A RETAKE
"What's the matter over there?" called Russ to Paul. "Is he going to get
my film?"
"He says he can't."
"Can't? Why not? Has he lost his legs?"
"No. But he's dead. This is carrying realism to the extreme."
"Oh, good-night!" cried Russ. "I haven't but a few feet left. Make him
go."
"I won't go I tell you," the man cried. "I was told to play dead, and
I'm goin' to," and he stuck to the instructions he had received.
Fortunately, one of Russ' helpers was free a moment later, and he went
for the extra roll of film, while the dead man enjoyed his part to his
satisfaction.
"Well, he did just right," said Mr. Pertell, when told of the incident
afterward. "I wish more performers would do exactly as they are told. Of
course, I don't mean to say a player must slavishly do just as I tell
him. But in some cases a dead man's coming to life might spoil a big
scene."
Matters were now in readiness for the preliminary hospital scene. A ward
had been fitted up in a shed where electric lights could be used to get
the necessary illumination, the current being brought from town. In the
shed were ranged white beds, in which a number of wounded men were
reposing. Other men were in wheeled chairs, while still others sat up as
if recovering from a long and dangerous siege from wounds. All were
picturesquely bandaged.
The preliminary scenes had been taken. The doctor had made his rounds of
the wounded on the cots. He had taken their temperature and had felt
their pulses, while the other women of the company, as nurses,
accompanied the surgeon on his journey. Other wounded were brought in.
Night settled down in the hospital. The big, hissing electric lights
were turned off, and from outside a window "moonlight" streamed in. The
moonlight, of course was made by another electric light, properly
shaded.
"Now, I think we're ready for you, Ruth," said the director. "You are on
duty alone in the ward when the emergency occurs."
In the glow of the beams of light from the window Ruth, on duty alone,
took her place.
"All ready now!" called Mr. Pertell, from where he was standing behind
Russ, who was grinding away at the camera. "You start from your
half-doze, Ruth, and listen. Then you approach one of the cots and
discover that the bandage has slipped and that the man is bleeding to
death. You press on the artery, and finally rouse another of the
hospital patients--one not badly wounded--and send him for the surgeon."
Ruth carried out the instructions perfectly. Her acting was so very
natural that afterward, when the film was shown, more than one person
found himself holding his breath lest Ruth should remove her thumb from
the severed artery.
The slightly wounded man limped out to get the surgeon, who came rushing
in, and the artery was tied. Then followed words of praise for Ruth.
This laid the foundation for her summons to a larger hospital when the
proper time came.
The next day more battle views were the order of the day. In one of
these Estelle had to do some fast riding, to leap her horse across a
ditch and speed away from pursuing troopers.
"Aren't you nervous for fear you'll fall?" asked Ruth, as the young
horsewoman was making ready.
"Well, no. I don't think about that part. All I am afraid of is that I
may get out of range of the camera. You see I'm not very old at this
business."
"Just how did you come to get into it?" asked Alice.
"Why, it was a sort of accident. I was on a boat one day, leaning over
the rail looking at the water, when a gentleman came up, begged my
pardon for speaking without being introduced, and asked me if I had ever
been in the movies.
"I hadn't, though I had often thought I would like to be, and I told him
so. He asked me to call at his studio, and I did. They gave me a 'try
out,' found I photographed well, and they cast me for small parts. Then
they found out I could ride and they let me do some outdoor stuff. From
then on I did very well, and when I heard your company was going to make
a big war play, I applied to Mr. Pertell. He took me, I'm glad to say."
"And we're glad you're here," ejaculated Alice.
"We'll go out and watch you jump; it fascinates me, though it makes me
afraid," Ruth declared. "My sister and I did some riding while we were
at Rocky Ranch, but it was nothing to what you do."
"Oh, it takes practice, that's all," answered Estelle.
There were some animated scenes previous to the one in which Estelle
took part. There was a fight over the possession of a bridge, and the
Confederates, having driven off their enemies, prepared to blow it up to
prevent the Union army from using it.
Estelle was to try to reach the bridge before it was destroyed, but,
failing in that, she was to ride her horse to a narrow part of the
stream and leap over.
All went well, and the time came for her to take her swift ride to try
to reach the bridge. On and on she galloped, until she was met by a
colored man who warned her of the fact that in another moment the bridge
would be destroyed.
"She's going pretty close!" murmured Mr. Pertell, as he stood near Russ,
who was filming the scene. "Some of those timbers may fall pretty near
her."
But Estelle seemed to know no fear. She rode straight for the bridge,
and she was only a short distance away when it blew up, the planks and
rails flying high into the air.
Then she turned her horse to reach, ahead of her pursuers, the place she
was to jump the stream. So near was she to the bridge that she had to
swerve her horse quickly to avoid being struck by a fragment of the
falling wood.
"Plucky girl, that!" murmured Mr. DeVere.
While Estelle was being filmed down by the stream, one of the assistant
camera men, a new hand, prepared to take a scene where a Southern farmer
rides up to warn the Confederate cavalry of Estelle's escape, so they
may take after her. Maurice Whitlow was the farmer.
"Here, you!" cried Mr. Pertell to Whitlow, "ride down there and deliver
the message--that's your part in this scene."
There was a small automobile which Mr. Pertell had been using standing
near, and Maurice leaped into this and started across the field toward a
detachment of the Southern cavalry.
Away rattled Maurice in the car, and the camera man ground away, showing
the farmer on his way to give the warning. Suddenly Mr. Pertell turned
and saw what was going on.
"For the love of gasoline, stop!" he cried. "The whole scene is spoiled.
There'll have to be a retake! Of all the stupid pieces of work this is
the worst! Stop that camera!"