ene just where Gil
went down in a decidedly realistic heap. But it hurt the professional
soul of Robert Grant Burns to retake a scene so compellingly dramatic,
because it had been so absolutely real.

Jean was sitting up with her back against the ledge looking rather pale
and feeling exceedingly foolish, while Gil Huntley explained to her
about the "blood-sponge" and how he had held it concealed in his hand
until the right moment, and had used it in the interest of realism and
not to frighten her, as she might have reason to suspect. Gil Huntley
was showing a marked tendency to repeat himself. He had three times
assured her earnestly that he did not mean to scare her so, when the
voice of the chief reminded him that this was merely an episode in the
day's work. He jumped up and gave his attention to Burns.

"Gil, take that same position you had when you fell. Put a little more
blood on your face; you wiped most of it off. That right leg is
sprawled out too far. Draw it up a little. Throw out your left arm a
little more. Whoa-- Enough is plenty. Now, Gay, you take Jean's gun
and hold it down by your side, where her hand dropped right after she
fired. You stand right about here, where her tracks are. Get INTO her
tracks! We're picking up the scene right where Gil fell. She looked
straight into the camera and spoiled the rest, or I'd let it go in.
Some acting, if you ask me, seeing it wasn't acting at all." He sent
one of his slant-eyed glances toward Jean, who bit her lips and looked
away.

"Lean forward a little, and hold that gun like you knew what it was
made for, anyway!" He regarded Muriel glumly. "Say! that ain't a
stick of candy you're trying to hide in your skirt," he pointed out,
with an exasperated, rising inflection at the end of the sentence.
"John Jimpson! If I could take you two girls to pieces and make one
out of the two of you, I'd have an actress that could play Western
leads, maybe!

"Oh, well--thunder! All you can do is put over the action so they'll
forget the gun. Say, you drop it the second the camera starts. You
pick up the action where Jean dropped the gun and started for Gil. See
if you can put it over the way she did. She really thought she'd
killed him, remember. You saw the real, honest-to-John, horror-dope
that time. Now see how close you can copy it.

"All ready? START your ACTION!" he barked. "Camera!"

Brutally absorbed in his work he might be; callous to the