e--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 pul