im, fasten a rope to the truck and
I'll have this machine of mine tow you up to the scouts' headquarters."

CHAPTER VII

ETHAN ALLEN COMES TO LIFE AGAIN

For the next days the troop's headquarters on Otter Hill was the
strangest place imaginable. Passers by were surprised to find groups of
real Indians in war paint, Colonial soldiers, British troopers and Green
Mountain Boys in buckskin garments walking up and down in front of the
building or sitting in the sun waiting for their turn to "go on" in the
studio room upstairs. These were the regular actors of the Historical
Motion Picture Company, who had come to Woodbridge by train to take part
in the Ethan Allen film which Mr. Dickle was making.

To be sure, all this fascinated the scouts. It was a decided pleasure to
be allowed to circulate among such famous people. Ethan Allen was a big,
broad-shouldered actor whose name was known from coast to coast. So was
the individual who took the part of Captain Rember Baker, Captain Warner
and Captain Warrington. Anne Story was a girl whose face the boys had
seen on a dozen different billboards, and there were any number of other
well-known individuals in the troupe. And there were real live Indians,
too, who afforded the boys no end of interest. Altogether, the advent of
the motion picture company was a liberal education for the lads.

But for knowledge of the technical nature, which the boys liked best, the
interior of headquarters presented a world of opportunity. When the
company's electricians and stage carpenters had finished with their work
in the big meeting room Bruce and his chums scarcely recognized it as the
same place. Two banks of a dozen electric lights as big as street arc
lamps, and just as powerful, had been strung across the ceiling. These,
by means of reflectors, were made to flood the far end of the room, "the
stage," with a steady white light.

Behind the light was the camera man, grinding away steadily, taking
sixteen pictures a second, while before the light were the actors playing
their parts, now in a log cabin, now in a Colonial mansion and again in a
courtroom at Albany, according to the way the scene shifters arranged the
portable canvas scenery.

Between the camera man and the actors, to the left of the stage, sat Mr.
Dickle in his shirt sleeves, clutching a bundle of manuscript in one hand
and a megaphone in the other. Through this effective mouthpiece he
directed each of