The Moving Picture Girls in War Plays

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"But you want to find your folks, don't you?" asked Alice.

"That's the queer part of it," Estelle replied. "I seem never to have
had any relatives. The way I feel about it now, I would never know that
I had had a father or a mother. I seem to have just 'growed,' the way
poor Topsy did in Uncle Tom's Cabin. That is another strange part of my
present existence. I seem to be in a world by myself, and, as far as I
can tell, I have always been there."

"What about Lieutenant Varley?" inquired Alice.

"Lieutenant Varley?" and Estelle's voice showed that she was puzzled.

"The young officer who said he met you in Portland."

"Oh, yes. I had forgotten. Well, I have absolutely no recollection of
that, and I'm sure I would remember if I had been in the West. I'm
certain I never was there."

"And yet if you weren't in the West how did you learn to ride so well?"
Ruth queried.

"That's another part of the puzzle, my dear. Riding seems to come as
natural to me as breathing. I don't seem ever to have learned it any
more than I learned how to dance. I seem always to have known how."

"There's only one way to account for that," Alice said.

"How?"

"From the fact that you must have started to learn to ride and to dance
when you were very young--a mere child."

"I suppose that would account for it. And yet, I can't remember ever
being a child. I don't recall having played with dolls or having made
mud pies. For me my existence begins about three or four years back, and
goes on from there, mostly in moving pictures."

"It is a queer case," commented Ruth. "I don't know what to do to help
you. Perhaps it would be a good thing to speak to Mr. Pertell about it.
Often when children have been kidnapped, you know, their pictures are
flashed on the screen in hundreds of cities, and sometimes persons in
the audiences recognize them. That might be done with you, Estelle."

"No, I wouldn't dream of doing that. Perhaps something may turn up some
day that will tell me who I really am. And perhaps I shall be sorry for
having learned."

"No, you will not!" declared Alice. "You come of good people--one can
easily tell that."

"Thank you, dear. And now I have inflicted enough of my troubles on you.
Let's talk about something pleasant."

"You haven't burdened us with your troubles, Estelle dear," insisted
Ruth. "It is a strange story, and we are interested in the outcome."

"Indeed we are," said Alice. "We want very much to help you."

"That's good of you. But I don't see what you can do. I'm just a sort of
Topsy, and Topsy I'll remain. Now please don't say anything about what I
have told you to any one--not even to your father--unless I give you
permission. I don't want to be the object of curiosity, as well as of
suspicion."

"Suspicion!" cried Alice.

"Yes, about Miss Dixon's ring."

"Oh! no one in the world believes you took that--not even Miss Dixon
herself. I believe she has found the old paste diamond, and is too mean
to admit it!" cried impulsive Alice.

"You mustn't say such things!" objected her sister.

"Well, neither must she, then. Oh, Estelle! Wouldn't it be great if you
should prove to be the daughter of a millionaire!"

"Too great, my dear. Don't let's think about it. But I feel better for
having unburdened some of my troubles on you. And if you will still be
as nice to me as you always have been----"

"Why shouldn't we be?" asked Ruth.

"Oh, I don't know, but I thought----"

"Silly!" cried Alice, as she threw her arms about the strange girl and
kissed her.

Suddenly, from a distant hill, came a dull, booming sound, that, low as
it was, seemed to make the very ground tremble.

"What's that?" cried Alice.

"Thunder," suggested Ruth.

"It sounded more like an explosion," asserted Estelle.

"There it goes again!" exclaimed Alice.

"Look!" cried her sister.

She pointed through the open window, and as the girls peered out they
saw the top of the hill fly upward in a shower of dirt and stones.

Once more the deep boom sounded.

"It's a big gun!" cried Alice. "I remember, now. Mr. Pertell said he
wanted pictures of a siege of a fort, and he sent for a big gun to get
explosive effects. Come on over!"

"And be blown to pieces?" objected Ruth. "Don't dare go, Alice DeVere!"

"Oh, come on! There's no danger. Russ is going to make the films. I
guess they're just trying it now. It's too late to make good pictures.
Come on."

"I'll go," offered Estelle. "I don't mind the noise."

Ruth declined to go, so the other two girls set off. On the porch they
met Russ and Paul, who confirmed their guess that it was a big siege gun
which Mr. Pertell had sent to New York to get, so he might show the
effect of explosive shells.

"I'm going to film some to-morrow," Russ said.

"Be careful," urged Alice. "Don't get blown up!"

"I'm no more anxious for that than any one," laughed Russ, and together
they set off toward the place where the big gun was being tried out.

CHAPTER XX

A WRONG SHOT

The big gun which Mr. Pertell had secured to make more realistic the war
play he was preparing for the films, was an old fashioned siege rifle,
made toward the close of the Civil conflict. It had not been used more
than a few times, and then it had been stored away in some arsenal. The
director, hearing of it, had secured it to fire at a certain hill on Oak
Farm.

This hill would, in the motion pictures, form a stronghold of the
Southern forces and it would be demolished by shells from the large
cannon, and then would follow a charge on the part of the Union
soldiers.

Real shells, with large explosive charges in them, would be used, but it
is needless to say that when the shots were fired at the hill the
players taking the parts of the Southerners would be at a safe distance.

"They're just trying it out now," observed Russ, who with Paul, was
walking over the fields with Alice and Estelle. "Mr. Pertell wants to
get the range, and decide on the best places from which to make the
pictures. I think we'll film some to-morrow if it's a good day."

"What's the matter with your eyes, Estelle?" asked Paul, as he looked at
her. "Were you working in the studio to-day? I know those lights always
affect my sight."

"Why, no, I wasn't in the studio," and then Estelle realized why her
eyes were so inflamed--it was from crying. She gave Alice a meaning
glance, as though to enjoin silence, but she need have had no fears.
Alice would not betray the secret.

The big gun had been mounted on a level piece of land, not far from the
hill, and on this plain had been thrown up earthworks behind which the
Union forces would take their stand in an effort to reduce the
Confederate stronghold.

"They're going to fire!" cried Estelle as they came within sight of the
gun, and saw, by the activities of the men about it, that a shot was
about to be delivered.

Alice covered her ears with her hands, and Russ and Paul stood on their
tiptoes and opened their mouths wide.

"What in the world are they doing that for?" asked Estelle.

"I can't hear a word you say!" called Alice, making her voice loud, to
overcome her own hearing handicap.

"There she goes!" cried Russ.

The earth trembled as flames and smoke belched from the muzzle of the
cannon, and the girls screamed.

Something black was seen for an instant in the air amid the swirl of
smoke, and then another portion of the hill was seen to lift itself up
into the air and dirt and stones were scattered about.

"A good shot!" observed Russ, letting himself down off his tiptoes.
"That would make a dandy scene for the film."

"That's right," agreed Paul, also letting himself down and closing his
opened mouth.

"Why did you do that?" asked Estelle, when the echoes of the firing had
died away. "Why did you stand on your toes, and open your mouths?"

"To lessen the shock to our ear drums," answered Paul. "It is the
concussion, that is, the rushing back of air into the vacuum caused by
the shot, that does the damage. By opening your mouth you equalize the
air pressure on the inside and the outside of your ear drums, just as
you do when you go through a river tunnel. When there is a partial
vacuum outside your ear, the air inside you presses the drum outward,
and by opening your mouth--or by swallowing you make the pressure
equal. Sometimes the pressure outside is greater than the pressure
inside, and you must also equalize that before you can be comfortable."

"But that wasn't why you stood on your toes," Alice said.

"No; we did that to have less surface of our bodies on the ground so the
vibration would be less. If one could leap up off the earth at the exact
moment a shot was fired it would be much better, but it is hard to jump
at the right instant, and standing on one's toes is nearly as good. Then
you present only a comparatively small point which the vibrations of the
earth, caused by the explosion of the gun, can act upon."

"That's a good thing to remember," Estelle said. "Are they going to fire
again?"

"It looks so," observed Russ. "But if they knock away too much of the
hill there won't be any left for the pictures to-morrow."

"I believe they want to make the top of the hill flat," said Paul. "They
are going to have some sort of hand-to-hand fight on it after the
Unionists capture it," he went on. "I heard Mr. Pertell speaking of it."

"There goes another!" cried Alice, as she saw the same preparations as
before and one man standing near the gun to pull the lanyard, which, by
means of a friction tube, exploded the charge.

Once more the projectile shot out and, burying itself in the soft dirt
of the hill, threw it up in a shower.

"That'll save me a lot of work!" exclaimed a voice behind the young
people, and, turning, they saw Sandy Apgar smiling at them. "That's a
new way of plowing," he went on. "It sure does stir up the soil."

"Won't it spoil your hill?" asked Alice.

"Not so's you could notice it. That hill isn't wuth much as it stands.
It's too steep to plow, and only a goat could find a foothold on it to
graze. So if you moving picture folks level it for me I may be able to
raise some crops on it. Shoot as much as you like. You can't hurt that
hill!"

The men at the gun signaled that they were going to fire no more that
day, and then, as it was safe, the young folks made a trip to see the
extent of damage caused by the shells.

Great furrows were torn in the earth and the stones, and the top of the
hill, that had been rounding, was now quite flat, though far from being
smooth.

The next day had been set for filming the scenes with the big gun in
them. Contrary to expectations, no pictures could be taken, as the
throwing up of the earthworks had not been finished. But a number of men
from both "armies" were set to work, and as it afforded good practice
for the militia they were called on to dig trenches, throw up ridges of
earth, and go through other needful military tactics.

The girls had no part in the scenes with the big gun, except that, later
on, they were to act as nurses in the hospital tent.

On top of the hill a force of Confederates would be stationed, and they
were to reply to the fire of the big gun. Of course, when the
projectiles struck the hill the soldiers would be a safe distance away,
but by means of trick photography scenes would be shown just as if they
were sustaining a severe bombardment.

"Is everything ready?" asked Mr. Pertell, a few days after the setting
up of the big gun, during which interval a sort of fort had been
constructed on the hill and a redoubt thrown up.

"I think so," answered Russ. "We couldn't have a better day, as far as
sunshine is concerned. I'm ready to film whenever you are."

"I'll give the word in a minute. Paul, you're in charge of a detachment
of Union soldiers that storms the hill as soon as the big gun has
silenced the battery there."

"Very well, sir."

The big gun rattled out its booming challenge and was replied to by
volleys from the rifles of the Confederates on the hill and by their
field artillery, which they hurriedly brought up.

Shot after shot was fired, and one after another the Confederate cannon
were disabled. They were blown up by small charges of powder put under
them, set off by fuses lighted by the Confederates themselves, but this
did not show in the picture, and it looked as though the Southern
battery was blown up by shots from the big gun.

"All ready now, Paul! Lead your men!" yelled the director, who was
standing near Russ and his camera. "Rush right up the hill. Stop firing
here!" he called to those in charge of the big gun.

But something went wrong, or some one misunderstood. As Paul was
charging up the hill at the head of his little band, Russ, turning his
head for an instant, saw a man about to pull the lanyard of the big gun.

"Don't shoot! Don't shoot!" he yelled. "It's aimed right at Paul and his
fellows!"

But Russ was too late. The man pulled the cord. There was a deafening
roar, a cloud of smoke, a sheet of fire, and a black projectile was sent
hurtling on its way against the hill, up the side of which Paul was
climbing with his soldiers.

CHAPTER XXI

THE BIG SCENE

Nothing could be done! No power on earth could stop that projectile now
until it had spent itself, or until it had struck something and
exploded.

Horror-stricken, those near the big gun looked across the intervening
space. How many would survive what was to follow?

The man who had pulled the lanyard sank to the ground, covering his face
with his hands.

For a brief instant Paul, leading his men, looked back at the sound of
the unexpected shot. He had been told that no more were to be fired.
Doubtless, this was an extra one to make the pictures more realistic.
But when he saw, in a flash, something black and menacing leaping
through the air toward him and his men, instinctively he cried:

"Duck, everybody! Duck!"

He fell forward on his face and those of his men who heard and
understood did likewise.

Ruth, Alice and Estelle, who were watching the scene from a distant
knoll, hardly understood what it was all about. They had thought no more
shots would be fired when Paul began his charge, but one had boomed out,
and surely that was a projectile winging its way toward the partly
demolished hill.

"That is carrying realism a little too far," said Ruth. "I hope----"

"Paul has fallen!" cried Alice. "Oh--something has happened!"

One must realize that all this took place at the same time. The firing
of the shot, the realization that it was a mistake, Paul's flash of the
oncoming projectile, his command to his men and the vision had by the
girls. All in an instant, for a shot from a big gun does not leave much
margin of time between starting and arriving even when fired with only a
small charge of powder for moving picture purposes.

And, so quickly had it happened that Russ had not stopped turning the
crank of his camera, nor had an assistant on the hillside, where he had
been stationed to film Paul and his soldiers.

And then the projectile struck. Into the soft dirt of the hillside it
buried its head, and then, as the explosion came, up went a shower of
earth and stones. And ever afterward the gunner who inserted that
charge blessed himself and an ever-watchful Providence that he had put
in but half a charge, the last of the powder.

For it was this half-charge that saved Paul and his men. The projectile
struck in the hill a hundred feet below where Paul was leading his force
up the slope, and though they were well-nigh buried beneath a rain of
sand and gravel, they were not otherwise hurt--scratches and bruises
being their portion.

"What are they trying to do, kill us?" cried a man, staggering to his
feet, blood streaming from a cut on his cheek.

"This is too much like real war for me!" yelled another throwing down
his gun. "I'm going to quit!"

"No you don't!" shouted Paul. "Come on. It was a mistake. They won't
fire any more. It will make a great scene on the film. Come on!"

He gave one look back toward the Union battery and saw Mr. Pertell
fluttering a white flag which meant safety. Waving his sword above his
head, Paul yelled again:

"Come on! Come on! It's all right! Up the hill with you! That shot was
only to put a little pep in you!"

"Pep! More like sand! I got a mouthful!" muttered a sergeant.

"Get every inch of that. It's the best scene we've had yet, though it
was a close call!" telephoned Mr. Pertell to the operator on the side of
the hill. "Film every inch of it!"

"All right! I'm getting it," answered the camera man and he went on
grinding away at his crank.

The explosion of the shell had, for the moment, stopped the advance of
Paul and his men up the hill, but this momentary halt only made it look
more realistic--as though they really feared they were in danger, as
indeed they had been. Now the director called:

"It's all right, Paul! Go ahead! Keep on just as if that was part of the
show."

"It was a lively part all right!" and Paul laughed grimly. "Come on,
boys!"

And the charge was resumed.

Back of the dismantled battery, whence they had presumably been driven
by the fire from the big gun, the Confederates were massed. They were
waiting for Paul's charge, and they, too, had been a little surprised by
the unexpected firing of the shell.

But now, in response to a signal on the field telephone, they prepared
to resist the assault.

"Come on, boys! Beat the Yankees back!" was the battle cry that would be
flashed on the screen.

Then came the fierce struggle, and it was nearly as fierce as it was
indicated in the pictures. Real blows were given, and more than one man
went down harder than he had expected to. There were duels with clubbed
rifles, and fencing combats with swords, though, of course, the
participants took care not to cut one another.

In spite of this, several received minor hurts. But this result only
added to the effectiveness of the scene, though it was painful. But in
providing realism for motion pictures more than one conscientious player
has been injured, and not a few have lost their lives. It is devotion of
no small sort to their profession.

Back and forth surged the fight, sometimes Paul's men giving way, and
again driving the Confederates back from the crest of the hill. Small
detachments here and there fired volleys of blank cartridges from their
rifles, but there was not as much of this for the close-up pictures as
there had been for the larger battle scenes. For while smoke blowing
over a big field on which hundreds of men and horses are massed makes a
picture effective, if seen at too close range it hides the details of
the fighting.

And Mr. Pertell wanted the details to come out in this close-up scene.

Back and forth surged the fight until it had run through a certain
length of film. Then the orders came that the Confederates were to give
up and retreat. Before this, however, a number of them had been killed,
as had almost as many Union soldiers.

Then came a spirited scene. Paul, leading his men, leaped up on the
earthworks of the Confederate battery, cut down the Southern flag--the
stars and bars. In its place he hoisted the stars and stripes, and with
a wild yell that made the fight seem almost real, he and his men
occupied the heights.

"Well done!" cried Mr. Pertell, enthusiastically, when he came over from
the ramparts of the big gun. "Are you sure none of you was hurt when
that shell exploded?"

"None of us," answered Paul. "It fell short, luckily, and the dirt was
soft. No big rocks were tossed up, fortunately, and we came out of it
very nicely."

"Glad to hear it. I've discharged the man who fired the gun."

"That's too bad!"

"Well, I hired him over again--but to do something else less dangerous.
I can't afford to take chances with big cannon. But I think the scene
went off very well. That stopping and the bursting of the shell made it
look very real."

"That's good," Paul said, wiping some of the dirt and blood off his
face, for he had been scratched by the point of some one's bayonet.

That ended this particular scene for the day, and the players could take
a much-needed rest. Plenty of powder had been burned, and the air was
rank and heavy with the fumes.

"Are you sure you're all right, Paul?" asked Alice, when he came up to
the farmhouse later in the day.

"Well, I think I'd be better if you would feel my pulse," he said,
winking at Russ. "And you don't need to be in a hurry to let go my hand.
I sha'n't need it right away."

"Silly!" exclaimed Alice, as she turned, blushing, away.

"It must have been a shock to you," said Ruth.

"It was. But it was over so quickly I didn't have time to be shocked
long. Now, let's talk about something nice. Come on in to the town, and
I'll buy you all ice-cream."

"That will be nice!" laughed Estelle.

It was several days later that Mr. Pertell, coming to where the moving
picture girls and their friends were seated on the porch, said:

"The big scene is for to-morrow. In the hospital. This is where you are
looking after the wounded officer, Ruth, and Alice, on pretense of
being a nurse seeking to give aid, comes in to get the papers. I want
this very carefully done, as it is one of the climaxes of the whole
play. So we'll have some rehearsals in the morning."

"Am I to do that riding act?" asked Estelle.

"Yes, you'll do the horse stunt as usual. There's to be a cavalry
charge, Miss Brown, so don't get in their way and be run down."

"I'll try not to," she answered.

CHAPTER XXII

ALICE DOES WELL

Long rows of wounded men lay stretched out on white cots in the
hospital. Some wore bandages over their heads all but concealing their
eyes. Others were so entwined with white wrappings that it was hard to
say whether they were men or oriental women. Still others raised
themselves on their elbows, spasms of pain corrugating their brows,
while red cross nurses held to their lips cooling drinks.

Here at the bedside of one stood a grave surgeon, slowly shaking his
head as he came to the melancholy conclusion that a further operation
was useless. Over there they were carrying out a motionless form on a
stretcher, a sheet mercifully draped over what was left. At the entrance
to the hospital other bearers were carrying in those who came from the
scene of the distant firing.

The boom of big guns shook the frail shack that had been turned into a
hospital. Now and then, as the wind blew in fitful gusts, there was
borne on it the acrid smell of powder. And again, in some dark corner of
that building of suffering, there could be seen through the cracks, left
by hasty builders, the flash of fire that preceded the booming crash of
the cannon.

A sad-faced woman in black moved slowly down the line of cots led by a
sympathetic nurse. She came to one bed, stopped as though in doubt,
passed her hand over her face as if she did not want to admit that what
she saw she did see, and then she fell on her knees in a passion of
weeping, while the surgeons turned away their heads. She had found what
she had sought.

From the farther door there entered a man, limping on crutches
improvised from the limbs of a tree. Stained bandages were about one arm
and another leg. His head, too, was wrapped so that only half his face
showed. A hurrying orderly met him.

"You can't come in here!" he cried.

"Why not, I'd like to know. Ain't this the horspital?"

"Of course it is."

"Then why can't I come in here. I'm hurt, and hurt bad, pardner. Shot
through leg and arm, and part of my jaw gone. Why can't I come in?"

"'Cause you can't. Didn't we just carry you out for dead? What'll the
audience think if they see you walking again? Git on out of here!"

"I will not! I've wrapped this bandage around my head on purpose so they
won't know me. Let me come in, will you? That's real lemonade them
pretty nurses is givin' out to drink, and I'm as dry as a fish. I've
been firin' one of them guns until I've swallowed enough smoke to play
an animated cannon ball. Let me in the horspital."

"Yes, let him in!" called Mr. Pertell through his megaphone. He was at
the far end of the shack that had been hastily erected on Oak Farm as a
hospital, for the last big scenes of the war play, "A Girl in Blue and A
Girl in Gray."

"All right, just as you say," answered the orderly. "Come on in, Bill.
Are you going to die this time?"

"I am not! I'm going to be one of them converts, and get chicken
sandwiches and jelly."

"You mean convalescent."

"Um. That's it! Lead me to me bed, will you, for I'm a sadly wounded old
soldier--that's what I am."

Amid laughter he was led to a cot, where a smiling nurse tucked him in
between the yellow sheets. For, as has been said, yellow takes the place
of white in inside scenes.

And this was an inside scene, powerful electric lights dispelling all
shadows so the cameras could film every motion and expression.

"Now remember!" called Mr. Pertell when the "wounded man," one of the
extra players, had been comfortably put to bed, "remember no smiling or
laughing when we begin to make the picture. This is supposed to be
serious."

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