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."