A DARING RIDER
"Come on now, Confederates!"
"No, you Union chaps hold back there in ambush. You're not to dash out
until you get the signal. Wait!"
"Keep that horse out of the way. He isn't supposed to dash across,
riderless, until after the first volley."
"Put in a little more action! Fall off as though you were shot, not as
though you were bending over to see if your horse had a stone under his
shoe! Fall off hard!"
"And you fellows that do fall off--lie still after you fall! Don't
twitch as though you wanted to scratch your noses!"
"If some of 'em don't stay quiet after they fall off they'll get stepped
on!"
"All ready now! Come with a rush when the signal's given!"
Mr. Pertell and his men were stationed near a "battery" of camera men,
who were ready to grind away; and the director and his assistants were
calling their instructions through big megaphones. To reach the soldiers
in the more distant parts of the field recourse was had to telephones,
the wires of which were laid along the ground in shallow trenches,
covered with earth so that the trampling of the horses would not sever
them.
"Get that battery farther back among the trees!" cried Mr. Pertell to
one of his helpers. "It's supposed to be a masked one, but it's in plain
sight now. Even the audience would see it, let alone the men it's
supposed to fire on. Get it back!"
"Yes, sir," answered the man, and he telephoned the instructions to the
assistant director in charge of a battery of field guns that had been
thundering away--the sound which had brought Ruth and Alice to the
scene.
"Do we have any part in the battle scenes?" asked Ruth.
"Yes, quite big parts," Paul informed her. "But you don't go on to-day.
This is only a rehearsal."
"But they've been firing real powder," remarked Alice, "and it looks as
though they were going to fire more," and she pointed to where men of
the masked battery were ramming charges down the iron throats of their
guns.
"Yes, they're firing, and charging, and doing all manner of stunts, and
the camera men are grinding away, but they aren't using any film," went
on Paul. "It's just to get every one used to working under the
excitement. They have to fire the guns so the horses will get so they
don't mind them when the real time comes."
Hundreds of extra players had been engaged to come to Oak Farm for these
battle scenes in the drama, "A Girl in Blue and A Girl in Gray," and
some of them were already on hand with their mounts. As has been said,
special accommodations had been erected where they were to stay during
the weeks they would be needed. There were more men than women among the
extra people, though a number of women and girls were needed in the
"town" scenes.
Most of the men were former members of the militia, cowboys and
adventurers, all of whom were used to hard, rough riding. This was
necessary, for when battle scenes are shown there must be some "killed,"
and when a man has a horse shot from under him, or is shot himself,
riding at full speed, even though the cartridges are blank, the action
calls for a heavy fall, sudden and abrupt, to make it look real. And
this is not easy to do, nor is it altogether safe with a mob of riders
thundering along behind one.
Yet the men who take part in these battle scenes do it with scarcely a
thought of danger, though often many of them are hurt, as are the
horses.
In brief the story of the play in which Ruth was to take the part of a
girl in Blue, and Alice of a girl in Gray, was this. They were cousins,
and Ruth was visiting Alice's home in the South when the war broke out.
Alice, of course, sided with her people, and loved the gray uniforms,
while Ruth's sympathies were with the North.
Ruth determined to go back North and become a nurse, while Alice,
longing for more active work, offered her services as a spy to help the
Confederacy. Though on opposite sides, the girls' love for one another
did not wane.
Then came the scenes of the war. Battles were to be shown, and there
were plots and counter-plots, in some of which Ruth and Alice had no
part. Mr. DeVere was cast for a Northern General, and the character
became him well. Later on Alice and Ruth were to meet in a hospital
among the wounded. Alice was supposed to get certain papers of value to
her side from a wounded Union officer. As she was escaping with them
Ruth was to intercept her, and the two were to have a "strong" scene
together.
Alice, ignoring the pleadings of her cousin and about to depart with
the papers, learns that the officer from whom she took them was the same
one that had saved her father's life on the battlefield. She decides to
forego her mission as a spy, even though it may mean the betrayal of her
own cause, when the news comes in of Lee's surrender, and her sacrifice
is not demanded. Then "all live happily for ever after."
That is but a mere outline of the play, which was to be an elaborate
production. And it was the rehearsal for the preliminary battles and
skirmishes that the girls were now witnessing.
"Tell that battery to get ready to fire!" cried Mr. Pertell, and this
word went over the telephone.
"Come on now with that Union charge!" was the next command.
Then hundreds of horses thundered down the slopes of Oak Farm, while the
hidden guns thundered. Down went horses and men while the girls screamed
involuntarily, it all seemed so real.
"It's a good thing we didn't plant no corn in that there field this
season," observed Belix Apgar, Sandy's father, as he saw the charge.
"That's right," agreed his wife. "There wouldn't have been 'nuff left to
make a hominy cake."
"Do it over again!" ordered the manager. "Some of you fellows ride your
horses as if you were going to a croquet game. Get some action into it!"
Once more the battery thundered its harmless shots and the men charged.
This time the scene was satisfactory, and preparations were made to film
it. Again the men thundered down the slope, and when they were almost at
the battery a single rider--a girl--dashed out toward the approaching
Union soldiers.
"Oh, she'll be killed!" cried Ruth. "They'll ride right over her!"
It did seem so, for she was headed straight toward the approaching
horsemen.
"She's all right," said Paul. "She's quite a rider, I believe. Her part,
as a Union sympathizer, is to rush out and warn them of the hidden
battery, but she is delayed by a Southerner until it is too late, and
she takes a desperate chance. There go the guns!"
Horses and riders were lost in a cloud of smoke. This time the film was
being taken. When that charge was over, and men and horses, some
limping, had gone back to their quarters, Mr. Pertell signaled to the
daring woman rider to come to him.
"That was very well done, Miss Brown," he said. "You certainly showed
nerve."
"I am glad you liked it," was the answer in a quiet, well-bred voice.
"Shall you want me again to-day?"
"Not until later, and it will be an interior. Is your horse all right?"
"Oh, yes. I am in love with him!" and she patted the arching neck of the
handsome creature. "He is so speedy."
"He sure is speedy, all right," agreed Paul, and the girl--she was
scarcely more than that--who had been addressed as Miss Brown by the
director smiled at the young actor. Then she let her friendly gaze rest
on Ruth and Alice.
"Isn't she fine!" murmured Alice.
"Like to meet her?" whispered Paul.
"Yes!" exclaimed Alice eagerly, paying no attention to Ruth's plucking
of her sleeve.
"Miss Brown, allow me to present----" and Paul introduced the two DeVere
girls.
"That was a daring ride of yours!" remarked Alice, with enthusiasm.
"Indeed it was," agreed Ruth, more quietly.
"Do you think so? I'm glad you like it. I have been riding ever since I
was a little girl."
"Did you learn in the West?" asked Alice.
"Why, yes--that is I--I really--oh, there goes that wild black horse
again!" and Miss Brown turned to point to an animal ridden by one of
the Confederate soldiers. The horse seemed unmanageable, and dashed
some distance across the field before it was brought under control.
Then the talk turned to moving picture work, though Ruth could not help
wondering, even in the midst of it, why Miss Brown had not been more
certain of where she had learned to ride.
"It isn't something one would forget," mused Ruth.