on the roof of a country home. Suddenly
Fairbanks, disregarding the plan of retreat indicated by the author,
gave a wild leap into a near-by maple, managed to catch a bough, and
proceeded to the ground in a series of convulsive falls that gave the
director heart-failure.

During "The Half-Breed" picture, some of the action took place about a
fallen redwood that had its great roots fully twenty feet into the air.

"Climb up on top of those roots, Doug," yelled the director.

Instead of that, "Douggie" went up to a young sapling that grew at the
base of the fallen tree. Bending it down to the ground, as an archer
bends his bow, he gave a sudden spring, and let the tough birch catapult
him to the highest root.

"What do you want me to do now?" he grinned.

"Come back the same way," grinned the director.

Most "legitimate" actors--the valuation is their own--find the movies
rather dull. Time hangs very heavily upon their hands. As one remarked
to me in tones that were thick with a divine despair: "There's
absolutely nothing for a chap to do. In lots of the God-forsaken holes
they drag you to, there isn't even a hotel. No companionship, no
diversion of any kind, and oftentimes no bathtubs."

Douglas Fairbanks enters no such complaint. He draws upon the energy and
interest that ought to be in every human being, and when entertainment
is not in sight, he goes after it. When they were making "The
Half-Breed" pictures in the Carquinez woods of Northern California, he
was never seen around the camp except when actually needed by the camera
man. Upon his return from these absences, it was noticed that his hands
were usually bleeding, and his clothing stained and torn.

"What in the name of mischief have you been doing now?" the director
demanded on a day when Fairbanks's wardrobe was almost a total loss.

"Trappin'," chirped the star.

Beating about the woods, Bret Harte in hand, he had managed to discover
an old woodsman who still held to the ancient industries of his youth.
The trapper's specialty was "bob cats," and the bleeding hands and torn
clothes came from "Doug's" earnest efforts to handle the "varmints" just
as his venerable preceptor handled them. Out of the experience, at
least, he brought an intimate knowledge of field, forest, and stream,
for over the fire and in their walks he had pumped the old man dry.

In the same way he made "The Good Bad Man" hand him over everything of
value that frontier life cont