carried
under his arm a small box, from which projected a handle and a small
tube. The initiated would have known it at once as a camera for
taking moving pictures. "It will be jolly out there at Oak Farm, I'm
sure."

"That's right, Russ! Don't let Mr. Sneed get gloomy on such a fine
day!" whispered Alice DeVere. "But when is our train coming?"

"It will be made up soon," Russ Dalwood answered. "Perhaps it is
ready now. I'll go and inquire."

The two girls, before spoken of as being too well aware of their own
good looks, were talking together at one side of the big concrete
platform beneath the train shed. As they strolled about and talked,
one of them, from time to time, applied a chamois to her already
well-powdered nose, and took occasional glimpses of herself in the
tiny mirror imbedded in the top of the box that contained her
"beautifier." Occasionally the two would glance at Alice and Ruth,
and make remarks.

"Train will soon be ready for us," announced Russ Dalwood, coming
back to join the rest of the theatrical troupe which, instead of
presenting plays in a theater, posed for them before the clicking
eye of the camera, the films later to be shown to thousands in the
chain of moving picture playhouses which took the Comet Company's
service. "We can go aboard in five minutes!" Russ added.

"That's good," sighed Ruth. "There's is nothing so tiresome as
waiting. Which track will it be on, Russ?"

"Number thirteen!"

"What! Great Scott! Track thirteen! I'm not going!" cried Pepper
Sneed, who had come to be known as the "grouch" of the company.

"Not going! Why not, I'd like to know?" demanded Mr. Pertell.

"Why--track thirteen--that's unlucky, you know. Something is sure to
happen!"

"Well, as we have to get to Beatonville, where Oak Farm is located,
and as this is the only road that goes there, I'm afraid we'll have
to take that train, whether it's on track thirteen or not," declared
Mr. Pertell. "Unless," he added with gentle sarcasm, "you can get the
company to switch it to another track."

Mr. Sneed did not answer, but later Paul Ardite, who was one of the
younger members of the company, saw the actor tieing a knot in his
watch chain, and tossing a penny into a rubbish heap.

"What in the world are you doing that for?" demanded Paul.

"Trying to break the hoodoo!" exclaimed Mr. Sneed. "To start out to
do new film work on track thirteen! Whew! That's terrible!"

But Paul only laughed.

"Now,