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Title: The Moving Picture Girls at Rocky Ranch
       Or, Great Days Among the Cowboys


Author: Laura Lee Hope



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Language: English

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THE MOVING PICTURE GIRLS AT ROCKY RANCH

Or

Great Days Among the Cowboys

by

LAURA LEE HOPE

Author of "The Moving Picture Girls," "The Moving Picture
Girls Under the Palms," "The Outdoor Girls
Series," "The Bobbsey Twins Series," Etc.

Illustrated







The Goldsmith Publishing Co.
Cleveland
Made in U. S. A.

Copyright, 1914, by
Grosset & Dunlap

Press of
The Commercial Bookbinding Co.
Cleveland



[Illustration: "WE ARE HEMMED IN BY THE PRAIRIE FIRE!" _Moving Picture
Girls at Rocky Ranch._--_Page 192._]




CONTENTS


          CHAPTER                     PAGE

              I THE SPY                 1

             II WESTERN PLANS          13

            III A DARING FEAT          23

             IV A CLOUD OF SMOKE       32

              V A MIX-UP               42

             VI THE AUTO SMASH         49

            VII OFF FOR THE WEST       56

           VIII THE OIL WELL           66

             IX THE RIVALS             72

              X THE CYCLONE            78

             XI AT ROCKY RANCH         90

            XII SUSPICIONS             96

           XIII AT THE BRANDING       109

            XIV A WARNING             117

             XV THE INDIAN RITES      125

            XVI PRISONERS             134

           XVII THE RESCUE            143

          XVIII A RUSH OF STEERS      156

            XIX TOO MUCH REALISM      163

             XX IN THE OPEN           168

            XXI THE BURNING GRASS     178

           XXII HEMMED IN             186

          XXIII THE ESCAPE            193

           XXIV A DISCLOSURE          201

            XXV THE ROUND-UP          208




THE MOVING PICTURE GIRLS
AT ROCKY RANCH




CHAPTER I

THE SPY


"Well, Ruth, aren't you almost ready?"

"Just a moment, Alice. I can't seem to get my collar fastened in the
back. I wish I'd used the old-fashioned hooks and eyes instead of those
new snaps."

"Oh, I think those snaps are just adorable!"

"Oh, Alice DeVere! Using such an extreme expression!"

"What expression, Ruth?"

"'Adorable!' You sometimes accuse me of using slang, and there you
go----"

"'Adorable' isn't slang," retorted Alice.

"Oh, isn't it though? Since when?"

"There you go yourself! You're as bad as I am."

"Well, it must be associating with you, then," sighed Ruth.

"No, Ruth, it's this moving picture business. It just makes you use
words that _mean_ something, and not those that are merely sign-posts.
I'm glad to see that you are getting--sensible. But never mind about
that. Are you ready to go to the studio? I'm sure we'll be late."

"Oh, please help me with this collar. I wish I'd made this waist with
the new low-cut effect. Not too low, of course," Ruth added hastily, as
she caught a surprised glance from her sister.

Two girls were in a room about which were strewn many articles of
feminine adornment. Yet it was not an untidy apartment. True, dresser
drawers did yawn and disclose their contents, and closet doors gaped at
one, showing a collection of shoes and skirts. But then the occupants of
the room might have been forgiven, for they were in haste to keep an
appointment.

"There, Ruth," finally exclaimed the younger of the two girls--yet she
was not so much younger--not more than two years. "I think your collar
is perfectly sweet."

"It's good of you to say so. You know I got it at that little French
shop around the corner, but sewed some of that Mexican drawn lace on to
make it a bit higher. Now I'm sorry I did, for I had to put in those
snap fasteners instead of hooks. And if you don't get them to fit
exactly they come loose. It's like when the film doesn't come right on
the screen, and the piano player sounds a discord to call the
operator's attention to it."

"You've hit it, sister mine."

"Oh, Alice! There you go again. 'Hit it!'"

"You'd say 'hit it' at a baseball game," Alice retorted.

"Oh, yes, I suppose so. But we're not at one," objected the older girl,
as she finished buttoning her gloves, and took up her parasol, which she
shook out, to make sure that it would open easily when needed.

"There, I think I'm ready," announced Alice, as she slipped on a light
jacket, for, though it was spring, the two rivers of New York sent
rather chilling breezes across the city, and a light waist was rather
conducive to colds.

"Have you the key?" asked the older girl, as she paused for a moment on
the threshold of the private hall of the apartment house. She had tied
her veil rather tightly at the back, knotting it and fastening it with a
little gold pin, and now she pulled it away from her cheeks, to relieve
the tension.

"Yes, I have it, Ruth. Oh, don't make such funny faces! Anyone would
think you were posing."

"Well, I'm not--but this veil--tickles."

"Serves you right for trying to be so stylish."

"It's proper to have a certain amount of style, Alice, dear. I wish I
could induce you to have more of it."

"I have enough, thank you. Let's don't talk dress any more, or we'll
have a tiff before we get to the moving picture studio, and there are
some long and trying scenes ahead of us to-day."

"So there are. I wonder if daddy took his key?"

"Wait, and I'll look on his dresser."

The younger girl went back into the apartment for a moment, while her
sister stepped across the corridor and tapped lightly at an opposite
door.

"Has Russ gone?" she asked the pleasant-faced woman who answered.

"Yes, Ruth. A little while ago. He was going to call for you girls, but
I knew you were dressing, for Alice came in to borrow some pins, so I
told him not to wait."

"That's right. We'll see him at the studio."

"You're coming in to supper to-night, you know."

"Oh, yes, Mrs. Dalwood. Daddy wouldn't miss that for anything!" laughed
Ruth, as she turned to wait for her sister. "Of course he _says_ our
cooking is the best he ever had since poor mamma left us," Ruth went
on, "but I just _know_ he relishes yours a great deal more."

"Oh, you're just saying that, Ruth!" objected the neighbor.

"Indeed I'm not. You should hear him talk, for days afterward, about
your clam chowder." She laughed genially.

"Well, he does seem to relish that," admitted Mrs. Dalwood.

"What's that?" asked Alice, as she came out.

"We're speaking of clam chowder, and how fond daddy is of Mrs. Dalwood's
recipe," said Ruth.

"Oh, yes, indeed! I should think he'd be ashamed to look a clam in the
face--that is, if a clam _has_ a face," laughed Alice. "It's awfully
good of you, Mrs. Dalwood, to make it for him so often."

"Well, I'm always glad when a man enjoys his meals," declared Mrs.
Dalwood, who, being a widow, knew what the lack of proper home life
meant.

"I'm afraid we're imposing on you," suggested Alice, as she started down
the stairs. "You have us over to tea so often, and we seldom invite
you."

"Now don't be thinking that, my dear!" exclaimed the neighbor. "I know
what it is when you have to pose so much for moving pictures.

"My boy Russ tells me what long hours you put in, and how hard you work.
And it's trouble enough to get up a meal these days, and have anything
left to pay the rent. So I'm only too glad when you can come in and
enjoy the victuals with us. I cook too much anyhow, and of late Russ
seems to have lost his appetite."

"I fancy I know why," laughed Alice, with a roguish glance at her
sister.

"Alice!" protested Ruth, in shocked tones. "Don't you dare----"

"I was only going to say that he has not seemed well since coming back
from Florida--what was the harm in that?" Alice wanted to know.

"Oh!" murmured Ruth. "Do come on," she added, as if she feared her
fun-loving sister might say something embarrassing.

"Russ will be better soon, Mrs. Dalwood," Alice called as she and her
sister went down the stairway of the apartment house.

"What makes you think so?" asked his mother. "Not but what I'm glad to
hear you say that, for really he hasn't eaten at all well lately."

"We're going on the road again, I hear," went on Alice. "The whole
moving picture company is to be taken off somewhere, and a lot of films
made. Russ always likes that, and I'm sure his appetite will come back
as soon as we start traveling. It always does."

"You are getting to be a close observer," remarked Ruth, with just the
hint of sarcasm in her voice. "Oh, Alice, do finish buttoning your
gloves in the house!" she exclaimed. "It looks so careless to go out
fussing with them."

"All right, sister mine. Anything to keep peace in the family!" laughed
the younger girl.

Together they went down the street, a charming picture of youth and
happiness.

A little later they entered the studio of the Comet Film Company, a
concern engaged in the business of making moving pictures, from posing
them with actors and actresses, and the suitable "properties," to the
leasing of the completed films to the various theaters throughout the
country.

Alice and Ruth DeVere, of whom you will hear more later, with their
father, were engaged in this work, and very interesting and profitable
they found it.

As the girls entered the studio they were greeted by a number of other
players, and an elderly gentleman, with a bearing and carriage that
revealed the schooling of many years behind the footlights, came
forward.

"I was just wondering where you were," he said with a smile. His voice
was husky and hoarse, and indicated that he had some throat affection.
In fact, that same throat trouble was the cause of Hosmer DeVere being
in moving picture work instead of in the legitimate drama, in which he
had formerly been a leading player.

"We stopped a moment to speak to Mrs. Dalwood," explained Ruth.

"Clam chowder," added Alice, with a laugh. "She's going to have it this
evening, Daddy."

"Good!" he exclaimed, rubbing his hands together in a manner that
indicated gratification. "I was just hungry for some."

"You always seem able to eat that," laughed Alice. "I must learn how to
make it."

"I wish you would!" exclaimed her father, earnestly. "Then when we are
on the road I can have some, now and then."

"Oh, you are hopeless!" laughed Alice. "Here is your latch-key, Daddy,"
she went on, handing it to him. "You left it on your dresser, and as
Ruth and I are going shopping when we get through here, I thought you
might want it."

"Thank you, I probably shall. I am going home from here to study a new
part."

The scene in the studio of the moving picture concern was a lively one.
Men were moving about whole "rooms"--or, at least they appeared as such
on the film. Others were setting various parts of the stage,
electricians were adjusting the powerful lights, cameras were being set
up on their tripods, and operators were at the handles, grinding away,
for several plays were being made at once.

"Just in time, Ruth and Alice!" called Russ Dalwood, who was one of the
chief camera men. "Your scene goes on in ten minutes. You have just time
to dress."

"It's that 'Quaker Maid;' isn't it?" asked Ruth, for she and her sisters
took part in so many plays that often it was hard to remember which
particular one was to be filmed.

"That's it," said Russ. "Don't forget your bonnets!" he laughed as he
focused the camera.

"All ready now!" called Mr. Pertell, the manager of the company, and
also the chief stage director, a little later. "Take your places, if you
please! Mr. DeVere, you are not in this until the second scene. Mr.
Bunn, you'll not need your high hat in this act."

"But I thought you said----" began an elderly actor, of the type known
as "Hams," from their insatiable desire to portray the character of
Hamlet.

"I know I did," said Mr. Pertell, sharply. "But I have had to change my
mind. You are to take the part of a plumber, and you come to fix a burst
water pipe. So get your overalls and your kit. You have a plumber's kit;
haven't you, Pop?" the manager called to Pop Snooks, the property man,
who was obliged, on short notice, to provide anything from a diamond
ring to a rustic bridge.

"All right for the plumber!" called Pop. "Have it for you in a minute."

"And, Mr. Sneed," called the manager to another actor. "You are supposed
to be the householder whose water pipe has burst. You try to putty it up
and you get soaked. Go over there in the far corner, where the tank is;
we don't want water running into this Quaker scene."

"Oh, I get all wet; do I?" asked Mr. Sneed, in no very pleasant tones.

"That's what you do!"

"Well, all I've got to say is that I wish you'd give some of these tank
dramas to someone else. I'm getting tired of being soaked."

"You haven't been really wet since the trip to Florida," declared Mr.
Pertell. "Lively now, we have no time to lose. Come on, Russ!" he called
to the young operator. "You're to film the Quaker scenario. I'll have
Johnson make the water pipe scene. All ready, ladies and gentlemen!"

Various plays were going on at once in different parts of the studio.
Ruth and Alice DeVere took their places in one where a Quaker story was
being portrayed. Later they posed in a church scene, in which a number
of extra people, or "supers," were engaged to represent the
congregation.

Mr. Pertell, once he had the various scenes going, took a moment in
which to rest, for he was a very busy man. He sat down near Alice, who,
for the time being, was out of the scene. But hardly had the manager
stretched out in a chair, resting one shirt-sleeved arm over the back,
when he started up, and looked intently toward one corner of the studio.

"I wonder why he is going in there?" observed the manager, half aloud.

"Who?" asked Alice, for the moving picture company was like one big
family, in a way.

"That new man," went on Mr. Pertell. "Harry Wilson, he said his name
was. Now he's going into the proof room, where he has no business. I
must look into this. I wonder, after all, if there could be any truth in
that warning I received the other day."

"What warning?" asked Alice.

"About a rival film company trying to discover some of the secrets of
our success. I must look into this."

He sprang from his chair and hurried across the big studio toward the
room where the films were first shown privately, to correct any defects,
mechanical or artistic. It was there that the initial performance, so to
speak, was given.

Before Mr. Pertell reached the room, where the projection machine was
installed, the man of whom he had spoken had entered. And, just as the
manager reached the door, the same man came violently out, impelled by a
vigorous push from one of the operators, who at the same time cried:

"Get out of here, you spy! What do you mean by sneaking in here, trying
to get our secrets? Get out! Where's Mr. Pertell? I'll tell him about
you."




CHAPTER II

WESTERN PLANS


"What is it, Walsh? What is the trouble?" exclaimed Mr. Pertell, as he
hastened toward the proving room, where the films were tested before
being "released."

"This man, Mr. Pertell! This fellow you hired as a comedy actor. He came
in here just now, and I caught him starting to take notes of the first
film of our new play."

"You did!" cried the manager sharply.

"Yes. He came in when it was dark; but the film broke, and I turned on
the light. Then I caught him!"

"That's not so--you did not!"

The accused man--the spy he had been called--stood facing them all, the
picture of injured innocence. Ruth, Alice and some of the other women
members of the company drew aside, a little frightened at the prospect
of trouble.

And trouble seemed imminent, for it was easy to see that Mr. Pertell was
very angry. As for the other, his face was white with either anger or
fear--perhaps the latter.

"I saw you taking notes of the action on that film!" cried James Walsh,
the testing room expert.

"And I say you did not!" asserted Harry Wilson, the new player, hired a
few days before as a "comic relief." The other members of the company
knew very little of him, and he had attracted small attention until this
episode. During a period when he was not engaged in one of the plays he
had gone into the room, permission to enter which was not often granted,
even to favored members of the Comet Film concern--at least until after
the release of the film was decided.

"Don't let that man get way!" cried Mr. Pertell, sharply, as he saw
Wilson edging toward the hallway. "Lock the doors and we'll search him!"

There was some confusion for a moment, but the doors were locked, and
Pop Snooks seized the new actor.

And, while preparations are being made to search the man I will trespass
on the time of my new readers sufficiently to tell them, as briefly as I
can, something about the previous books of this series, and of the main
characters in this one.

The initial volume was entitled "The Moving Picture Girls; Or, First
Appearances in Photo Dramas." The girls were Ruth and Alice DeVere, aged
respectively seventeen and fifteen years. Their mother was dead, and
they lived with their father, Hosmer DeVere, in the Fenmore Apartment
House, New York. Across the hall from them lived Russ Dalwood, a moving
picture operator, with his widowed mother, and his brother Billy.

Mr. DeVere was a talented actor in the "legitimate," as it is called to
distinguish it from vaudeville and moving pictures. But the recurrence
of an old throat ailment made him suddenly so hoarse that he could not
speak loud enough to be heard across the footlights. He was already
rehearsing for a new play when this happened, and after several trials
to make himself audible, he was finally forced to give up his
engagement.

This was doubly hard, as the DeVeres were in straitened circumstances at
this time, money being very scarce. They had really entered upon a
period of "hard times" when Russ, a manly young fellow, whose first
acquaintance with the girls had quickly ripened into friendship, made a
suggestion.

"Why don't you try moving pictures?" he had said to Mr. DeVere. "You
can act, all right, and you won't have to use your voice."

At first the veteran actor was much opposed to to the idea, rather
looking down upon moving pictures as "common." But his daughters induced
him to try it, and he came to like them very much. The pay, too, was
good.

Thus Mr. DeVere became attached to the Comet Film Company. Mr. Frank
Pertell, as I have said, was manager, and Russ was his chief operator,
though there were several others. There were, too, a number of actors
and actresses attached to the company. Besides Ruth, Alice and their
father, there were Miss Laura Dixon and Miss Pearl Pennington, former
vaudeville stars, between whom and the DeVere girls there was not the
best of feeling. Ruth and Alice thought that the two actresses were of a
rather too "showy" type, and Miss Pennington and Miss Dixon rather
looked down on Alice and Ruth as being "slow" and old-fashioned.

Pop Snooks, as I have intimated, was the efficient property man. Paul
Ardite, whom Alice liked very much, was the juvenile leading man.

Wellington Bunn was the "old school" actor already mentioned. He and
Pepper Sneed were rather alike in one way--they made many objections
when called on to do "stunts" out of the ordinary. Mr. Bunn always
wanted to play Shakespearean parts, and Mr. Sneed was always fearful
that something was going to happen.

Of a contrasting disposition was Carl Switzer, the jolly German
comedian. Nothing came amiss to him, and he was always ready for
whatever was on the program, making a joke of even hard and dangerous
work.

Mrs. Maguire was the "mother" of the company. She often played "old
woman" parts, and her two grandchildren, Tommy and Nellie, were
sometimes used in child sketches.

Ruth and Alice really got into moving picture work by accident. One day
two extra actresses failed to appear when needed, and Mr. Pertell, who
was in a hurry, appealed to Mr. DeVere to allow his daughters to "fill
in." They did so well that they were engaged permanently, and very much
did they like their work.

Alice was like her dead mother, happy, full of life and jollity, and her
brown eyes generally sparkled with laughter. She was a rather
matter-of-fact nature, whereas Ruth was more romantic. Ruth was a deal
like her father, inclined to look on the more serious side of life. But
her blue eyes could be laughing and jolly, too, and between the two
girls there was really not so much difference after all.

Soon after getting into moving picture work they became aware of a bold
attempt to get away from Russ Dalwood an invention he had made for a
camera. How Ruth and Alice frustrated this, and how they "made good," as
Mr. Pertell put it, in an important drama, is fully told in the first
book.

The second volume was entitled "The Moving Picture Girls at Oak Farm;
Or, Queer Happenings While Taking Rural Plays." The manager had made the
acquaintance of Sandy Apgar in New York. Sandy managed his father's
farm, in New Jersey, and Mr. Pertell took his entire company there, to
make a series of farm dramas.

A curious mystery developed at once, and did not end until the discovery
of a certain secret room, in which was concealed a treasure that was of
the utmost benefit to the Apgar family.

"The Moving Picture Girls Snowbound; Or, The Proof on the Film," was the
third book. To get a series of dramas in which snow and ice effects
would form the background, Mr. Pertell took his company of players to
the backwoods of New England. There they had rather more snow than they
expected, and were caught in a blizzard.

Also Ruth and Alice made a curious discovery concerning a dishonest man,
and not only frustrated his plans to swindle a certain company, but
also were able to save their father from paying a debt the second time.
In addition they took part in many important plays.

From the cold bleakness of New England to the balmy air of Florida was a
change that Ruth and Alice experienced later, for on their return to New
York from the backwoods the members of the company were sent to the
peninsular state.

In "The Moving Picture Girls Under the Palms; Or, Lost in the Wilds of
Florida," is related what happened when the company went South.

Exciting incidents occurred from the first, when the ship caught fire,
and, even as it burned, Russ "filmed" it.

But the company reached St. Augustine safely, and then came busy times,
making various moving picture dramas.

How the two sisters learned of the plight of the two girls whom they
knew slightly, and how after getting lost themselves on one of the
sluggish rivers of interior Florida, Ruth and Alice were able to render
a great service to the Madison girls--this you may read in the fourth
volume.

The company had come back to New York in the spring, and now nearly all
the members were assembled at the studio, when the incident narrated in
the first chapter took place.

"Here it is!" cried Mr. Pertell, as, slipping his hand into the pocket
of the accused actor, he brought forth a crumpled paper.

"And wasn't he making notes, just as I said, of our new big play?"
demanded Walsh.

"That's what he was!" exclaimed the manager as he quickly scanned the
crumpled document. "He didn't have time to make many notes, though."

"No, I was too quick for him!" declared the tester.

Harry Wilson had no more to say. His bravado deserted him and he was now
in abject fear.

"What have you to say for yourself?" demanded Mr. Pertell, angrily.

The other did not answer.

"Now, you get out of here!" ordered the manager, "and never come back."

"I'll not go until I get what is coming to me," was the sullen retort.

"If you got what is coming to you it would be arrest!" declared Walsh.

"I want my money!" mumbled Wilson.

"Here is an order on the cashier for it," said Mr. Pertell. "Get it
and--go!"

Hastily writing on a slip of paper, he tendered it to the actor, who
took it without a word, and slunk off. The others watched him curiously.
It was something they had never before witnessed--an attempt to gain
possession of the secrets of the company--for a moving picture concern
guards its films jealously, until they are "released," or ready for
reproduction.

"Curious," remarked Mr. Pertell, "but I had a distrust of that chap from
the first. Do any of you know him?"

"I acted mit him vunce in der Universal company, but he dit not stay
long," said Mr. Switzer.

"Probably he was up to some underhand work," observed Walsh.

"I wonder what his object was?" went on the manager. "He evidently
wasn't doing this for himself." Idly he turned over the scrap of paper
on which the other had been making notes in the testing room. Then the
manager uttered a cry of surprise.

"Ha! The International Picture Company! This is part of one of their
letter heads. So Wilson was working for them! They very likely sent him
here to get a position, and instructed him to steal some of our secrets
and ideas, if he could. The scoundrel!"

"He didn't see much!" chuckled Walsh. "The film broke after a few feet
had been run off, and I switched on the lights. He didn't see a great
deal."

"No, his notes show that," said the manager. "But only for that
accident he might have learned of our plans and given our rivals
information sufficient to spoil our big play."

"Have you new plans?" asked Mr. DeVere, who was on very friendly terms
with the manager.

"Yes, we are going to make a big three-reel play, called 'East and
West,' and while some of the scenes will be laid in New York, the main
ones will be filmed out beyond the Mississippi. One of the most
important New York scenes has already been made. It was this one which
was being tested when Wilson went in there. Had he seen it all he might
have guessed at the rest of our plans and our rivals, the International
people, would have been able to get ahead of us. They are always on the
alert to take the ideas of other concerns. But I think I'll beat them
this time."

"So we are to go West; eh?" queried Mr. DeVere.

"Yes, out on what prairies are left, in some rather wild sections, and I
think we will make the best views we have yet had," responded Mr.
Pertell. "Now, if you please, ladies and gentlemen, take your places,
and go on with your acts. I am sorry this interruption distracted you."




CHAPTER III

A DARING FEAT


"Oh, Ruth, did you hear? We are to go out West!"

"Are you glad, Alice?"

"Indeed I am. Why, we can see Indians and cowboys, and ride bucking
broncos and all that. Oh, it's perfectly delightful!" and Alice, who had
been taking down her jacket, held it in her arms, as one might clasp a
dancing partner, and swept about the now almost deserted studio in a
hesitation waltz.

"Can't I come in on that?" cried Paul Ardite, as he began to whistle,
keeping time with Alice's steps.

"No, indeed, I'm too tired," she answered, with a laugh. "Oh, but to
think of going West! I've always wanted to!"

"Alice always says that, whenever a new location is decided on,"
observed Ruth, with a quiet smile.

The work of the day was over, and most of the players had gone home.
Ruth and Alice were waiting for their father, who was in Mr. Pertell's
office. They had intended going shopping, thinking Mr. DeVere would be
detained, but he had said he would be with them directly.

And the two girls had brought up the subject of the new line of work,
broached by Mr. Pertell in mentioning the matter of the spy.

"I hope nothing comes of that incident," said Mr. DeVere, as he came
from the manager's office, while Ruth and Alice finished their
preparations for the street.

"I hope not, either," returned the manager, slipping into his coat, for,
like many busy men, he worked best in his shirt sleeves. "Yet I don't
like it, and I am frank to confess that the International concern has
more than once tried to get the best of me by underhand work. I don't
like it. I must keep track of that Wilson. Good night, ladies. Good
night, Mr. DeVere."

The good nights were returned and then the two girls, with their father,
Russ and Paul, went out.

"That was an unfortunate occurrence," remarked Mr. DeVere.

"Oh, Daddy! How hoarse you are!" exclaimed Ruth, laying a
daintily-gloved hand on his shoulder. "You must use your throat spray as
soon as you get home."

"I will. My throat is a little raw. There was considerable dust in the
studio to-day. I like work in the open air best."

"So do I," confessed Alice. "Now, Daddy, you must stop talking," and she
shook her finger at him. "You listen--we'll talk."

"You mean _you_ will," laughed Ruth, for Alice generally did her own,
and part of Ruth's share also.

They walked on, talking at intervals of the incident of the spy and
again of the prospective trip to the West.

"Do you know just where we are going, Russ?" asked Ruth, as she kept
pace with him.

"Not exactly," he replied, stealing a glance at the girl beside him, for
she was a picture fair to look upon with her almost golden hair blown
about her face by the light breeze, while her blue eyes looked into the
more sober gray ones of Russ. "I believe Mr. Pertell intends to go to
several places, so as to get varied views. I know we are to go to a
ranch, for one thing."

"Fine!" exclaimed Alice, with almost boyish enthusiasm, as she walked at
the side of Paul. "Daddy, do you want me to become a cowgirl?" she
asked, turning to Mr. DeVere, who was in the rear.

"I guess if you wanted to be one, you would whether I wanted you to or
not," he replied, with an indulgent smile. "You have a way with you!"

"Hasn't she, though!" agreed Paul.

They reached the apartment house where the DeVeres and Russ lived. Paul
came in for a little while, but declined an invitation to stay to tea.

"I've got quite a piece of work on for to-morrow," he said, as he left.

"What is it?" asked Alice.

"There's to be a new play, 'An Inventor's Troubles,' and one of the
inventions is a sort of rope fire escape. There's a rope, coiled in a
metal case. You take it to your hotel room with you, and in case of fire
you fasten the case to the window casing, grab one end of the rope, and
jump. The rope is supposed to pay out slowly, by means of friction
pulleys, and you come safely to the ground."

"Did you invent that?" asked Ruth, who had not heard all that was said.

"Oh, no, some fellow did, and the city authorities are going to give him
a chance to demonstrate it before they will recommend it to hotel
proprietors. And I'm to be the 'goat,' if you will allow me to say so."

"How?" asked Alice.

"I'm to come down on the rope from the tenth story of some building.
This will serve as the city test, and at the same time Mr. Pertell has
fixed up a story in which the fire escape scene figures. I've got to
study up a little bit before to-morrow."

"It--it isn't dangerous; is it?" asked Alice, and she rather faltered
over the words.

"Not if the thing works," replied Paul, with a shrug of his shoulders.
"That is, if the rope doesn't break, or pay out so fast that I hit the
pavement with a bump."

"Oh, is it as dangerous as that?" exclaimed Alice, looking at Paul
intently.

"Don't worry," and he smiled. "I guess the apparatus has been tested
before. I'm getting used to risks in this business."

"What time to-morrow is it?" queried Ruth.

"Right after lunch," Russ responded. "I've got to film him."

"Then I'm coming to see you!" declared Alice. "I'm off directly after
lunch. I haven't much on for to-morrow."

"Oh, Alice! You wouldn't go!" cried her sister.

"Of course I would, my dear!"

"But suppose something--happened?" Ruth went on in a low voice, as Russ
and Paul started out together.

"All the more reason why I should be there!" declared Alice, promptly,
and Ruth looked at her with a new light of understanding in her eyes.
And then she looked at Paul, who waved his hand gaily at the younger
girl.

"Dear little sister," murmured Ruth. "I wonder----?"

"I'll look for you there," called Paul, as he went on down the hall.

"And I'll be there," promised Alice.

"Do you feel better now, Daddy?" asked Ruth, in their rooms.

"Much better--yes, my dear. That new spray the doctor gave me seems to
work wonders. And my throat is really better since our trip South. I
feel quite encouraged."

It was after supper in the DeVere apartment. The two girls were seated
at the sitting-room table with their father, who was looking over a new
play in which he had a part. Alice was reading a newspaper and Ruth
mending a pair of stockings.

"Well, there's one good thing about going out West," finally remarked
the younger girl, as she tossed aside the paper, and caught up a hairpin
which her vigorous motion had caused to slip out of her brown tresses.

"What's that--you won't have to fuss so about dress?" asked Ruth, for
her sister did not share her ideas on this subject.

"No, but if we do go there won't be any trouble about that International
company trying to steal Mr. Pertell's secrets."

"I don't know about that," observed Mr. DeVere, slowly. "If they are
after his big drama they may even follow us out West."

"Oh, I hope not!" exclaimed Ruth, pausing with extended needle. "I don't
like trouble."

"There may be no trouble," her father assured her, with a smile. "In
fact, now that the spy is detected, the whole affair may be closed. I
hope so, for Mr. Pertell works hard to get up new ideas, and to have
some other concern step in, and rob him of the fruits of his labor,
would be unjust indeed."

Rehearsals and the filming of plays in the Comet studio were over the
next morning about eleven o'clock.

"Come on," said Paul to Ruth and Alice. "I'm to get a bonus on account
of the fire escape stunt, and I'll take you girls out to lunch. Come
along, Russ. It's extra money and we might as well enjoy it."

"You are too extravagant!" chided Ruth.

"Oh, I like to be--when I have the chance," Paul laughed. "It isn't
often I do."

"Well, then, we may as well help you out," agreed Russ. "Right after
lunch we'll give you a chance to show us what you can do on that patent
rope."

The little meal was a merry one, in spite of the fact that the two girls
were a little nervous about going to see Paul descend from the tenth
story of a building on a slender rope. Ruth had finally consented to
accompany her sister.

Together they went to the place where the test was to take place. It was
a tall office structure, and, as word of what was afoot had spread,
quite a throng had gathered.

Mr. Pertell had made arrangements with the authorities to have Paul work
in a little theatrical business in connection with the test, and the
inventor of the fire escape was also to be in the moving pictures.

There was a little preliminary scene, as part of the projected play, and
then Paul went into the building with the inventor to prepare for his
thrilling descent.

The apparatus seemed simple. It was a round, metallic case, inside of
which was coiled a stout rope. At the end was a broad leather strap,
intended to be fastened about the person who was to make the jump. The
case, and the coil of rope, were to be fastened to a hook at the side of
the window. Then Paul was to jump out, and trust to the slow uncoiling
of the rope to lower him safely.

"Are you all ready?" asked the inventor, after he had explained the
apparatus.

"As ready as I ever shall be," answered Paul a little nervously. He
looked down to the ground. It seemed a long way off.




CHAPTER IV

A CLOUD OF SMOKE


Below, in the crowd that had gathered to watch the test, were Ruth and
Alice. Russ, of course, was there with his moving picture camera, and
Paul saw the little lens-tube aimed in his direction, like the muzzle of
some new weapon.

"Now, don't get nervous," directed the inventor, after he had explained
the mechanism to Paul, and also to the city officials who had gathered
to pass upon its merits.

"You can't make me nervous," declared the young actor. "I've gone
through too much in this moving picture business, though I will admit I
never jumped from such a height before."

"Don't look down," the inventor warned him. "You won't get dizzy then.
And don't think of the height. With this apparatus it is impossible to
get hurt. You will go down like a feather."

"That's comforting to know," laughed Paul. "Well, I may as well start, I
guess."

The belt was adjusted about him, and as it was done in the open window
Russ was able to get views of it, and of all that went on. Then Paul got
out on the sill. There he paused a moment.

"I--I can't bear to look at him!" murmured Ruth.

"Don't be silly," exclaimed Alice.

"But suppose--suppose something happens?"

"Don't be a Mr. Sneed!" retorted her sister, with a laugh. "I don't
believe anything will happen, and if--if he should fall--see!" and she
pointed to where a detachment of city firemen stood ready with their
life net.

"Oh, I didn't notice them before," confessed Ruth. "That makes it
safer."

"All ready down there, Russ?" shouted Paul, through a megaphone. "Shall
I go?"

"Jump! I'm all ready for you," was the answer.

Paul paused but for a moment, and then he jumped from the sill, and out
away from the building. The coil of rope in the metal case had been
swung out from the side of the structure on an arm, so as to enable Paul
to clear the lower window ledges.

For the first few feet he went down like a shot, and for one horrible
moment he felt that something had gone wrong. In fact the crowd did
also, for there was a hoarse shout of alarm.

"Oh!" gasped Ruth, faintly.

"I--I----" began Alice, as she, too, turned aside her head. Then someone
yelled:

"It's all right!"

Alice looked then.

She saw Paul descending as the rope payed out. He was coming down
gradually.

"That will make a good film," commented Russ to Mr. Pertell, for the
manager had come to witness the fire escape scene.

"Indeed it will."

Paul came down several stories, and the success of the apparatus seemed
assured when, at about the fourth story from the ground, something
suddenly went wrong.

Once more the young actor shot downward and this time it seemed that he
would be seriously injured.

Russ felt that he must rush forward to save his friend, but he had an
inborn instinct to stick to his camera--an instinct that probably every
moving picture operator has, even though he does violence to his own
feelings.

"He'll be hurt!" several in the crowd cried.

Ruth and Alice both turned aside their heads again, but there was no
need for alarm.

For the firemen, at the word of command from their captain, had rushed
forward with the life net. They were standing only a few feet away from
where Paul dangled in the air, but even at that they were only just in
time.

Paul fell into it heavily, for the mechanism depended on to check the
speed at which the rope payed out, did not work. But the firemen knew
just how to handle a situation of that sort, and they held firmly to the
net. It sagged under the impact of Paul's body, but he bounded upward
again in an instant, and then was helped out of the net and to his feet.

"Mighty lucky you fellows were here," observed the young actor, as the
cheers of the crowd died down.

"I was afraid something like that might happen," spoke the fire captain.
"I've seen too many accidents with these patent escapes to take any
chances. Now there's another inventor who will have to make quite a few
changes in his apparatus."

The man who had patented the fire escape had been in a frenzy of fear
when he saw Paul slipping, and, now that he knew the young actor was
safe, he began to explain how something unforeseen had occurred, and
that it would never happen again.

"Did you get that, Russ?" the manager wanted to know, for he thought the
operator, in his anxiety over Paul, might have forgotten to turn the
handle of the machine.

"Every move," was the reassuring answer. "It will make a dandy film. But
I'm mighty glad it turned out as it did."

"So am I," said the manager. "I guess that will be about all for Paul
to-day. His nerves must be on edge."

Paul declared that they were not, however, and wanted to go on with the
rest of the film, which included the showing of other, but less
dangerous, inventions.

"No, you take the rest of the day off," directed the manager. "There is
no great rush about this."

The crowd pressed curiously about Paul and the others of the moving
picture company, and, as Ruth and Alice were getting hemmed in, Mr.
Pertell called a taxicab and sent them home in it.

"Report at the studio to-morrow," he called.

"Did you have any more trouble with that spy?" asked Alice, as the
vehicle moved away.

"No," he answered. "I guess they'll quit, now that they know I have
found them out."

The next day Paul finished with his invention-film, being required to do
a number of "funny stunts," such as shaving with a new safety razor
that did anything but what it was intended for; trying a new wardrobe
trunk, that unexpectedly closed up with him inside of it, and such
things as that. Some of the inventions were real, and others were
"faked" for the occasion, to make a "comic" film.

But nothing as risky as the rope escape was tried, though probably had
Paul been required to go through an equally hazardous feat he would not
have balked. Moving picture actors often take very big chances, and the
public, looking at the finished film, little realize it.

"I have something for you to-day I think you'll like," said Mr. Pertell
to Ruth and Alice, as they reported at the studio.

"I hope it is outdoor stuff," ventured Alice. "It is just glorious
to-day!"

Moving picture work is referred to as "stuff." Thus scenes at a river or
lake are "water stuff," and if a play should take place in a desert the
action would be termed "desert stuff," and so on.

"Well, I'm sorry, but only part of it, and a very little at that, is
outdoor stuff," replied Mr. Pertell. "The action of this play takes
place in a shirt waist factory. And I've got the use of a real factory
where you two girls will pose and go through the 'business.' You're to
be shirt waist operators, and I'll explain the story to you later."

"I can't sew very well," confessed Alice, "and I never made but one
shirt waist in my life--I couldn't wear it after it was done," she
added.

"You don't really have to sew," explained Mr. Pertell. "It is all
machine work, anyhow. You and Ruth will sit at the machines in the
factory with the other girls. Miss Pennington and Miss Dixon are also to
be operators, but you two are the main characters. The machines work by
a small electric motor, and all you have to do is to push some cloth
along under the needle. You can do that."

"I guess so," agreed Alice.

"The forewoman will rehearse you a bit," Mr. Pertell went on. "The scene
at the machines only takes a few moments--just a little strip of film.
Then the scene changes to another part of the factory. I think it will
make a good film. The story is called 'The Eye of a Needle.' It's really
quite clever and by a new writer. I think it will make a hit."

Ruth and Alice, as well as the others, were told more in detail what
action the play required, and the next day they were ready for their
parts. They went to the factory accompanied by the two former vaudeville
actresses, and by Russ and Paul. The latter was to take the part of one
of the male employees of the concern.

Ruth and Alice found themselves in a room filled with sewing machines,
at which sat girls and women busily engaged in stitching on shirt
waists. There was the hum of the small electric motors that operated the
machines, and the click and hum of the machines themselves.

A murmur ran around the room on the entrance of the players, but the
operators had been told what to expect and what to do. They were to be
in the pictures, too.

Ruth and Alice, with Miss Pennington and Miss Dixon, were given machines
close to the camera, as they were the principal characters, and interest
centered in them.

"Just guide the cloth through under the needle," the forewoman
explained, as she started the motors on the girls' machines.

"Ready!" called Mr. Pertell to Russ, who stood beside the camera. The
action of the play began, as Russ clicked away at the handle of his
machine.

Suddenly a girl screamed.

"Oh, what is it?" demanded Miss Pennington, jumping up.

"Sit down! You'll spoil the film!" cried Mr. Pertell.

There was a little confusion for a moment.

"It's only one of the girls who has run a needle into her finger," the
forewoman explained. "It often happens. We take care of them right
here."

"All right--get that in, Russ," suggested Mr. Pertell. "It will make it
seem much more natural."

The girl's injury was a slight one, and Russ got on the film the action
of her being attended in the room set aside for the treatment of injured
employes.

"I'll have something written in the script to fit to that," said Mr.
Pertell, as the action of the play resumed.

The plot of the little drama called upon Miss Pennington to write a note
to Alice, pretending that it came from a young man, whose name the
former vaudeville performer was supposed to forge. Alice was to
"register" certain emotions, and to show the note to Ruth. Then Miss
Dixon came into the scene, the sewing machines were deserted and, for a
moment, there was an excited conference.

Considerable dramatic action was called for, and this was well done by
the girls, while the real operatives looked on in simulated surprise as
they kept at their work.

The play was almost over, when from a far corner of the room came a
startled cry.

"Someone else hurt with a needle, I wonder?" queried Paul, as he stood
near Alice's machine.

"I hope not," she answered.

And then the whole room was thrown into panic as the cry broke out:

"Fire! Fire! The building is on fire!"

Shrill screams drowned out the rest of the alarm, but as Ruth, Alice and
the others of the moving picture company looked around they saw a cloud
of smoke at the rear of the big room.




CHAPTER V

A MIX-UP


"Stand still! Don't rush! Form in line!"

Sharp and crisp came the words of the forewoman. The screaming of the
girls ceased almost instantly.

Clang! sounded a big gong through the room. Clang! Clang!

"Fire drill!" called the efficient forewoman, and afterward Ruth and
Alice felt what a blessing it was she kept her wits about her. "Fire
drill! Form in line and march to the fire escapes!"

"Oh! Oh, I know I'm going to faint!" cried Miss Pennington. "This is a
regular fire trap! All shirt waist factories are. I am going to faint!"

"Miss Dixon, just--slap her!" called Alice.

"Oh, Alice!" remonstrated Ruth, looking about with frightened eyes.

"It's the only way to bring her to her senses!" retorted the younger
girl. And to the eternal credit of Miss Dixon be it said that she did
slap her friend Miss Pennington, and she slapped her with sufficient
energy to prevent the fainting fit, even as a sip of aromatic spirits of
ammonia might have done.

"Fire drill! Form lines! March!" again called the forewoman, with the
coolness a veteran fireman might have envied.

"Can't we get our wraps?" asked one of the workers.

"No! You can come back for them," was the answer.

"But it--it's a real fire!" someone cried. "Our things will be burned
up!"

"It isn't a fire at all--it's only a drill!" insisted the forewoman.
"And, even if it were real, and your things were burned, the company
would replace them for you.

"To the fire escapes! March!"

In spite of the forewoman's assertion that it was only a fire drill the
pall of smoke in the corner of the room spread apace, and there was the
smell of fire, as well as the crackle of flames.

"This way, girls," called Mr. Pertell to his four actresses. "Here's a
fire escape over here."

"Excuse me," said the forewoman, firmly. "But please have your company
follow my girls. They know just which way to go, and if your actresses
make any change it may result in confusion, and----"

"I understand," responded Mr. Pertell, at once. "Girls, consider
yourselves shirt waist operatives, and do as the others do," he
concluded. He stood aside, as a sailor might on a sinking ship, when the
order "women and children first" is given. Paul took his place at the
manager's side, waving his hand reassuringly to Ruth and Alice.

"Oh--Oh, must we go with them? Can't we go to that fire escape?"
faltered Miss Pennington, who seemed to have entirely recovered from her
desire to faint.

"That is for the operatives on the upper floor," explained the
forewoman. "If you will follow my girls you will be all right. There are
plenty of fire escapes for all."

"Come on!" called Alice, as she marched behind the nearest shirt waist
girls. "There is no danger--and plenty of time."

"That's the way to talk!" declared the forewoman, admiringly.

But, even as she spoke, there was a burst of flame through the cloud of
smoke. Several girls screamed and those nearest the fire hung back.

"Steady! Go on! There is no danger!" the forewoman called.

"Are you getting this, Russ?" asked Mr. Pertell of the young camera
expert.

"Every move!" was the enthusiastic answer. "It's too good a chance to
miss, and I guess there is really no danger."

He continued to grind away at the camera while the girls, now in orderly
array, marched to the fire escapes and so down and out of the building.
Ruth, Alice and the two other actresses went with them. And not until
the last girl had left the room did the forewoman make a move toward the
escape.

"You gentlemen will please leave now," she said.

"After you," returned Mr. Pertell, with a look of admiration in his
eyes.

"No," she said, firmly. "The rules of the fire drill require that I
leave the room last. You will please go first."

"But, my dear young lady!" exclaimed the manager, "this is not a
drill--it is a real fire!"

"I know it," she said, quietly. "But that makes no difference. I must
leave last. You will kindly go ahead."

"I guess we'll have to, Russ," remarked the manager. "But I don't like
it."

"Those are the rules," insisted the forewoman, and she would not go out
on the fire escape until Russ, Paul and Mr. Pertell had preceded her.

By this time the street below was filled with fire apparatus, puffing,
clanging and whistling. And not until the girls were down and out of the
building did they realize what a big fire it was. For the entire
structure was now ablaze.

Fortunately the same efficient fire drill instituted by the forewoman on
the floor where Ruth and Alice had been prevailed in other parts of the
building, and not a life was lost, though there were many narrow
escapes.

And you may well believe that Russ did not miss this opportunity to get
moving pictures. Of course the plot of the play had been spoiled by the
fire, but a far better drama than the one originally planned was
afterward made of it.

As the building continued to burn Russ found that he was not going to
have film enough. He sent Paul for a new supply and also to telephone
for another operator from the Comet studio, so that pictures of the big
fire from various viewpoints might be secured.

And it was a big fire--one of the largest in New York in many years, but
aside from a few persons who received minor injuries there was none
seriously hurt. The Comet concern scored heavily in making films of the
blaze.

"Well, that was one exciting day, yesterday," remarked Russ the next
morning at the studio. "I never worked so hard, not even when we were
lost in Florida."

"I had a premonition something would happen," declared Mr. Sneed, as he
was making up for his part in a play. "When I got up yesterday morning I
stepped on my collar button, and that's always a sure sign something
will happen."

"It's sometimes a sign you'll be late for rehearsal if you don't find
the collar button," laughed Paul.

Orders for the day's work were issued, and Paul, Ruth, Alice and Mr.
Bunn found that they had to go to the Grand Central Terminal where, once
before, some film pictures had been made.

"There is quite a complicated plot to this play," explained Mr. Pertell,
in issuing his instructions. "Mr. Bunn has some valuable papers, and
Paul, as the villain, takes them from his pocket in the station. That
starts the action."

Fully instructed what to do, the moving picture girls, with Paul and
Russ, went up to Forty-second street.

As the use of the train platforms was not required in this act of the
play nothing was said to the station authorities, but Mr. Bunn, with
Alice and Ruth, mingled with the crowds, as though they were ordinary
travelers.

The operator began taking the necessary pictures, and then came Paul's
"cue" to abstract the papers.

He had done it successfully from Mr. Bunn's pocket, seemingly without
the knowledge of the actor, and Paul was going on with the rest of the
"business," when a policeman stepped up and clapping his hand on Paul's
shoulder exclaimed:

"I want you, young man! I saw you take those papers. You're under
arrest!"

"But--but it's for the movies!" cried Paul, not wishing the scene
spoiled.

"Tell that to the taxicab man! I've heard that yarn before! You come
with me. And you too," he added to Mr. Bunn. "I want you for a witness.
You've been robbed!"




CHAPTER VI

THE AUTO SMASH


"The scene will be spoiled!" exclaimed Alice, as she saw a crowd surge
up when the officer grasped Paul.

"Too bad!" declared Ruth.

"Keep away--get back, please!" cried Russ, as he saw his camera screened
by the throng.

"You come along with me!" the officer kept insisting to Paul, dragging
him along toward the doors of the station. "Hi, Jim!" he called to a man
in plain clothes, evidently a detective. "Grab the other fellow; will
you? I've got the pickpocket!" and he nodded to Mr. Bunn, who could not
seem to understand that from a simulated robbery it had turned out to be
a "real" one.

"I tell you we're moving picture actors!" Paul cried. "There has been no
theft!"

"And you expect me to believe that!" sneered the policeman. "You can't
get away with that story."

"Well, there's the man who is taking the pictures!" Paul went on,
pointing to Russ, who, with a look of chagrin on his face, stood idle
beside the camera. He did not want to take a film with this scene in it,
for the whole plot of the story would have to be changed to make the
policeman fit in.

"Yes, I see him," agreed the officer, nodding at Russ, "and I guess he's
in the game with you. I'll take him into custody, too."

"Yes, and you'll get yourself into a whole lot of trouble!" said Paul,
vigorously. "You're making a mistake!"

"I'll take that chance," observed the officer, with evident disbelief.

"What's it all about?" asked the detective, sauntering up, while Alice
and Ruth, rather alarmed at the turn of affairs, shrank back out of
sight behind the crowd, that was increasing every second.

"Pickpocket!" spoke the policeman, laconically. "I saw him rob that
elderly gentleman," and he pointed to Mr. Bunn. "And then this fellow
has the nerve to say he was only doing a moving picture stunt."

"That's right, and he could see for himself, if he'd take the trouble to
look," retorted the young actor. "There's our camera man over there,"
and he nodded toward Russ. The detective glanced in the same direction,
and then a smile came over his somewhat shrewd face, as Russ nodded to
him.

"Hello, Dalwood!" exclaimed the detective. Then to the officer--"I guess
he's right, Kelly, and you're wrong. I know that young fellow at the
camera. He's been at headquarters once or twice helping our rogues'
gallery men when their cameras needed fixing."

"Is--is that so?" faltered the officer, and his hold on Paul relaxed.

"That's right," the detective went on. "I guess you've sort of mixed
things up, Kelly."

"That's what he has," said Russ. "But if he'll let things go on, and
keep this crowd back, I think we can still make the film."

"Oh, I'll do that!" the policeman replied hastily, willing to make
amends for the trouble he had caused. "Then it wasn't a case of pocket
picking at all?"

"No, we're making a moving picture film," Paul explained. "I took these
papers--they're worthless, as you can see," and he showed that the
bundle he had extracted from Mr. Bunn's pocket consisted only of some
circulars, and blank pieces of paper with imposing looking seals on. But
on the film they would appear to be valuable documents.

"Huh! That's a new one on me!" the officer exclaimed. "Now, you people
move back!" he cried, "and give 'em a chance to take their pictures.
Move back there!"

Affairs had turned in the direction of our friends, and a little later
Russ was able to complete the film, from the point where the policeman
had stepped in and spoiled it. The small portion that was of no use,
however, could be cut out when the film was developed, and the audiences
would never be the wiser.

Again Paul went on with his acting from the point where he had been
interrupted, and Ruth, Alice and Mr. Bunn did their share. Eventually
the film was made.

"Something new every day!" laughed Paul, as they were coming away from
the terminal. "I wonder what will happen next?"

"As long as you don't have to go up in an airship you'll be all right,"
observed Alice, trying to keep a refractory wisp of hair from coming
down into her eyes.

"That's right," agreed Paul, "and yet I wouldn't be surprised to get
orders to go up to the clouds any day. In fact, I'm pretty sure we've
got to take a queer auto trip soon."

"Is that so? When? Where?" demanded Ruth, pausing a moment to look at a
shop window where some lingerie was temptingly displayed.

"I don't know the particulars. I happened to overhear Mr. Pertell
talking to Pop Snooks about it. I expect it will be given out in a few
days, before Russ has to film it."

The next few days were filled with work for the moving picture actors
and actresses. There was much to be done before the Western trip was
undertaken, and many of the films made had a bearing on the new play
"East and West."

"My idea," announced Mr. Pertell, in explaining some matters to his
company, "is to portray briefly the story of the East and West, and to
show how the civilization of the East made its way West. I want to show
the various sports and industries of both sections, as well as various
phases of life and science. Automobiling will be one and----"

"Don't say airships!" interrupted Mr. Sneed.

"That's just what I was going to say," finished Mr. Pertell, with a
smile. "I will want some of you to take a trip in an airship. But that
will come later."

"I'll never go up!" declared the "grouch."

"Well, we'll settle that later," the manager went on. "Just at present I
am going to have some automobile pictures made, and in one of them an
auto containing you young ladies," he looked at Ruth and Alice, "goes to
smash down a steep hill and over a cliff."

"Oh!" cried Ruth, clutching at her heart.

"How exciting!" exclaimed Alice, apparently not in the least disturbed.

"Yes," said Mr. Pertell, with a smile. "But don't worry. This will be a
'substitute' film. That is, you'll be in the auto up to a certain point.
The chauffeur loses control of it, and it starts to run away down hill.
Then it is stopped, the camera is closed for a moment until we
substitute an old auto for the real one in which you are. There are
dummy figures in the old auto, and they are the ones that go to smash
over the cliff. Think you can work that, Russ?"

"Oh, yes, I've done those trick pictures before. Where are you going to
plant the smash?"

"Oh, over in Jersey. There are several places in the Orange Mountains
that will answer. Near Eagle Rock is a good place."

"All right," agreed the young operator. "I'll be ready whenever you are.
But where are you going to get the auto that goes to smash, Mr.
Pertell?"

"Oh, I bought a second-hand one cheap. It's now being painted and fixed
up to look as much like the good one as possible."

A few days later all was in readiness for taking the auto smash film.
The story to be depicted was part of the big "East and West" drama.
Ruth and Alice were supposed to be pursued by persons in another auto,
and in the smash both girls were to be "injured."

The two automobiles were on hand at the appointed time on a steep slope
of the Orange Mountains, where the road turned suddenly near a steep
cliff. It was over this cliff that the "smash" would occur.

The auto that would really come to grief was an old rattletrap of a
machine, but it would serve the purpose well enough for the film, since
only a momentary glimpse of it, and that showing it going at full speed,
would be given. The dummy figures, made up to look like Ruth and Alice,
were in readiness.

"Now, girls, take your places, if you please," said Mr. Pertell, waving
Ruth and Alice toward their car.

"Oh, I'm so nervous!" exclaimed Ruth.

"What about?" asked her sister, as she buttoned her jacket, for the wind
was sharp on the hillside.

"Oh, suppose our car doesn't stop in time? Suppose we go over the cliff,
instead of the stuffed figures?"

"Don't suppose anything of the kind!" cried Alice, gaily. "Come
on--they're waiting for us."




CHAPTER VII

OFF FOR THE WEST


Ruth and Alice, taking their places in what might be termed the
"regular" auto, were told just what to do. They were supposed to be
escaping from their pursuers, who were in another auto that was to come
up from the rear.

Then their chauffeur, in an endeavor to make speed, would go too fast,
would not be able to make the turn in the road, and would go over the
cliff. But, at the proper time, the dummies and the old auto would be
substituted.

"All ready now?" asked Mr. Pertell, when he had carefully repeated his
instructions to the girls.

"All ready," answered Alice, and Ruth nodded, though a bit doubtfully.
She was really nervous, although she tried not to show it too plainly.

"All ready here," answered Russ, who was beside the camera.

"Then go!" cried the manager, and the auto started.

In order to give the idea of a long chase Russ had to set up his camera
in several different places. He changed from one stretch of road to
another, the auto being brought to a stop, to wait until he was ready,
and then started up again.

But the public saw none of this when the film was exhibited, for only
motion was shown, the various sections of the celluloid being joined
together in such a way as to preserve the continuity.

"Now ready for the big scene," called Mr. Pertell, after one of these
stops. "It's going very well."

Ruth and Alice who, with Paul, were in the regular auto, had shown or
"registered" all sorts of emotions during the chase. Sometimes the
pursuing auto would be almost up to the one in front, and again it would
lag far behind, in order to conform to the requirements of the script,
or the story of the film play.

"You will run your car up to here," said Mr. Pertell to the chauffeur of
the machine containing Ruth, Alice and Paul. "Then you will stop, and
the substitution will be made. Come on with as much speed as is safe,
right to this mark," and he indicated a stone in the highway.

"And be sure you _do_ stop!" exclaimed Paul, with a short laugh. "That's
rather too near the edge of the cliff to suit me."

"I know it is," agreed Mr. Pertell, "It has to be. I only want a few
feet of the film showing the actual smash. If it runs too long the
public may see the dummies too plainly. I want this as real an accident
as it's possible to have it."

"It seems like tempting Providence," murmured Ruth.

"Don't get 'Sneedified'," was the retort of Alice.

Russ had set up his camera to get views of the auto coming down the
steep slope, and now, at his signal that all was in readiness, the
chauffeur of the car started it again.

"Business! Business!" called Mr. Pertell to the moving picture girls and
Paul, meaning that they were to use the proper gestures, and register
the desired emotions to coincide with the play.

On rushed the auto, straight toward the dangerous turn in the road.
Paul, who had risen to his feet, was talking vigorously to Ruth and
Alice, as called for in the scenario. Now and then he would look back,
as though to see if the other car was coming.

Suddenly, as the auto was dashing down hill, there came a snap as if
some metal part had broken, and the car's speed was quickly increased.

"What is it? Oh, what has happened?" cried Ruth, springing to her feet.
But she was at once tossed back on the seat, owing to the swaying of the
car, which was going very fast.

"Something's broken!" cried Paul.

"Yes, the foot brake. But I have the emergency one still!" the chauffeur
yelled.

"Is there any danger? Shall we jump?" demanded Alice.

"No! Sit still!" the chauffeur cried. "I'll stop her in time, I think."

It was evident the car was beyond control. There was no need of
pretending this.

"Look out!" warned Russ, who in his excitement did not forget to work
the camera.

"Stop! Stop!" yelled Mr. Pertell. "You're going too far--you'll go over
the cliff!"

The chauffeur realized this as well as any one, and he was pulling with
all his strength on the emergency brake lever.

"I've got to stop her!" he panted through his clenched teeth. "I've got
to stop her!"

Ruth and Alice were in a frenzy of fear now, and Paul, standing up in
the swaying auto, and holding to the back of the front seat, was trying
desperately to think of some plan whereby he could save the girls.

The car was now at the turn. Now it was beyond the marking stone
specified by Mr. Pertell.

"They'll go over the cliff!" shouted Mr. Sneed, who was to take part in
the play later.

Mr. Pertell rushed forward as though he would halt the auto by getting
in front and pushing it back, and for one wild moment it looked as
though there would be a veritable tragedy. But with a last desperate
pull on the brake lever, while the metal bands shrilly protested against
such strenuous work, the car came to a slow stop.

And so near was it to the fence railing off the descent over the
cliff--which fence was, later, to be crashed into by the make-believe
auto--so near was the girls' car to this fence that the front wheels
bent one of the rails.

"A close call!" said Russ, and his voice was unsteady as he stepped away
from the camera.

Ruth and Alice were pale, and Paul, too, had lost some of his color. But
it was Alice who first relieved the strain of the situation.

"A miss is as good as a mile," she said, and tried to laugh, but it was
not easy.

"There must be some defect in that brake connection," the chauffeur
said, as he got out to look at it.

"Well, as long as we're all right, the film will be so much the better,"
observed Paul, as he alighted from the car. "It will look realistic
enough; won't it, Russ?"

"Indeed it will. I thought sure you were goners; but I kept on grinding
away. It will be realistic enough for even Mr. Pertell, I think," and he
glanced at the manager.

"I'm awfully sorry this occurred," declared the latter. "I assure you
ladies that I never would willingly have let you run such a risk."

"Oh, we know that," responded Ruth, quickly. "It was no one's fault.
Only I'm glad daddy wasn't here to see us," she added in a low voice to
her sister.

"So am I!" was the reply.

"Now then, you had better get back to New York," went on Mr. Pertell.
"This ends the scenes in Jersey, and your nerves must be pretty well
shattered," he said, looking at the two girls.

"Oh, I want to stay and watch the other auto go to smash," Alice cried.
"That will be something worth seeing, especially as no one will be hurt,
except the dummies."

"I'll stay, too," said Ruth. "It will be novel to see ourselves as
stuffed figures."

Preparations were now made for having the second auto plunge over the
cliff. This car was set in the exact position the other had occupied
when brought to a stop. The dummy figures were put in, veils effectually
concealing the faces. Then the motor was started.

Meanwhile Russ had taken his camera to the foot of the cliff where he
could get a view of the car plunging over, and smashing.

"All ready!" came the signal. By means of long wires, which would not
show in the finished picture, the gears were thrown in, and the brakes
released.

"There she goes!" cried Russ.

The car containing the dummies started off at a fast rate. It crashed
through the fence, just as the other car might have done, and the next
instant was hurtling through the air.

It turned partly over, one of the dummy figures--that of Ruth--toppled
out--and a moment later, with a crash that could be heard a long
distance, the auto was crumpled into a shapeless mass at the foot of the
cliff.

Russ got every detail of this, and when the wrecked auto caught fire
from the burst gasoline tank it added to the effectiveness of the scene,
though that feature had not been counted on.

Then several men came rushing up. They had been stationed in readiness
for just that purpose, and they picked up the figures of the dummies.

That ended the scene, for the next act took place in a hospital, whither
Ruth, Alice and Paul were supposed to be carried. That would be a studio
scene, and filmed later.

"Well, that's over," said Mr. Pertell, with a sigh of relief, as he and
his company of players prepared to return to New York. A throng of
curious bystanders, attracted by the actors and actresses, gathered
about the burning auto at the foot of the cliff. As it was of no further
service it was left there.

"Well, ladies and gentlemen," announced Mr. Pertell to his assembled
company a few days after the auto film had been made, "I am ready now to
tell you something of my plans for the Western trip. Arrangements have
been about completed, and we leave in a few days."

"Where are we going?" asked Mr. DeVere.

"Our first destination will be a place called Rocky Ranch," the manager
went on. "It is a typical Western place, with some broad prairie
stretches, and yet near enough to the mountains for diversified scenes.
There will be cowboy and Indian pictures to be made, and----"

"_Wild_ Indians?" Mr. Sneed wanted to know.

"Not wild enough to scalp you," returned the manager.

"And can I have a gun?" little Tommy cried.

"Indeed and you won't!" said his grandmother, quickly.

"Well, you can be cowboy and have a lasso," promised the manager.

"Oh, goodie!" Tommy exclaimed, dancing about in delight.

"In this play," went on Mr. Pertell, "I want to get scenes showing our
progress West, so we will be rather longer on the trip than otherwise.
We will wait over on some trains, to make views in particularly good
spots. So you may get ready for the journey. Our Eastern scenes are all
made, and I want to thank and congratulate you all on their success. It
was the good acting of all of you that made the films what they are."

Preparations for the big trip went on apace. Properties and baggage were
gotten in readiness, and Ruth and Alice spent days going over their
clothes, to decide what to take and what to leave behind.

"Though if I'm to be a cowgirl, and ride ponies, I don't suppose I'll
want this," said Alice, holding up a filmy white dress.

"Better take it," advised Ruth, who was seated tailor-fashion before a
trunk, which she was packing.

"It crushes too easily," objected the other.

"Fold it around some heavier things," suggested Ruth, "and don't put it
in the trunk until the last thing. Oh, I believe I've put my suede
slippers in the bottom, and I'll want them to-night. Well, I'll have to
dig 'em out, I guess," she sighed.

"No, there they are!" cried Alice, fishing them out from under a pile of
stockings. "What have you in them?" she asked her sister, as she saw the
slippers were filled with something.

"I always stuff the toes with old stockings," said Ruth. "It keeps them
out almost as well as if I used shoe-trees."

"Good idea," laughed her sister.

The packing was over, the trunks were at the station and also was
gathered there the moving picture company.

"Ho, for the West!" cried Russ, who was standing with Paul, Ruth and
Alice.

"All aboard!" called Mr. Pertell. And, as they moved off toward the
train Russ, turning, saw a man staring after the players.

"Look!" said the young operator, in a low voice to Mr. Pertell, "that
International Film Company spy--Wilson--is keeping tabs on us!"




CHAPTER VIII

THE OIL WELL


Mr. Pertell paused and looked back. There on the depot platform stood
the man he had caught in his testing room taking notes of the films of
the big drama.

"Those fellows mean business!" the manager commented. "They are trying
to get my best ideas, I think. It's a wonder they wouldn't originate
something themselves!"

"I'd like to have it out with him," declared Russ.

"It would only make trouble," responded the manager. "I think I can stop
them in another way. I'll try legal means first, and if they don't
work--well, perhaps we can put up some kind of a game on them."

"Let me have a hand in it," begged the young operator. "I want to pay my
respects to that fellow."

Wilson, for so it was, had by this time seen that he was observed, and
he slunk out of sight behind a pillar. Then, as Mr. Pertell and Russ
went to take their places in the coach with the others, a truck, piled
with the baggage of the company, came along.

The spy darted out from behind the pillar and with a quick glance noted
the destination as shown on the checks.

"So that was his game!" cried Russ. "I'll put a stop to that, all
right!"

"It's too late. He's seen, and, anyhow, he could have found out," called
Mr. Pertell. But Russ did not stay to hear, for he had made a rush
toward the fellow.

He was too late, however, and perhaps it was just as well, as Russ was a
bit hot-headed, and there might have been a scene. Wilson, seeing Russ
coming, hastily thrust into his pocket a card on which he had evidently
been copying the name of the place to which the trunks had been checked,
and ran away.

"Come back, Russ," called Mr. Pertell. "You'll miss the train!" for the
warning whistle had sounded.

"I wish I had caught him," panted the young operator as he returned. "I
never saw a fellow with such nerve."

"His company is in bad shape," said Mr. Pertell. "They have been losing
money, and their films are not taking well. They have not much of a
company of players, and I suppose they think they can use some of our
ideas, and maybe some of our actors and actresses."

"How do you mean--by hiring them away from you?" asked Russ.

"Well, they might do that, though I don't believe the International
people will pay the salaries my people are getting. So I think none of
them would leave. Even if more money were offered I think my friends
would stand by me. But what I meant was that we'll have to be on the
watch to see that they don't actually take some of our films."

"You mean after I have made the reels?"

"No, they might even try, on the sly, to film the action of our players
when we're going through some scene."

"Whew!" whistled Russ. "If they do that you could have them arrested."

"Well, be on the watch--that's all."

None of the other members of the company had seen the spy, and Russ and
the manager said nothing about him. The train pulled out of the station,
and thus the Western trip was begun.

Mr. Pertell planned to stop off with his company at several places and
make films along the way. This was in accord with his idea of showing a
big drama indicating the development of this country from East to West.
The rush of the gold seekers, and the advance of the farmers to take up
Government claims, were to be depicted, along with many other scenes.

One stop was made in the coal mining regions of Pennsylvania, near
Scranton, and there some fine films were obtained. In one scene Ruth and
Alice were shown in the interior of a mine, with the black coal all
about them. Powerful electric lights gave the necessary illumination.

"I'd like to get a scene showing an explosion," said Russ, as they left
the coal regions.

"Why, Russ Dalwood!" cried Ruth. "I'm surprised at you!"

"Oh, I don't mean by accident," he replied, quickly. "In fact, a little
one would do. And I don't want one to happen on my account. But if
there's going to be an accident I wish I could be on hand to film it."

"Oh, that's different," said Ruth, with a smile. "But I'm glad there is
no accident."

Three days had been spent in and around Scranton, and now the moving
picture players were ready to start off again. Mr. Pertell was
reconsidering some plans he and Russ had talked over, and it had not
been definitely decided what to do as yet.

"We'll just keep on," said the manager, "and perhaps something will
turn up to give me an idea for a novel film."

They had taken a train on a small branch line of the railroad to connect
with a through express, and about an hour after starting, and when about
half-way to the junction, they came to a sudden stop.

"Ha! An accident!" cried Russ, reaching for the small camera he kept for
emergencies.

"Wait, I'll come with you," said the manager. "We may be able to make it
into a film."

But when they got on the outside, followed by several of the members of
the company, they saw no signs of anything wrong. There was no other
train in sight, so there could have been no collision, and their own
train was safely on the track. Off to one side, however, gathered about
a tall structure of wood, was a knot of people.

"What's the matter?" asked Russ of one of the trainmen.

"They're going to shoot an oil well over there," was the answer, "and
it's so close to the track that they signalled us to stop."

"Why didn't they wait until we got past?" asked Mr. DeVere who, with his
daughters, had gone out to see what caused the delay.

"Why, they had already lowered the charge of nitro-glycerine into the
well," the brakeman explained, "and something has gone wrong. The shot
didn't go off, and they're afraid it may at any minute. So they're
holding us back a little while."

"Is that an oil well?" asked Alice, pointing to the tall, wooden
structure.

"That's the derrick, by which the drill is worked--yes, Miss," the
brakeman said. "They bore down through the sand and rock until they
think they're close to the oil. Then they blow out what rock and earth
remains, with nitro-glycerine. The well may be a 'spouter,' or they may
have to pump. Can't tell until after they fire the shot. I guess she's
going off!" he added quickly. "Look at 'em run!"

"I've got my idea!" exclaimed Mr. Pertell. "We'll have a film of boring
for oil. That will fit in well with my big drama. Get the company
together, Pop," he said to the property man. "And, Russ, get ready to
film the shooting of the oil well."




CHAPTER IX

THE RIVALS


Though there was a rush of spectators away from the oil well it appeared
to be a false alarm, for nothing happened, and Mr. Pertell, who was
afraid the well would "spout" before he could get his company of players
on the scene, was relieved when he heard one of the workmen call:

"False alarm. She isn't going off yet."

"Now hurry and get around the well," urged the manager. "I want some of
you grouped near it when the oil spouts up."

"Won't it be dangerous?" asked Mr. Sneed. "I don't want to be blown up
by nitro-glycerine."

"You needn't get too close," returned Mr. Pertell. "I just want the
spouting well as a background."

"It will be all right if you keep about thirty feet back," said one of
the well borers.

"How do you shoot a well?" asked Paul, while Russ was getting ready his
camera.

"By using nitro-glycerine," was the answer. "This explosive comes in tin
cans, about ten feet long and about five inches in diameter. We lower
these cannisters down into the iron pipe that extends to the bottom of
the well."

"How deep?" queried Alice.

"Oh, a well may run anywhere from three hundred to three thousand feet,
or even more. This one is about one thousand. We have about a hundred
quarts of nitro-glycerine down in the pipes now; but it hasn't gone off
yet."

"Can you--er--tell me when it _will_ go off?" asked Mr. Sneed, looking
about him nervously.

"Any minute, if not sooner," replied the oil man, with a smile. "Oh,
don't run--you're safe here," he added, as Mr. Sneed began to move away.
At the same time Claude Towne, the "swell" of the company, exclaimed:

"I'm not going to stay here and get this new suit spoiled by the oil."
He was very careful of his attire.

"Oh, the oil won't spray as far as this," the workman assured him.

"How do they explode the glycerine?" asked Mr. DeVere.

"Well, the old plan used to be to drop an iron weight called a
'go-devil,' down on top of the cannisters containing the explosive. The
top can was fitted with a firing head, and when the iron weight hit
this, after a long fall, it would explode, and the concussion would set
off the rest of the glycerine."

"But this time we tried a new plan. We used a 'go-devil-squib.' That's a
sort of torpedo, holding about a quart of the glycerine, and it has a
firing head of its own. We drop that down the pipe and when it hits on
the top cannister it goes off, and sets off the rest of the explosive.
But, somehow, it didn't work this time. The charge missed fire, so now
we're going to drop down an old fashioned 'go-devil' and see what
happens."

Mr. Pertell asked, and readily obtained, permission to make moving
pictures of the shooting of the well, and was also accorded the
privilege of posing his company at the scene when the well did "spout."

"I'll have to think up some sort of a scenario to go with it," the
manager said.

"Have some poor man get rich suddenly by striking oil on his land,"
suggested Russ, "and then show what he does with his money. You can
easily get the later scenes."

"Good idea--I will," exclaimed the manager. "We'll use this as the
first, or opening, scene in--let me see, we'll call it 'The Rise and
Fall of the Kerosene King.' How's that?"

"Good!" cried Mr. DeVere.

"All right. Paul, you'll be the king. But you'll have to start as a
poor lad, and those good clothes won't do. Slip on a pair of greasy
overalls--borrow them from one of the men--then you'll look more
natural."

Paul was soon fitted out as one of the oil men, and then, after a brief
rehearsal, the improvised drama was ready to be taken on the sensitive
film. A few preliminary scenes were made by Russ, and then, as word was
given that the iron weight was about to be dropped on the cans of
glycerine in the well-pipes, Mr. Pertell got his company as close to the
derrick as was safe. Then, while Russ clicked away at the camera, one of
the workmen called:

"Let her go!"

A man dropped the iron weight down the pipe and ran.

"Look out, everybody!" he cried as he sprang away.

"Are we safe here?" Mr. Sneed asked anxiously.

"You're all right," one of the workmen assured him.

"Oh, I'm so nervous!" faltered Ruth.

"No need of it," answered Alice, as she leaned forward to watch the
spouting of the oil from the well.

There was a dull rumble beneath the surface of the earth. The ground
seemed to heave and shake. It trembled, and Miss Pennington and Miss
Dixon looked at each other with frightened eyes.

"It--it's like an earthquake," observed Ruth.

"Oh, look!" cried Alice.

At that moment something like a dark cloud shot upward from the pipes
and spread out, plume-fashion. At the same moment the air was filled
with the rank odor of oil and gas.

"She's a spouter! She's a spouter!" cried the men, in delight.

"Cap her up!" came the command.

But it was not easy to do at first, so great was the flow of oil, and
considerable had run to waste when the internal pressure of natural gas,
which forced out the oil, was reduced sufficiently to allow of the pipe
being capped, and the flow of petroleum regulated.

All this time Russ had continued to get pictures of the novel scene, and
Paul, as the Kerosene King, went through the act that had been
improvised for him, the others of the company doing their share.

"This will make a novel film," said Mr. Pertell in satisfied tones. "I
hope you got it all, Russ."

"Every bit. I think the views showing the oil spouting up will be first
rate."

"But what are you using two cameras for?" asked Mr. DeVere.

"Two cameras?" repeated Mr. Pertell, questioningly.

"Yes, there's a man over there with another machine," and he pointed to
a little hill, not far off, where stood a man working away at the handle
of a machine similar to the one Russ was using. And this camera was
pointed directly at the oil well and at the Comet players.

"What does that mean?" cried Mr. Pertell. "I didn't order two films
made, and besides----"

"That isn't one of our men!" interrupted Russ, as he sprang away from
his camera.

"Who is it?" Mr. Pertell wanted to know.

"It's one of our rivals. Someone from the International concern!" cried
Russ. "They've followed us to steal some more of our ideas!"

"You're right!" shouted Mr. Pertell. "This will have to stop!"

Together he and Russ, followed by Paul, made a dash in the direction of
the rival photographer. But the latter saw them coming, and hastily
picking up his machine he ran toward a clump of woods not far off. And
by the time his pursuers reached there he was not to be found, though
they searched about for some time.




CHAPTER X

THE CYCLONE


"All aboard!" called the conductor of the way train that had been held
up to allow the shooting of the oil well. "All board!"

"Come," summoned Mr. Pertell to his moving picture players. "We'll get
along now. That stop was a lucky one for us."

The train could now proceed, all danger from the delayed charge in the
well being over. Just what had caused it to "hang fire" was never
learned. But the shooting of the well was a success, and as the train
pulled out, Paul having gotten rid of his borrowed clothes, the workmen
were seen hurrying about, taking care of the valuable flow of petroleum.

"What do you make of the action of that International man?" asked Russ,
as he took a seat beside the manager.

"I don't know what to make of those fellows," was the answer. "They must
be following us pretty closely; but I don't see how they knew we were
going to film the oil well."

"They didn't know it," decided Russ. "They've had a spy on our trail,
following us; that's how it was done. You know we saw that fellow Wilson
looking at the destination marked on the baggage checks. He probably
sent word to the concern and they started out a camera man to follow us.
It would have to be someone we hadn't seen before, so of course Wilson
himself would not do, though I understand he can operate a machine
fairly well."

"I guess you've got the right idea," agreed Mr. Pertell. "This fellow,
whoever he was, made inquiries and learned where we were headed for.
Then with his camera he simply kept on the same train with us."

"And when we stopped here to get the oil well pictures," resumed Russ,
"he trailed along and set up his machine. He got all the benefit of our
players' acting and his company wasn't out a cent for salaries or
transportation. Of course he probably had as good a right to get
pictures of the well as we did."

"But not to film my company!" exclaimed Mr. Pertell, with energy. "I
won't stand for that; I'll have a stop put to it!"

"First I'm afraid we'll have to catch him," observed Russ. "He certainly
made himself scarce when we ran after him."

"Well, he isn't on this train, that's sure," went on the manager, "and
he'll have some trouble picking up our trail after this."

"How's that?" asked Russ.

"Why, I'm going to change our plans. We'll skip the next stop. I was
going to go up around the Great Lakes and make part of a drama there,
showing the effect the lakes and their trade had on the growth of our
country. Now I'll wait until we are on our way back from Rocky Ranch."

"That will be a good idea," agreed the young camera operator. "Those
International people must be pretty hard put to it to steal your ideas."

"They are," said Mr. Pertell. "They want to do me an injury. I had some
trouble with them years ago, and I won out in a lawsuit. Since then they
have been injuring me every chance they could get; but it really
amounted to little until lately. Now they are evidently getting
desperate, and they are using every means to make trouble for me."

"Well, we'll just have to be on the lookout for them at every turn,"
Russ declared.

Owing to the decision of Mr. Pertell that he would not, at this time,
take his company to the Great Lakes, a change in the route had to be
made. This necessitated stopping off for one night at a small country
town, where the company put up at the only hotel the place afforded.

"What a miserable place!" exclaimed Miss Pennington, tilting up her head
when she entered the office with the others.

"And such a horrid smell!" added Miss Dixon, as she stripped off her
long gloves with an air of being used to dining every day at the most
exclusive hotels. "I believe they are actually cooking--cabbage, Pearl."

"I agree with you, my dear! Isn't it awful! Can it be--cabbage?"

"Yah! Dot's right!" exclaimed Mr. Switzer, rubbing his hands. "Dot's
cabbage, all right--sauerkraut, too. Goot!"

"Ugh!" protested Miss Pennington, making a gesture of annoyance.

"I am glat dot ve come here," went on the German. "I haf not hat any
sauerkraut--dot is, not any to mention of--since ve left New York."

"Why, I saw you eating some the other day," laughed Paul, as the odor of
cooking cabbage became more pronounced from the hotel kitchen.

"Oh, yes, I hat a leetle--yust enough to know der taste of it," agreed
the German, with a genial smile. "But I ain't really hat vot you could
call a meal of it."

"You're like a man I heard of," said Russ, joining in the talk. "He was
a German farmer, I guess, and when his neighbor asked him if he was
putting away any sauerkraut that season the German answered: 'No, ve
ain't put none down to speak of dis season. Only yust seven or eight
barrels in case of sickness!'"

"Goot! Goot! Dot vos a real German!" laughed Mr. Switzer.

There was sauerkraut for supper that night, and the German actor
certainly ate enough to ward off any possible illness. And, in spite of
the rather homely character of the hotel, the meal was an excellent one,
and the moving picture players were more comfortable in the matter of
rooms than they had expected. About the only ones to find fault were
Miss Pennington, Miss Dixon, and Mr. Sneed. But they would have had some
objection to offer in almost any place, so it did not much matter.

Plans were made for taking a train early next morning, to continue on
out West, but something occurred to delay matters, though it resulted in
the making of an excellent film.

It was just before everyone was ready for breakfast when Ruth, thinking
she heard her sister's knock sharply on the door, opened it.

Instead of confronting Alice, Ruth jumped back in terror as she saw a
bear standing upright in the hall opposite her door.

"Oh! Oh!" she screamed as the beast put out his red tongue. "Help! A
bear! A bear!" and she slammed her door shut with such energy that she
knocked a picture from the wall. Ruth shot home the bolt, and then, in a
frenzy of fear, pulled the washstand against the door.

"What is it? Oh, what is it?" cried Alice from her apartment across the
corridor. "What is it, Ruth?" for she had heard her sister's frantic
appeal, though not catching the words.

"Don't open your door! Don't open you door!" begged Ruth. "There's a
bear in the hall!"

"A bear?"

"Yes, a great big one!"

But in spite of this Alice did open her door a little. She closed it
quickly enough, however, at the sight of the shaggy brown creature and,
pounding on the door of her father's room, which connected with hers,
she cried;

"Daddy, get help, quick! There's a bear in the hall!"

There was a speaking tube from the actor's apartment to the hotel
office, and he was soon transferring his daughter's message down this.

Meanwhile Mr. Sneed, coming out of his room from the lower end of the
hall, encountered the beast, and turned back with a yell. He nearly
collided with Mr. Towne, who was at that moment coming out of his room,
faultlessly attired, even to a heavy walking stick.

"Look out!" cried Mr. Sneed, racing along.

"What is it?" asked Mr. Towne.

"A bear. Look out! Here he comes!"

And, in fact, the bear was shuffling down the hall, his head lolling
from side to side, and his red tongue hanging out.

Either Mr. Towne did not hear what Mr. Sneed said, or he was so
surprised that he did not think to run, for he stood there and, a moment
later, the big beast confronted him. Stretching out his paw the animal
took from the nerveless hands of the actor the heavy walking stick, and,
shouldering it, began to march around in a circle.

Then the hotel proprietor, having been alarmed by Mr. DeVere, came up on
the run. As soon as he saw the bear marching around he broke into a
laugh.

"That's a trained bear!" he exclaimed. "It belongs to that Italian who
stopped here last night. I made him chain the brute out in the wagon
shed, but I guess he got loose. That bear won't hurt you. I've seen him
before. Tony, the Italian who owns him, often stops here with him when
he's traveling around giving exhibitions. He's real gentle. Down,
Bruno!" commanded the hotel man, and the bear, with a grunt, dropped on
all fours.

Alice, hearing this talk, opened her door, and then called to Ruth that
there was no danger. Mr. Sneed was induced to return, and when Tony
himself came to get his escaped pet Mr. Towne's cane was returned to
him. The bear had taken it for the pole he was used to performing with.

"You want to chain your bear up tighter, Tony," chided the hotel man as
the Italian led Bruno away.

"Ah, yes. Bruno, he ees a very bad-a-de bear! I wheep heem for dese."

"Oh, don't!" pleaded Alice. "He didn't mean anything wrong."

"No, mees, but he very bad, just-a de same. He make-a you to be
a-skeert."

"Oh, it's all over now," declared Ruth, who ventured out, seeing that
the bear was in leash. "But I _was_ frightened for a moment."

"I don't blame you," said Paul, as he heard what had happened. "Rather
an unusual morning caller, Ruth."

"Say! I've got an idea!" cried Mr. Pertell, who had come out by this
time. "We'll have a film with the bear in it. A sort of Little Red
Riding Hood story for children. Something simple, but it will be great
to have a real bear in it. Tony, will you let us use Bruno?"

"Of a course, Signor. I make up for de scare. Bruno he do-a just-a
whatever you tell. He very good-a bear--sometimes!" and he shrugged his
shoulders, philosophically.

"Very well, then, we'll wait over another train, and I'll get up some
little scenario with a bear in it. Mr. Sneed, you will take the part of
the bear's keeper, and Miss Alice----"

"No, sir!" cried Mr. Sneed. "No bears for me. I won't act with one. Why,
he'd claw me to pieces!"

"Ah, no, Signor!" interrupted Tony. "Bruno he very gentle just-a like-a
de little babe. He no hurt-a you, Signor."

"Well, I'm not going to take any chances," declared the "grouch." "This
is too dangerous."

"Ha! I am not afraid!" cried Mr. Switzer. "I vill act mit der bear
alretty yet," and to prove that he was not afraid he fed the big animal
some pretzels, without which the German actor seldom went abroad.

And, a little later, Russ made a film, in which the bear was one of the
central figures. Alice took part in it, and the simple little play made
quite a hit when shown.

"You seem to have the happy faculty of making use of everything that
comes your way--accidentally or not," remarked Mr. DeVere to Mr.
Pertell, when the company was once more under way in the train.

"You have to in the moving picture business," chuckled Mr. Pertell.
"That's the secret of success. You never can tell when something will go
wrong with a play you have planned carefully and rehearsed well. So you
must be ready to take advantage of every change in situation. Also, you
must be ready to seize on every opportunity that comes your way."

"You certainly seized on that bear," agreed Mr. DeVere.

"I'm glad he wasn't a wild one," went on the manager. "I am sorry your
daughters were frightened----"

"Oh, pray do not mention it," the actor said. "They are getting used to
strange experiences in this moving picture work."

"And I want to tell you they are doing most excellently," the manager
went on. "I have had many actresses of experience who could not do half
as well as Miss Ruth and Miss Alice. I congratulate you!"

Little of moment occurred during the rest of the trip; that is, until
the next stopping place was reached. This was at a place in Kansas where
Mr. Pertell planned to have some farming operations shown as a
background to a certain part in the big drama.

On the way a careful watch had been kept for the appearance of the
spies, or camera operators, of the International company, but no trace
of them had been seen.

There were no hotels in Fostoria, where the Kansas stop was made, and
the company was accommodated at two farmhouses close together. A number
of scenes were to be made, with these houses and outbuildings figuring
in them.

"Isn't it nice here?" asked Alice as she and Ruth were in their room on
the morning after their arrival, getting ready for breakfast.

"It does seem so," agreed the older girl, as she leaned over with her
hair hanging in front of her while she combed it out.

"Such wide, open spaces," went on Alice. "Plenty of fresh air here."

"Too much!" laughed Ruth. "Grab that waist of mine; will you, Alice?
It's going out of the window on the breeze."

Alice was just in time to prevent the garment from fluttering out of
the room, for the breeze was certainly strong.

As the younger girl turned back to hand her sister the waist she
exclaimed:

"Oh, what a queer looking cloud! And what a funny yellow light there is,
all about. Look, Ruth."

"Isn't it?" agreed Ruth, as she coiled her hair on top of her head. "It
looks like a storm."

Off in the west was a bank of yellowish clouds that seemed rolling and
tumbling over and over in their eagerness to advance. At the same time
there was a sobbing and moaning sound to the wind.

"Oh, Alice. I think there is going to be a terrible storm," gasped Ruth
a moment later, suddenly realizingly that danger impended.

Indeed the wind was rising rapidly, and the clouds increased in size.
Now confused shouts could be heard out in the farmyard, and some men
were running about, rounding up a bunch of cows.

"What's the matter?" called Mr. Pertell, coming out on the side porch.

"Cyclone coming!" answered the proprietor of the farm. "It's going to be
a bad one, too!"




CHAPTER XI

AT ROCKY RANCH


With a howl, a rush and a roar the storm was upon them. Never had the
moving picture girls or their friends ever seen, heard or imagined such
a violent wind.

The sky was overcast with yellowish clouds, edged with black, which were
torn and twisted in swirling circles by the gale. The air itself seemed
tinged with a sickly green that struck terror to the girls' hearts.

There was a crash that rose high above the howl of the wind, and someone
called:

"There goes the roof off the corn crib!"

Inside the house there were confused shouts and calls. The house itself
rocked and swayed.

"Oh, what shall we do?" sobbed Ruth.

"Let's go out, before it falls down on us," cried Alice.

Clinging to each other they made their way downstairs. Their father came
after them, followed by other members of the moving picture company.

"Is--is there any safe place?" faltered Mr. Sneed, as he look anxiously
about.

"The cyclone cellar," answered one of the farm men. "All hands had
better take to that. We're out of the path of the worst of the
'twister,' but it's best to take no chances. To the cyclone cellar!"

"Where is it?" asked Mr. Bunn, looking around the room, as though the
place of refuge were kept inside the house.

"There!" cried the man, pointing to a small mound of earth, in which was
set a sort of trap door. "Go down in there!"

A number of farm hands, as well as members of the family, were making
for this haven. It was a veritable cellar, covered over, and used for
just such emergencies. A flight of steps led down into it.

"Where are you going, Russ?" cried Ruth, as she saw the young operator
turn from the side of the porch where he had been standing.

"For my camera!" he answered, shouting so as to be heard above the noise
of the wind. "I'm going to film this--too good a chance to lose."

"But you--you may be hurt!" she faltered.

"I'll take a chance," he replied, as he turned into the house.

Into the cyclone cellar rushed the frightened members of the film
company, as well as the farmer's family and helpers. The wind was
howling and shrieking, and several crashes told of further damage being
done to the buildings.

Russ, in spite of the commands of Mr. Pertell, set up his camera to get
pictures of a cyclone in actual operation. The bending, and in some
cases breaking, trees showed the great force of the wind, and the
unroofing and demolishing of small outbuildings gave further evidence of
the power of the storm.

Russ took his position in an open spot, where he would be in less
danger, and got picture after picture, showing the retreat into the
underground place of refuge.

The wind was so strong that he had to force the legs of his camera
tripod deep into the earth to prevent the apparatus from being blown
over.

With a crash the roof of one of the smaller barns was sent sailing far
away in the air, and Russ got a fine view of this, though he narrowly
escaped being hit by a piece of wood.

"Russ, come in here!" called Mr. Pertell, through a crack in the trap
door of the cyclone cellar. "I forbid you to risk your life any
further."

"Just a minute!" begged the operator.

"Please come!" cried Ruth.

"All right," he answered, and catching up his camera he took his place
in the cellar. And then, as suddenly as it had come up, the wind storm
died away. The sullen black and yellow clouds passed onward, and the sun
came out. Those in the cellar emerged.

"Well, it might have been worse," the farmer said, as he looked about.
Considerable damage had been done, but his place, and that of his
neighbor, were out of the direct path of the cyclone, so the larger
buildings escaped. No one was hurt and after the excitement Russ went
about, making views of the demolished places, and of the standing grain,
which had been blown almost flat.

"I don't believe I'd like to live in Kansas," said Ruth as she
re-arranged her hair, tossed about by the wind.

"Nor I," laughed Alice, in a similar plight.

"Oh, we get used to it," remarked the farmer, with a laugh. Yet how he
could laugh as he surveyed the ruins of his buildings was rather
strange. "We don't get a 'twister' every day," he went on, "and we're
glad when we escape alive. A few shacks more or less don't matter. We
count on that. I'm sorry you folks got such a bad opinion of Kansas,
though."

"Well, we'll give her a chance to redeem herself," said Mr. Pertell. "I
guess we'll have to change some of our plans."

"Oh, don't let this storm hinder you," urged the farmer. "We won't have
another in a couple of years. Once a cyclone sweeps over a place we feel
relieved. It doesn't often pay a return visit."

He and his men were soon busy taking an account of the damage done
which, fortunately, was not as great as seemed at first. One cow had
been killed, but the farmer remarked, philosophically, that anyhow he
was to have sent her to the butcher shortly.

There was a little delay in making the moving pictures, but finally the
work of getting out the films was under way, and, if anything, the storm
rendered them more effective. Russ was able to work in the views he took
of the cyclone, and altogether the drama that was made in Kansas was
quite a success.

Once again the players were on their way, and this time they were not to
stop until they reached Rocky Ranch, unless something occurred to make
it necessary.

The remainder of the trip was uneventful, if we may except a slight
accident by which the train was derailed. No one was hurt, however, and
it gave Russ a chance to make a little film.

Then, late one afternoon, the party of moving picture players with their
properties and baggage reached the station of Altmore, the nearest
railroad point to Rocky Ranch. The station was little more than a water
tank, and there was not much of a town.

"Oh, what a dreary place!" complained Miss Pennington, as she and her
friend Miss Dixon surveyed the scene.

"The end of nowhere," agreed the other. "We shall die of loneliness
here."

"I guess it will be lively enough for you out at the ranch," said Mr.
Pertell. "But I don't understand why the wagons aren't here to meet us."

"There's something coming down the road," said Russ, pointing to a cloud
of dust.

"That's so," agreed the manager.

The dust cloud drew nearer, and then from the center of it could be
heard an excited shouting and yelling, and the galloping of horses.
Added to these were the sharp reports of revolvers.

"Something has happened!" cried Mr. Sneed.

"Something _is_ happening!" corrected Paul, while Mr. Bunn looked about
for a safe retreat.

"Hi! Yi!" were the yells coming from the dust cloud, as the shooting
increased. "Hi! Yi!"

"It's an Indian attack!" gasped Miss Pennington. "Oh, where can we
hide?"




CHAPTER XII

SUSPICIONS


On came that rushing, swirling, swaying dust-cloud, and out of it
continued to come those nerve-racking shouts, yells and shrill screams,
accompanied by a fusillade of pistol shots.

"Can anything have occurred to gain us the anger of any of the
inhabitants of this place?" asked Mr. DeVere, as he looked about
apprehensively, and then at his daughters.

"It sounds like a lot of cowboys," spoke Alice. "At least I've read
that's how they act when they paint the town red."

"Oh, Alice!" cried Ruth. "What language!"

"I used it merely in the technical sense," was the retort. "I believe
they do not actually use red paint."

"Oh, what shall we do? What shall we do?" cried Miss Pennington.

"I'm going back to New York at once!" sobbed Miss Dixon. "Make that
train come back!" she cried to the lone station agent, who, with a set
grin on his face, was looking alternately from the group of picture
players to the approaching dust cloud that concealed so many weird
noises.

But the train was far down the track.

"We must do something!" insisted Mr. Sneed, nervously pacing up and
down. "We men must organize and protect the ladies. I think we had
better get inside the station and try to hold it against the savages.
Pop, you have some guns in the baggage; have you not?"

"Yep!" answered the property man; "but they ain't loaded, and before we
could git 'em out those fellers will be here."

"Well, we must protect the ladies at any cost!" insisted Mr. Sneed.
"Come with us, we will protect you!" he shouted as he hurried inside the
little shed that answered for the station. Probably he wanted to go
first to prepare the place for the others. At any rate he was first
inside.

"Whoop-ee!"

"Ki-yi!"

"Rah!"

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

That is the way it sounded. The noise grew louder. The dust-cloud was at
the station now. And then, with a fusillade of shots that was well-nigh
deafening, the cause of it all came to a sudden stop.

The dust settled and blew away. The cloud parted to reveal several
wagons drawn by small but muscular horses. Surrounding the vehicles were
half a score of cowboys of the regulation type, save that they did not
wear the "chaps," or sheepskin breeches, so often seen in moving picture
depictions of the "wild west." Probably the weather was too hot for
them, or these cowboys may have gotten rid of them because the garments
figured so often in the "movies."

"Cowboys!" cried Russ, with a laugh. "And we thought they were going to
attack us!"

"It's one on us, all right," spoke Paul.

"But I have often read of cowboys going on a--on a rampage, I believe it
is called--or is it stampede?" asked Miss Dixon, as she stood behind
Paul.

"Rampage is right," he informed her.

"Well, maybe that's what they're on now, and they will shoot us after
all," she resumed. "Oh, there's one looking right at me!" and she
covered her face with her be-ringed hands.

"Probably he hasn't seen a pretty girl in a long time," said Paul, for
Miss Dixon was pretty, in a way.

"Oh!" she exclaimed again--and took down her hands.

"And one of them is loading his pistol!" cried Miss Pennington. "Oh,
dear!"

"I guess they'll have to load up all around after the shots they fired,"
laughed Russ. "I wonder what in the world it's all about, anyhow?"

He learned a moment later.

One of the cowboys, evidently the leader, rode his fiery little horse up
to the station platform, and taking off his broad-brimmed hat with a
flourish and a bow, asked:

"Is this the moving picture outfit?"

"It is," said Mr. Pertell.

"I reckoned that I'd read your brand right," the cowboy went on.
"Welcome to Rocky Ranch!"

"But where is it?" asked Alice, and then she blushed at her own
boldness, for the glance of the half-score of cowboys was instantly
drawn in her direction, and bold admiration shone in their eyes.

"It isn't far from here, Miss," was the answer. "It lies just over that
little rise. You can't see it. We've come to take you out there. That's
why we brung the wagons, and some of the boys thought they'd like to
ride in and see you, seein' as how the round-up is over and we ain't so
terrible rushed with work."

"We heard you coming," said Mr. Pertell. "Some of the ladies were a
little apprehensive."

"I don't quite get you," spoke the cowboy.

"I say some of the ladies were a bit timid on account of the firing."

"Oh, shucks! That ain't nothin'! The boys was feelin' a little bit
frisky, I reckon, and they maybe did let out a few whoops. But land love
you! Mustn't mind a little thing like that. Still, if it's goin' to
cause any uneasiness among the females, why I'll tell the boys to cut
out all----"

"Oh, no, really we don't mind it!" declared Alice, impulsively, and
again she blushed as the broadside of eyes was trained in her direction.

"Do be quiet!" whispered Ruth. "I don't know what they'll think of you,"
and she adjusted her dainty lace cuffs, brushing some engine cinders
from them.

"I don't care," Alice retorted, "if they're going to be cowboys let them
be natural."

The same thought must have been in the mind of Mr. Pertell, for he said:

"Don't put yourselves out on our account, gentlemen. We don't want you
to change your ways or customs just because we have come. We want to get
moving pictures of the ranch and the cowboys, and we want them true to
life. The ladies will soon get used to the firing. We have gone through
worse things than that."

"Well, I sure am glad to hear you say so," was the hearty response. "You
see it's jest plumb natural for a cow-puncher to shoot off his gun, and
it would come a bit hard to stop. But I reckon the boys has had enough
for to-day. Now, who's the boss of this outfit?"

"I guess I am," replied Mr. Pertell. "I'll introduce you to the
different ones when I get a chance. Just now I think we are all anxious
to get to the ranch."

"All right, jest as you say. My name is Batso--Pete Batso, and I'm
foreman of Rocky Ranch. The Circle and Dot is our brand--you can see it
on the ponies," and he showed on the flank of his mount a circle burned
in the hide--a circle in the center of which was a dot. Each ranch owner
brands, with a hot iron, all his cattle, that he may pick out his own
when they mix with another bunch at the grazing. Each ranch has a
different brand, and they consist of simple marks and symbols, each one
being properly registered in case of lawsuits.

"Now then," went on Foreman Pete, "if you're ready we'll start. The boys
will stow away your traps in one of the wagons, and if you'll
distribute yourselves in the other wagons we'll git along. I could have
brought horses for all of you, but I wasn't sure how many could ride."

"Very few of us do, I'm afraid," observed Mr. Pertell.

"But I'm going to learn!" exclaimed Alice, promptly, and this time, when
the eyes were turned toward her, she smiled back at the owners thereof.

"I'll be very pleased to show you how, Miss," declared the foreman, with
a low bow to the girl. Alice blushed, and Ruth looked annoyed; but Mr.
DeVere smiled indulgently. He understood Alice.

Trunks, valises and the various properties Pop Snooks had provided for
the different plays were put in the wagon and then in the other vehicles
the players themselves took their places.

"All ready?" asked Pete Batso.

"All ready," answered Mr. Pertell.

"Let her go!" cried the foreman, and the cavalcade started off to the
whooping and yelling accompaniment of the cowboys, though this time they
did not fire their revolvers.

The pace was fast. In fact, everything out in the West seemed to be
fast. No one walked who could, by any means, get a horse, and the
horses, or cow ponies, seemed to be always on the trot or gallop when
they were not standing still. A slow walk seemed to be the one thing
they could not do. Even the teams attached to the wagons were off at the
same fast pace.

It was a little breathless at first, but the players soon became used to
it, and liked it. The rapid motion made a cooling breeze.

Rocky Ranch was located in a fine part of the country. The land was
rolling, with occasional wide, level stretches. About two miles away was
a timber belt, through which ran a stream of good water, and about eight
miles to the west was a chain of hills, reaching finally into mountains,
with an occasional _mesa_, or flat, table-like, isolated hill.

The ranch owner, Mr. Haladay Norton, possessed many cattle, which roamed
about his broad acres. There were a number of ranch buildings, and
accommodations for all the players, as well as for the necessary help in
the line of cowboys. In fact, it was one of the largest and best ranches
in that part of the country, which is the reason Mr. Pertell selected it
for his purposes.

For some time, as the players rode along with the cowboy escort, they
saw no signs of habitation. Off in the distance were dark moving
bunches, that the foreman said were some of the Rocky Ranch cattle, and
farther off could be seen the foothills.

Then, as the dust blew away, and the cavalcade topped a little rise,
they all saw, nestled in a sort of hollow, or swale, a group of red
buildings.

"There you are!" cried Pete Batso, pointing with gloved hand toward the
collection. "That's Rocky Ranch, and I kin smell supper cookin' right
now."

"Some nose you got!" observed a blue-eyed cowboy riding close to the
wagon containing Alice and Ruth.

"That's all right, Bow Backus; but I kin, all the same," asserted Pete.
"We call him Bow Backus because he's got such crooked legs, from ridin'
a horse so much," the foreman explained in a low voice to Mr. DeVere,
who sat with his daughters. "Most every cow-puncher gets bow-legged
after a while, but Backus is the worst I ever see. You could almost roll
a barrel through him when he stands up. That feller next to him is Baldy
Johnson," he went on. "His head is like a billiard ball, or an ostrich
egg. He's tried all the hair restorers on the market; but they don't do
no good. He'll ask you if you ever heard of one he ain't tried, as soon
as he gets on speakin' terms with you."

"What odd characters," observed Ruth.

"Aren't they? But delightfully quaint--I like them!" her sister
exclaimed.

"Oh, so do I. It's so different from what we've seen. I know we shall
have fine times out here."

A little later the cowboy whom the foreman had designated as Baldy
Johnson, spurred up beside the wagon in which Mr. Bunn rode. The actor
had taken off his hat, and his rather thick and heavy hair was blown
about.

"Whoop-ee! Look at that!" cried Baldy, in evident admiration. "I say, no
offense, stranger," he went on, "but what brand do you use?"

"Brand?" queried the actor, much puzzled.

"Yes. What sort of stuff do you use on your hair? You've got a fine
bunch there. I'd like to get next. Look at me!" and he pulled off his
hat and showed a head shiny and bald.

"I--I don't use any," faltered Mr. Bunn, for he saw the cowboy taking a
revolver from its holster, and the actor evidently thought he was to be
"held up" then and there, and perhaps scalped.

"Too bad. I wish you did, and could tell me what to use," sighed Baldy,
and then, with a whoop he raised his gun in the air and fired.
Instantly all the other cowboys were doing the same thing, as their
horses broke into a fast gallop. Miss Pennington and Miss Dixon
screamed, but they need have had no fears, for it was but a repetition
of the scene at the station. The cow-punchers were merely celebrating
their return to the ranch.

"Glad to see you all," Mr. Norton, the owner, greeted them as he came
out to welcome the party. He had met Mr. Pertell in Chicago, where
arrangements for the use of the ranch had been made.

Introductions were soon over, and then, under the direction of Mrs.
Norton, who proved to be a motherly, home-like sort of person, the
ladies of the company were taken to their quarters, and the men shown to
theirs.

"You won't find marble halls and electric elevators here," laughed the
ranch owner. "In fact, everything's on the ground floor; but you'll find
some comforts. I want you to have a good time while you're here. You'll
find us a bit rough, perhaps; but you'll find us ready to do our best
for you."

"I'm sure of it," agreed Mr. Pertell, heartily.

The players had scarcely removed the dust of travel, and freshened
themselves, before the mellow notes of a gong sounded through the air,
and at the same time a strident voice cried;

"Glub leady! Glub leady!"

"What in the world is that?" asked Alice.

"That's the Chinese cook, Ling Foo, announcing that grub, or supper, is
ready," replied Mr. Norton, with a laugh. "This way to the dining room."

As the company, the members of which were to eat by themselves, filed
out, Russ, who was walking beside Mr. Pertell, saw a familiar looking
box on a bench.

"Look!" he exclaimed to the manager.

"A moving picture camera!" was the surprised comment. "Is that one of
yours left out by mistake?"

"No, mine are in the room with the other props."

"But that's a camera, sure enough, though the lens has been taken off. I
wonder how that got here," and he looked anxiously at the young
operator.

"I'll ask Mr. Norton," Russ volunteered, and, as the ranch proprietor
came along at that moment, Russ had his chance.

"That? Oh, that belongs to a new man I hired the other day," said the
ranchman.

"What sort of a man is he?" asked Mr. Pertell, suspiciously.

"Well, not as good a sort as I thought he was. He knows a little about
cow-punching; but not much. Still, I was short of help and had to put
him on."

"What--what does he do with that?" asked Russ, pointing to the camera
out on the bench.

"That? Oh he says that's an electric battery. He uses it for rheumatism;
but I haven't seen him work it yet. He said it was out of order, and
he's tinkering with it the last few days. Why?"

"Oh, I was just--just wondering," returned Russ, evasively.

Then, as he passed on to the dining room, he saw, through a window, a
man hurry up to the bench and remove the camera. Russ could not recall
ever having seen this man.

"There's something queer about this," said Mr. Pertell to his operator.
"What would a cowboy be doing with a moving picture camera?"




CHAPTER XIII

AT THE BRANDING


Russ did not answer for a moment, but kept on beside the manager through
the long corridor that led to the dining hall. Then, just as the two
entered the room, Russ said:

"I reckon, as they say out here--I reckon, Mr. Pertell, that you're
thinking the same thing I am."

"What's that, Russ?"

"That maybe those International fellows are still on our trail."

"That's what I do think, Russ. Though how they got out here ahead of us
is more than I can tell."

"It would be easy enough. They learned we were coming here, and just
took a short cut. We've been on the road quite a while."

"That must be it, Russ. But you say you had a glimpse of the fellow who
took the camera off the bench. You didn't know him; did you?"

"Never saw him before, as far as I could tell. But there are a lot of
camera operators nowadays, so that isn't strange. The International firm
could hire anyone and send him on here to try and steal some of the
scenes we're depending on. He could pose as a cowboy, too."

"Well, we'll just have to be on our guard, Russ. It won't do to let them
get ahead of us. There's too much at stake."

Nothing was said to the players of the suspicions of Russ and Mr.
Pertell. They wanted to wait and see what happened.

Though the meal at Rocky Ranch was served without any of the elegance
which would have been expected at a hotel, the food was of the best, and
there was plenty of it.

"Ah, again sauerkraut!" cried Mr. Switzer, as he saw a steaming dish
brought on the table, topped with smoking sausages. "Dot is fine alretty
yet!"

"Disgusting!" scoffed Miss Pennington, turning up a nose that in itself
showed a tendency to "tilt."

There was time, in the twilight that followed supper, for the players to
look about the buildings at Rocky Ranch. All the structures, as Mr.
Norton had said, were of only one story. There were broad verandas on
most of them and in comfortable chairs one could take one's ease in
delightful restfulness.

There was a bunk-house for the cowboys, and a separate living apartment
for the Chinese cook and his two assistants, for considerable food was
required at Rocky Ranch, especially with the advent of the film players.

The cowboys, their meal over, gathered in a group and looked curiously
at the visitors. The novelty of seeing the pretty girls and the
well-dressed men appealed to the rough but sterling chaps who had so
little to soften their hard lives.

Nearly every one of them smoked cigarettes, which they rolled skillfully
and quickly.

"Give us a song, Buster!" one of the cowboys called to a comrade. "Tune
up! Bring out that mouth organ, Necktie!"

"What odd names!" remarked Alice to Pete Batso, who constituted himself
a sort of guide to Ruth and her sister.

"They call Dick Jones 'Buster' because he's a good bronco trainer, or
buster," the foreman said. "And Necktie Harry got his handle because
he's so fussy about his ties. I'll wager he's got _three_, all
different," and the foreman seemed to think that a great number.

"You should see our Mr. Towne," laughed Paul, who had joined the girls.
"I guess he must have thirty!"

"Thirty!" cried Pete. "What is he--a wholesale dealer?"

"Pretty nearly," admitted Paul.

"Say, Pete!" called one of the cowboys, "can't some of them actor folks
do a song and dance?"

The foreman looked questioningly at Alice, with whom he was already on
friendly terms because of her happy frankness.

"I'm afraid that isn't in our line," she said.

"I'll do that little sketch I did with Miss Pennington and Miss Dixon,"
offered Paul, who had been in vaudeville. "I've got my banjo and----"

"Ki-yi, fellows! We're going to have a show!" yelled Bow Backus. "Come
on!" and he fired his revolver in the air.

Ruth jumped nervously.

"Here, cut that out!" ordered the foreman to the offending cowboy. "Save
your powder to mill the cattle."

"I begs your pardon, Miss," said the cowboy, humbly. "But I jest
couldn't help it--thinkin' we was goin' to have a little amusement. It's
been powerful dull out here lately. Nothin' to do but shoot the queue
off Ling Foo."

"Oh! you don't do that; do you?" gasped Ruth.

"Don't mind him, Miss," said the foreman, "he's jokin'."

Miss Pennington and Miss Dixon were only too willing to show their
talents to the appreciative audience of cowboys, and with Paul, who
played the banjo, they went through the little sketch, with a side porch
as a stage, and the setting sun as a spotlight.

There were ample sleeping quarters at Rocky Ranch, though the bedrooms
were rather of the camp, or bungalow, type. But there was hot and cold
water and this made up for the lack of many other things.

"Do you think you're going to like it here, Alice?" asked Ruth as they
sat in the room they were to share. Ruth was manicuring her nails, and
Alice was combing her hair.

"Like it? Of course I'm going to like it. Aren't you?"

"Well, it's--er--rather--rough," she hesitated.

"Oh, but it's all so real! There's no sham about anything. They take you
for just what you are worth out here, and not a cent more. There's no
sham!"

"No, that's true. But everything seems so--so different."

"I know--there isn't romance enough for you. You'd like a horseman to
wear a suit of armor, or come prancing up in a top hat and shiny boots.
But these men, in their rough clothes and on their scraggy-looking
ponies, can _ride_. I saw some of them just before supper. They can
ride like the wind and pull up so short that it's a wonder they don't
turn somersaults. I'm going to learn to ride that way."

"Alice, you're not!"

"Well, maybe not so well, of course," the younger girl admitted, as she
finished braiding her hair for the night. "But I'm going to learn. I'll
have to, anyhow, as I'm cast for a riding part in several scenes, and so
are you."

"Well, then, I suppose I'll have to. But I hope I will get a gentle
horse."

"Oh, Pete will see to that."

"Pete? Do you call him by his first name so soon?" asked Ruth rather
shocked, as she shook out her robe, and ran a ribbon through the neck.

"Everyone calls him Pete; why shouldn't I?" laughed Alice. "He's awfully
nice--and he's been married three times!"

"Did you ask him that?"

"No, he told me. He asked me if I'd ever been 'hooked up,' as he called
it."

"Alice DeVere!"

"Well, I couldn't help it. He meant all right. He's old enough to be our
father. Do you think daddy is quite well?" she asked, perhaps to change
the subject.

"Yes, I think the pure air out here is doing him good. His throat seems
much improved. Are those my slippers?" she asked, quickly, as Alice
thrust her pink feet into a pair of worsted "tootsies."

"Indeed they are not. I just took these out of my trunk. There are yours
under your bed."

"Oh, excuse me. I don't believe I shall need anyone to sing me to sleep
to-night," and she yawned comfortably.

There were to be busy times at Rocky Ranch next day, for some cattle
were to be branded, or marked with the hot iron to establish their
ownership, and Mr. Pertell had decided to have some scenes of this, with
his own players worked in as part of the action.

This had already been planned, and after breakfast there was a short
rehearsal of the players, while the cowboys were getting ready for the
branding.

"Now we're ready for you," announced Pete Batso, who was in charge of
the cowboys. "Get your players in position. They're going to rope the
first critter now."

The proper action for the scene was gone through by Ruth, Alice, Paul
and Mr. Sneed, and then one of the cowboys "cut out," or separated from
the rest, a young steer that had not yet been branded.

"Whoop-ee!" yelled the cow puncher as he hurled his lariat and pulled
the animal to the ground. Other cowboys quickly threw their ropes around
the fore and hind legs of the steer and then, with another rope around
the head, the creature was stretched out helpless, ready for the
application of the iron.




CHAPTER XIV

A WARNING


"Oh, doesn't it hurt them?" faltered Ruth, as creature after creature
was branded.

"No, Miss, hardly at all," Pete Batso assured her. "You see they're used
to being roped, and we don't throw them as hard as it looks, onless it's
an ornery critter that wants to make trouble. And the hot iron doesn't
go in deep. It just sort of crimples up the hair, same as you ladies
frizzes your curls with a hot slate pencil--at least my second wife--no,
it was my third--she used to curl hers that way."

Ruth had difficulty to keep from laughing.

The branding was almost over, and the taking of pictures was nearly at
an end. Russ had obtained some good films, and the action was spirited.

"Here comes a bad one," announced the foreman, as the cow punchers cut
out from the herd a big steer. "That's a vicious critter, all right!"

"Oh, is there any danger?" asked Alice, for she and Ruth had finished
their work. Mr. Bunn and Paul were engaged in the final scenes, not far
from the place of the branding.

"Oh, don't worry. That critter won't get away from the boys," the
foreman assured her. "It's a steer that some of the other ranchmen
around here tried to claim for theirs. They changed the brand by burnin'
an arrow over our circle and dot. Now we've got to put our brand on
again. The steer knows what's comin', I guess."

Indeed the animal did, for it resisted, for some time, the efforts of
the cowboys to separate it from the rest of the bunch. But finally it
was forced out into an open space, and there quickly roped and thrown.

"Lively now, boys!" called the foreman. "We've got to clear out of here
right after this, and look after that bunch of critters by Sweetwater
Brook. I hear the rustlers have been after them. So get a move on."

"What are rustlers?" asked Alice, who seldom let pass a chance to
acquire information.

"Cattle stealers, Miss. Ornery, mean men who trade on the rights of
others. But we'll snub 'em if we get hold of 'em!"

The branding of the big steer was quickly done and then the restraining
ropes were cast off so that it might get up. With a deep bellow the
animal sprang to its feet. It stood still for a moment and then, with a
snort, it wheeled around and made straight for Mr. Bunn.

For a moment the veteran actor stood still. Fortunately, some little
distance separated him from the steer. Otherwise he might have been
impaled on its short horns.

"Run! Run!" cried Pete Batso. "Get out the way, and give the boys a
chance to rope him!"

Mr. Bunn needed no second call. He sprang to one side, in time to avoid
a sweep of the horns, and started to run. The steer, evidently
connecting the actor with the recent branding, made after him, and then
began a chase that might have resulted seriously.

"Stop him! Save me! Do something!" cried Mr. Bunn, as he raced about,
keeping just ahead of the angry steer.

"Just a minute--we'll rope him!" cried the foreman. But the trouble was
that the cowboys nearest the scene had just pulled their lariat from the
branded beast and the ropes were not coiled in readiness for throwing.
The foreman himself had left his at the ranch house.

On rushed Mr. Bunn. On came the steer, and only a little way behind the
actor. The distance was lessening every second.

"He ought to be on a horse--then he wouldn't have any trouble," declared
the foreman. "Lively there, Buster--get that critter!"

"Right away, Pete," was the answer as the cowboy coiled his rope for a
throw. Then, galloping his pony up behind the steer, Buster threw the
lariat over the head of the animal, and brought it with a thud to the
ground.

"Oh, am I safe?" gasped Mr. Bunn as he sank down on some saddles that
had been removed from the horses.

"You're all right now," Paul assured him. "But it certainly was a lively
time while it lasted."

"That's so," agreed Russ, who had not deserted his camera. "But why
didn't you run toward me while you were at it. I could have made better
pictures then."

"Do you--do you mean to say you took a film of me running away from
that--that cow?" panted Mr. Bunn, who had lost his tall silk hat early
in the chase.

"Well, I just couldn't help it," confessed Russ. "It was too good to
miss. I think I got most of it."

"Where's Mr. Pertell?" demanded Mr. Bunn, getting up quickly. "I want to
see the manager at once."

"What's the trouble?" asked that gentleman, as he came up.

"I demand that you destroy that film of me being chase by a cow!" cried
Mr. Bunn. "I shall be the laughing stock of all the moving picture
theaters of the United States. I demand that that film be not shown. To
be chased by a _cow_!"

"But it wasn't a cow, my friend," spoke the foreman. "It was a vicious
steer and you might have been badly hurt if Buster hadn't roped it in
time."

"Is that so?" asked Mr. Bunn.

"It sure is!"

"Well, er--then--perhaps after all, if it was as important as that, you
may show the film," conceded the Shakespearean actor, who had a large
idea of his own importance. "We might make it into some sort of a play
like 'Quo Vadis?'" he went on.

"Hardly," said Mr. Pertell with a smile. "They didn't wear tall silk
hats in those days. But I'll change the script of this play to conform
to the chase. I'm glad you were not hurt, Mr. Bunn."

"So am I. I thought several times that I felt those horns in my back."

The vicious steer was held by the ropes until the company of players
had left the scene. Then it was allowed to get up and join the rest of
the bunch. By that time it seemed to have lost all desire to attack.

"Sometimes a steer will come for a person that isn't on horseback,"
explained Pete Batso. "You see, the cattle are so used to seeing mounted
men that they can't get used to anyone afoot. You want to get your
players mounted," he added to Mr. Pertell, who was a fair horseman, and
who was on this occasion in the saddle.

"I guess I will," agreed the manager. "Some of the young ladies are
quite anxious to try it, if you have some gentle mounts."

"Oh, I think I can fix them up. My boys will quarrel among themselves,
though, for the privilege of giving lessons to 'em. You see we don't get
much of ladies' society out here and we appreciate it so much the more."

"I see," laughed Mr. Pertell.

The next few days were given over to horseback practice on the part of
all the members of the moving picture company save Mrs. Maguire. She
declared she was too old to learn, and as she would not be required in
mounted scenes she was excused. But her little grandchildren were
provided with gentle ponies and taught how to sit in the saddle. Mr.
DeVere had ridden in his youth, and the knack of it soon came back to
him, though he was a trifle heavy. Paul took to it naturally, and Miss
Pennington and Miss Dixon were soon able to hold their own, as was Ruth.

But Alice was the "star," according to Baldy Johnson, who insisted on
being her instructor. She was an apt pupil, and he was a good and
conscientious teacher. In less than a week Alice was very sure of
herself in the saddle.

"Oh, it's simply great! It's wonderful!" she cried as she came back one
day from a gallop, with red cheeks and eyes that sparkled with the light
of health and life. "I wouldn't have missed it for anything!"

"I am glad you like it," said her father. "It is good exercise for you."

"I like it, too," declared Ruth, "but I'm not as keen for it as Alice
is."

"Oh, I just love it!" cried the younger girl, enthusiastically.

"Now we'll begin some real Western scenes, since you can all ride fairly
well," remarked Mr. Pertell.

"Fairly well--huh! She's a peach at it--that's what she is--a peach!"
cried Baldy Johnson, with a look of admiration at his pupil. Alice
blushed with delight.

During the days of horseback practice Mr. Pertell and Russ had been on
the lookout for any signs of activity on the part of their rivals in the
moving picture business; but nothing had happened. The man with the
other camera seemed to have disappeared.

"Maybe they've given up," suggested Russ.

"I hope so," agreed Mr. Pertell.

A few days later several important scenes were to be filmed, and one
evening Alice, who was to have a large share in the acting, had her
horse saddled, and with Ruth and her father, accompanied by Baldy, set
off for a little gallop.

"Let's go over to that _mesa_," suggested Alice, pointing to a big,
elevated hill, standing boldly and abruptly upright in the midst of the
plain.

"No, I wouldn't go there," said Baldy, flicking his horse with the
reins. "That's a dangerous place, Miss. Best keep away."




CHAPTER XV

THE INDIAN RITES


Alice glanced curiously at the cowboy. There seemed to be a strange look
on his face.

"What do you mean?" she asked, adding in a half-bantering tone: "Is it
haunted?"

"Oh, Alice!" objected Ruth, shaking out her skirt so it would hang down
a little longer, for the girls rode side-saddle.

"No, Miss, it ain't exactly haunted," replied Baldy. "But it ain't a
safe place to go--least-ways, not all alone."

"But why?" persisted Alice.

"Because that's a sort of sacred place--at least some of the Indians
from the reservation think so--and, though it's off their land, and
really belongs to Mr. Norton, them redskins come over, once in a while,
to hold some of their heathen rites on it."

"Oh, how interesting!" the girl cried. "I wonder if we couldn't see
them? Do they do a snake dance, and things like that?"

"Well, yes, in a way," Baldy admitted. "But it ain't safe to go watch
'em. Them Indians are peculiar. They don't want strangers lookin' on,
and more than once they've made trouble when outsiders tried to climb up
there and watch. As I said, the Indians come from their reservation,
which is several miles away, to that place for their ceremonies. And
they come at odd times, so there's no tellin' when you might strike a
body of 'em up on top there, pow-wowin' to beat the band, and yellin'
fit to split your ears. So it's best to keep away."

"Are the Indians really dangerous?" asked Mr. DeVere.

"Well, I don't s'pose they'd actually _scalp_ you," replied Baldy,
slowly.

"Oh, how terrible!" exclaimed Ruth with a shiver.

"They ain't got no right to come off their reservation," went on the
cowboy; "but they do it all the same. You see this place is pretty well
out of the way, and by the time we could get troops here to drive 'em
back, they'd probably be gone of their own accord, anyhow. So we sort of
let 'em alone. They don't bother us, and we don't bother them. Just keep
away from that hill, that's all, for it's so high you can't see the top
of it unless you climb up, and there's no tellin' when the Indians come
and go."

"I should like to see some of those rites, just the same," declared
Alice.

"Oh, but you won't go there; will you?" begged Ruth. "Promise me you
won't, my dear. Daddy, make her!"

"I won't go _alone_, I promise you that," laughed Alice.

"Of course with a party it might be all right," assented Baldy, "but
even then the Indians act rather hostile."

"Mr. Pertell will be sure to want some moving pictures of the Indians,
if he hears about them," said Mr. DeVere. "Better not tell him, or he
might run into danger--or send Russ."

"Then we won't say a thing about it!" exclaimed Ruth, with such sudden
energy that Alice laughed.

"Oh, no, we mustn't endanger _Russ_!" she said, mockingly.

"Alice!" exclaimed Ruth, with gentle dignity, her face the while being
suffused with a burning blush. "I meant I didn't want _anyone_ to run
into danger."

"I understand, my dear. Oh, but isn't that sunset gorgeous?--to change
the subject," and she laughed at the serious expression on Ruth's face.

The scene was indeed beautiful. The _mesa_ seemed to be suffused by a
purple glow, while, farther off, the foothills, from which it was
separated by a level expanse, were in a golden haze. The _mesa_ stood up
boldly, almost like some giant toadstool, save that the stem was
thicker. There was an overhang to the top, or table part, though, that
carried out the resemblance.

"I should think that would be difficult of access," observed Mr. DeVere.

"There's an easy way up on the other side," returned Baldy. "The Indians
always use that side. It's a narrow path to the top."

The cowboys, their work over for the day, were indulging in some of
their pastimes--rough riding, feats in throwing the lariat, jumping,
wrestling and the like.

"Don't you want to go with them?" asked Alice of their escort.

"No, Miss, I--I'd rather be with you," Baldy replied, simply, but he
blushed even under his coat of tan.

"Now who's to blame?" asked Ruth in a low voice of her sister, as she
regarded her with a quizzical smile.

"I can't help it if he likes me," murmured the younger girl.

In fact both Ruth and Alice were favorites with all the cowboys, who
were always willing to perform any little service for them. The other
members of the moving picture company, too, were well liked; but Ruth
and Alice seemed to come first. Perhaps it was because they were both so
natural and girlish, and took such an interest in the life and doings at
Rocky Ranch.

Ruth and Alice were fast becoming adepts in the saddle. The other
members of the company, too, soon felt more at home on the back of a
horse, and Mr. Pertell allowed them to rehearse in the scenes where
mounted action was necessary.

Mr. Bunn had one rather unlucky experience on a horse, and for some time
after that he refused to mount a steed, even going to the length of
threatening to resign if compelled to.

The "old school" actor was rather supercilious in his manner, and this
was resented by some of the cowboys, who thought him "stuck up." They
therefore planned a little joke on him. At least, it was a joke to them.

The horse Mr. Bunn had learned to ride was a steady-going beast that had
outlived its frisky days, and plodded along just the pace that suited
the actor. But there was, among the ranch animals, a "bucking bronco,"
who looked so much like Mr. Bunn's horse that even some of the cowboys
had difficulty in telling them apart.

A bucking bronco, it might be explained, is a steed who by nature or
training uses every means in its power to unseat its rider. The bucking
consists in the horse leaping into the air, with all four feet off the
ground, and coming down stiff-legged, jarring to a considerable degree
the person in the saddle.

One day, just for a "joke," the bucking bronco was brought out for Mr.
Bunn to ride, when a certain film was to be made. He did not notice that
it was not his regular mount. The bronco was quiet and tractable enough
until Mr. Bunn settled himself in the saddle, and then, just as Russ was
about to make the film, the pony set off at a fast pace.

"Whoa, there! Whoa!" cried Mr. Bunn, trying to halt the beast, and not
understanding what could have gotten into his usually quiet mount.
"Whoa, there!"

"Give him a touch of the spur," called the mischievous cowboy.

Mr. Pertell did not know what to make of the actions of his actor, for
the play called for nothing like that.

"Shall I get that?" asked Russ, and before the manager could answer the
bronco began running around in a circle.

"Yes! Get it!" ordered Mr. Pertell. "We can change the play to work it
in. It's too funny to lose."

"Whoa! Stop it! Somebody stop him! I'm getting dizzy!" cried Mr. Bunn,
leaning forward and clasping his arms about the neck of the pony.

By accident he dug the spurs lightly into the side of the beast, and as
this always made the animal buck, or leap up into the air, it now
changed its tactics.

With legs held stiff it rose several feet, and came down hard. Mr. Bunn
was bounced up, and would have been bounced off had he not had that neck
grip. Again the bronco bucked.

"Oh stop him! Stop him!" cried the actor.

"Get every move of that, Russ!" called Mr. Pertell.

But there was not much more to get, for with the next buck Mr. Bunn's
hold was loosened and away he shot, out of the saddle. Fortunately he
landed on a pile of hay and was not hurt beyond a shaking up. But Russ
got a good picture of the whole scene. The actor picked himself up, and
without a word started for the ranch house. Probably he suspected the
trick that had been played on him, and for some days after that he
refused to mount a horse, so Mr. Pertell had to make some changes in his
plans, as he did not care to antagonize Mr. Bunn by insisting on his
taking part.

And when the actor did again get into the saddle, he had his horse
branded on one hoof, as army horses are marked, so he could not again be
deceived.

Life at Rocky Ranch was a delight to all the moving picture players,
though there was plenty of hard work, too.

Of course it was impossible to keep from Mr. Pertell the story of the
Indians and their rites on the _mesa_, and he determined, before he left
the West, to get a film of them.

"But you'll have to be careful, Russ, how you go about it," he said.

"That's what I will," agreed the operator.

It was about a week after this that Russ, Paul, Alice, Ruth and Mr.
DeVere were riding out toward the _mesa_ to get some scenes in the
foothills, the two girls, their father and Paul being scheduled to go
through a little act by themselves.

As they passed under the shadow of the eminence Russ looked up and saw a
thin wisp of smoke curling around the top.

"Look!" he exclaimed. "I wonder if the Indians can be there now, doing
some of their snake ceremonies?"

"Let's have a look," suggested Paul. "We've got lots of time. I'd like
to have a peep."

"I would too!" exclaimed Alice.

"Oh, Daddy, will it be safe?" asked Ruth, for she saw that her father
seemed interested.

"There are so many of us, I think so," he replied. "We will try it, at
all events. They can no more than tell us to go. I should very much like
to see what they do, and perhaps I can get some of their weapons or
musical instruments for my collection," for the actor had that fad. And
then, though Ruth was a bit timid about it, they turned toward the
elevated table land to see if the Indians were at their rites.




CHAPTER XVI

PRISONERS


"Russ, are you going to try to get a film?" asked Alice, as she saw the
young operator examining his camera.

"I was thinking of it," he confessed. "I guess I've got film enough to
get you people, and take about eight hundred feet of the Indians--that
is, if they'll let us."

"Maybe we can make them believe the camera is some new kind of magic,
that will help them better than some of their own," suggested Paul. "One
of the cowboys was telling me the Indians come here to make magic or
'medicine' that they take back to the reservation with them, to ward off
sickness, bring good crops, and the like."

"Well, don't run into danger, whatever you do," advised Mr. DeVere.
"We'll just take a look, if we can, and come away."

"But I want a film," insisted Russ.

They were nearing the _mesa_. The smoke on top was seen to be growing
thicker, but there were no other signs that the Indians were on top of
the peculiar, table-like formation.

"Suppose they aren't there?" suggested Paul.

"Oh, don't come any of that Mr. Sneed business," laughed Russ. "Don't
cross a bridge until you come to it. I guess they're there, all right."

"Who's that coming after us?" asked Ruth, as she turned in her saddle,
and indicated an approaching horseman, who was coming on at a gallop. A
cloud of dust almost hid him, and it could not be made out who he was.

A little later, as he drew nearer, however, he was seen to be Baldy
Johnson. He waved his hat at them, his bald pate shining in the hot sun,
and called out:

"Hold on! Where you goin'?"

"Up to the _mesa_," answered Russ. "The Indians are there, I think, and
we want to see them. I want to get some pictures."

The two girls expected Baldy to make an objection, but he merely said:

"Well, I guess it'll be safe enough this time. I'll go along with you.
There's only a small party of them up there now."

"Then you know the Indians are there?" asked Alice.

"Yes, we got word at the ranch last night that they were on the way for
one of their regular pow-wows. One of the boys was out looking up some
stray cattle and he seen 'em headin' for the _mesa_. But there wasn't
many, so I guess it'll be safe. I'll go along," and he glanced
significantly at the two big revolvers that hung from either hip.

"But can you spare the time?" asked Alice.

"Oh, yes, Miss. I'd make time, anyhow," and he smiled frankly at her.
That was one nice feature of Baldy's admiration. It was so open and
ingenuous that no one--not even Ruth--could take offense at it. "I'm on
a little round-up of my own, looking for signs of rustlers, and I
haven't any special office hours," he finished, laughingly. "So come
along. I'll take you by the easiest path."

The ride around the _mesa_, to a point where it could be climbed, took
nearly an hour. During that time the girls and the others cast curious
glances at the top of the table-like elevation, but were not able to
detect any signs of the redmen. The little pillar of smoke, too,
disappeared.

"Now for some hard work; but take it as easy as you can," suggested
Baldy, as they came to the trail that led up the slope.

"Oh, we can never get the horses up that," objected Ruth, as she looked
at the elevation. "It's too steep."

"Just leave it to the ponies, Miss," responded Baldy. "They know how to
make it easy for themselves and you. Leave it to them. I'll take the
lead, and you follow me. Take it easy!"

It was not as difficult as it looked, once the horses were given free
rein. Baldy's pony seemed to have traveled the trail before and, on
inquiry, the girls learned that this was so.

"When I'm sure I'm not goin' to run into a bunch of redskins I often
come up here," said the cowboy. "I can get a good view of the country
from this elevation, when I'm trying to locate a strayed bunch of
cattle."

"Isn't it lonesome here?" asked Ruth, as she looked about her, and up
and down the trail. Indeed the scenery was wild and desolate, though
imposing in its grandeur.

"Well, it ain't exactly the 'Great White Way' that Miss Pennington and
Miss Dixon talk so much about," chuckled Baldy. "There ain't no
skyscrapers except the _mesa_ itself, and there's no electric lights."

"But I like it, just the same!" cried Alice, impulsively. "I think it's
just great! This is the finest country in the world!"

"It sure is, Miss," agreed Baldy in a low voice. "The Lord didn't make a
better," he added, reverently.

The trail became easier for a time, and then more difficult until, as
they neared the top, the girls were almost ready to give up and go back.
Mr. DeVere, too, was a little doubtful about continuing.

"Suppose they drive us back?" the actor asked. "We would never be able
to negotiate a retreat safely down such a slope."

"Oh, I guess it's all right this time," said Baldy. "But if it wasn't
that I'm sure there are only a few Indians here, I wouldn't have let you
come. Keep on. I guess you'll be all right."

By dint of struggling the ponies covered the short remaining distance
and, a little later, the party found itself on the summit. They were
among a lot of stunted trees and straggling bushes, on top of the flat
expanse that stood so high above the surrounding country.

"Oh, what a view!" cried Alice, as she looked off to the west, toward
the foothills and mountains.

"Isn't it?" agreed Ruth. "I wouldn't have missed it for anything."

"But where are the Indians?" asked Russ, who was getting his moving
picture machine ready for work.

"Oh, they're probably somewhere in the middle of the place," said
Baldy. "It's about three miles across it, you know."

They gave the horses a breathing spell, and then started slowly across
the table land. There was no smoke in sight now, and as far as could be
told from observation, they were alone on the plateau.

"It's likely the Indians are getting ready to make their 'medicine,'"
said Baldy. "Now leave everything to me. I can speak some of their
lingo, so I'll do the talking. I'll tell 'em you have powerful
'medicine' in that picture machine of yours," he went on to Russ. "That
may stop them from taking a notion to throw stones at it."

"Would they do that?" asked the young operator.

"Oh, they might--there's not much counting on what an Indian will do,
especially at these ceremonies. But I'll fix it all right. Just leave it
to me."

Though the top of the _mesa_ was flat, it was only comparatively so.
There were little hollows and ridges, and when the riders were down in
some of the depressions they could not see very far ahead.

They kept on, becoming more and more impressed with the wonderful view.
It was a new experience for the Easterners, and they appreciated it.

"I guess it's going to turn out a false alarm," Russ observed, as he
shifted the weight of his camera.

"No, they're here," returned Baldy, in a low voice.

"How can you tell?" Alice asked.

"I can hear the stamping of their ponies. They're tethered just beyond
there--past that clump of trees." He pointed as he spoke, and, at the
same moment, from that direction came the whinny of a pony. It was
answered by Baldy's horse.

"I thought so," said the cowboy, quietly. "They're here."

"Good enough!" declared Russ. "Mr. Pertell will be pleased to get this
film."

"You haven't got it--yet," remarked Paul, significantly.

A little later they passed along a trail that led to a grove of small
trees, where a score or more of Indian ponies were tied. But of the
Indians themselves not a sign was to be seen.

"Where are they?" asked Alice.

"You'll soon find out," was Baldy's reply. "They're most likely in their
huts. They'll mine out in a minute."

As he spoke they emerged from the clump of trees that served as a
stable, and there, in an open space, were nearly a hundred rude huts,
made of tree branches roughly twined together. Over some of them were
cowhides, tanned with hair on, while others were covered with gaudy
blankets.

"There's where they stay while the ceremonies are going on," spoke
Baldy. "They're all in the huts now, probably, watching us."

He had hardly finished before there were loud cries, and from the huts
poured a motley gathering of Indians. They were attired in very scant
costumes--in fact, they were as near like the aborigines as is customary
in these modern days. And most of them had, streaked on their faces and
bodies, colored earth or fire-ashes. Crude, fierce, and rather
terrifying were these painted Indians.

"Oh!" faltered Ruth, as the savages advanced toward them.

"Now don't be a bit skeered, Miss," said Baldy, calmly. "I'll palaver to
'em, and tell 'em we just come to pay 'em a visit."

One Indian, taller and better looking than any of the others, stepped
out in advance and came close to the party of players, who had halted
their horses.

He spoke in short, quick, guttural tones, and looked from one to the
other, as if asking who was the spokesman.

"I'll talk to you," said Baldy, and then he lapsed into the Indian
dialect. The two talked for a little while, and it was evident that some
dispute was taking place.

At first, however, the voices were kept down, and each of the talkers
was calm. Then something the Indian said seemed to annoy Baldy.

"Well, you just try it on, and see what happens!" cried the cowboy,
hotly. "If you think we're afraid of you it's a big mistake," and,
whether unconsciously or not, his hand slid toward the weapon on his
right hip.

"What is the trouble? Are we not welcome here?" asked Mr. DeVere. "If
so----"

"Oh, they don't so much mind our coming, as I told 'em we had rights
here," replied Baldy. "But the trouble is they don't want us to go until
their ceremonies are over. They say it will spoil the magic if we come
and go so quickly, so they want to keep us here a couple of days."

"As prisoners?" asked Paul, quickly.

"That's about it," was the cowboy's laconic answer.




CHAPTER XVII

THE RESCUE


Ruth and Alice gasped convulsively, and then urged their horses nearer
to their father's mount. Russ and Paul looked curiously, and a bit
apprehensively, at each other. As for Baldy, he sat confronting the
tall, thin Indian who had announced the ultimatum of his tribe.

"What are you going to do?" asked Russ of the cowboy.

"Will we have to stay here?" Paul wanted to know.

"Oh, that would be impossible," objected Mr. DeVere. "I would not allow
my daughters to remain out over night."

Baldy moved uneasily in his saddle.

"I sort of got you into this trouble," he said, apologetically, "and I
guess I'll have to get you out. We'll have a talk among ourselves," he
went on. "Some of these fellows understand English, and it's just as
well to be on the safe side."

Then, turning to the Indian, Baldy said:

"We go for pow-wow!"

"Ugh!" was the answer. The Indian then made a sign to his followers, at
the same time calling something to them in a high-pitched voice.

"What is he saying?" asked Alice, as she and the others moved off to one
side.

"He's postin' guard so we can't sneak off, and go down to the plain
again," explained Baldy. "There's only one way off, and that's the way
we came. He's going to guard that way."

"Oh!" cried Ruth, apprehensively.

"Now don't you go to worrying, little girl," said Baldy, quickly. "This
will come out all right. I got you into this mess, and I'll get you out.
There's a bigger band of the Injuns than I calculated on, though," he
added, ruefully, "and they're not in the best of tempers, either."

"Is--er--is there any real danger?" ventured Mr. DeVere.

"No, I'm sure they won't do anything rash, even if they insist on
keepin' us here until their ceremonies are over," replied Baldy. "But
they won't do that, if I can help it."

Some of the Indians went back into the huts, where they had apparently
been resting in preparation for the coming rites. Others moved off
toward the grove where the horses were tethered, evidently to mount
guard against the escape of their prisoners. Then the chief, if such he
was, went into a hut that stood apart from the others.

Baldy led his friends to a secluded place, under the shade of a clump of
stunted trees, and then, after carefully looking about, to make sure
there were no listening Indians, he said:

"Now we'll consider what's best to do!"

"Would it be safe to do anything--I mean to try to get away by force?"
asked Mr. DeVere. "I certainly don't like the idea of being held a
prisoner by these Indians."

"Neither do I," agreed Baldy. "It's the first time one of 'em ever got
the best of me, and I don't like it. Now I tried to talk strong to him
at first, and told him his crowd would get in all kinds of hot water if
they held us here."

"What did he say?" asked Russ.

"He didn't seem much impressed by my line of talk," confessed Baldy. "He
said this ceremony was one of the most important the tribe ever held,
and that it would certainly spoil it to have us go away now. He doesn't
want us here, and he says we mustn't be present at the time the magic
medicine is made; but, at the same time, he doesn't want us to go."

"That's strange," observed Alice.

"Well, you can't tell much about Indians," Baldy went on. "They are
mostly queer critters, anyhow. Now, the question is: Do you want me to
go out there, and shoot 'em up, and----"

"No, never!" cried Ruth. "You--you might be hurt."

"Well, yes, there's a possibility of that," returned Baldy, calmly. "But
I reckon I could hurt a few of them at the same time. But it's bound to
muss things up any way you look at it. Though I might be able to clear
out enough of 'em so the others wouldn't bother you. I'm a pretty good
shot."

"No, we must not think of that," declared Mr. DeVere, positively. "That
is too much of a risk for you, my dear sir. We will try some other line
of argument. If we make it plain that they will be punished for
detaining us perhaps they will think better of it."

"Well, I'll give them another line of strong talk, and see what comes of
it," agreed Baldy. "I'll point out the error of their ways to them."

"Tell them we can't--we simply can't--stay all night," said Ruth,
nervously pulling at her gauntlets. "Why, where could we sleep, and what
could we eat?"

"We brought along some sandwiches," Alice reminded her.

"Yes, my dear, I know. But hardly enough, and as for sleeping with
those--those Indians about---- Oh, I couldn't shut my eyes all night.
Please, Baldy, tell them we _must_ be let go."

"I'll do my best," he responded. "But old Jumping Horse--that's the
chief--said we could have some huts off by ourselves, and they'll feed
us--such fodder as they've got."

"It is an unfortunate situation," said Mr. DeVere, "but it cannot be
helped. We must make the best of it, and, after all, I suppose there is
really no great danger."

"None at all, I guess, if we do as they say," agreed Baldy. "But I don't
fancy being kept here a week."

"Do their ceremonies last as long as that?" asked Russ.

"Often longer. Well, I'll go see what I can do, and then I'll come back
and report. Here, you keep one of those," and he handed a big revolver
to Paul.

"Don't you dare hold that close to me!" cried Ruth, apprehensively.

The result of Baldy's talk with Jumping Horse was not encouraging, as
the cowboy reported later.

"You can't argue with an Indian," he said, gloomily. "He can only see
his side of the game."

"Then he refuses to let us go?" asked Mr. DeVere.

"That's about it," was the moody answer. "He says we won't be bothered;
that we can have some huts to ourselves, away from the others, and that
we can have the best food they've got. Fortunately they came prepared
for a feast and as they've got mostly store victuals it may not be so
bad."

"Then you advise submitting quietly?" asked Mr. DeVere.

"For a time, anyhow," replied Baldy. "But I haven't played all my hand
yet. I'm going to try and get away, or else bring a rescue party from
the ranch."

"How can you do that?" asked Russ.

"Well, I've got to plan it out. Now, of course I'm willin', as it was my
fault for bringin' you here--I'm willin' to go out and try to break
through their line of guards, if you say so."

"Oh, no!" cried Alice. "Besides, it was as much our doing in coming here
as it was yours."

"Certainly," agreed her father. "Don't think of it, my dear sir! Don't
think of it!"

"Then we'll be as satisfied as we can," concluded Baldy. "And maybe
to-night, when they're at their ceremonies, we can sneak off."

They agreed this was the best plan under the circumstances, and a little
later they were led by two or three Indians to a collection of huts that
seemed larger and cleaner than the others. A supply of food was also
brought for the prisoners, and, as it consisted largely of canned stuff,
that was clean also.

The huts, which were really quite substantial wigwams, were apportioned
among the prisoners. Ruth and Alice received the largest and best one,
and their father had one by himself next to theirs. Paul and Russ
"bunked" together, for Baldy said he wanted to be free to come and go as
he liked.

"I'll have to be on the watch," he said.

"What's that big open place over there?" asked Russ, pointing to a
level, sandy circle surrounded by small huts.

"That's where they have all the rites and ceremonies," explained Baldy.

"Then that's just what I want!" went on Russ, with enthusiasm. "I can
poke a hole in the side of our hut, stick the lens of the camera
through, and get moving pictures of the whole business. That will be
great!"

"There is nothing but what seems to have some compensations," observed
Alice, in her droll way.

Left to themselves, though doubtless they were closely watched by the
Indians, the prisoners made ready for their stay. They had brought along
a number of blankets, for they were to have been used in taking pictures
of the scenes of one of the dramas. Now the coverings would come in very
nicely if they were obliged to remain all night.

"Well, let's eat," suggested Baldy. "It's most noon, and I'm hungry."

"So am I," confessed Alice.

It was not a very "nice" meal, but it was very satisfying, and certainly
everyone had a good appetite.

The tin cans served as dishes, and their fingers were knives and forks.
Baldy carried on his saddle a simple camping outfit, one item of which
was a coffee pot, with a supply of the ground berry, and, making a
little fire, he soon had some prepared. They all felt better after that.

Directly after noon the Indians went through some of their ceremonies.
They circled about the sandy place, to the accompaniment of wild and
weird yells, cavorting and dancing, weaving in and out and shaking all
manner of noisemaking contrivances. A fire was built in the center of
the circle, and there appeared to be some sort of sacrifice going on at
a rude stone altar.

Russ, with his camera concealed in a hut, got a fine series of moving
pictures of all that went on. Then came more dancing and wild howling,
all meaningless to the prisoners, but doubtless of moment to the
Indians.

"Oh, that one is doing a regular hesitation waltz!" cried Alice,
pointing to a tall, lank brave.

"How can you say such things--at a time like this?" Ruth demanded.

"Why shouldn't I? Besides I've got an idea for a new step in the
hesitation from him. I'm going to practice as soon as I get back."

All that afternoon the ceremonies kept up. At one time it seemed as
though the Indians would go wild, so frenzied did they become, and Baldy
thought it would be a good chance to see if he could not get past the
guards with his friends.

But when he reached the trail that led off the _mesa_ he found it
closely guarded, and he was ordered back.

"No use," he said on his return. "We'll have to wait until night."

But at night he succeeded no better, for though the ceremonies were kept
up by the light of many camp fires, the line of Indians on guard was
not broken, and it was impossible to get through it.

"We'll just have to stay," announced Baldy.

Ruth cried a little, and even Alice felt a bit gloomy as the shadows
settled down when the watch fires died out. But then their father was
with them, and he did not seem at all despondent, so their spirits rose.

"This experience will be something to talk about afterward," Mr. DeVere
told them.

During the night, when all seemed quiet, Baldy made another attempt,
hoping he and his friends could get away, by leaving their horses
behind. But the guards were on the alert.

The night was not a comfortable one, and no one slept much; but the huts
and blankets were a protection. The Indians did not come near their
prisoners, and in the morning they furnished them food.

Baldy tried again to argue with Jumping Horse and some of the others,
but it was useless. To all the cowboy's arguments, and even threats, the
reply was that if the prisoners left before the ceremonies were over all
the medicine and magic would be spoiled.

"We'll have to stay, then," sighed Mr. DeVere. "But it will be out of
the question to remain a week--and you say that it will take that
long?"

"Yes," answered Baldy.

"Help may come from the ranch before then," suggested Russ.

"It will if I can do what I have in mind," declared Baldy, as he watched
a column of smoke ascending from the fire he had made to cook food for
his friends. "I've just thought of something. I can send up a smoke
signal. If Bow Backus at the ranch sees it he will know it means we're
here, and in trouble."

"How can you make a smoke signal?" asked Alice.

"Well, you use wet wood, to make a black smoke, and then you hold a
blanket over the fire a moment. When you take it away up goes a single
puff of smoke. Then you swing the blanket over the fire again, and cut
off the smoke. In that way you can make a number of separate puffs.

"Bow and I have a signal code. If I can only get him to see this we'll
be all right."

"It's worth trying," said Paul.

That day the Indians went at their ceremonies harder than ever. They
were in a perfect frenzy, but the vigilance of the guards never relaxed.
There was no chance to escape.

Russ, having nothing better to do, got many fine moving pictures through
the hole in the hut, and later the films made a great hit in New York.
It was the first time these peculiar rites had ever been shown on the
screen. In fact, few white men had witnessed them.

Baldy was waiting for a chance to send up his smoke signal, but it was
not until afternoon that he got it. Then, most of the Indians having
gone off to a distant part of the _mesa_, for some new ceremony, Baldy
made a thick smudge and he and Paul, holding a blanket over it, sent up
a number of "puff balls." Russ took pictures of the signalling.

"There! If Bow only sees that he'll come runnin'!" Baldy cried.

But the smoke signal was the cause of considerable trouble to our
friends. Hardly had Paul and Baldy finished sending the message, which
they could only hope was seen and read at Rocky Ranch, than some of the
Indians came back. They had noted what had been done, and they were very
angry.

With furious gestures they rushed on the prisoners and for a moment it
looked as though there would be trouble. Baldy and Paul stood steadily,
revolvers in hand. But there was no need to use them. Jumping Horse
rushed up, and drove back his men. Then he said something angrily to
Baldy.

"What is it?" asked Mr. DeVere.

"He says we shall be punished for making the smoke," was the answer. "I
don't know whether they think it's a signal or not; but it seems to have
been contrary to some of their ceremonies. We'll have to sit tight and
watch."

Muttering angrily, Jumping Horse went back to join the other Indians,
and they seemed to hold a conference regarding the prisoners. Nothing
was done immediately, however, in the way of punishment, and a little
later the ceremonies went on.

It was growing dusk, and the howling and yelling of the Indians
punctuated their caperings about a blood-red post in the center of the
sandy circle. Then, suddenly, there was a fusillade of pistol shots from
the direction of the trail, and at the same time the unmistakable shouts
of cowboys.

"They're here!" yelled Baldy, jumping to his feet and firing his own
revolver in the air. "To the rescue, boys! Here we be!"




CHAPTER XVIII

A RUSH OF STEERS


Russ came bounding from his hut, carrying with him the moving picture
camera, its three legs trailing behind him.

"Come on, girls!" he cried, as he saw Ruth and Alice peering from their
shelter. "It's all right!"

"Oh, what does it mean?" asked Ruth. "Where's daddy?"

"Here I am," answered Mr. DeVere.

"It's all right!" yelled Baldy, capering about, and vainly clicking his
revolvers, for he had fired all the cartridges in the cylinders. "It's
the boys from Rocky Ranch! They saw my signal and came to the rescue!"

"That you, Baldy?" shouted a voice out of the cloud of powder smoke that
hid, for a moment, the cowboys from view.

"That's who it is, Bow!" was the answer. "Could you read my smoke?"

"I sure could, and we come a-runnin'. Are the girls safe?"

"Everybody's safe. But look out for yourself, these Indians are sort of
riled at us."

From the group of Indians who had left their ceremonies, to rush toward
the huts of their erstwhile captives at the sound of the shots and
cheers, came deep-voiced mutterings. They were gathered in a group
around their chief, Jumping Horse.

"Look out for 'em!" yelled Baldy.

"Don't worry," advised Pete Batso. "They haven't any weapons."

"Just my luck," groaned Russ, setting up his camera.

"What's the matter?" asked Alice, who now felt no alarm.

"Too dark to get a picture, and I had a little bit of film left on a
reel. I might have got a dandy rescue scene; but now it's all up. Too
bad!"

"Never mind, you got some good ones," Ruth comforted him.

"Yes, but that would have completed the picture--'Captured By the
Indians.' However, it can't be helped. Maybe after all this excitement
is over we can get the Indians to pose for us. I'll tell Mr. Pertell
about it."

The rescuing cowboys had drawn rein in front of the lined-up Indians,
near the huts of the captives. There was a goodly squad of cow
punchers, and they seemed delighted to have been of some service to the
picture players. Some of them were reloading their big revolvers, for
they, like Baldy, in the excess of their spirits, had fired off every
chamber. But no one had been hurt, for they merely shot in the air.

"Well, you got here, boys, I see," remarked Baldy.

"That's what we did!" cried Necktie Harry, who was flecking some dust
off the end of his gaudy scarf.

"We saw your smoke talk about an hour ago," explained Bow. "First I was
sort of puzzled over it. I thought maybe it was the Indians, for I
calculate it was about time for them to be at their high jinks.

"Then I caught the private signal you and me made up, and I says: 'By
Heck! Baldy's in trouble! Wasn't that what I said, Pete?" and he
appealed to the foreman.

"That's what it was, Bow. Them's the very words you used. Says you:
'Baldy's in trouble,' says you. And then we come on the run."

"And we calculated we'd find the young ladies, and the rest of the
outfit here, too," went on Bow. "When they didn't come back to the ranch
last night we was all alarmed, and went off to the place they were
goin' to make pictures. But there wasn't a sign of any trail there, and
we didn't know what to think. We never dreamed you'd be on the _mesa_,"
he added to Mr. DeVere.

"I suppose we never should have come," admitted the actor. "It was on a
sudden impulse, and sorry enough we were for it, too."

"Oh, but it all came out right," said Alice, trying to make herself look
a little more presentable, for a night and more than a day spent as a
prisoner in a little hut was not conducive to neatness of attire.

"And Russ got some fine pictures of the ceremonies," added Ruth.

"That's good!" cried Pete Batso. "When we started for here your manager
said he reckoned his operator would have made good use of his time."

"We didn't know just what shape you was in," said Buster Jones, "only
Baldy's message didn't say any of you was killed, so we hoped for the
best."

"Yes, it might have been worse," agreed Baldy. "Well, now, let's travel.
Did you have any trouble gettin' past their guard line, boys?" he asked.

"Nary a trouble," replied Pete. "We just rushed through before they knew
what was up."

The captives were soon in the saddle again, and escorted by the cowboys
made for the trail down to the plain. There were more angry mutterings
from the Indians, but they made no effort to stop the retreat. Perhaps
they realized it would be useless.

It was no easy matter descending the steep trail, but it was
accomplished without mishap, and finally Rocky Ranch was reached. And it
is needless to say that the captives were made welcome.

A little later, in clean garments, and after a good meal, they told of
their adventures. The girls were quite the heroines of the hour, and
held the center of the stage, rather to the discomfiture of Miss
Pennington and Miss Dixon, who were in the habit of attracting all the
attention they could.

"There's one picture I want very much to get," said Mr. Pertell, as he
sat with his players in the living room of their quarters one evening.

"Name it," declared Mr. Norton, the owner, "and, if it's possible, I'll
see that you get it."

"A cattle stampede," was the answer. "I want to show the steers in a mad
rush, and the cowboys trying to stop them. But I don't suppose you can
tell when one is going to happen."

"No, you can't tell when a real one is about to take place," the owner
admitted, "but maybe we could fix up one for you."

"How do you mean?"

"Why, I mean we could take a bunch of steers, start them to running, and
then the boys could come out and try to get them milling--that is, going
around in a circle. That stops a stampede, usually. We could do that for
you."

"And will you?" asked the manager, eagerly.

"Why, yes, if you want it. I'll speak to Pete Batso. He's had more
experience than I have. We'll get up a stampede for you."

The cowboys entered into the spirit of the affair once it was mentioned
to them, and arrangements were at once made.

As there might be some little danger of a refractory steer breaking
loose and injuring someone, the ladies of the company only took part in
the preliminary scenes.

These included the beginning of the drama in which the stampede was to
play a principal part. It involved a little love story, and the lover,
Paul, was afterward to be in peril through the cattle stampede.

The first part went off all right, Ruth and Alice acquitting themselves
well in their characterizations. Their riding had improved very much,
and they were sure of themselves in the saddle.

"Now, ladies," said Pete Batso, who was managing the cowboy end of the
affair, "if you'll get over on that little mound you can see all that
goes on and you won't be in any danger. We're goin' to stampede the
cattle now!"

"Whoop-ee!" yelled the cowboys, as they rushed up at the signal, when
Ruth and Alice, with Miss Pennington and Miss Dixon, had gone off some
little distance.

"Get ready, Russ!" called Mr. Pertell.

"All ready," answered the young operator, as he took his place with his
camera focused.

The steers, startled by the shots and shouts of the cowboys, began a mad
rush.

"There's your stampede!" called Mr. Norton to Mr. Pertell. "Is that
realistic enough for you?"

"Quite so, and thank you very much."

More and more wild became the rushing steers, as the cowboys drove them
along in order that pictures might be made of them.




CHAPTER XIX

TOO MUCH REALISM


The shouting of the cowboys, the rushing of their intelligent ponies
here--there--everywhere, seemingly--the fusillade of pistol shots, the
thunder and bellowings of the steers and the thud of the ponies
hoofs--all combined to make the scene a lively one.

The imitation stampede seemed to be a great success, and no one, not in
the secret, could have told that it was not a real one.

"Over this way, Paul!" cried Baldy, who was taking part with the young
actor. "I'm supposed to rescue you, and I can't do it if you keep so far
away."

"But isn't it dangerous to ride so close to the steers?" asked Paul,
who, while willing to do almost anything in the line of moving picture
work, did not want to take needless chances.

"There's no danger as long as you're mounted," replied the cowboy, "and
you've got a good horse under you. Come on!"

Accordingly Paul rode closer in, and the camera showed him in imminent
danger of being trampled under the feet of the rushing steers.

But Baldy, who had done the same thing so often that he did not need to
rehearse it, rode swiftly in and managed to "cut out" Paul, so that the
actor was in no real danger. The cattle nearest to him were forced to
one side.

Then, as called for in the action of the little drama, Mr. Switzer, who
was a good horseman, having been in the German cavalry, rushed up to
attack Paul. Of course it was but a pretended attack; but it looked real
enough in the pictures.

Ruth and Alice, with the other spectators on the little mound, looked on
with intense interest.

"Oh, I just wish I was on my pony!" cried Alice, as she looked at the
scene of action.

"Alice, you do not!" protested Ruth.

"Yes, I do! Oh, it must be great to drive those cattle around that way!"

"You have a queer idea of fun," remarked Miss Pennington in a
supercilious tone, as she looked in the small mirror of her vanity box
to see what effect the sun and dust were having on her brilliant
complexion. For it was dusty, with the thousands of hoofs tearing up the
earth.

The main part of the action over, the cattle were now being "milled" by
the cowboys. That is, the onward rush was being checked, and the steers
were being made to go around in a circle.

Thus are stampedes, when real, gradually brought to an end.

"Well, it's all over," said Mr. Norton, as he stood beside the manager.
"Is that about what you wanted?"

"Indeed it is. This film will sure make a hit. Those rivals of ours, who
started out to take advantage of my plans and work, will be sadly left."

"You haven't seen any more of them?"

"Not since that fellow disappeared from here. He took himself and his
camera off. I guess he weakened at the last moment."

"I had no idea he was a moving picture operator," said the ranch owner,
"or I would never have hired him."

"Well, I guess no harm was done," Mr. Pertell rejoined.

The rush of the steers was gradually coming to a close when Mr. Norton,
looking over to the far edge of the bunch of cattle, uttered a sudden
cry of alarm.

"What's the matter?" asked Mr. Pertell, anxiously.

"Why, they seem to have started up all over again," was the reply. "You
didn't tell them to put in a second scene of the stampede; did you?"

"No, indeed. We don't need it. Besides, Russ can't have any film left
for this reel. He used up the thousand-foot, I'm sure, and he hasn't an
extra one with him. What does it mean?"

"That's what I'd like to know. Those steers are certainly on the rush
again, though. Hi, Baldy!" he called to the cowboy. "What are you
starting 'em up again for?"

"Startin' who up?"

"The steers! Look at 'em!"

"Say, they _are_ on the run again," agreed the bald-headed cowboy, who
had ridden up to where Mr. Pertell and Mr. Norton stood. "Something must
be wrong," and he set off on the gallop once more.

Meanwhile the steers, which had almost come to a rest, were again in
motion. But they were not safely going about in a circle. Instead, they
had started off in a long line and now were swinging around in a big
circle and heading directly for the mound on which the young ladies were
still standing.

Ruth and Alice had started down as they saw the cattle growing quiet,
but now several of the cowboys shouted to them:

"Go back! Go back! This is a stampede in earnest."

"A stampede in earnest!" repeated Mr. Norton. "I wonder what started
that?"

With a sudden rush the whole bunch of cattle were in motion, and headed
in a solid mass for the mound.

"If they rush over that----" said Mr. Pertell in fear.

"This is too much realism!" cried Mr. Norton, putting spurs to his steed
and racing off to help the cowboys. The latter had seen the danger of
the girls, and were hastening to once more stop the stampede that had
unexpectedly become a real one.

"Look at those fellows over there!" shouted Pete Batso as he rode up,
his horse in a lather. "They're none of our crowd!" and he pointed to a
group of horsemen who were riding away from the stampeded cattle instead
of toward them.

"Who are they?" asked Mr. Pertell.

"I don't know, but they're a lot of cowards to run away, when we'll need
all the help we can get to stem this rush!"




CHAPTER XX

IN THE OPEN


Thundering over the ground, the frightened cattle rushed on. After them
came the cowboys, determined, at whatever cost, to turn the steers away
from the little hill on which stood the four girls, clinging together,
and in fear of their lives. For certainly it would be the end of life to
fall beneath the hoofs of those on-rushing beasts.

"I can't understand what happened!" exclaimed Mr. Norton, as he rode on.
"Those steers had all quieted down, when all of a sudden they started up
again. Something must have happened."

He glanced over toward the mound. The cattle were still headed toward
it. Would the cowboys be able to turn them aside in time?

"Head 'em off!"

"Shoot at 'em!"

"Head 'em away from that mound!"

Thus cried the cowboys as they raced to the rescue. They were at rather
a disadvantage, for their horses were winded and exhausted from the
previous rushes to stop the pretended stampede, and now, when all their
energies were needed to end a real one, the animals were not equal to
the demand.

"Do you think they can stop 'em?" asked Russ of a passing cowboy. The
young operator was still at his camera, but he was not going to take any
pictures if Ruth, Alice and the others were really in danger.

"Of course we'll stop 'em!" cried the cowboy, with supreme confidence in
his ability and that of his companions.

"Then I might as well get a film of this," decided Russ. "It would be a
pity to let a real stampede get away from me. I can cut out some of the
other pictures."

He ran to where he had left a spare camera and soon was grinding away at
the handle, making views of a real and dangerous stampede.

"Oh, what shall we do?" gasped Alice, as she clung to her sister on the
mound of safety.

"We can't do anything," answered Alice, solemnly--"except to wait. They
may divide and pass to either side of us. I've read of such things
happening."

"Oh, if they come any nearer I'll faint--I know I shall!" murmured Miss
Dixon.

"That's the surest way to be trampled on," remarked Alice, calmly.
"Just faint, and fall down and----"

She paused significantly.

"I sha'n't do anything of the kind!" cried the other actress with more
spirit. "I won't do it just because you want me to! There!"

It was a silly thing to say, but then, she was half-hysterical. In fact,
all four were.

"That's what I wanted to do--rouse her up," observed Alice to her
sister. "It's our only safety--to remain upright. And we might try to
frighten the cattle."

"How?" asked Ruth.

"Let's shout and yell--and wave things at them. We've got parasols.
Let's wave them--open and shut them quickly. That will make flashes of
color, and it may frighten the steers. Come on, girls--it's worth
trying!"

The others fell in with her plan at once, and the spectacle was
presented of four young ladies, perched on a hill, toward which a
thousand or more steers were rushing, waving their parasols, opening and
shutting them and yelling at the top of their voices.

"Are--are they stopping any?" asked Miss Pennington, anxiously.

"I--I'm afraid not," faltered Alice.

And then, just in the nick of time, there came riding around one side
of the stampeding cattle a group of the Rocky Ranch cowboys. They had
succeeded in reaching the head of the bunch of steers, and now had a
chance to turn the excited cattle to one side--to mill them again.

"Hi--yi!" yelled the cowboys.

"Hi--yi!"

Bang! Bang! boomed the revolvers.

"Shoot right in their faces!" cried Buster Jones, as he fired point
blank at the steers.

Most of the cowboys had blank cartridges in their pistols for the
purpose of making a noise. But others had real bullets, and with these
some of the wildest of the steers were killed. It was absolutely
necessary to do this to stop the rush.

And this was just what was needed, for the fallen cattle tripped up
others and soon there was a mound of the living bodies on the ground,
offering an effectual barrier to those behind.

The cattle were now almost at the hill where the four young ladies stood
in fear and trembling, but with the advent of the cowboys new hope had
come to them.

"Now we're all right!" cried Alice, joyfully.

"How do you know?" Miss Pennington wanted to know.

"You'll see. They'll stop the stampede," was the confident answer.

And this was done. With the piling up of some of the steers into an
almost inextricable mass, and the dividing of the other bunch just as
they reached the foot of the mound, the danger to the girls was over.

In two streams of living animals the steers passed on either side of the
little hill, and after running a short distance farther they came to a
halt, being taken in charge by other cowboys who rode up from the rear
on fresh horses.

Other horses were brought up for the girls to ride, as they were too
weak and "trembly" to walk. Besides, it is always safer to be in the
saddle among the lot of Western steers.

"Oh, what a narrow escape!" panted Miss Dixon.

"It was," agreed Alice. "But it shows you what cowboys can do! It was
just splendid!" she cried to Baldy Johnson, who was riding beside her.

"Glad you liked it, Miss," he responded, breathing hard, "but it was
rather hot work all around."

"You're not hurt; are you, girls?" cried Mr. DeVere as he came up to
them, having had no part in the drama, but having heard in the ranch
house of the real stampede.

"Not a bit, Daddy!" answered Alice. "I don't believe the steers would
have trampled us anyhow."

"Well," remarked Baldy, slowly. "I don't want to scare you; but for a
minute there I thought it was all up with you--I did for a fact."

"Some stampede!" cried Paul, as he rode up, looking almost like a cowboy
himself.

"And some film!" laughed Russ, delighted that he had gotten one of the
real stampede, now that his friends were out of danger.

"But I can't understand it," said Mr. Norton. "What started the cattle
off the second time? They were really frightened at something."

"Did you see those men over that way?" asked the ranch owner, pointing
in the direction where he had observed the retreating cowboy band.

"I saw 'em," admitted Pete, "but I thought they were some of our boys
that you'd sent up to the North pasture."

"They weren't from Rocky Ranch!" declared the owner of the Circle Dot
outfit.

"Well, if they were strange punchers, maybe they frightened our steers,"
suggested Baldy.

"They might have," admitted Mr. Norton. "But I was thinking that perhaps
they were rustlers, trying to ride off a bunch, and they became
frightened when they saw us all on hand."

"It might be," admitted Pete Batso. "I'll have a look around after we
get the critters in the corral."

Ruth and Alice, as well as Miss Pennington and Miss Dixon, were so
nervous and upset that it was thought advisable not to attempt any more
pictures that day.

Most of the members of the Comet Film Company sat about the ranch house,
talking over recent events, or studying parts for new plays. Some of the
cowboys went off on the trail, trying to find traces of the strange men,
but they returned unsuccessful.

The next days were spent in getting simple scenes about Rocky Ranch, no
very hard work being done. These scenes would afterward be interspersed
with more elaborate ones.

When moving picture films are made, it is usual to photograph all the
scenes of one kind first, whether or not they come in sequence. Thus, if
one scene shows action taking place in a parlor, and the next scene
calls for something going on out on the lawn, and the third scene is
aboard a steamboat, while the fourth one is back in the parlor, the two
parlor scenes will be taken one after the other, on the same film, at
the same time, regardless of the fact that something came in between.
Later on the outdoor scenes will be made, all at once. Then, when the
film is developed and printed it is cut and fastened together to show
the scenes in the order called for in the scenario.

Thus it was planned to make all the simple scenes around the ranch house
first, and later to film a number of more important ones out in the
open.

"We're going to rough it for a while," announced Mr. Pertell to his
company one evening.

"Rough it!" cried Miss Pennington. "Have we done anything else since we
left New York, pray?"

"Well, we're going to rough it more roughly then," went on the manager,
with a smile. "I am going to have a series of films showing the life of
the cowboys when off on the round-up. I want some of you in the scenes
also, so I shall take most of you along.

"We will go into the open, and live out of doors. We will take along a
'grub wagon,' and other wagons for sleeping quarters for the ladies.
There will be as many comforts as is possible to take, but I am sure you
will all enjoy it so much you will not mind the discomfort. We will
sleep out under the stars, and it will do you all good."

"I'm sure it's doing me good out here," said Mr. DeVere. "My throat is
much better."

"Glad to hear it," the manager responded. "Yes, we will live out of
doors for perhaps a week--camping, so to speak; but on the move most of
the time. And that will bring our stay at Rocky Ranch to a close. But
there will be plenty to do before then," he added quickly, as he saw the
look of disappointment on the face of Alice.

"Oh, I like it too much here to leave," she said. In fact Alice seemed
to like every place. She could make herself at home anywhere.

Plans were made the next day, and nearly all the members of the company,
save Mrs. Maguire and the two children, were to go on the trip across
the prairies.

Big wagons, of the old-fashioned "prairie schooner" type, were made
ready. In these the ladies would live when they were not in the saddle.
There was also a "grub" wagon, in which food would be carried. It
contained a small stove so that better meals could be prepared than
would be possible over a campfire.

Then with plenty of spare horses, and with the camera and a good supply
of film, the moving picture company and several cowboys set off one
morning over the rolling plains.

Many scenes were filmed, some of them most excellent. It was not all
easy going, for often there would be failures and the work would have to
be done all over again. But no one grumbled, and really the life was a
happy one. Even Mr. Sneed seemed to enjoy himself, and the former
vaudeville actresses condescended to say it was "interesting."

One day an important film had been made and the work involved was so
hard that everyone was glad to go to their "bunks" early. Mr. Pertell,
Russ and Mr. DeVere occupied a large tent near the wagons where the
ladies had their quarters.

There was some little disturbance during the night, caused by one of the
dogs barking, but the cowboys who roused to look about could find
nothing wrong. But in the morning when Russ went to prepare his camera
for that day's work he uttered an exclamation of dismay.

"What's the matter?" asked Mr. Pertell.

"That big reel I took yesterday, and which I put in the light-tight box
for safe keeping, is gone!" cried the young operator.




CHAPTER XXI

THE BURNING GRASS


The announcement made by Russ caused considerable surprise, and, on the
part of Mr. Pertell, dismay.

"You don't mean that big reel--that important one which is a sort of key
to all the rest--is missing; do you?" he asked.

"That's it," replied Russ, ruefully. "It's clean gone!"

"Maybe you didn't look carefully, or perhaps you put it in some other
place than you thought."

"I'm not in the habit of doing that with undeveloped film," replied the
young operator. "If it was a reel ready for the projector I might mislay
it, for I'd know the light couldn't harm it. But undeveloped reels, that
the least glint of light would spoil--I take precious good care of them,
let me tell you. And this one is gone."

"Let's have another look," suggested Mr. Pertell, hopefully.

He went into the tent from which Russ had just emerged, and the latter
showed him where he had placed the reel. It was enclosed in its own
case as it came from the camera, and that case, as an additional
protection, was placed in a light-tight black box. This box would hold
several reels; but that night only one, and the most important of those
taken on the trip, was put in it.

"Look!" suddenly exclaimed Mr. DeVere, who had followed the two into the
tent. "That's how your reel was taken!" and he pointed to a slit in the
wall of the tent, close to where the black box had stood. So clean was
the cut, having evidently been made with a very sharp instrument, that
only when the wind swayed the canvas was it noticeable.

"By Jove! You're right!" cried Mr. Pertell. "That's how they got it,
Russ. Someone sneaked up outside the tent, slit it open, reached in and
lifted out the reel. It was done when we were asleep and----"

"That's what made the dogs bark!" exclaimed Russ. "Now the question is:
Who was it?"

He looked at Mr. Pertell as he spoke, and at once a light of
understanding came into the eyes of the manager.

"You mean----?" the latter began.

"Those fellows from the International!" finished Russ, quickly. "They
must be still on our trail."

"What's the trouble?" asked Baldy Johnson, from outside the tent. "Has
anything happened?"

"Oh, don't say there's more trouble," chimed in Ruth, as she came down
out of the wagon where she and Alice slept. "What has happened now?"

"Nothing much, except that we've been robbed," spoke Russ, ruefully.
"Our big reel is gone." To the cowboys and others of the company who
crowded up he showed the slit in the tent wall, through which the theft
had been perpetrated.

"Hum! I guess those fellows were smarter than we were," replied Baldy.
"We scurried around in the night, but they gave us the slip."

"And we didn't see a sign of 'em, neither!" added Buster Jones.

"Say, fellows, if this ever gets back to Rocky Ranch," went on Necktie
Harry, as he adjusted a flaming red scarf, "we'll never hear the last of
it. To think we heard a racket, got up, and let something be taken right
from under our noses and didn't see it done--Good-night! as the poet
says."

"Boys, we've got to make good!" declared Bow Backus. "We've got to take
the trail after these scamps, and get back them pictures. It's up to
us!"

"Whoop-ee! That's what it is!" shouted Necktie Harry, firing his gun.

"Oh, isn't this fine!" cried Alice, as she joined Ruth. "There will be a
real chase and----"

"Oh, how can you like such things?" asked Ruth. "It may be something
terrible!"

"Pooh! I don't see how it can be. If they have something that belongs to
us we have a right to get it back," and Alice shook back the hair that
was falling over her shoulders, for she was to take part in several
pictures that day as a "cowgirl," and was dressed in a picturesque, if
not exactly correct, costume, with short skirt, leggins and all.

"Oh, I hope there won't be any--bloodshed!" faltered Miss Pennington.

"They'll probably only use their lassoes," replied Alice, with a smile.
"Oh dear! I hope breakfast will soon be ready. I'm as hungry as a----"

"Alice!" warned Ruth, with a gentle look. She was still trying to
correct her sister's habit of slang.

"As hungry as if I hadn't eaten since last night," finished Alice with a
mocking laugh. "There, sister mine!" and she blew her a kiss from the
tips of her rosy fingers.

"Well, it's easy enough to say: 'Get after the fellows who took the
reel,'" spoke Baldy Johnson, "but who were they, and where shall we
start?"

"It must have been someone who knew where we kept the reels in the
light-tight box," said Russ. "Otherwise he would have cut several places
in the tent to reach in and feel around. And there is only one cut. So
it must have been somebody who knew about this tent."

"Regular detective work, that," remarked Necktie Harry, quickly, looking
admiringly at Russ.

"Say! I have it!" cried Baldy Johnson. "Those fellows who rode in
yesterday to watch us work. It was one of them."

"You mean the boys from the Double ranch?" asked Buster.

"Them's the ones," answered Baldy. Just before the close of the making
pictures the day before a crowd of cowboys from a nearby cattle range
had ridden up, and looked on interestedly. They were returning from a
round-up. Some of them were known to the boys from Rocky Ranch, and
there had been an exchange of courtesies.

"'Them's the guilty parties,' as the actor folks say," sung out Bow
Backus.

"I think you are right," agreed Mr. Pertell.

"But I can't see what object cowboys would have in taking a film--and an
undeveloped one at that," said Russ. "I can't believe it."

"Maybe the International firm bribed them, or maybe one of their men was
disguised as a cowboy," suggested Mr. DeVere.

"That's possible," admitted Russ.

"Well, we'll soon find out," declared Baldy. "Come on, boys. Grub up and
then we'll ride over."

The visit to Double X ranch proved fruitless, however, except in one
particular. The cowboys attached to that "outfit" easily proved that
they had not been near the camp of the picture makers.

"But there was one fellow who rode with us," said the foreman. "He was a
stranger to us. Looked to be a cow-puncher, and _said_ he was, from down
New Mexico way. He was with us when we were at your place, and when we
rode away he branched off. It might have been him."

"I'm sure it was," declared Mr. Pertell. "Now, how can we get hold of
him?"

But that was a question no one could answer, and though several of the
cowboys took the trail after the stranger, he was not to be found. The
missing film seemed to have disappeared for good.

It was a great loss, but there was no help for it, and plans were made
to go through the big scene again, though not until later.

"I have something else I want filmed now," said Mr. Pertell. "We will
make that 'lost' scene we spoke of last night and then try a novelty."

"Something new?" asked Mr. Bunn. "I hope I don't have to be lassoed
again," for that had been his most recent "stunt."

"No, we'll let you off easy this time," laughed Mr. Pertell. "All you'll
have to do will be to escape from a prairie fire."

"A prairie fire!" gasped the Shakespearean actor. "I refuse to take that
chance."

"Don't worry," said the manager. "It will only be a small, imitation
blaze. I want to get some scenes of that," he went on to explain to the
cowboys. "In the early days of the West prairie fires were one of the
terrible features. I realize that now, of course, with the West so much
more built up, they are not so common. But I think we could arrange for
a small one, and burn the grass over a limited area. It would look big
in a picture."

"Yes, it could be done," admitted Baldy. "We'll help you."

Two or three more days were spent in the open, traveling over the
prairie, making various films. Then a suitable location for the "prairie
fire" was found and a little rehearsal held.

"That will do very well," said Mr. Pertell at the conclusion. "We'll
film the scene to-morrow."

The arrangements were carefully made, and in a big open place the tall
dry grass was set on fire. The flames crackled, and great clouds of
black smoke rolled upward.

"Go ahead now, Russ!" called the manager. "That ought to make a fine
film! Come on, you people--Mr. DeVere, Ruth, Alice--get in the picture.
Register fear!"




CHAPTER XXII

HEMMED IN


Elaborate preparations had been made for this prairie fire picture. In
fact, in a way, the whole story of the drama "East and West" hinged on
this scene. It was the climax, so to speak--the "big act" if the play
had been on the real stage. Naturally Mr. Pertell was anxious to have
everything right.

And so it seemed to be going. The flames crackled menacingly, and the
black smoke rolled up in great clouds that would show well on the film.

In brief, this action of the play was to depict the hardships of one of
the early Western settlers. He had taken up a section of land, built
himself a rude house, and was living there with his family when the
prairie fire came, and he was forced to flee.

Of course all this was "only make believe," as children say. But it was
put on for the film in a very realistic manner. Pop Snooks had
constructed a slab house, with the aid of the cowboys, who said it was
as near the "real thing" as possible. Later on the house, which was but
a shell, and intended only for the "movies," would be destroyed by fire.

Scenes would be shown in which the settler (Mr. DeVere) and his helpers
would try to extinguish the fire before they fled from it.

The first scene showed the fire starting, with the plowmen (Mr. Bunn and
Mr. Sneed) in the fields at work. They were seen to stop, to shade their
eyes with their hands and look off toward the distant horizon, where a
haze of smoke could be seen. The big distances which were available on
the prairies of the West, made this particularly effective in a film
picture.

The taking of the film had so far advanced that the warning had come to
those in the slab shanty. There were gathered Ruth, Alice, Miss
Pennington, Miss Dixon, Paul and others.

"Ride! Ride for your lives!" cried Mr. Sneed, dashing up on one of the
plow horses. "The prairies are on fire and it's coming this way
lickity-split!"

Of course his words would not be heard by the moving picture audiences,
though those accustomed to it can read the lip motions. Really the words
need not have been said, and it was this feature of the "movies" that
enabled Mr. DeVere to take up the work when he had failed in the
"legitimate" because of his throat ailment.

"Flee for your lives!" cried Mr. Sneed. "We're going to try to burn it
back, or plow a strip that it can't get over."

Thereupon ensued a scene of fear and excitement at the slab hut. A wagon
was hastily brought up by some of the cowboys, who were taking part in
the picture, and the household goods, (provided of course by the
ever-faithful Pop Snooks), were hastily packed into it.

Then the girls and others, with every sign of fear and dismay, properly
"registered" for the benefit of those who would later see the film in
the darkened theaters, gathered together their personal belongings, and
entered the wagon.

Meanwhile Russ was kept busy getting different views of the big scene.
Sometimes there would be shown the raging fire sweeping onward, the
black clouds of smoke rolling upward, and the red tongues of flame
leaping out. In reality the fire was only a small one, but by cleverly
manipulating the camera, and taking close views, it was made to appear
as if it was a raging conflagration.

As Russ would have difficulty in showing alternate views of the fire
itself and the preparations at the slab hut to flee from it, Mr.
Pertell, at times, worked an extra camera himself. Thus the time was
shortened, for the fire was something that could not be held back, as
could something of purely human agency.

"Ride! Ride for your lives!" now shouted Mr. Sneed, as he sat on his
heaving horse, ready to ride back and help fight the fire. With dramatic
gestures he pointed ahead, seemingly to a place of safety. "Ride for
your lives!"

"But you? What of you?" cried Miss Pennington, as she held out her hands
to him imploringly. She was supposed (in the play) to be in love with
him.

"I go back--to do my duty!" he replied, as his lines called for.

There was a dramatic little scene and then Miss Pennington,
"registering" weeping, went inside the "prairie schooner," as the big
covered wagon was called.

Paul, on the driver's seat, cracked his whip at the horses and the
vehicle lumbered off, Ruth, Alice and the others who were inside,
looking back as if with regret at the home that was soon to be
destroyed.

Mr. Sneed remained for a moment, posing on the back of his horse, and
then, with a farewell wave of his hand he rode back to join Mr. Bunn
and the others in fighting the fire that had been "made to order." Mr.
DeVere, too, after seeing his family off in the wagon, leaped on a horse
and also galloped back to help fight the flames. There had been a
dramatic parting between him and his daughters--for the purposes of the
film, of course.

"Say, this fire's gettin' a little hot!" cried Baldy, who, with the
other cowboys, had been detailed to put out the blaze. Mr. Pertell was
there to get a film of them, while Russ, a considerable distance away,
was to film the on-rushing wagon containing those fleeing from the
blaze. The picture was so arranged as to show alternately views of the
wagon and the fire fighters. Always, however, there was the background
of the black smoke when the wagon was shown tearing over the prairie,
and the smoke constantly grew blacker.

"Get at it now, boys!" cried the manager, grinding away at the handle of
his camera. "Put in some lively work! Mr. Sneed, don't be afraid of the
fire. You're standing off too far."

The plot of the play was that first an attempt would be made to beat out
the fire, by means of bundles of wet brush dipped in a nearby brook.
This plan was to fail, and then an attempt would be made to "fight fire
with fire." That is, the prairie grass would be set ablaze some
distance ahead of the line of fire, and allowed to burn toward it. This
would make a blackened strip, bare of fuel for the flames, and the hope
was--or it used to be when prairie fires in the West were common--that
this would check the advancing blaze.

For a few seconds the men fought frantically to beat out the fire, then
Mr. DeVere exclaimed, with a dramatic gesture:

"It is no use! We must fight fire with fire!"

The men ran back some distance, Mr. Pertell taking his camera back the
same space. Then the prairie was set ablaze in a number of places, at
points nearer the slab cabin which was, as yet, untouched.

The scene of starting a counter-fire was a short one, for it was quickly
discovered, in reality as well as in the play, as planned, that the wind
was in the wrong direction. It simply advanced the flames nearer the
cabin.

"It's of no use, boys!" cried Mr. DeVere. "We must plow a bare strip."

"Bring up the horses and plows!" ordered Baldy. A number of these had
been held in reserve, out of sight of the camera, and they now came up
on the rush. The idea was that neighboring settlers, having sighted the
prairie fire, had come to the aid of their friends in the slab cabin.

Horses were quickly hitched to the plows, and the work of making a
number of furrows of damp earth, to act as a barrier to the flames, was
started.

While Mr. Pertell was filming this, Russ was busy getting views of the
on-rushing wagon containing the refugees. Several times the team was
stopped to enable the operator to go on ahead, and show it coming across
the prairie. This gave a different background each time.

It was after one of these halts, and just when the team was started up
again that Alice, who was on the front seat with Paul, the driver, cried
out:

"See! There is smoke and fire ahead of us, too! What does it mean?"

For an instant they were all startled, and then, as Ruth looked behind
them, and saw the fiercer flames, and the blacker smoke there, she
gasped:

"We are hemmed in! Hemmed in by the prairie fire!"




CHAPTER XXIII

THE ESCAPE


Paul pulled up the rushing horses with a jerk that set them back on
their haunches. There were cries of alarm from the interior of the
wagon, and from the front and rear peered out anxious faces.

"What is it? Oh, what is it?" cried Miss Dixon.

"There's a fire ahead of us," replied Alice, and her voice was calmer
now. She realized that their situation might be desperate, and that
there would be need of all the presence of mind each one possessed.

"A fire ahead of us!" repeated Miss Pennington. "Then let's turn back.
Probably Mr. Pertell wanted this to happen. It's all in the play. I
don't see anything to get excited about."

For once in her life she was more self-possessed than any of the others,
but it was due to the bliss of ignorance.

"Let's turn back," she suggested. "That seems the most reasonable thing
to do. And I wonder if you would mind if I rode on the seat next to
your friend Paul," she went on to Alice. "I'd like to have the center of
the stage just for once, as sort of a change," and her tone was a bit
malicious.

"I'm sure you're welcome to sit here," responded Alice, quietly. "But,
as for turning back, it is impossible. Look!" and she waved her hand
toward the rear. There the black clouds of smoke were thicker and
heavier, and the shooting flames went higher toward the heavens.

"Oh!" gasped Miss Pennington, and then she realized as she had not done
before--the import of Ruth's words:

"We are hemmed in!"

"Can't--can't we go back?" gasped Miss Dixon.

"The fire behind us is worse than that before us," said Paul, in a low
voice. "Perhaps, after all, we can make a rush for it."

"No, don't try dot!" spoke Mr. Switzer, and somehow, in this emergency,
he seemed very calm and collected. "Der horses vould shy und balk at der
flames," went on the German, who seemed far from being funny now. He was
deadly in earnest. "Ve can not drive dem past der flames," he added.

"But what are we to do?" asked Paul. "We can't stay here to be----"

He did not finish the sentence, but they all knew what he meant.

"Vait vun minute," suggested the German. He stood up on the seat so as
to bring his head above the canvas top of the wagon. Those in it, save
Paul, who remained holding the reins to quiet the very restive horses,
had jumped to the ground.

"The wind is driving on der flames dot are back of us," said Mr. Switzer
in a low voice. "It is driving dem on."

He turned in the opposite direction, where the flames and smoke were
less marked, but still dangerously in evidence.

"Und dere, too," the German murmured. "Der vind dere, too, is driving
dem on--driving dem on! I don't understand it. Dere must be a vacuum
caused by der two fires."

"Well, what's to be done?" asked Mr. Towne, who formed one of the
fleeing party. "We can't stay here forever--between two fires, you
know."

"Yah! I know," remarked Mr. Switzer, slowly. "Ve must get avay. We
cannot go back, ve cannot go forvarts. Den ve must----"

"Oh, if we can't go back, what has become of those whom we left
behind?" cried Ruth. "My father--and the others?"

Her tearful face was turned toward Alice.

"They--they may be all right," said the younger girl, but her voice was
not very certain.

"The--the fire must be at the cabin by now," went on Ruth. "If--if
anything has happened that they were not able to get the flames under
control----"

She, too, did not finish her portentous sentence.

"Ve cannot go forvarts," murmured Mr. Switzer, "und ve cannot go back.
Den de only oder t'ing to do iss to go to der left or right. Iss dot not
so Paul, my boy?"

"It certainly is, and the sooner the better!" cried the young actor.
"Get into the wagon again and I'll try the left. It looks more open
there. And hurry, please, it's getting hard to hold the horses. They
want to bolt."

There were four animals hitched to the wagon, and it was all Paul could
do to manage them. Every moment they were getting more and more excited
by the sight and smell of the smoke and flames.

Into the wagon piled the refugees, and Paul gave the horses their heads,
guiding them over the prairie in a direction to the left, for the smoke
seemed less thick there. It was a desperate chance, but one that had to
be taken.

Ruth and Alice, going to the rear of the vehicle, looked out of the
opening for a sight of their father and the others coming up on the
gallop, possibly to report that the fire had gotten beyond their
control.

But there was no sight of them.

"Oh, what can have happened?" murmured Ruth with clasped hands, while
tears came into her eyes.

"Don't worry, dear," begged Alice.

"But I can't help it."

"Perhaps they are all right, Ruth. They may have gone to one side, just
as we did, and of course they couldn't ride towards us until they got
beyond the path of the flames."

"Oh, if I could only hope so!" the elder girl replied.

The wagon was rocking and swaying over the uneven ground as the horses
galloped on. Russ, who had run to one side when the halt was made, held
up his hand as a signal to halt. He had taken films until the vehicle
was too close to be in proper focus.

"Do get up and get in with us!" begged Ruth. "You must not stay here any
longer."

"I was thinking that myself," he said grimly.

A glance back showed that the fire there had increased in intensity, and
the one in front was also growing. There was presented the rather
strange sight of two fires rushing together, though the one in the rear,
or behind the refugees, came on with greater speed, urged by a stronger
wind. As Mr. Switzer had said, a vacuum might have been created by the
larger conflagration, which made a draft that blew the smaller fire
toward the bigger one.

"Do you see any opening, either backward or forward?" asked Russ of
Paul, when they had gone on for perhaps half a mile.

"Not yet," answered the driver. "Though the smoke, does seem to be
getting a bit thinner ahead there, on the left."

But it was a false hope, and going on a little farther it was seen that
the two fires had joined about a mile ahead, completely cutting off an
advance in that direction.

It was as though our friends were in an ever narrowing circle of flame.
There was a fire behind them, in front of them and to one side. There
only remained the one other side.

Would there be an opening in the circle--an opening by which they could
escape?

"Ve must go to der right," cried Mr. Switzer.

"Und I vill drive, Paul. I haf driven in der German army yet, und I know
how."

They were now tearing along in a lane bordered with fire on either side,
with raging flames behind them. Their only hope lay in front.

"Well, these films may never be developed," observed Russ, grimly, as
took his camera off the tripod, "but I'm going to get a picture of this
prairie fire. It's the best chance I've ever had--and it may be my last.
But I'm not going to miss it!"

And so, as the wagon careened along between the two lines of fire, Russ
took picture after picture, holding the camera on his knees.

On and on the frantic horses were driven, until finally Paul, who was on
the seat beside Mr. Switzer, with Russ between them taking pictures,
called out:

"Hold on! Wait a minute. I think I hear voices!"

The horses were held back, not without difficulty, and then as the noise
of their galloping, and the sound of the creaking wagon ceased, there
was heard the unmistakable shouts of cowboys, and the rapid firing of
revolvers.

"There they are!" cried Alice.

"Oh, if daddy is only there!" Ruth replied.

"Go on!" cried Paul to the German, and again the horses were given their
heads.

But now, even above the noise made by the wagon and the galloping
steeds, could be heard the welcome shouts which told that some, at
least, of those left behind were still alive. The girls were crying now,
in very joy, though their anxiety was not wholly past.

On and on galloped the horses. And then Paul cried:

"There's a way! There's a way out! The fire hasn't burned around the
whole circle yet."

He pointed ahead. Through the smoke clouds could be seen an open space
of grass that was not yet burned, and beyond that sparkled the waters of
a wide but shallow creek.

There was safety indeed! They had escaped the flames by a narrow margin.

And as the wagon rushed for this haven of refuge, there came sweeping up
from one side a group of cowboys, urging their horses to top speed,
while, in their midst was Mr. DeVere, Mr. Pertell and the others of the
moving picture company who had been left to finish the scene at the slab
cabin.




CHAPTER XXIV

A DISCLOSURE


"Into the creek! Drive right in!" cried Baldy Johnson. "Run the wagon
right in! It's a good bottom and you can go all the way across!"

"Go on!" called Mr. Switzer to his horses, and the steeds, nothing
loath, darted for the cooling water. Indeed it was very hot now, for the
fire was close, and it was still coming on, in an ever-narrowing circle.

"Go ahead, boys! Into the creek with you! It's our last chance, and our
only one!" went on Baldy. "Into the water with you!"

And into the welcome coolness of the creek splashed the cowboys on their
ponies and the wagon containing the refugees.

"Where are you going?" cried Ruth, as Russ swung himself down off the
seat.

"I'm going to get this last film, showing the escape," he answered.
"It's too good a chance to miss."

"But you'll be burned!" she exclaimed. "The fire is coming closer."

And indeed the flames, closing up the circle of fire, were drawing
nearer and nearer.

"I'll be all right," he assured her. "I just want to get some pictures
showing the wagon and the cowboys going across the creek. Then I'll wade
across myself. Of course I'd like to get a front view, but I'll have to
be content with a rear one."

And as the wagon drawn by the frantic horses plunged into the water,
followed by the shouting cowboys and the members of the film company,
Russ calmly set his camera up on the edge of the stream, and took a
magnificent film that afterward, under the title "The Escape from Fire,"
made a great sensation in New York.

The brave young operator remained until he felt the heat of the flames
uncomfortably close and then, holding his precious camera high above his
head, he waded into the creek. The waters did not come above his waist,
and when he was safe on the other side with his friends, finding he had
a few more feet of film left, he took the pictures showing the fire as
it raged and burned the last of the grass, and other pictures giving
views of the exhausted men, women and horses in a temporary camp.

"Whew! But that was hot work!" cried Mr. Bunn, mopping his face.

"You're right," agreed Mr. Pertell. "I don't believe I'll chance any
more prairie fires. This one rather got away from us."

There was a shout from some of the cowboys who stood in a group on the
bank of the creek.

"Look! Look at those fellows!" cried Bow Backus. "They just got out of
the fire by a close shave--same as we did."

They all looked to where he pointed.

There, crossing the stream higher up, and seemingly at a place which the
fire had only narrowly missed, were several horsemen. Their steeds
appeared exhausted, as though they had had a hard race to escape.

"What outfit is that, fellows?" asked Baldy Johnson. "I don't know of
any punchers attached to a ranch that's within this here fire range."

"There isn't any," declared Necktie Harry.

"But where did those cowboys come from?" persisted Baldy.

"They're not cowboys!" declared Necktie Harry, looking to see if his
scarf had suffered any from the smoke and cinders. "Did you ever see
real cow punchers ride the way they do--like sacks of meal. They're
fakes, that's what they are!"

For an instant Baldy stared at the speaker, and then cried:

"That's it! I couldn't understand it before, but I do now. It's all
clear!"

"What is?" asked Mr. Pertell, who was still, rather wrought up by the
danger into which he had thrown his players.

"Why, about this blaze. I couldn't for the life of me understand how it
was it could burn two ways at once. But now I do."

"You mean those fellows set another fire?" asked Bow Backus.

"That's my plain identical meanin'," declared Baldy. "Them scoundrels
started another fire after we did ours."

"Oh, how terrible!" exclaimed Ruth.

"Wait; hold on, Miss! I'm not goin' so far as to accuse 'em of doin' it
purposely," the cowboy went on, earnestly. "They may not have meant it.
The grass is pretty dry just now, and a little fire would burn a long
way. It's jest possible they may have made a blaze to bile their coffee,
and the wind carried sparks into a bunch of grass. But I have my
suspicions."

"Why, who could they be, to do such a dastardly thing as that?" demanded
Mr. DeVere.

"That's what I want to know," put in Mr. Pertell.

Baldy turned sharply to the manager.

"Who's been followin' on your trail ever since you started out to make
your big drama 'East and West'?" he asked.

"Who--who!" repeated Mr. Pertell. "Why--why those sneaks from the
International Picture Company--that's who."

"That's them," declared Baldy, laconically, as he pointed to the
retreating horsemen. "That's them, and they're the fellows who sot this
second fire that so nearly wrecked us."

"Is it possible!" ejaculated Mr. DeVere.

"I'm sure of it," declared Baldy. "I ain't got no real proof; but I've
seen a good many fires in my day, and they don't start all by their
ownselves--not two of 'em, anyhow. You can bank on them bein' your
enemies, if you'll excuse my slang," he said in firm tones.

"Do you really mean it?" asked Mr. Pertell, in amazement.

"I sure do, friend. I'm not sayin' they started it to hurt any of you;
but they wanted to spoil your picture, I'm sure of it."

There was a moment of silence, and then Bow Backus cried out in loud
tones:

"Fellers, there's only one thing to do: Let's take after them scamps
and get 'em with the goods! Let's prove that they did this mischief.
Come on, boys! Our horses are fresh enough now."

The tired cow ponies, almost worn out after their race to escape with
their masters from the on-rushing flames, had been allowed to rest and
now they were ready for hard work again.

In an instant, half a score of the sturdy cowboys were in the saddle,
whooping and yelling in sheer delight at the prospective chase.

"I've got to get in on this!" cried Russ. "Wait a minute until I film
the start, fellows, and then I'll get on a horse and take my camera.
I'll go with you, and get the finish of this, too."

A new roll of film was quickly slipped into the camera and Russ dashed
on ahead to show the on-coming cowboys in their rush to overtake the
suspected men.

Then the young operator jumped into the saddle of a steed that was ready
and waiting for him, and galloped on with his friends to get, if
possible, the finish of the affair.

"Oh, isn't it just splendid!" cried Alice, clapping her hands.

"But it makes me so nervous!" protested Ruth.

"I just love to be nervous--this way," declared Alice, with a joyous
laugh.

Away flew the eager cowboys, and those left behind proceeded to let
their nerves quiet down after the strenuous times they had just passed
through. The cook had come up and he at once prepared a little meal.

On the other side of the wide creek the prairie fire burned itself out.
The blaze crept in the dry grass down to the very edge of the water,
where it went out with puffs of steam, and vicious hisses.

"Oh, but I'm glad we're not there," sighed Ruth as she looked across at
the smoke-palled and blackened stretch.

"Yes, it was a narrow escape," said her father.

"What happened after we left?" asked Alice.

"The fire really got a little too much for us," said Mr. Pertell. "And,
as I had pictures enough, we decided to leave. We let the cabin burn, as
we had arranged, and then came riding on.

"But the flames were a little too quick for us, and we had to turn off
to one side. That's why we didn't get up to you more quickly. We were
really quite worried about you."




CHAPTER XXV

THE ROUND-UP


"What's the matter?"

"Couldn't you catch them?"

"Did they get away?"

All needless questions, evidently, yet they were anxiously asked, for
all that, when the tired and disappointed cowboys, led by Baldy Johnson,
returned after the chase. It was dusk, and the prairie fire was almost
out. Only a faint glow showed where, here and there, a bunch of thick
grass was still blazing.

"They gave us the slip," complained Baldy in discouraged tones. "Their
horses were fresher than ours were. Probably they got out of the way of
the fire sooner than we did."

"Did you get close enough to recognize them?" Mr. Pertell wanted to
know.

"I didn't know any of 'em," asserted Baldy. "Not that I got any too
close," he added, grimly. "They sure can ride, even if they don't have
our style."

"I'm not sure," remarked Russ, as he put away the camera which he had
had no chance to use after filming the start of the cowboys, "I'm not
sure, but I think I recognized one of the fellows as the chap who was at
Rocky Ranch when we arrived there."

"Then he has others with him," said Mr. Pertell.

"Evidently."

"And they will probably try to do us some more mischief," went on the
manager. "We still have several important films to make, and if they try
to steal our ideas and get the pictures we go to so much trouble to make
we may as well give up."

"Don't you do it!" cried Baldy Johnson. "Don't you do it! We'll get
after these fellows the first thing in the morning, and round 'em up
good and proper."

"That's what we will!" cried his companion. "Whoop-ee for the round-up!"

"We'll pay 'em for startin' that fire," went on Baldy.

"Yes, and for stampedin' those cattle, too," added Buster Jones.

"Do you think they did that?" Mr. Pertell asked, quickly.

"I wouldn't be a bit surprised," declared Buster. "If they was mean
enough to start a fire to spoil the picture they wouldn't stop at a
little thing like stampedin' a bunch of cattle. I'm sure they done it."

"Then all the more reason for runnin' 'em out of the country!" decided
Baldy. "We'll get on the trail early in the mornin', boys."

"We're with you!" cried the others.

The camp, which had been made on the side of the creek where refuge had
been taken from the fire, was soon in order. The cook wagon and supplies
had been sent far away from the scene of the blaze when it was started,
and it had come up by a different trail. Soon with tents erected, and
with the sleeping wagon for the ladies in readiness, quiet settled down
over the scene.

Believing that it was more necessary to capture or drive out of that
section the rivals who were endeavoring to get ahead of him, Mr. Pertell
decided not to make any more films until after the chase. Preparations
for this were soon under way, next morning, and, save for a small guard
of cowboys left in camp, all the men riders went after the suspected
ones. Mr. DeVere remained with his daughters. Of course Russ went along
to make the pictures.

It was some time before the searchers got on the proper trail. They
followed one or two false ones at first, but finally were set right, and
then they rode furiously.

"There they are!" cried Baldy, who had taken the lead. This was after a
hasty lunch. He pointed to a group of fleeing horsemen.

"After 'em!" yelled Bow Backus.

"They shan't get away this time!" cried Buster Jones.

And they did not. Ride as the fleeing ones might, they were no match for
their pursuers, and after a short chase, which Russ was able to get on
the film, the fugitives were surrounded.

"Surrender!" yelled the cowboys of Rocky Ranch as they rode down their
rivals.

And the others were glad enough to pull up their jaded steeds, for they
had ridden far and hard to escape. But fate was against them.

"So it's you; is it, Wilson!" exclaimed Mr. Pertell, as he recognized
the spy who had been detected in the studio.

"And there's that other chap!" exclaimed Russ, as he saw the man who had
so suddenly left Rocky Ranch. "Now if we could only get back that roll
of stolen film we'd be all right."

The prisoners were searched and bound, and on Wilson were found papers
incriminating him and his confederates in both the moves against our
friends. Other actions to take advantage of Mr. Pertell had also been
planned.

But, best of all, the headquarters of the gang was disclosed and there,
among other things, was found the missing roll of film, with the seals
unbroken, showing that it was not spoiled, but could be developed and
printed. So, after all, there was no need of making the big scene over
again. The surreptitious pictures of the oil well were also recovered
and destroyed.

And then, after no very gentle treatment, the Rocky Ranch cowboys ran
out of the country the men who had been trying to take advantage of Mr.
Pertell's work for the benefit of the International company.

"That's the way!"

"Run 'em out!"

"Give 'em some more!"

To these startling shouts were Wilson's men driven away, and glad enough
they were to go. What other films they had taken on the sly were
destroyed, and their cameras were confiscated. In fact all their efforts
came to naught. It was disclosed, later, that they had not intended to
endanger our friends by starting the prairie fire; only to spoil their
plans.

"And now for the grand finale!" cried Mr. Pertell a few days later, when
the return had been made to Rocky Ranch. "This will be the last scene in
the great drama 'East and West.' There's to be a cowboy festival, with
all sorts of stunts in horsemanship and lariat throwing. You've got a
lot of work ahead of you, Russ."

There were busy days at Rocky Ranch. Cowboys from neighboring places
rode over to take part in the fun and frolic, and Russ got many fine
films.

"Oh, I don't know when I've enjoyed anything so much as I have this life
in the West," said Alice, when the last film had been taken.

"Nor I," added Ruth. "It has been just glorious."

"And I am so much better," declared Mr. DeVere. "I would scarcely know I
had a sore throat now."

"Oh, I'm so glad, Daddy dear!" exclaimed Alice, as she put her arms
around his neck.

"And now we're going back to New York, and have a good, long rest," went
on Ruth. "I shall be sorry to get into the stuffy city again."

"I won't," declared Miss Pennington. "I'm just dying for a sight of dear
old Broadway," and as if that gave her a thought she gently powdered
her nose. Perhaps it needed it, for she was very much sunburned.

"Well, you're going back to New York all right, as far as that is
concerned," said Mr. Pertell, who had overheard part of the talk. "But
as for a rest--well, I suppose I'll have to give you a little one,
before we start off again."

"Oh, have you more plans in prospect?" asked Alice.

"Indeed I have, my dear young lady. We're going in for water stuff
next."

And those of you who desire to follow further the careers of Ruth, Alice
and their friends, may do so by reading the next volume of this series,
to be called, "The Moving Picture Girls at Sea; Or, A Pictured Shipwreck
That Became Real."

"One more day at Rocky Ranch!" cried Alice, as she came out on the
veranda one glorious morning. "Oh, but I don't want to leave it!"

"Neither do I!" cried Paul, coming around the corner of the house so
unexpectedly that Alice was startled. "Suppose we go for a last ride?"
he suggested.

And together they rode over the prairies, side by side toward the Golden
West.




       *       *       *       *       *




Transcriber's Notes:

   Obvious punctuation errors corrected.

   Page 17, "Shakspearean" changed to "Shakespearean" to conform
            to rest of text. (play Shakespearean parts)

   Page 19, "sceond" changed to "second". (the second time)

   Page 66, "plaftorm" changed to "platform". (depot platform stood)

   Page 104, "billard" changed to "billiard". (a billiard ball)

   Page 107, "But's" changed to "But". (But that's a camera)

   Page 120, "tting" changed to "getting". (getting up quickly)

   Page 120, word "at" added to text. (manager at once)

   Page 130, "mischievious" changed to "mischievous". (the mischievous
             cowboy)

   Page 157, "excitment" changed to "excitement". (all this excitement)

   Page 158, "ever" changed to "every". (off every chamber)

   Page 158, "caluculated" changed to "calculated". (we calculated we'd)

   Page 190, "arragnements" changed to "arrangements". (arrangements
             were carefully)

   Page 201, "himeslf" changed to "himself". (swung himself down)

   Three instances of "DeVere" being split over two lines were repaired
   to match the remainder of the text.



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