Laura Lee Hope - The Moving Picture Girls Under the Palms

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Miss Dixon, having had her difficulty straightened out, was prepared to
go on, and soon Russ was again at his usual occupation of turning the
handle of the moving picture camera.

For a description of how moving pictures are taken, developed, printed
and thrown on the screen in the theater by means of a projecting
machine, the reader is referred to the previous books of this series.

"That will do for this part of the drama," announced Mr. Pertell, when an
hour or more had been spent in taking various films. "We will now go
ashore. Put her over there," he called to the man in the pilot house on
deck, pointing to a place where, back of the moss-fringed row of trees,
could be seen some stately palms.

The rather clumsy boat turned slowly toward shore, and a little later had
"poked her nose," as Russ expressed it, against a luxuriant growth of
tropical vegetation, in the midst of some low palms and gigantic ferns.

The moist smell of earth and plants, and the odor of flowers was borne on
a gentle breeze.

It was a lonely spot, and just what Mr. Pertell wanted for this
particular play. On the way up the stream they had passed several small
settlements, and the population, consisting mostly of colored folk, had
rushed down to the crude landings to stare with big eyes at the passing
steamer.

"Everybody ashore!" called the manager, when the boat had been made fast.

"Oh, but we can't go through there!" complained Mr. Bunn, who, in
attempting to make his way into the deeper part of the woods, had
suffered the loss of his tall hat several times, low branches having
knocked it off.

"Wait, I'll send some of the hands ahead with axes to clear the way,"
offered the steamer captain. "It'll be easier going, then."

This was done, and the moving picture players found it no trouble at all
to make their way along the hewn path to where a little grove of palms,
in a pretty glade, offered the proper scenic background for the pictures.

"This is just the place!" cried the manager. "Russ, set your camera up
here, and you'll get the sun just right. Now, everybody attention!" and
he carefully explained what he wanted done.

The play concerned the elopement of a pretty Southern girl, the pursuit
by her father, her subsequent marriage, and the forgiveness of her
parents. One of the scenes showed the young couple fleeing through the
wilderness, and coming to rest beneath the palms, while the pursuers
searched in vain for them.

"You're one of the lovers who has been disappointed by the elopement, Mr.
Towne," said Mr. Pertell, in giving his directions. "When I give the word
you must come running along there, so the camera will show you alone."

"But I may fall in there," objected the actor, as he pointed you to a
small, muddy stream along the path he was to take.

"You must look out for that," the manager replied. "In fact, I don't know
but what it would be good business to have you fall in. It would seem
more realistic."

"I absolutely refuse to fall in with this new suit on!" cried Mr. Towne,
as he glanced at his while flannels.

"Oh, very well, then," conceded the manager.

Russ had his camera in readiness, and, after making views of the two
lovers beneath the palms, he called:

"All ready for you, Mr. Towne," and he focused his camera in another
direction.

The well-dressed actor came on.

"Oh, run faster!" commanded Mr. Pertell, impatiently. "Act as though you
meant it. Put some spirit in it. You are supposed to be desperate because
your sweetheart has gone off with another man. You look as though you
didn't care!"

Thereupon Mr. Towne tried to "register" anger, and succeeded fairly well.
But in doing so he forgot to "mind his steps," and a moment later, in
running along the edge of the muddy stream he slipped, and the next
moment, in all the glory of his white suit, he splashed into the mud.

CHAPTER XV

IN PERIL

Russ instantly stopped grinding away at the camera handle as he saw Mr.
Towne go into the ditch, but the manager, without the loss of a moment,
cried:

"Film that, Russ! It'll be better than the way we were to play it first.
Catch him as he comes up!"

"All right!" chuckled the young operator.

"Oh, what a place to fall!" cried Miss Pennington, who was off one side,
out of the camera's range.

"His suit will surely need washing," remarked Alice.

"Oh, how can you be so heartless?" asked her sister.

"Heartless! Isn't that the truth?"

Mr. Towne had struggled to his feet. The muddy stream was not very deep.

"Help! Help! Save me!" he cried, as he wiped the water from his face,
thereby making many muddy streaks on his countenance.

"You're in no danger--come on out!" cried Mr. Pertell, trying not to
laugh. "Come right toward the camera, Mr. Towne, and register anger and
disgust!"

"Register--register!" spluttered the actor. "Do you mean to say you are
filming me in this state?"

"I certainly am--it's a state that will make a hit in the movies!" cried
Mr. Pertell. "You might fall down once more, if you don't mind, Mr.
Towne. It will add realism to the film."

"Fall down again! Never! I will resign first."

"Very well, I won't insist on it," replied the manager, for he felt that
it was rather hard on the actor.

But moving picture work is not at all easy, and actors and actresses have
to do more disagreeable and dangerous "stunts" than merely falling into a
muddy stream. The demand of the public for realism often goes to
extremes, and more than once performers have risked their lives at the
behest of some enthusiastic manager.

Mr. Pertell was not that sort, however, though he did insist on his
players doing a reasonable amount of hard work--and often disagreeable
work, as in this case.

But aside from getting wet and muddy, which conditions could be remedied
by a bath and dry clothes, the actor suffered no great hardship, except
to his pride, and perhaps he had too much of that, anyhow.

"Come on!" cried the manager. "Crawl out of that, and keep on with the
chase."

"Keep on--in this condition! Do you mean it?" Mr. Towne asked.

"Certainly I do. The play must go on. Just because you fell in the ditch
is no excuse for stopping it. Keep on! Right along the path. Crawl out
and run on."

"But--but look at my clothes!" complained Mr. Towne. "They are--they're
muddy!"

"There is a little mud on them, to be sure," agreed Mr. Pertell. "But
don't worry. It will wash off."

"A _little_ mud!" spluttered the actor. "I--I--"

"Keep on!" cried the manager. "You are delaying the play!"

The young actor groaned, but there was nothing for it but to obey. He
climbed out of the ditch, his once immaculate suit dripping mud from
every point, and then he began the pretended chase again, seeking to
find the escaping lovers.

Of course this was the farcical element, but managers have found that
this is much needed in plays, and though many of them would prefer to
eliminate the "horse-play" the audiences seem to demand it, and managers
are prone to cater to the tastes of their audiences when they find it
pays.

"I'm glad I wasn't cast for that part," remarked the dignified Mr. Bunn,
as he saw what Mr. Towne had to go through.

"I'd never consent to it," declared Mr. Sneed. "This business is bad
enough as it is," he complained, "without deliberately making it worse. I
presume he'll want me to try and catch an alligator next, or drive a sea
cow to pasture."

"What's a sea cow?" asked Alice, who had overheard the talk, while Mr.
Towne was being filmed in his muddy state.

"The manatee," explained Mr. Sneed. "They are curious animals. They
browse around on the bottom of Florida rivers, and sea inlets, as cows do
on shore, eating grass. We'll probably see some down here."

"Are they dangerous?" asked Miss Dixon.

"Not as a rule," answered the grouchy actor, who seemed to have taken a
sudden interest in this matter. "They might upset a small boat if they
accidently bumped into it, for often they grow to be fourteen feet long,
and are like a whale in shape."

"I hope we won't meet with any," observed Ruth. "I can't bear wild
animals."

"Manatees are not especially wild," laughed Mr. Sneed, it being one of
the few occasions when he did indulge in mirth. "In fact, the earlier
forms of manatee were called _Sirenia_, and were considered to be the
origin of the belief in mermaids. For they carried their little ones in
their fore-flippers, almost as a human mother might do in her arms, and
when swimming along would raise their heads out of water, so that they
had a faint resemblance to a swimming woman."

"How very odd!" cried Alice. "And are there manatees down here?"

"Many in Florida? Yes," was the answer. "I suppose we'll see some if we
stay long enough. But I'm going to serve notice on Mr. Pertell now that I
refuse to drive any of the sea cows to pasture."

"I don't blame you!" laughed Ruth. "Oh, look at Mr. Towne! He's fallen
again!"

And so the unfortunate actor had, but this time into a clump of rough
bushes that tore his now nearly ruined white flannels.

"That's good!" cried Mr. Pertell, approvingly. "You did that very well,
Mr. Towne!"

"Well, I didn't do it on purpose," the actor protested, as he managed,
not without some difficulty, to extricate himself from the briars.

Then he ran on, Russ making picture after picture, while the manager
rapidly changed some of the other scenes on the typewritten sheets to
conform to the accident of which he had so cleverly made use.

"Mr. Bunn, I have a new part for you, in this same play," the manager
said, when Mr. Towne was finally allowed to rest.

"What is it?" asked the older actor. "I hope you can put in something
about Shakespeare. I have not had a Shakespearean part in so long that I
have almost forgotten how to do it properly."

"I can't promise you that this time," said the manager. "But it just
occurred to me that you could also try to trace the escaping lovers, and
get stuck in a bog-hole."

"Who, the lovers get stuck in a bog?"

"No, you!"

"Me? Never! I refuse--"

"Now hold on, Mr. Bunn!" said Mr. Pertell, quickly. "I am not asking you
to do much. You need not get in the bog deeper than up to your knees.
That will answer very well. You can pretend it is a sort of quicksand
bog and that you are sinking deeper and deeper. You call for help, and
Mr. Switzer comes to get you out."

"I refuse to do it!" cried the actor.

"And I insist!" declared Mr. Pertell, sharply. "Your contract calls for
any reasonable amount of work, and to wade into a bog knee-deep is not
unreasonable."

"But I will spoil my shoes and trousers."

"No matter, I will provide you with new ones. You need not sacrifice your
tall hat this time."

"That is one comfort," sighed the old actor. "Well, I suppose there is no
help for it. Where is the bog hole?"

"I think this one will do," said the manager, pointing to one where Mr.
Towne had fallen into the mud. "You will come along, pretending to look
for the fleeing lovers, and you will unwittingly wade out into the bog.
There you will struggle to release yourself, but you will be unable to,
and will call for help. Mr. Switzer, who is also on the trail, will
respond and he will wade out and save you."

"Excuse me," remarked the German actor, softly, "but vy iss it necessary
dot I rescue him?"

"Why he can't rescue himself," declared Mr. Pertell. "You've got to do
it."

"No, dot I did not mean. I meant dot as Herr Towne iss alretty wet and
muddy, dot he could as vell do der rescue act."

"That's so. It will be better!" said the manager. "I didn't think of
that. I'll have Towne do it. He can come along on the film right after
he's pulled himself out of the ditch. Fix it up that way, Russ."

"All right, Mr. Pertell."

"Have I got to go in more mud and water?" demanded the fastidious actor.

"Yes," replied the manager. "But it won't be much. Just a few feet or so
of film."

Mr. Towne groaned, but there was no help for it. And really he could not
get much muddier.

Accordingly, after some intervening scenes had been filmed to make the
action of the story, as revised, more plausible, Russ moved his camera
near the bog hole, ready to get views of Mr. Bunn, when he should stumble
into it, and also Mr. Towne, when the latter came to the rescue.

"All ready now--let her go!" called the manager. "Come along, Mr. Bunn."

The old actor advanced, but evidently with very little liking for his
part.

"Oh, be more natural!" cried Mr. Pertell. "You are supposed to be the
father of the young man who is eloping, and you want to prevent him. Put
some spirit into your work!"

Thereupon Mr. Bunn tried, and with better success. But when he came to
the edge of the bog hole he hesitated.

"Hold on! Stop the camera!" cried the manager, sharply. "That won't do at
all. This must be spontaneous. Run right along, and don't stop when you
see the bog hole. Plunge right into it. Why, it isn't up to your knees,
Mr. Bunn, and the weather is hot."

"All right, here I go!" he said, resignedly.

"Wait! Go back and do that last bit over again," ordered the manager.
"Russ, cut out the last few pictures and substitute these that are to
come. Now, Mr. Bunn!"

The Shakespearean actor started over again, and he was "game" enough to
pretend that he did not in the least mind floundering into the bog hole.
As he came to the edge of it, in he plunged.

He went down much deeper than to his knees, and as he felt himself
sinking he called out:

"Help! Help! Save me! Save me!"

"That's it! That's the way to do it! That's being what I call realistic!"
shouted Mr. Pertell, who always waxed enthusiastic over a new idea.

Mr. Bunn continued to sink in the bog. He pulled and struggled to get
out, apparently without success. Then his tall hat fell off from the
violence of his exertions, and he barely saved it from a muddy bath.

"Help! Help! I'm sinking!" he cried.

"Good! That's the way to act it!" encouraged Mr. Pertell. "Now, Mr.
Towne, you come up to the rescue in a few seconds. Don't mind the mud,
either. Go right out to him. You can't be much worse off."

"Indeed I cannot," agreed the other, as he glanced at his soiled suit.

"Wait just a minute more," said Mr. Pertell to the prospective rescuer.
"Give him a chance to struggle more. It will look better."

"No, let him come at once and save me! Save me at once!"

"Why?" the manager wanted to know.

"Because I really am sinking! This isn't play! The quicksand has me in
its grip!"

And, as Mr. Pertell looked about, unable to tell whether the actor was
saying that as part of the "business," or because he was in earnest, the
unfortunate man cried out in real anguish:

"Save me! Save me! I am in the quicksand and it's sucking me down!"

"That's right! He is in a quicksand bog!" cried one of the steamer hands
who had helped hew a path through the swamp. "He'll never get out if you
don't help him quick!"

CHAPTER XVI

A STRANGE ATTACK

It was true, then. The frantic appeals of Mr. Bunn were not in the
interests of acting for moving pictures, but because he felt himself in
actual danger. None of his friends had thought of that, until the man
from the steamer offered confirmation. They had all thought the actor was
doing a realistic bit of work.

"Quicksand! Do you mean it?" gasped Mr. Pertell.

"I certainly do," answered the steamer hand. "There are a lot of those
bogs around here, and he's stumbled into one. He's going down every
minute, too, and if you don't get him out soon you never will."

"Oh, mercy!" screamed Miss Pennington. "How horrible!"

"To be buried alive!" gasped Miss Dixon.

"Quiet!" commanded Mr. Pertell, sternly. "Come on, gentlemen!" he called
to the male members of the company. "We must save him!"

"Oh, do get me out!" cried the unfortunate Mr. Bunn.

"We'll save you!" shouted the manager, as he made a dash toward the bog
hole. He was followed by Mr. DeVere, Paul and some of the others.

"Keep back!" yelled the man from the steamer. "If you get in you won't
get out either."

"But they must save him!" cried Alice, who had gone forward with her
father.

"They can't save him by getting into the quicksand themselves!" pointed
out the man who seemed to know the deadly nature of the bog. "The only
way is to fling him a rope."

"A rope! There isn't one nearer than the steamer!" cried Mr. Pertell.

"I'll go get it!" offered Mr. Switzer. "I am a goot runner!"

"It will be too late, I'm afraid," objected the steamer hand. "He is
sinking faster now."

This was indeed but too true. Whereas at first the clinging mud and sand
of the bog hole had only been up to Mr. Bunn's knees, he was now engulfed
to his waist.

"We'll have to make a rope!" cried Mr. Towne. "Tear up our coats, or
something like that."

"I know a way, Ruth," declared Alice. "We have on two skirts. The under
one is of heavy cloth. Couldn't we tear those into strips--?"

"Of course! How wise of you to think of it!" replied the other girl.
"Daddy, we can provide a rope!" she cried, and she quickly whispered to
him what Alice had suggested.

"The very thing!" he agreed. "Quick, slip behind the bushes there and
remove your underskirts. I'll have my knife ready to slit it into
strips."

While the two moving picture girls retired for a moment their father
quickly explained their plan.

"And you may have our skirts, too," said Miss Pennington. "Only mine is
of such thin material--"

"So is mine, unfortunately," added Miss Dixon.

"Fortunately I think the two skirts of my daughters will be sufficient,"
said Mr. DeVere, as he opened his keen-bladed knife.

"Oh, I am going down!" cried Mr. Bunn, in anguished tones.

"Here are the skirts!" cried Alice, as she came out with her own and
Ruth's over her arm.

Ready hands aided Mr. DeVere in cutting the stout material into strips
that were quickly knotted together, making a strong rope.

"It's a shame to spoil your suit," said Paul to Alice.

"It doesn't matter. The skirts were only cheap ones, of khaki cloth, but
they are very strong. I am glad we wore them."

"And I guess Mr. Bunn will be, too," added the young actor.

"Now we'll have you out!" cried Mr. DeVere, as he flung one end of the
novel rope to the actor in the bog. Mr. Bunn caught it, and, at the
direction of Mr. Pertell, looped it about his chest, just under his arms.

"Now, all pull together!" cried the manager. "But take it gradually,
until we see what strain this rope will stand."

Indeed a slow, gradual pull was the only feasible method of releasing Mr.
Bunn. But with the rope around him, he felt that he was going to be
saved, and did not struggle so violently.

Often when one gets into a quicksand bog the more one struggles the
faster and deeper one sinks. Only it is almost impossible not to struggle
against the impending fate.

With the skirt-rope about him, and his friends pulling on it, Mr. Bunn's
hand were free. Seeing this, and realizing that the more force that was
applied, up to a certain point, the sooner would the actor be freed, Ruth
cried:

"If we had another rope we girls could help, and Mr. Bunn could hold on
to it with his hands," for she and her sister, as well as Miss Pennington
and Miss Dixon, were doing nothing.

"Let's go to the steamer and get one," proposed Miss Dixon.

"It would be too late," declared Alice. Then, as she looked about the
little clearing where the accident had taken place she saw, dangling from
a tree, a long vine of some creeping plant. There were several stems
twined together.

"There's our rope!" she cried. "That vine!"

"Oh, Alice! How splendid!" exclaimed her sister. "You think of
everything!"

"Well, let's stop thinking, and work!" suggested the younger girl. "They
need all the help they can get to pull Mr. Bunn out of that bog."

Together the girls managed to get off a long piece of the stout vine,
which made a most excellent substitute for a rope.

"I suppose if I had thought of this first we needn't have cut our
skirts," said Alice.

"I'm not sorry we didn't," was her sister's reply.

"Nor am I!"

"Catch this, Mr. Bunn!" called Alice, as with the vine rope she went as
near the bog hole as was safe.

"Good idea! Great!" cried Mr. Pertell. "You moving picture girls are as
good as men!"

"Better!" declared Mr. Bunn, who was over his fright now. He caught the
end of the vine Alice flung to him, and held on grimly as the four girls
prepared to tug on their portion.

With this added strength the plight of the actor was soon relieved.
Slowly but surely he was pulled from the sticky mud, and, a little later,
he was safely hauled out on the firm bank.

"Thank the Lord for that!" exclaimed Mr. Pertell, reverently, as he saw
that his employe was safe. "I should never have forgiven myself if--if
anything had happened to you. For it was my suggestion that you go in the
bog. My dear man, can you forgive me?" and he held out his hand to Mr.
Bunn, while his voice grew husky, and there was a suspicious moisture in
his eye.

"That's all right," responded Mr. Bunn, generously, and he seemed to have
added something to his nature through his nerve-racking experience. He
had been near death, or at least the possibility of it, and it had meant
much to him.

"Don't blame yourself, Mr. Pertell," he went on. "I went into the hole
with my eyes open. Neither of us knew the quicksand was there. And I
suppose we must accept with this business the risks that go with it."

"Yes, it is part of the game," admitted the manager; "but I want none of
my players to take unnecessary risks. I shall be more careful in the
future."

Mr. Bunn was quite exhausted from his experience, and, as the affair had
tried the nerves of all, it was decided to give up picture work for the
rest of the day.

"I can't help regretting, though," said Mr. Pertell, as they were on
their way back to the steamer, "that we didn't get a moving picture of
that. It would have made a great film--better even than the one I had
planned."

"Oh, but I did get views of it!" cried Russ, with a laugh, that did much
to relieve the strain they were all under.

"You did!" exclaimed the manager, in surprise.

"Yes," went on the young operator, "when I saw that there were enough of
you hauling Mr. Bunn out, I thought I might as well take advantage of
the situation and get pictures. So I have the whole rescue scene here,"
and he tapped his moving picture camera.

"I am glad you have!" exclaimed the Shakespearean actor, heartily. "As
long as I had to go through with it we might as well have the Comet
Company get the benefit of it."

Back through the tropical forest and swamp they went, until they reached
the steamer. There Mr. Bunn and Mr. Towne enjoyed the luxury of a good
bath, and their clothes were cleaned.

Alice came in for much praise, for it was her quick wit, in a way, that
had enabled Mr. Bunn to be so promptly saved.

"And to replace your daughters' spoiled skirts, Mr. DeVere," said the
manager, in speaking of the matter later, "I beg that I may be allowed to
get them whole new suits."

"Oh, that is too much," protested the actor.

"Indeed it is not!" declared Mr. Pertell. "I am also going to give each
player a bonus on his or her salary, and to Mr. Bunn, for what he
suffered, a special bonus."

A day or so later the film, in which Mr. Bunn had figured in the
quicksand, was finished, and then came the announcement that they would
proceed on down the river to a new location, so as to get a different
scenic background for the filming of a new drama.

Some of the scenes of this took place on the steamer, and then, when the
captain announced that he would have to tie up for half a day to enable
the "roustabouts" to go ashore and cut wood for the boiler, Mr. Pertell
said:

"Then we'll go ashore, too. I want to get some pictures in which a small
boat will figure. So we'll take the camera along, Russ, and get some of
those views I spoke of."

Some scenes ashore were filmed, and then, carrying out the idea of the
drama, Ruth and Alice, with Paul Ardite, got into a small boat.

They were to go down stream a little way, and there go through certain
"business" called for in the play. Paul was to row.

The boat floated under the arching moss and vines that trailed from the
trees on the bank. Now and then a snag would be struck, and on such
occasions Ruth would start nervously, and cry out:

"Alligators!"

"Oh, please stop!" begged Alice, after two or three of these scares. "I
don't believe there's an alligator within ten miles of us."

"Of course not," agreed Paul.

All this while Russ was getting films of the boat containing the two
moving picture girls. He was following in another boat.

"Steady there!" he called, at a certain point. "Better toss over your
anchor, and stay there a while. I want a long film of this scene."

"All right," agreed Paul, and with a splash the little anchor went over
the side. The boat swung around and then became stationary. Russ was
grinding away at the camera when, suddenly, the boat he was filming, with
its occupants, began moving up stream.

"Hold on!" he warned. "I don't want you to move yet!"

"I'm not moving!" retorted Paul.

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