the woods bearing the message. The Confederate guerrillas had
pursued her, and she had found the bridge burned--one built for the
purpose and set fire to.

"All ready for the jump?" asked the director.

"All ready," Estelle answered, looking to saddle girths and stirrups.

"Then come on!" yelled the director through his megaphone.

Estelle urged her horse forward. With shouts and yells, which, of
course, had no part in the picture, yet which served to aid them in
their acting, the players who were portraying the Confederates came
after her, spurring their horses and firing wildly. On and on rushed the
steed bearing the daring girl rider.

She reached the place of the burned bridge, halted a moment, made a
gesture of despair, and then raced for the bank, down which she would
leap her horse to the ford.

"Come on! Come on!" yelled Mr. Pertell. "That's fine! Come on! You men
there put a little more pep in your riding. Turn and fire at them, Miss
Brown! Fire one shot, and one of you men reel in his saddle. That's the
idea!"

Estelle had quickly turned and fired, and one man had most realistically
showed that he was hit, afterward slumping from his seat.

Now the girl was at the edge of the bank. She was to make a flying jump
over its edge and come down in the soft sand, sliding to the bottom--in
the saddle if she could keep her seat, rolling over and over if,
perchance, she left it.

"That's the idea! Get every bit of that, Russ! That's fine!" yelled Mr.
Pertell.

"There she goes!" cried Alice, grasping her sister's arm, and as she
spoke Estelle spurred her horse and it leaped full and fair over the
edge of the embankment. Estelle had made her big jump. Would she come
safely out of it?

CHAPTER VIII

A MASSED ATTACK

While Russ Dalwood and his helper were grinding their cameras, reeling
away at the film on which was being impressed the shifting vision of
Estelle Brown taking her hazardous leap, Alice, Ruth, and the others
were watching to see how the daring young horsewoman would come out of
it.

"She's going to land in a minute!" exclaimed Miss Dixon.

"In a minute? In a half second!" cried Alice. "But don't talk!"

"There--she's fallen!" gasped Miss Pennington.

With his feet gathered under him, Petro had come down straight on the
sliding, shifting sand of the embankment. For a moment it looked as
though he had stumbled and that Estelle would be thrown.

But she held a firm rein, and leaned far back in the saddle. The horse
stiffened and then, keeping upright with his forelegs straight out in
front of him and his hind ones bunched under him, he began to slide.

Down the embankment he slid, as the Italian cavalrymen sometimes ride
their horses, with Estelle firm in the saddle. And, as a matter of fact,
the girl said afterward it was from having seen some moving pictures of
these Italian army riders that she got the idea of doing as she did.

"She won't fall!" murmured Paul.

"Oh, I'm so glad! The picture will be a success, won't it?"

"I should think so," Paul said. "It certainly was a daring ride."

"I wouldn't mind doing it if I had her horse," put in Maurice Whitlow,
smirking at the girls. "I think you could do that, Miss DeVere," and he
looked at Alice.

She turned away with only a murmured reply, but, nothing daunted, the
"pest" went on:

"Estelle is certainly a fine rider. I think she must have been a cowgirl
on a ranch at one time, though she won't admit it."

"She wouldn't to you, at any rate," said Paul, significantly.

"Why not?"

"Oh, if you don't know it's of no use to tell you. Look! Now she goes
into the water!"

The action called for the halting at the top of the embankment of the
Confederate riders, who dared not make the jump. They fired some futile
shots at Estelle, then rode around to a less dangerous descent to try to
catch her. But Estelle was to ford the stream and continue on to the
Union lines with her message.

Reaching the bottom of the slope, her horse gathered himself together
for another bit of moving picture work. At the edge of the stream
another camera man was stationed, for Estelle and her horse were by this
time too far away from Russ and his helper to make good views possible.

Into the water splashed the girl, urging on her spirited horse, that was
none the worse for his jump and his long slide.

"Good work! Good work!" cried an assistant director, who was stationed
near the stream to see that all went according to the scenario. "Keep
on, Miss Brown!"

Estelle bent low over her horse's neck, to escape possible bullets from
the Confederate guns, and on and on she raced until she pulled up at the
tent of "General" DeVere. Here her mission ended, after the father of
Alice and Ruth, in a dusty uniform of a Union officer, had come out in
response to the summons from his orderly.

Estelle slipped from her saddle, registered exhaustion, saluted and held
out the paper she had brought through the Confederate lines at such
risk. Nor was the risk wholly one of the play, for she might have been
seriously hurt in her perilous leap.

But, fortunately, everything came out properly and a fine series of
pictures resulted.

"I'm so glad!" Estelle exclaimed, when it was all over, and, divested of
her padding, she sat in her room with Ruth and Alice. "I want to 'make
good' in this business, and riding seems to be my forte."

"Do you like it better than anything else?" asked Alice.

"Yes, I do. And I just love moving pictures, don't you?"

"Indeed we do," put in Ruth. "But we were never cut out for riders."

"I'd like it!" exclaimed Alice. "I'd like to know how to ride a horse as
well as you do."

"I'll show you," offered Estelle. "I'll be very glad to, and it's easy.
It's like swimming--all you need is confidence, and to learn not to be
afraid of your horse but to trust him. Let me show you some day."

"I believe I will!" decided Alice, with flashing eyes. "It will be
great."

"Better ask father," suggested Ruth.

"Oh, he'll let me, I know. We've ridden some, you know; but I would like
to ride as well as Estelle," and Alice and Estelle began to talk over
their plans for taking and giving riding lessons. In the midst of the
talk the return of the boy who went daily to the village for mail was
announced.

"Oh, I hope my new waist has come!" Alice exclaimed, for she had written
to her dressmaker to send one by parcel post. There was a package for
her--the one she expected--and also some letters, as well as one for
Ruth. Estelle showed no interest when the distribution of the mail was
going on.

"Don't you expect anything?" asked Alice.

"Any what?"

"Letters."

"Why, no, I don't believe I do," was the slowly given answer. "I don't
write any, so I don't get any, I suppose," and both girls noticed that
there was a far-away look in Estelle's eyes. Perhaps it was a wistful
look, for surely all girls like to get letters from some one.

"I believe she is estranged from her family," decided Alice to her
sister afterward. "Did you see how pathetic she looked when we got
letters and she didn't?"

"Well, I didn't notice anything special," Ruth replied. "But there is
something queer about her, I must admit. She is so absent-minded at
times. This morning I asked her if she wanted to go for a walk, and she
said she had no ticket."

"No ticket?"

"Yes, that's what she said. And when I laughed and told her one didn't
need a ticket to walk around Oak Farm, she sort of 'came to' and said
she was thinking about a boat."

"A boat--what boat?"

"That was all she said. Then she began to talk about something else."

"Do you know what I think?" asked Alice, suddenly.

"No. But then you think so many things it isn't any wonder I can't keep
track of them."

"I think, as I believe I've said before, that she has run away from some
ranch to be in moving pictures. That's why she doesn't write or receive
letters. She doesn't want her folks to know where she is."

"I can hardly believe that," declared Ruth. "She is too nice and refined
a girl to have done anything like that. No, I just think she is a bit
queer, that is all. But certainly she doesn't tell much about herself."

However, further speculation regarding Estelle Brown was cut short, as
orders came for the appearance of nearly the entire company in one of
the plays.

The first scene was to take place in a Southern town, and for the
purpose a street had been constructed by Pop Snooks and his helpers.
There was a stately mansion, smaller houses, a store or two and some
other buildings. True, the buildings were but shells, and, in some
cases, only fronts, but they showed well in the picture.

Ruth, Alice, and a number of the girls and women and men were to be the
inhabitants of this village, and were to take part in an alarm and flee
the place when it was known that the Confederate forces were being
driven back and through the place by the Unionists.

"Come on--get dressed!" cried Alice, and soon she, her sister, Estelle
and the other women were donning their Southern costumes, wide skirts,
with hoops to puff them out, and broad-brimmed hats, under which curls
showed.

There was to be a massed attack by the Unionists on the town, through
which the Confederates were to flee, and it was the part of Ruth and
Alice to rush from their father's "mansion" bearing a few of their
choice possessions.

All was in readiness. The Southern defenders were on the outskirts of
the town, drawn up to receive the Unionists. Toward these Confederates,
their enemies came riding. This was filmed separately, while other
camera men, in the made street, took pictures of the activities there.
Men, women and children went in and out of the houses. Though, as Mr.
Belix Apgar said, "If you call them houses you might as well call the
smell of an onion a dinner. There ain't nothin' to 'em!"

Suddenly an excited rider dashed into the midst of the peaceful
activities of the Southern town.

"They're coming! They're coming!" he cried, waving his hat. "The Yankees
are coming!" This would be flashed on the screen.

Then ensued a wild scene. Colored mammies rushed here and there seeking
their charges. Men began to look to their arms. Then came the advance
guard of the retreating Confederates, turning back to fire at their
enemies.

"Come on now, Ruth--Alice! This is where we make our rush--just as the
first of the Union soldiers appear!" called Paul, who was acting the
part of a Southern youth. "Grab up your stuff and come on!"

Ruth was to carry a bandbox and a case supposed to contain the family
jewels. Alice, who played the part this time of a frivolous young woman,
was to save her pet cat.

"Here they come!" yelled Paul, as the first of the Unionists came into
view at the head of the street. "Hurry, girls!"

Out they rushed, down the steps of the mansion, fleeing before the
mounted Union soldiers, who laughed and jeered, firing at the
Confederates, who were retreating.

Ruth and Estelle, with some of the other women, were in the lead. Alice
had lingered behind, for the cat showed a disposition to wiggle out of
her arms, and she wanted to keep it to make an effective picture.

Finally the creature did make its escape, but Alice was not going to
give up so easily. She started in pursuit, and then one of the Union
soldiers, Maurice Whitlow, spurred his horse forward. He wanted to get
in the foreground of the picture and took this chance.

"Get back where you belong!" yelled the director angrily. "Who told you
to get in the spotlight? Get back!"

But it was too late. Alice, in pursuit of the cat, was running straight
toward Whitlow's horse, and the next moment she slipped and went down,
almost under the feet of the prancing animal.

CHAPTER IX

MISS DIXON'S LOSS

"Look out!" shouted Paul, and, dropping what he was carrying, he made a
leap toward the animal Whitlow was riding.

"Roll out of the way of his feet!" cried the director.

"Shall I keep on with the film?" asked the camera man, for his duty was
to turn until told to stop, no matter what happened.

"Let it run!" Alice cried. "I can get out of the way. Don't stop on my
account!"

She had been in motion pictures long enough to know what it meant to
spoil a hundred feet or more of film in a spirited picture,
necessitating a retake. She had seen her danger, and had done her best
to get out of harm's way.

The cat had leaped into some bushes and was out of sight.

Whitlow, his face showing his fear and his inability to act in this
emergency, had instinctively drawn back on the reins. But it was to the
intelligent horse itself, rather than to the rider, that Alice owed her
immunity from harm. For the horse reared, and came down with feet well
to one side of the crouching girl, who had partly risen to her knees.

At the same moment Paul sprang for the steed's bridle and swerved him to
one side. Then, seeing that Alice was practically out of danger, Paul's
rage at the carelessness of Whitlow rose, and he reached up and fairly
dragged that young man out of the saddle.

"You don't know enough to lead a horse to water, let alone ride one in a
movie battle scene!" he cried, as he pushed the player to one side. "Why
don't you look where you're going?"

Whitlow was too shaken and startled to reply.

"Go on. Help her up and keep on with the retreat!" cried the director.
"That's one of the best scenes of the picture. Couldn't have been better
if we had rehearsed it. Never mind the cat, Miss DeVere. Run on. Paul,
you land a couple of blows on Whitlow and then follow Alice. Hold back,
there--you Union men--until we get this bit of by-play."

Paul, nothing loath, gave Whitlow two hard blows, and the latter dared
not return them for fear of spoiling the picture, but he muttered in
rage.

Then Paul, shaking his fist at the Unionists, hurried on after Alice,
and the retreat continued. What had threatened to be a disaster, or at
least a spoiling of the scene, had turned out well. It is often so in
moving pictures.

In the remainder of the scene the girls had little part. They had been
driven from their home, and, presumably, were taken in by friends. The
rest of the scenes showed the Union soldiers making merry in the
Southern town they had captured.

"My! That was a narrow escape you had!" exclaimed Ruth, when she and her
sister were at liberty to return to the farmhouse. "Were you hurt?"

"No; I strained one arm just a little. But it will make a good scene, so
Russ said."

"Too good--too realistic!" declared Paul. "When I get a chance at that
Whitlow----"

"Please don't do anything!" begged Alice. "It wasn't really his fault.
If I hadn't had the cat----"

"It was his fault for pushing himself to the front the way he did," said
the young actor. "Only the best riders were picked to lead the charge.
He might have known he couldn't control his horse in an emergency.
That's where he was at fault."

"He is a poor rider," commented Estelle. "But you showed rare good
sense, Alice, in acting as you did. A horse will not step on a person if
he can possibly avoid it. Mr. Whitlow's horse was better than he was."

"Just the same, I got in two good punches!" chuckled Paul, "and he
didn't dare hit back."

"He may make trouble for you later," Alice said.

"Oh, I'm not worrying about that. I'm satisfied."

There was a spirited battle scene later in the day between the Union and
Confederate forces; the latter endeavoring to retake the village.

A Confederate battery in a distant town was sent for, and the Union
position was shelled. But as by this time the Union cannon had come up
and were entrenched in the town, an artillery duel ensued.

Views were shown of the Union guns being manned by the men, who wore
bloody cloths around their foreheads and who worked hard serving the
cannon. Real powder was used, but no balls, of course, and now and then
a man would fall dead at his gun.

Similar views with another camera were taken of the Confederate guns and
the scenes alternated on the screen afterward, creating a big
sensation.

Then came an attack of the Confederate infantry under cover of the
Southern battery. This was spirited, detachments of men rushing forward,
firing and then seeking what cover they could. At times a man would roll
over, his gun dropping, sometimes several would drop at the same time.
These were those who were detailed to be shot.

The Unionists replied with a counter charge, and for a time the battle
waged fiercely on both sides. Then came a lull in the fighting, with the
Confederates ready to make a last charge in a desperate attempt to
recapture the town.

"I know what would make a good scene," said Maurice Whitlow, during the
lull when fresh films were being loaded into the cameras. "If we had an
airship now some of us Union fellows could go for reinforcements in
that. It would make a dandy scene."

"An airship!" cried Russ. "Say! remember that these scenes are supposed
to have taken place in 1863. The only airships then were those the
inventors were dreaming about or making in their laboratories. No
airships in Civil War plays! I guess not! Balloons, maybe, but no
airships."

"More fighting! Camera!" called Mr. Pertell, and again the spirited
action was under way. Cannon boomed; rifles spat fire and smoke; men
fought hand to hand, often rolling over dead; riderless horses dashed
here and there. Now and then a man would narrowly escape being run down.
As it was, several were burned from being too near the cannon or the
guns, and one man's leg was broken in a fall from his horse.

But it was part of the game, and no one seemed to mind. A real hospital
was set up at Oak Farm, not a mere shell of a building, and here the
injured, as well as those who simulated injury, were attended.

Ruth and some of the women made up as nurses, though this was not the
big scene in which Ruth and Alice were to take part.

"Confederates retreat!" directed Mr. Pertell, and the Southern forces,
having been defeated, were forced to withdraw. Their attempt to
recapture their town had failed.

"Whew! that was hot work!" cried Paul, as he came back to the farmhouse,
having played his part as a Confederate soldier.

"It certainly was," agreed Mr. DeVere, who had been the directing Union
General. Now that the "war" was over Northerners and Southerners mingled
together in friendly converse, their differences forgotten.

"I just can't bear the smell of powder!" complained Miss Dixon. "I wish
I had my salts."

"I'll get them for you, dear," offered Miss Pennington. "I'm going up to
our rooms." The former vaudeville actresses, with Ruth, Alice, and some
of the others, were resting on the farmhouse porch.

Miss Dixon smelled the salts and declared she felt much better.

"There's to be a dance in the village to-night," Paul remarked at the
supper table.

"Let's go!" proposed Alice. "Will you take me, Paul?"

"Of course I will."

"May I have the pleasure?" asked Russ, of Ruth.

"Why, yes, if the rest go."

"We'll all go!" chimed in Miss Dixon. "Some of the extra men are good
dancers. They proved it in the ballroom scene the other day. We can get
a man, Pearl."

"All right, my dear, just as you say."

The little party was soon arranged.

"Estelle might like to go," suggested Alice.

"I'll go to ask her," offered Ruth, for Miss Brown had quit the supper
table early and gone to her room.

As Ruth mounted the stairs she heard Miss Dixon and Miss Pennington
talking in the hall outside their rooms.

"I can't see where it can be," Miss Dixon was saying.

"It was on your dresser when I went up for the salts," said her chum.
"Are you sure you didn't take it after that?"

"Positive! It's gone--that's all there is to it."

"What's gone?" asked Ruth.

"One of my rings," was Miss Dixon's answer. "I left it on my dresser and
my door was open. It was there when I went down to supper, and we were
all at the table together----"

"Except Estelle Brown!" said Miss Pennington quickly.

CHAPTER X

LIEUTENANT VARLEY

For a moment Ruth stood looking with wide-open eyes at the two former
vaudeville actresses. On their part they stared boldly at Ruth, and then
Miss Dixon turned and slightly winked at Miss Pennington.

"That was one of your valuable rings, wasn't it, dear?" asked Miss
Pennington, in deliberate tones.

"It certainly was--the best diamond I had. I simply won't let it be
lost--or taken. I'm going to have it back!"

She spoke in a loud tone, and the door of Estelle's room, farther down
the hall, opened. Estelle looked out. She was in negligee, and she
seemed to be suffering.

"Has anything happened?" she asked.

"Yes," answered Miss Dixon. "Something has happened. Some one has stolen
my diamond ring!"

"Oh!" gasped Ruth, "you shouldn't say that!"

"Say what?"

"Stolen. It's such a--such a harsh word."

"Well, I feel harsh just now. I'm not going to lose that ring. It was on
my dresser when I went down to supper, and now it's gone. It was
stolen--or taken, if you like that word better. Perhaps you want me to
say it was--borrowed?" and she looked scornfully at Ruth.

"It may have slipped down behind your dresser."

"I've looked," said Miss Pennington. "You came up here from the table
before we did," she went on, addressing Estelle. "Did you see anything
of any one in Miss Dixon's room?"

"I? No, I saw no one." Estelle was plainly taken by surprise.

"Did you go in yourself," asked Miss Dixon brusquely. "Come, I don't
mind a joke--if it was a joke--but give me back my ring. I'm going into
town, and I want to wear it."

"A joke! Give you back your ring! Why, what do you mean?" and Estelle,
her face flashing her indignation, stepped out into the hall.

"I mean you might have borrowed it," went on Miss Dixon, not a whit
daunted. "Oh, it isn't anything. I've often done the same thing myself
when we've been playing on circuit. It's all right--if you give things
back."

"But I haven't taken anything of yours!" cried Estelle. "I never went
into your room!"

"Perhaps you have forgotten about it," suggested Miss Pennington coldly.
"You seem to have a headache, and sometimes those headache remedies are
so strong----"

"I am tired, but I have no headache," said Estelle simply, "nor have I
taken any strong headache remedies, as you seem to suggest. I haven't
been walking in my sleep, either. And I certainly was not in your room,
Miss Dixon, nor do I know anything about your ring," and with that she
turned and entered her room, whence, presently, came the sound of
sobbing.

For a moment Ruth stood still, looking at the two rather flashy
actresses, and wondering if they really meant what they had insinuated.
Then Alice's voice was heard calling:

"I say, Ruth, are you and Estelle coming? The boys have the auto and
they'll take us in. Come on."

Ruth did not answer, and Alice came running up the stairs. She came to a
halt as she saw the trio standing in the hall.

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