The Moving Picture Girls at Rocky Ranch | Page 4

Pertell, once he had the various scenes going, took a moment in
which to rest, for he was a very busy man. He sat down near Alice, who,
for the time being, was out of the scene. But hardly had the manager
stretched out in a chair, resting one shirt-sleeved arm over the back,
when he started up, and looked intently toward one corner of the studio.
"I wonder why he is going in there?" observed the manager, half aloud.
"Who?" asked Alice, for the moving picture company was like one big
family, in a way.
"That new man," went on Mr. Pertell. "Harry Wilson, he said his name
was. Now he's going into the proof room, where he has no business. I
must look into this. I wonder, after all, if there could be any truth in that
warning I received the other day."
"What warning?" asked Alice.

"About a rival film company trying to discover some of the secrets of
our success. I must look into this."
He sprang from his chair and hurried across the big studio toward the
room where the films were first shown privately, to correct any defects,
mechanical or artistic. It was there that the initial performance, so to
speak, was given.
Before Mr. Pertell reached the room, where the projection machine was
installed, the man of whom he had spoken had entered. And, just as the
manager reached the door, the same man came violently out, impelled
by a vigorous push from one of the operators, who at the same time
cried:
"Get out of here, you spy! What do you mean by sneaking in here,
trying to get our secrets? Get out! Where's Mr. Pertell? I'll tell him
about you."
CHAPTER II
WESTERN PLANS
"What is it, Walsh? What is the trouble?" exclaimed Mr. Pertell, as he
hastened toward the proving room, where the films were tested before
being "released."
"This man, Mr. Pertell! This fellow you hired as a comedy actor. He
came in here just now, and I caught him starting to take notes of the
first film of our new play."
"You did!" cried the manager sharply.
"Yes. He came in when it was dark; but the film broke, and I turned on
the light. Then I caught him!"
"That's not so--you did not!"
The accused man--the spy he had been called--stood facing them all,

the picture of injured innocence. Ruth, Alice and some of the other
women members of the company drew aside, a little frightened at the
prospect of trouble.
And trouble seemed imminent, for it was easy to see that Mr. Pertell
was very angry. As for the other, his face was white with either anger
or fear--perhaps the latter.
"I saw you taking notes of the action on that film!" cried James Walsh,
the testing room expert.
"And I say you did not!" asserted Harry Wilson, the new player, hired a
few days before as a "comic relief." The other members of the company
knew very little of him, and he had attracted small attention until this
episode. During a period when he was not engaged in one of the plays
he had gone into the room, permission to enter which was not often
granted, even to favored members of the Comet Film concern--at least
until after the release of the film was decided.
"Don't let that man get way!" cried Mr. Pertell, sharply, as he saw
Wilson edging toward the hallway. "Lock the doors and we'll search
him!"
There was some confusion for a moment, but the doors were locked,
and Pop Snooks seized the new actor.
And, while preparations are being made to search the man I will
trespass on the time of my new readers sufficiently to tell them, as
briefly as I can, something about the previous books of this series, and
of the main characters in this one.
The initial volume was entitled "The Moving Picture Girls; Or, First
Appearances in Photo Dramas." The girls were Ruth and Alice DeVere,
aged respectively seventeen and fifteen years. Their mother was dead,
and they lived with their father, Hosmer DeVere, in the Fenmore
Apartment House, New York. Across the hall from them lived Russ
Dalwood, a moving picture operator, with his widowed mother, and his
brother Billy.

Mr. DeVere was a talented actor in the "legitimate," as it is called to
distinguish it from vaudeville and moving pictures. But the recurrence
of an old throat ailment made him suddenly so hoarse that he could not
speak loud enough to be heard across the footlights. He was already
rehearsing for a new play when this happened, and after several trials to
make himself audible, he was finally forced to give up his engagement.
This was doubly hard, as the DeVeres were in straitened circumstances
at