lready.
Listen to the way everybody is whooping it up now. It's real fright
that we hear, and no make-believe!"

CHAPTER XIII

WELL DONE, SCOUTS!

Hugh was glad that he had foreseen just such an emergency as the one
that now confronted the motion-picture players. It afforded him a
chance to get busy without wasting any precious time in laying out
plans.

The men who had been inside the building began to come rushing out,
some dragging comrades who may have temporarily found themselves unable
to walk, owing to the fatigue influenced by their recent terrific
efforts, and also the weight of the armor which they were wearing.

Everybody looked alarmed and distressed, and with reason, for it was
now seen that the wing where the girl was shut up in that turret room
was enveloped in real flames, which, whipped by the rising wind,
threatened to consume the whole structure in so far as it consisted
of wood made to resemble genuine stone.

The director was again shouting hoarsely through his megaphone, but
he was now up against a situation that none of them had foreseen, so
that consequently no preparations had been made toward meeting it.
Men ran this way and that as though they had temporarily taken
leave of their senses. Women could be seen wringing their hands,
and shrieking wildly.

Although the outside camera man undoubtedly realized that this was
anything but a sham now, he never once ceased grinding away at his
machine. Long experience in these lines had convinced him of the
great value of a stirring scene like this; and besides, his services
were hardly needed in the work of saving the one whose life seemed
to be in deadly peril.

"We must do something, and right away at that!" called Hugh. "Come
along with me, every one, I've got a scheme that may be made to work."

They followed close at his heels. Evidently it did not enter into
the head of the scout master to think, of applying for permission
from the stage manager before starting to try out his suddenly formed
plan. Hugh realized very well that this was an occasion where that
energetic gentleman would be at a loss what to tell him. Besides,
a wideawake scout, accustomed to doing his own thinking, should be
better equipped to manage such an affair as this than a man whose
talents ran in quite another direction.

The first thing Hugh sought to get hold of was a long and stout rope
which he had noticed lying on the ground near by, together