While Russ Dalwood and his helper were grinding their cameras, reeling away at the film on which was being impressed the shifting vision of Estelle Brown taking her hazardous leap, Alice, Ruth, and the others were watching to see how the daring young horsewoman would come out of it.

"She's going to land in a minute!" exclaimed Miss Dixon.

"In a minute? In a half second!" cried Alice. "But don't talk!"

"There—she's fallen!" gasped Miss Pennington.

With his feet gathered under him, Petro had come down straight on the sliding, shifting sand of the embankment. For a moment it looked as though he had stumbled and that Estelle would be thrown.

But she held a firm rein, and leaned far back in the saddle. The horse stiffened and then, keeping upright with his forelegs straight out in front of him and his hind ones bunched under him, he began to slide.

Down the embankment he slid, as the Italian cavalrymen sometimes ride their horses, with Estelle firm in the saddle. And, as a matter of fact, the girl said afterward it was from having seen some moving pictures of these Italian army riders that she got the idea of doing as she did.

"She won't fall!" murmured Paul.

"Oh, I'm so glad! The picture will be a success, won't it?"

"I should think so," Paul said. "It certainly was a daring ride."

"I wouldn't mind doing it if I had her horse," put in Maurice Whitlow, smirking at the girls. "I think you could do that, Miss DeVere," and he looked at Alice.

She turned away with only a murmured reply, but, nothing daunted, the "pest" went on:

"Estelle is certainly a fine rider. I think she must have been a cowgirl on a ranch at one time, though she won't admit it."

"She wouldn't to you, at any rate," said Paul, significantly.

"Why not?"

"Oh, if you don't know it's of no use to tell you. Look! Now she goes into the water!"

The action called for the halting at the top of the embankment of the Confederate riders, who dared not make the jump. They fired some futile shots at Estelle, then rode around to a less dangerous descent to try to catch her. But Estelle was to ford the stream and continue on to the Union lines with her message.

Reaching the bottom of the slope, her horse gathered himself together for another bit of moving picture work. At the edge of the stream another camera man was stationed, for Estelle and her horse were by this time too far away from Russ and his helper to make good views possible.

Into the water splashed the girl, urging on her spirited horse, that was none the worse for his jump and his long slide.

"Good work! Good work!" cried an assistant director, who was stationed near the stream to see that all went according to the scenario. "Keep on, Miss Brown!"

Estelle bent low over her horse's neck, to escape possible bullets from the Confederate guns, and on and on she raced until she pulled up at the tent of "General" DeVere. Here her mission ended, after the father of Alice and Ruth, in a dusty uniform of a Union officer, had come out in response to the summons from his orderly.

Estelle slipped from her saddle, registered exhaustion, saluted and held out the paper she had brought through the Confederate lines at such risk. Nor was the risk wholly one of the play, for she might have been seriously hurt in her perilous leap.

But, fortunately, everything came out properly and a fine series of pictures resulted.

"I'm so glad!" Estelle exclaimed, when it was all over, and, divested of her padding, she sat in her room with Ruth and Alice. "I want to 'make good' in this business, and riding seems to be my forte."

"Do you like it better than anything else?" asked Alice.

"Yes, I do. And I just love moving pictures, don't you?"

"Indeed we do," put in Ruth. "But we were never cut out for riders."

"I'd like it!" exclaimed Alice. "I'd like to know how to ride a horse as well as you do."

"I'll show you," offered Estelle. "I'll be very glad to, and it's easy. It's like swimming—all you need is confidence, and to learn not to be afraid of your horse but to trust him. Let me show you some day."

"I believe I will!" decided Alice, with flashing eyes. "It will be great."

"Better ask father," suggested Ruth.

"Oh, he'll let me, I know. We've ridden some, you know; but I would like to ride as well as Estelle," and Alice and Estelle began to talk over their plans for taking and giving riding lessons. In the midst of the talk the return of the boy who went daily to the village for mail was announced.

"Oh, I hope my new waist has come!" Alice exclaimed, for she had written to her dressmaker to send one by parcel post. There was a package for her—the one she expected—and also some letters, as well as one for Ruth. Estelle showed no interest when the distribution of the mail was going on.

"Don't you expect anything?" asked Alice.

"Any what?"

"Letters."

"Why, no, I don't believe I do," was the slowly given answer. "I don't write any, so I don't get any, I suppose," and both girls noticed that there was a far-away look in Estelle's eyes. Perhaps it was a wistful look, for surely all girls like to get letters from some one.

"I believe she is estranged from her family," decided Alice to her sister afterward. "Did you see how pathetic she looked when we got letters and she didn't?"

"Well, I didn't notice anything special," Ruth replied. "But there is something queer about her, I must admit. She is so absent-minded at times. This morning I asked her if she wanted to go for a walk, and she said she had no ticket."

"No ticket?"

"Yes, that's what she said. And when I laughed and told her one didn't need a ticket to walk around Oak Farm, she sort of 'came to' and said she was thinking about a boat."

"A boat—what boat?"

"That was all she said. Then she began to talk about something else."

"Do you know what I think?" asked Alice, suddenly.

"No. But then you think so many things it isn't any wonder I can't keep track of them."

"I think, as I believe I've said before, that she has run away from some ranch to be in moving pictures. That's why she doesn't write or receive letters. She doesn't want her folks to know where she is."

"I can hardly believe that," declared Ruth. "She is too nice and refined a girl to have done anything like that. No, I just think she is a bit queer, that is all. But certainly she doesn't tell much about herself."

However, further speculation regarding Estelle Brown was cut short, as orders came for the appearance of nearly the entire company in one of the plays.

The first scene was to take place in a Southern town, and for the purpose a street had been constructed by Pop Snooks and his helpers. There was a stately mansion, smaller houses, a store or two and some other buildings. True, the buildings were but shells, and, in some cases, only fronts, but they showed well in the picture.

Ruth, Alice, and a number of the girls and women and men were to be the inhabitants of this village, and were to take part in an alarm and flee the place when it was known that the Confederate forces were being driven back and through the place by the Unionists.

"Come on—get dressed!" cried Alice, and soon she, her sister, Estelle and the other women were donning their Southern costumes, wide skirts, with hoops to puff them out, and broad-brimmed hats, under which curls showed.

There was to be a massed attack by the Unionists on the town, through which the Confederates were to flee, and it was the part of Ruth and Alice to rush from their father's "mansion" bearing a few of their choice possessions.

All was in readiness. The Southern defenders were on the outskirts of the town, drawn up to receive the Unionists. Toward these Confederates, their enemies came riding. This was filmed separately, while other camera men, in the made street, took pictures of the activities there. Men, women and children went in and out of the houses. Though, as Mr. Belix Apgar said, "If you call them houses you might as well call the smell of an onion a dinner. There ain't nothin' to 'em!"

Suddenly an excited rider dashed into the midst of the peaceful activities of the Southern town.

"They're coming! They're coming!" he cried, waving his hat. "The Yankees are coming!" This would be flashed on the screen.

Then ensued a wild scene. Colored mammies rushed here and there seeking their charges. Men began to look to their arms. Then came the advance guard of the retreating Confederates, turning back to fire at their enemies.

"Come on now, Ruth—Alice! This is where we make our rush—just as the first of the Union soldiers appear!" called Paul, who was acting the part of a Southern youth. "Grab up your stuff and come on!"

Ruth was to carry a bandbox and a case supposed to contain the family jewels. Alice, who played the part this time of a frivolous young woman, was to save her pet cat.

"Here they come!" yelled Paul, as the first of the Unionists came into view at the head of the street. "Hurry, girls!"

Out they rushed, down the steps of the mansion, fleeing before the mounted Union soldiers, who laughed and jeered, firing at the Confederates, who were retreating.

Ruth and Estelle, with some of the other women, were in the lead. Alice had lingered behind, for the cat showed a disposition to wiggle out of her arms, and she wanted to keep it to make an effective picture.

Finally the creature did make its escape, but Alice was not going to give up so easily. She started in pursuit, and then one of the Union soldiers, Maurice Whitlow, spurred his horse forward. He wanted to get in the foreground of the picture and took this chance.

"Get back where you belong!" yelled the director angrily. "Who told you to get in the spotlight? Get back!"

But it was too late. Alice, in pursuit of the cat, was running straight toward Whitlow's horse, and the next moment she slipped and went down, almost under the feet of the prancing animal.