"Oh!" murmured Alice, shrinking down in her chair. "Oh—my!"

She gave a hasty glance over her shoulder, to behold Paul Ardite standing back of her chair, an angry look on his face. Then Alice looked at the sprawling form of the extra player. He was getting up with a dazed expression on his countenance.

"What—what does this mean?" he gasped, striving to make his tones indignant. But it is hard for dignity to assert itself when one is on one's hands and knees in the grass, conscious that there is a big grass stain on one's white cuff, and with one's clothing generally disarranged. "What does this mean? I demand an explanation," came from Mr. Maurice Whitlow.

"You know well enough what it means!" snapped Paul. "If you don't, why, come back here and try it over again and I'll give you another demonstration!"

"Oh, don't, Paul—please!" pleaded Alice in a low voice.

"There's no danger. He won't come," was the confident reply.

By this time Whitlow had picked himself up and was brushing his garments. He settled his collar, straightened his lavender tie and wet his lips as though about to speak.

"You—you—I——" he began. "I don't see what right you had to——"

"That'll do now!" interrupted Paul, sternly. "It's of no use to go into explanations. You know as well as I do what you were doing and why I pitched you over the railing. I'll do it again if you want me to, but twice as hard. And if I catch you here again, annoying any of the ladies of this company, I'll report you to the director. Now skip—and stay skipped!" concluded Paul significantly. "Perhaps you can't read that notice?" and he pointed to one recently posted on the main gateway leading to the big farmhouse. It was to the effect that none of the extra players were allowed admission to the grounds without a permit from the director.

"Huh! I'm as good an actor as you, any day!" sneered Whitlow, as he limped down the walk.

"Maybe. But you can't get over with it—here!" said Paul significantly.

The notice had been posted because so many of the cowboys and girls had fairly overrun the precincts of Mr. Apgar's home. He and his family had no privacy at all, and while they did not mind the regular members of Mr. Pertell's company, with whom they were acquainted, they did not want the hundreds of extra men, soldiers, cowboys and horsewomen running all over the place.

So the rule had been adopted, and it was observed good-naturedly by those to whom it applied. Whitlow must have considered himself above it.

"Did he annoy you much, Alice?" asked Paul.

"Not so very. He was just what you might call—fresh. He asked for Miss Brown, and when she wasn't here to snub him he turned the task over to me. Ugh!" and Alice began to scrub vigorously with her handkerchief the fingers which Whitlow had grasped. "I'm sorry you had that trouble with him, Paul," she went on. "But really——"

"It was no trouble—it was a pleasure!" laughed Paul. "I'd like to do it over again if it were not for annoying you. I happened to come up behind and heard what he was saying. So I just pitched into him. I don't believe he'll come back. He'll be too much afraid of losing the work. Mr. Pertell has had a great many applications from players out of work who want to be taken on as extras, and he can have his pick. So those that don't obey the regulations will get short notice. You won't be troubled with him again."

And Alice was not, nor was Miss Brown. That is, as regards the extra player's trespassing on the grounds about the farmhouse. But he was of the kind that is persistent, and on several occasions, when the duties of the girls brought them near to where Whitlow was acting, he smiled and smirked at them.

Alice wished to tell Paul about it and have him administer another and more severe chastisement to Whitlow, but Ruth and Estelle persuaded the impulsive one to forego doing so.

"I can look after myself, thank you, Alice dear," Estelle said. "Now that I don't have to board in the bungalow with him it is easier."

"Don't make a scene," advised Ruth.

"Oh, but I just can't bear to have him look at me," Alice said.

Several of the scenes in the principal drama had been made, but most of the largest ones, those of the battles, of Alice's spy work, and of Ruth's nursing, were yet to come.

The making of a big moving picture is the work not of days, but of weeks, and often of months. If every scene took place in a studio, where artificial lights could be used, the filming could go on every day the actors were on hand, or whenever the director felt like working them and the camera men. Often in a studio, even, the director will be notional—"temperamental," he might call it—and let a day go by, and again the glare of the powerful lights may so affect the eyes of the players that they have to rest, and so time is lost in that way.

But the time lost in a studio is as nothing compared to the time lost in filming the big outdoor scenes. There the sun is a big factor, for a brilliant light is needed to take pictures of galloping horses, swiftly moving automobiles and locomotives, and every cloudy day means a loss of time. For this reason many of the big film companies maintain studios in California, where there are many days of sunshine. They can take "outdoor stuff" almost any time after the sun is up.

But at Oak Farm there were times when everything would be in readiness for a big scene, the camera men waiting, the players ready to dash into their parts, and then clouds would form, or it would rain, and there would be a postponement. But it was part of the game, and as the salaries of the players went on whether they worked or not, they did not complain.

One morning Alice, on going into Estelle's room, found her busy "padding" herself before she put on her outer garments.

"What in the world are you doing?" Alice asked.

"Getting ready for my big jump," was the answer.

"Your big jump?"

"Yes, you know there is a scene where I carry a message from headquarters to one of the Union generals at the front. Your father plays the latter part."

"Oh, yes, now I remember. And Daddy is sure no one can do quite as well as he can in the tent scene, where he salutes you and takes the message you have brought through with such peril."

"Yes, that's nice. Well, I'm to ride along and be pursued by some Confederate guerrillas. It's a race, and I decide to take a short cut, not knowing the Confederates have burned the bridge. I have to leap my horse down an embankment and ford the stream. I'm getting ready for the jump now—that's why I'm padding myself. For Petro—that's my horse—might slip or stumble in jumping down that embankment, and I want to be ready to roll out of the way. It's much more comfortable to roll in a padded suit—like a football player's—than in your ordinary clothes. Your friend, Russ Dalwood, told me to do this, and I think it is a good idea."

"It's sure to be if Russ told you, isn't it, Ruth?" asked Alice, with a mischievous look at her sister, who had just come in.

"How should I know?" was the cool response. "I suppose Mr. Dalwood knows what he is doing, though."

"Oh, how very formal we are all of a sudden," mocked Alice. "You two haven't quarreled, have you?"

"Silly," returned Ruth, blushing.

"Are you really going to jump your horse down a cliff?" asked Alice.

"I really am," was the smiling answer. "There is to be no fake about this. But really there is little danger. I am so used to horses."

"Yes, and I marvel at you," put in Ruth. "Where did you learn it all?"

"I don't know. It seems to come natural to me."

"You must have lived on a ranch a long time," ventured Ruth.

"Did I? Well, perhaps I did. Say, lace this up the back for me, that's a dear," and she turned around so that Alice or Ruth could fasten a corset-like pad that covered a large part of her body. It would not show under her dress, but would be a protection in case of a fall.

Alice and Ruth were so greatly interested in the coming perilous leap of Estelle's that they did not pursue their inquiries about her life on a ranch, though Alice casually remarked that it was strange she did not speak more about it.

The two DeVere girls had no part in this one scene, and they went to watch it, safely out of range of the cameras. For there were to be two snapping this jump, to avoid the necessity of a retake in case one film failed.

"All ready now!" called Mr. Pertell, when there had been several rehearsals up to the actual point of making the jump. Estelle had raced out of the woods bearing the message. The Confederate guerrillas had pursued her, and she had found the bridge burned—one built for the purpose and set fire to.

"All ready for the jump?" asked the director.

"All ready," Estelle answered, looking to saddle girths and stirrups.

"Then come on!" yelled the director through his megaphone.

Estelle urged her horse forward. With shouts and yells, which, of course, had no part in the picture, yet which served to aid them in their acting, the players who were portraying the Confederates came after her, spurring their horses and firing wildly. On and on rushed the steed bearing the daring girl rider.

She reached the place of the burned bridge, halted a moment, made a gesture of despair, and then raced for the bank, down which she would leap her horse to the ford.

"Come on! Come on!" yelled Mr. Pertell. "That's fine! Come on! You men there put a little more pep in your riding. Turn and fire at them, Miss Brown! Fire one shot, and one of you men reel in his saddle. That's the idea!"

Estelle had quickly turned and fired, and one man had most realistically showed that he was hit, afterward slumping from his seat.

Now the girl was at the edge of the bank. She was to make a flying jump over its edge and come down in the soft sand, sliding to the bottom—in the saddle if she could keep her seat, rolling over and over if, perchance, she left it.

"That's the idea! Get every bit of that, Russ! That's fine!" yelled Mr. Pertell.

"There she goes!" cried Alice, grasping her sister's arm, and as she spoke Estelle spurred her horse and it leaped full and fair over the edge of the embankment. Estelle had made her big jump. Would she come safely out of it?