LAURA LEE HOPE

CHAPTER I

THE OLD NEWSPAPER

"There, I think I have everything in that I'll need at Oak Farm."

"Everything! Good gracious, Ruth, how quickly you pack! Why, I've oceans and oceans of things yet to go into my trunk! Oh, there are my scout shoes. I've been looking everywhere for them. I'll need them if I do any hiking in those war scenes," and Alice DeVere dived under a pile of clothing, bringing to light a muddy, but comfortable, pair of walking shoes. "I don't know what I'd do without them," she murmured.

"Alice!" cried Ruth, her sister, and the shocked tone of her voice made the younger girl look up quickly from the contemplation of the shoes.

"Why, what have I done now?" came in rather injured accents. "I'm sure I didn't use any slang; and as for not having all my things packed as quickly as you, why, Ruth, my dear, you must[2] remember that you are an exception—the one that proves the rule."

"I didn't say you used any slang, Alice dear. Nor did I intimate that you were behind in your packing. I'll gladly help you. But it—— Those shoes!" and she pointed a finger dramatically at the "brogans," as Alice sometimes called them.

"Those shoes? What's the matter with them? They're a perfectly good pair, as far as I can see; and they're mighty comfortable."

"Oh, Alice—mighty?"

"Well, I can't get over using such words, especially since we heard so many strong expressions from the sailors when we were in those sea films. Mine sound weak now. But what's the matter with the shoes, Ruth?"

"They're so muddy, dear. They will soil all your pretty things if you put them in your trunk in that condition. You don't want that, do you?"

"I should say not—most decidedly! Especially since pretty things with me last about one day. I don't see how it is you keep yours so nice and fresh, Ruth."

"It's because I'm careful, dear."

"Careful! Bosh! Care killed a cat, they say. I'm sure I'm careful, too—— Oh, here's that lace collar I've been looking everywhere for!"

She made a sudden reach for it, there was a[3] ripping, tearing sound, and Alice was gazing ruefully at a rent in the sleeve of her dress.

"Oh, for the love of trading stamps!" she ejaculated.

"Alice!" gasped Ruth.

"Well, I don't care! I had to say something. Look at that rip! And I wanted to wear this dress to-day. Oh——"

"That's just it, Alice," interrupted Ruth, in a gentle, chiding voice. "You are too impulsive. If you had reached for that lace less hurriedly you wouldn't have torn your dress. And if you took care of your things and didn't let your laces and ribbons get strewn about so, they would last longer and look fresher. I don't want to lecture——"

"I know you don't, you old dear!" and Alice leaned over—they were both sitting on the floor in front of trunks—and made a motion as though to embrace her sister. But a warning rip caused her to desist, and, looking over her shoulder, she found her skirt caught on a corner of the trunk.

"There! Did you ever?" she cried. "I can't even give you a sisterly hug without pulling myself to pieces. I'm all upset—excited—unstrung—Wellington Bunn doing Hamlet isn't to be compared to me. I must get straightened out."

"I guess that's it—you're all tangled up in your[4] packing," said Ruth, with a laugh. "Truly, I don't mean to lecture, Alice, but you must go a bit slower."

"Not with this packing—I can't, and be ready in time. Why! you are all prepared to go. I'll just throw the things into my trunk and——"

"Now, don't do that. Don't throw things in. You can put in twice as much if you lay the things in neatly. I'll help you. But—oh, dear——!"

Ruth made a gesture of despair.

"What's the matter now? What are you registering?" and Alice used the moving picture term for depicting one of the standard emotions. The girls were both moving picture actresses.

"I'm trying to register dismay at the muddy state of those scout shoes, as you call them, Alice. They may be nice and comfortable, as you say, and really they do look so. And I have no doubt you will find them useful if we have to do much tramping over the hills of Oak Farm. But——"

"Oh, we'll have to do plenty of hiking, as Russ Dalwood warned us," Alice put in. "You know, there are to be several Civil War plays filmed, and they didn't have automobiles or motor cycles to get about on in those days. So we'll have to walk. And it will be over rough ground, so I thought these shoes would be just the thing."

"They will, Alice. I must get a pair myself, I[5] think. But I was just wondering how you got them so terribly muddy. How did you?"

"Oh, Paul Ardite and I were in that Central Park scene the other day. You know, 'A Daughter of the Woods,' and some of the scenes were filmed in the park. It was muddy, and I didn't get a chance to have the brogans cleaned, for I had to jump from the park into the ballroom scene of 'His Own Enemy,' and there was no time. We had to retake in that scene because one of the extras was wearing white canvas shoes instead of ballroom slippers, and the director didn't notice it until the film was run out in the projection room.

"So that accounts for the mud on the shoes, Ruth. But I suppose I can 'phone down to the janitor and have him send them out to the Italian at the corner. He'll take the mud off."

"No, I don't know that you can do that, Alice. We haven't any too much time. If I had an old newspaper, I could wrap the shoes up in that for you, and pack them in the bottom of your trunk. Then the mud wouldn't soil your clothes."

"An old newspaper? Here's a stack of them. Daddy just brought them from his room. Guess he's going to throw them away."

Alice reached up to a table and lifted the top paper from a pile near the edge. She opened it[6] with a flirt of her hand and was about to wrap the muddy shoes in it when some headlines on one page caught her attention. She leaned eagerly forward to read them, and spent more than a minute going over the article beneath.

"Well," remarked Ruth finally, with a smile, "if you're going to do that, Alice, you'll never get packed. What is it that interests you?"

"This, about a missing girl. Why, look here, Ruth, there's a reward of ten thousand dollars offered for news of her! Why, I don't remember seeing this before. Look, it's quite startling. A San Francisco girl—Mildred Passamore—mysteriously disappears while on a train bound for Seattle—can't find any trace of her—parents distracted—they've got detectives on the trail—going to flood the country with photographs of her—all sorts of things feared—but think of it!—ten thousand dollars reward!"

"Let me see," and in spite of the necessity for haste in the packing, Ruth DeVere forgot it for the moment and came to look over her sister's shoulder to read the account of the missing California girl.

"It is strange," murmured Ruth. "I don't remember about that. I wonder if she could be around here? The New York police are wonderful in working on mystery cases."[7]

"But the funny part of it is," said Alice, "that I haven't noticed anything about it in the New York papers. Have you? This is a San Francisco paper. Naturally they'd have more about it than would the journals here. But even the New York papers would have big accounts of such a case, especially where such a large reward is offered."

"That's so," agreed Ruth. "I wonder why we haven't seen an account of it in our papers. I read them every day."

"What's that? An account of what? Have the papers been missing anything?" asked a deep, vibrating voice, and an elderly man came into the girls' room and regarded them smilingly.

"Oh, hello, Daddy!" cried Alice, blowing him a kiss. "I'm almost ready."

"Hum, yes! You look it!" and he laughed.

"It's this, Daddy," went on Ruth, holding out the paper. "We were going to wrap Alice's muddy shoes in this sheet, when we happened to notice an account of the mysterious disappearance of a Mildred Passamore, of San Francisco, for whom ten thousand dollars reward is offered. There has been nothing in the New York papers about it."

Mr. DeVere, an old-time actor, and now employed, with his daughters, by a large motion pic[8]ture concern, reached forth his hand for the paper. He gave one look at the article, and then his eyes went up to the date-line. He laughed.

"No wonder there hasn't been anything in the New York papers of to-day about this case," he said. "This paper is four years old! But I remember the Passamore case very well. It created quite a sensation at the time."

"Poor girl! Was she ever found?" asked Ruth.

"Why, yes; I believe she was," said Mr. DeVere, in rather dreamy tones. He was looking over other articles in the paper.

"Who got the reward?" asked Alice.

"Eh? What's that?" Her father seemed to come back from a mental journey to the past.

"I say, who got the reward?"

"What reward?"

"Why, Daddy! The one offered for the finding of Miss Passamore. The girl we just told you about—in the paper—ten thousand dollars. Don't you remember?"

"Oh, yes. I was thinking of something else I just read here. Oh, the reward! Well, I suppose the police got it. I don't remember, to tell you the truth. I know that her disappearance at the time created quite a sensation."

"And are you sure she was found?"

"Oh, yes, quite sure. Look here!" and with[9] a smile on his face he leaned forward, one rather fat finger pointing to the article he had just been reading. "I was wondering how you girls got hold of this old back-number paper, but I see it's one of several I saved because they had printed notices of my acting. This is a very good and fair criticism of my work when I was appearing in Shakespearian drama—a very fair notice, ahem!" and Mr. DeVere leaned back in his chair, a gratified smile on his face.

"A fair notice! I should say it was!" laughed Alice. "It does nothing but praise you, and says the others offered you miserable support."

"Well, it was fair to me," said Mr. DeVere. "Yes, I remember that tour very well. We were in California at the time of this Miss Passamore's disappearance. Helen Gordon was my leading lady then. Ah, yes, that was four years ago."

"No wonder there wasn't anything in to-day's New York papers," said Alice. "Well, let me wrap up my shoes, and I'll try to have this packing done in time to get out to Oak Farm."

"Yes, I just stopped in to see how you were coming on," put in her father. "Mr. Pertell wants to get started, and it won't do to disappoint him. There are to be several thousand men and horses in the production, and the bill for extras will be heavy."[10]

"I'll hustle along, Daddy!" cried Alice. "Do you want that paper?"

"No, you may take it. I'll just tear out this page with the theatrical notice of myself."

He handed the remainder of the paper to his daughter, who, with the help of her sister, wrapped up the muddy shoes.

Then the girls proceeded with the putting in of other articles and garments that would be needed during their stay at Oak Farm.

"I wonder——" began Alice, when there came a knock on their door, and a voice demanded:

"I say, girls!—are you there?"

"Yes, Russ. Come on in!" answered Alice.

"Oh, and with the room looking the way it is!" remonstrated Ruth.

"Can't be helped. Russ knows what packing is," Alice declared, as a tall, good-looking young man entered.

"Come on!" he cried. "No time to lose."

"What's the matter? Is the place on fire?" asked Ruth.

"No. But there's got to be a retake in that last scene of 'Only a Flivver,' and Mr. Pertell sent me to get you. It won't take long, but they're in a hurry for it. Come on! Paul is waiting outside in the machine and I've got the camera. Hustle!"[11]

CHAPTER II

OFF FOR OAK FARM

"What's that, Russ? A retake?" asked Alice.

"Yes, of that auto scene in the park."

"Is that the one I'm in?" Ruth inquired.

"Yes. You're both in it, and so is Paul. It's the scene where Mr. Bunn is struck by the auto mud-guard—not hurt, you know, and you, Ruth, jump out to give first aid."

"What's the matter with the scene?" asked Alice. "I certainly struck him all right with the mud-guard."

"Yes, that part was all right," Russ admitted. Alice had been running the automobile in the scene.

"And didn't I do my first aid business well?" Ruth demanded.

"Yes," Russ acknowledged. "Your part came out perfect. But just at the critical moment—you know, where Mr. Bunn was supposed to think he was dying and wanted to right the wrong he had done in cutting his daughter off in his will[12] with only a dollar—some boys got in the way of the camera. They were outsiders, butting in, the way they always do when we film stuff in the park. It wouldn't have been so bad, only one of the youngsters began to pull off some funny stuff right in range of Mr. Bunn's agonized face. I didn't see him at the time, or I'd have stopped the running of the film. It was only when we got it in the projection room that we discovered it.

"So Mr. Pertell ordered a retake of that one scene, and it's got to be done in a hurry. It won't take long. Mr. Bunn will meet us in the park. Be sure and wear the same things you had on that day. It won't do to have you get out of the auto in one dress, Ruth, and, a second later, kneel down beside Mr. Bunn in a gown entirely different."

"All right, Russ, I'll be careful."

"Oh, dear! But my packing!" sighed Alice. "I'll never get it done, and we must start for Oak Farm——"

"Mr. Pertell will have to make allowances," said Russ, quickly. "Come on—move the boat! You won't be needed in the real war scenes for a couple of days, anyhow, though I suppose there'll be rehearsals. But it can't be helped. This retake is holding up the whole film, and it's to be released next week."[13]

Delaying only long enough to put on the proper dresses and to tell their father where they were going, Ruth and Alice DeVere were soon on their way to Central Park, where the scene was to be filmed, or photographed over again—a "retake," as it is called, the bane alike of camera men and directors.

And while the girls—the moving picture girls—are on their way to do over a bit of work, I shall take the opportunity of telling my new readers something about Ruth and Alice DeVere.

I have called them just what they are: "The Moving Picture Girls," and that is the title of the first volume of this series, which depicts them and their adventures.

Their mother had died some years previously, leaving them to the care of their father, Hosmer DeVere, at one time a talented actor in the legitimate drama. But a throat affection forced him to give up his acting and, at the opening scene in the first volume, we find him and his daughters in rather straitened circumstances, living in a second-rate apartment house in New York.

Across the hall dwelt Russ Dalwood, with his mother. Russ was a "camera man." That is, he took moving pictures in the big studios and out of doors for the Comet Film Company, of which Mr. Frank Pertell was manager and director.[14]

It was Russ who suggested to Mr. DeVere a way out of his troubles. He could not act in the "legitimate," as his voice was gone; but no voice is needed to appear on the films for the movies, since a mere motion of the lips suffices, when any speaking is to be done. The "silent drama" has been the salvation of many an actor who, if he had to declaim his lines, would be a failure.

At first Mr. DeVere would not hear of acting before the camera, but he soon came to know that greater actors than he had fallen in line with the work, especially since the pay was so large, and finally he consented. An account of his success and of the entrance of his daughters into the field is given in the initial book.

Ruth, the elder girl, was, like her father, of a romantic turn. Also she was rather tall and willowy, as Mr. DeVere had been before he had taken on flesh with the passing of the years; and she was cast for parts that suited her type. She was deliberate in her actions, and in "registry."

Alice, like her late mother, was warm-hearted and impulsive, plump, vivacious and full of fun. Both girls were excellent movie actresses. In the company they had joined was Mr. Wellington Bunn, an old actor, who hoped, some day, to appear in Hamlet—Hamlet in the legitimate.

Paul Ardite, who played light parts, had be[15]come very fond of Alice. Russ Dalwood had a liking for Ruth, and the four had many pleasant hours in each other's company.

Pearl Pennington was the leading lady at times, and was rather disposed to domineer over our girls, as was her chum, Laura Dixon. Mrs. Maguire was the "mother" of the film company. She portrayed old lady parts, and her two grandchildren, Tommie and Nellie, the orphans, were cast for characters suitable to them.

Carl Switzer, a German-American, did comedy parts and was a good fellow, though occasionally he would unconsciously say some very funny things. His opposite in character was Pepper Sneed, the grouch of the company. But Pepper could do valuable work, especially as a villain, and so he was kept on. As for Pop Snooks, the company could not have got along without him. It was Pop, the property man of the company, who made many of the devices used when the company went to "Oak Farm," as told in the second volume, where scenes for farm dramas were filmed. Pop could use a drawbridge in one scene, and, in the next, convert it into a perfectly good cow-barn. Pop was a valuable man.

There were other members of the company, of more or less importance, whom you will meet as this story progresses.[16]

It was in the third volume of the series, "The Moving Picture Girls Snowbound," that Ruth and Alice succeeded in getting "the proof on the film" that saved Mr. DeVere from an unjust charge.

From the cold and frostiness of Deerfield the girls went to Florida, where "Under the Palms," many stirring acts were filmed. It was here that Alice and Ruth helped find two girls who were lost in the wilds of the Everglades.

"The Moving Picture Girls at Rocky Ranch" gave Ruth and Alice a taste of cowboy life, and though rivals tried to spoil some of the valuable films, they were not altogether successful, even though a prairie fire figured in their schemes.

The girls, with their father, had recently returned from a perilous trip. This is told about in the volume immediately preceding the one you are reading—"The Moving Picture Girls at Sea." In that Alice and Ruth proved, not only their versatility as actresses, but also that they could be brave and resourceful in the face of danger. And they more than repaid the old sailor, Jack Jepson, who saved their lives, by doing him a good turn.

"Well, life at Oak Farm will be vastly different from that on the Mary Ellen," remarked Alice, as she looked from the automobile as it[17] swung along through the New York streets on the way to the park.

"Yes," agreed her sister. "But I like it up there."

"There are going to be some strenuous times," said Paul. "We've got to do some hustling work."

"All the better," declared Russ. "I like to keep the film running. This sitting about all day and reeling off only ten feet makes me tired."

"You like action!" laughed Ruth.

"Yes; and plenty of it."

Oak Farm was the property of the Apgars. There was Mr. Belix Apgar, the father, Nance, his wife, and Sandy, an energetic son. The farm was located in New Jersey, about forty miles from New York, and it provided a picturesque background for the scenes evolved by Mr. Pertell and his company. It was during a scene on the farm, some time before, that a valuable discovery had been made, which endeared the moving picture girls and their chums to the Apgars.

"How did Mr. Pertell come to pick out Oak Farm for the war plays?" asked Ruth, as the automobile bounced along.

"Well, I suggested it to him," answered Russ. "I remembered the background, and I felt sure we could get all sorts of settings there to make the proper scenes. There are hills, mountains,[18] valleys, streams, bridges, waterfalls, cliffs and caves. Everything needed for perfectly good war dramas."

"How did they come to want that sort of stuff?" asked Paul.