ESTELLE'S STORY
"What's the matter?" cried Russ Dalwood, running back from the stream
where he had been to see that an assistant was successfully getting the
scene after Estelle had leaped to the other bank.
"Matter! Look!" cried the director, and he pointed to Maurice, speeding
to carry his message in the small runabout.
"Good-night!" gasped Russ, who understood at once.
"Why, what's wrong with it?" asked Paul. "Isn't he running the machine
all right?"
"Oh, he's running it all right," said Mr. Pertell in tones of disgust.
"And that's just the trouble! I told him to jump on a horse with that
dispatch, and he goes in the auto!"
"I suppose he thought it was quicker," commented Paul.
"Quicker! Yes, I should say it was! But I'll get him out of there
quicker than he can shake a stick at a dead mule. The idea of riding in
an auto to carry a message in Civil War days. Why, there wasn't a real
auto in the whole world then. How would it look in a film to see an
up-to-date runabout butting in on a scene of sixty-three. Get him back
here and make him start over again on a horse as he ought to," went on
the director. "An auto in sixty-three! Next he'll be sending wireless
telephone messages about fifty years before they were ever dreamed of!"
Fortunately, not much of the film had been reeled off, and the scene was
one that could easily be made over. Estelle's leap was not spoiled, nor
was the blowing up of the bridge.
"Huh! I didn't think anything about there not being autos in those
days," said Maurice, when he had been brought back and mounted on a
horse.
"That's just it," commented Mr. Pertell. "You've got to think in these
days of moving pictures. The audiences are more critical than you would
suppose. Even the children now laugh at fake scenes and incongruities.
And as for using a dummy in danger scenes, it's getting harder and
harder every day to get by with it. You stick to horses or to Shank's
mules, young man, when it comes to transportation in this war film. No
autos where they are going to show in the film."
That was only one of the many details the director and his assistants
had to look after. If eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, it is
much more so the price of good films. The camera sees everything in a
pitiless light. It exaggerates faults and it refuses to shut its eye to
anything at which it is pointed. The absolute truth is told every time.
Of course, there are trick films, but even then the camera tells the
truth fearlessly. It is only the on-lookers' eyes that are deceived. The
camera can not be fooled. And though a man may be seen to be shaking
hands with himself or cutting off his own head, it is done by double
exposure, and could not be accomplished were it not for the fact that
the camera and the film are so fearlessly honest and truth-telling.
"What's the matter, Estelle?" asked Alice of the rider that afternoon,
when they were in Ruth's room resting after the work of the day. "You
seem to be in pain."
"I am. I strained my side a little in that water jump. Petro slipped a
bit on the muddy bank."
"Did you do much jumping out West?" asked Ruth, while Alice was getting
a bottle of liniment.
"In the West? I don't know that I ever jumped there. I can't
remember----"
Estelle paused, and passed her hand across her eyes as though to shut
out some vision.
"Are you faint?" asked Ruth.
"No--no, it isn't that. It--it is just that I--that I---- Oh, I wonder
if I can tell you?" and Estelle seemed in such distress that the two
sisters hastened to her.
"What is it? Tell me, are you badly hurt?" asked Ruth. For she had known
of performers who concealed injuries that they might not be laid off,
and so lose a day's work. "What is the matter, Estelle?"
"It is my--my head."
"Did you fall? I didn't hear them say anything about it!" exclaimed
Alice.
"No, it isn't that," and the girl looked from one sister to the other.
"Oh, I wonder if I dare tell you?"
"If there is anything in which we can help you, tell us, by all means!"
answered Ruth, warmly--sympathetically. "But we don't want to force
ourselves----"
"Oh, no! It isn't that. I'm only wondering what you will think of me
afterward."
"We shall love you just the same!" cried impulsive Alice.
"Don't be too sure. But I feel that I must tell some one. I have borne
all I can alone. It is getting to the point where I fear I shall scream
my secret to the cameras--or some one!"
Then Estelle had a secret!
"Do tell us. Perhaps we can help you--or perhaps my father can,"
suggested Ruth.
"I don't believe any one can help me," said Estelle. "But at least it
will be a relief to tell it. I--I am living under false pretenses!" she
blurted out desperately.
"False pretenses!" repeated Alice. At once her mind flashed back to Miss
Dixon's ring. Was it the taking of this that Estelle was hinting at? The
girl must have guessed what was in the mind of her hearers, for she
hastened to add:
"Oh, it isn't anything disgraceful. It's just a misfortune. You remember
you have been asking me where I learned to ride--whether I didn't use to
live on a ranch--questions like that. Well, you must have noticed that I
didn't answer."
"Yes, we did notice, and we spoke about it," said truthful Ruth.
"We thought you didn't wish to tell," added Alice.
"Wish to tell! Oh, my dears, I would have been only too glad to tell if
I could."
"Why can't you?" asked Ruth. "Are you bound by some vow of secrecy? Is
it dangerous for you to reveal the past?"
"No, it is simply impossible!"
"Impossible!" the two sisters exclaimed.
"Yes, I can no more tell you what life I lived, where I lived, who I
was, or what I was doing, up to a time of about three or four years ago,
than I can fly."
"Why not?" asked Alice, puzzled.
"Because the past--up to the time I named--is a perfect blank to me. My
mind refuses absolutely to tell me who I was or where I lived--who my
people were--anything of the past. My mind is like a blank sheet of
paper. I can remember nothing. Oh, isn't it awful!" and she burst into
tears.