"How should I know?" was the cool response. "I suppose Mr. Dalwood knows what he is doing, though."
"Oh, how very formal we are all of a sudden," mocked Alice. "You two haven"t quarreled, have you?"
"Silly," returned Ruth, blushing.
"Are you really going to jump your horse down a cliff?" asked Alice.
"I really am," was the smiling answer. "There is to be no fake about this. But really there is little danger. I am so used to horses."
"Yes, and I marvel at you," put in Ruth. "Where did you learn it all?"
"I don"t know. It seems to come natural to me."
"You must have lived on a ranch a long time," ventured Ruth.
"Did I? Well, perhaps I did. Say, lace this up the back for me, that"s a dear," and she turned around so that Alice or Ruth could fasten a corset-like pad that covered a large part of her body. It would not show under her dress, but would be a protection in case of a fall.
Alice and Ruth were so greatly interested in the coming perilous leap of Estelle"s that they did not pursue their inquiries about her life on a ranch, though Alice casually remarked that it was strange she did not speak more about it.
The two DeVere girls had no part in this one scene, and they went to watch it, safely out of range of the cameras. For there were to be two snapping this jump, to avoid the necessity of a retake in case one film failed.
"All ready now!" called Mr. Pertell, when there had been several rehearsals up to the actual point of making the jump. Estelle had raced out of the woods bearing the message. The Confederate guerrillas had pursued her, and she had found the bridge burned--one built for the purpose and set fire to.
"All ready for the jump?" asked the director.
"All ready," Estelle answered, looking to saddle girths and stirrups.
"Then come on!" yelled the director through his megaphone.
Estelle urged her horse forward. With shouts and yells, which, of course, had no part in the picture, yet which served to aid them in their acting, the players who were portraying the Confederates came after her, spurring their horses and firing wildly. On and on rushed the steed bearing the daring girl rider.
She reached the place of the burned bridge, halted a moment, made a gesture of despair, and then raced for the bank, down which she would leap her horse to the ford.
"Come on! Come on!" yelled Mr. Pertell. "That"s fine! Come on! You men there put a little more pep in your riding. Turn and fire at them, Miss Brown! Fire one shot, and one of you men reel in his saddle. That"s the idea!"
Estelle had quickly turned and fired, and one man had most realistically showed that he was. .h.i.t, afterward slumping from his seat.
Now the girl was at the edge of the bank. She was to make a flying jump over its edge and come down in the soft sand, sliding to the bottom--in the saddle if she could keep her seat, rolling over and over if, perchance, she left it.
"That"s the idea! Get every bit of that, Russ! That"s fine!" yelled Mr.
Pertell.
"There she goes!" cried Alice, grasping her sister"s arm, and as she spoke Estelle spurred her horse and it leaped full and fair over the edge of the embankment. Estelle had made her big jump. Would she come safely out of it?
CHAPTER VIII
A Ma.s.sED ATTACK
While Russ Dalwood and his helper were grinding their cameras, reeling away at the film on which was being impressed the shifting vision of Estelle Brown taking her hazardous leap, Alice, Ruth, and the others were watching to see how the daring young horsewoman would come out of it.
"She"s going to land in a minute!" exclaimed Miss Dixon.
"In a minute? In a half second!" cried Alice. "But don"t talk!"
"There--she"s fallen!" gasped Miss Pennington.
With his feet gathered under him, Petro had come down straight on the sliding, shifting sand of the embankment. For a moment it looked as though he had stumbled and that Estelle would be thrown.
But she held a firm rein, and leaned far back in the saddle. The horse stiffened and then, keeping upright with his forelegs straight out in front of him and his hind ones bunched under him, he began to slide.
Down the embankment he slid, as the Italian cavalrymen sometimes ride their horses, with Estelle firm in the saddle. And, as a matter of fact, the girl said afterward it was from having seen some moving pictures of these Italian army riders that she got the idea of doing as she did.
"She won"t fall!" murmured Paul.
"Oh, I"m so glad! The picture will be a success, won"t it?"
"I should think so," Paul said. "It certainly was a daring ride."
"I wouldn"t mind doing it if I had her horse," put in Maurice Whitlow, smirking at the girls. "I think you could do that, Miss DeVere," and he looked at Alice.
She turned away with only a murmured reply, but, nothing daunted, the "pest" went on:
"Estelle is certainly a fine rider. I think she must have been a cowgirl on a ranch at one time, though she won"t admit it."
"She wouldn"t to you, at any rate," said Paul, significantly.
"Why not?"
"Oh, if you don"t know it"s of no use to tell you. Look! Now she goes into the water!"
The action called for the halting at the top of the embankment of the Confederate riders, who dared not make the jump. They fired some futile shots at Estelle, then rode around to a less dangerous descent to try to catch her. But Estelle was to ford the stream and continue on to the Union lines with her message.
Reaching the bottom of the slope, her horse gathered himself together for another bit of moving picture work. At the edge of the stream another camera man was stationed, for Estelle and her horse were by this time too far away from Russ and his helper to make good views possible.
Into the water splashed the girl, urging on her spirited horse, that was none the worse for his jump and his long slide.
"Good work! Good work!" cried an a.s.sistant director, who was stationed near the stream to see that all went according to the scenario. "Keep on, Miss Brown!"
Estelle bent low over her horse"s neck, to escape possible bullets from the Confederate guns, and on and on she raced until she pulled up at the tent of "General" DeVere. Here her mission ended, after the father of Alice and Ruth, in a dusty uniform of a Union officer, had come out in response to the summons from his orderly.
Estelle slipped from her saddle, registered exhaustion, saluted and held out the paper she had brought through the Confederate lines at such risk. Nor was the risk wholly one of the play, for she might have been seriously hurt in her perilous leap.
But, fortunately, everything came out properly and a fine series of pictures resulted.
"I"m so glad!" Estelle exclaimed, when it was all over, and, divested of her padding, she sat in her room with Ruth and Alice. "I want to "make good" in this business, and riding seems to be my forte."