tising to get the best results
from the various registerings.

"That is going to be a very strong scene for you and Alice," said Mr.
DeVere to Ruth one day. "I refer to that scene where Alice takes the
paper and afterwards discovers the identity of the man to whom she owes
so much--the life of her father. Now let me see how you would play it,
Alice."

Alice did so, and she did well, but her father was not satisfied. The
stage traditions meant much to him, and though he had been forced to
give up many of them when he went into the motion pictures, still he
knew what good dramatic action was, and he knew that it would "get over"
just as certainly in the silent drama as it did in the legitimate. So he
made Alice go over the scene again, and Ruth also, until he was
satisfied.

"Now, when the time comes, you'll know how to do it," he said. "Don't be
satisfied with anything but the best you can do, even if it is only a
moving picture show. I am convinced, more and more, that the silent
drama is going to take a larger place than ever before the public."

It was on one afternoon following a rather hard day's work before the
cameras, that Ruth and Alice, with Miss Pennington and Miss Dixon, sat
on the porch of the farmhouse, waiting for the supper bell. Russ and
Paul were off to one side, talking, and Mr. DeVere and Mr. Bunn were
discussing their early days in the legitimate. Mr. Pertell came up the
walk, a worried look on his face, seeing which Mr. Switzer called out:

"Did a cow step on some of the actors, Herr Director, or did one of our
worthy farmer's rams knock over a camera after it had filmed one of the
battle scenes?"

"Neither one, Mr. Switzer," was the answer. "This is merely a domestic
trouble I have on my mind."

"Domestic!" exclaimed Alice. "You don't mean that some of your pretty
extra girls have eloped with some of your dashing cowboy soldiers, do
you? I wouldn't blame them if they----"

"Alice!" chided her sister.

"Oh, well, you know what I mean!"

"No, it isn't quite that," laughed the director, "though you have very
nearly hit it," and he took a chair near Alice and her sister, and near
where Pearl Pennington and Laura Dixon were rocking and chewing gum.

"Tell us, and perhaps we can help you," Alice suggested.

"Well, maybe you can. It's about Miss Estelle Brown, the young lady who
made that daring ride in front of the masked battery the other day."

"What! Has she left?" asked Ruth. "She was