gment of the
falling wood.

"Plucky girl, that!" murmured Mr. DeVere.

While Estelle was being filmed down by the stream, one of the assistant
camera men, a new hand, prepared to take a scene where a Southern farmer
rides up to warn the Confederate cavalry of Estelle's escape, so they
may take after her. Maurice Whitlow was the farmer.

"Here, you!" cried Mr. Pertell to Whitlow, "ride down there and deliver
the message--that's your part in this scene."

There was a small automobile which Mr. Pertell had been using standing
near, and Maurice leaped into this and started across the field toward a
detachment of the Southern cavalry.

Away rattled Maurice in the car, and the camera man ground away, showing
the farmer on his way to give the warning. Suddenly Mr. Pertell turned
and saw what was going on.

"For the love of gasoline, stop!" he cried. "The whole scene is spoiled.
There'll have to be a retake! Of all the stupid pieces of work this is
the worst! Stop that camera!"

CHAPTER XVII

ESTELLE'S STORY

"What's the matter?" cried Russ Dalwood, running back from the stream
where he had been to see that an assistant was successfully getting the
scene after Estelle had leaped to the other bank.

"Matter! Look!" cried the director, and he pointed to Maurice, speeding
to carry his message in the small runabout.

"Good-night!" gasped Russ, who understood at once.

"Why, what's wrong with it?" asked Paul. "Isn't he running the machine
all right?"

"Oh, he's running it all right," said Mr. Pertell in tones of disgust.
"And that's just the trouble! I told him to jump on a horse with that
dispatch, and he goes in the auto!"

"I suppose he thought it was quicker," commented Paul.

"Quicker! Yes, I should say it was! But I'll get him out of there
quicker than he can shake a stick at a dead mule. The idea of riding in
an auto to carry a message in Civil War days. Why, there wasn't a real
auto in the whole world then. How would it look in a film to see an
up-to-date runabout butting in on a scene of sixty-three. Get him back
here and make him start over again on a horse as he ought to," went on
the director. "An auto in sixty-three! Next he'll be sending wireless
telephone messages about fifty years before they were ever dreamed of!"

Fortunately, not much of the film had been reeled off, and the scene was
one that could easily be made over. Estelle's leap was not spoiled, nor
was the blowing up of the brid