"That's so. It will be better!" said the manager. "I didn't think of that. I'll have Towne do it. He can come along on the film right after he's pulled himself out of the ditch. Fix it up that way, Russ."

"All right, Mr. Pertell."

"Have I got to go in more mud and water?" demanded the fastidious actor.

"Yes," replied the manager. "But it won't be much. Just a few feet or so of film."

Mr. Towne groaned, but there was no help for it. And really he could not get much muddier.

Accordingly, after some intervening scenes had been filmed to make the action of the story, as revised, more plausible, Russ moved his camera near the bog hole, ready to get views of Mr. Bunn, when he should stumble into it, and also Mr. Towne, when the latter came to the rescue.

"All ready now--let her go!" called the manager. "Come along, Mr. Bunn."

The old actor advanced, but evidently with very little liking for his part.

"Oh, be more natural!" cried Mr. Pertell. "You are supposed to be the father of the young man who is eloping, and you want to prevent him. Put some spirit into your work!"

Thereupon Mr. Bunn tried, and with better success. But when he came to the edge of the bog hole he hesitated.

"Hold on! Stop the camera!" cried the manager, sharply. "That won't do at all. This must be spontaneous. Run right along, and don't stop when you see the bog hole. Plunge right into it. Why, it isn't up to your knees, Mr. Bunn, and the weather is hot."

"All right, here I go!" he said, resignedly.

"Wait! Go back and do that last bit over again," ordered the manager.

"Russ, cut out the last few pictures and subst.i.tute these that are to come. Now, Mr. Bunn!"

The Shakespearean actor started over again, and he was "game" enough to pretend that he did not in the least mind floundering into the bog hole.

As he came to the edge of it, in he plunged.

He went down much deeper than to his knees, and as he felt himself sinking he called out:

"Help! Help! Save me! Save me!"

"That's it! That's the way to do it! That's being what I call realistic!"

shouted Mr. Pertell, who always waxed enthusiastic over a new idea.

Mr. Bunn continued to sink in the bog. He pulled and struggled to get out, apparently without success. Then his tall hat fell off from the violence of his exertions, and he barely saved it from a muddy bath.

"Help! Help! I'm sinking!" he cried.

"Good! That's the way to act it!" encouraged Mr. Pertell. "Now, Mr.

Towne, you come up to the rescue in a few seconds. Don't mind the mud, either. Go right out to him. You can't be much worse off."

"Indeed I cannot," agreed the other, as he glanced at his soiled suit.

"Wait just a minute more," said Mr. Pertell to the prospective rescuer.

"Give him a chance to struggle more. It will look better."

"No, let him come at once and save me! Save me at once!"

"Why?" the manager wanted to know.

"Because I really am sinking! This isn't play! The quicksand has me in its grip!"

And, as Mr. Pertell looked about, unable to tell whether the actor was saying that as part of the "business," or because he was in earnest, the unfortunate man cried out in real anguish:

"Save me! Save me! I am in the quicksand and it's sucking me down!"

"That's right! He is in a quicksand bog!" cried one of the steamer hands who had helped hew a path through the swamp. "He'll never get out if you don't help him quick!"

CHAPTER XVI

A STRANGE ATTACK

It was true, then. The frantic appeals of Mr. Bunn were not in the interests of acting for moving pictures, but because he felt himself in actual danger. None of his friends had thought of that, until the man from the steamer offered confirmation. They had all thought the actor was doing a realistic bit of work.

"Quicksand! Do you mean it?" gasped Mr. Pertell.

"I certainly do," answered the steamer hand. "There are a lot of those bogs around here, and he's stumbled into one. He's going down every minute, too, and if you don't get him out soon you never will."

"Oh, mercy!" screamed Miss Pennington. "How horrible!"

"To be buried alive!" gasped Miss Dixon.

"Quiet!" commanded Mr. Pertell, sternly. "Come on, gentlemen!" he called to the male members of the company. "We must save him!"

"Oh, do get me out!" cried the unfortunate Mr. Bunn.

"We'll save you!" shouted the manager, as he made a dash toward the bog hole. He was followed by Mr. DeVere, Paul and some of the others.

"Keep back!" yelled the man from the steamer. "If you get in you won't get out either."

"But they must save him!" cried Alice, who had gone forward with her father.

"They can't save him by getting into the quicksand themselves!" pointed out the man who seemed to know the deadly nature of the bog. "The only way is to fling him a rope."

"A rope! There isn't one nearer than the steamer!" cried Mr. Pertell.

"I'll go get it!" offered Mr. Switzer. "I am a goot runner!"

"It will be too late, I'm afraid," objected the steamer hand. "He is sinking faster now."

This was indeed but too true. Whereas at first the clinging mud and sand of the bog hole had only been up to Mr. Bunn's knees, he was now engulfed to his waist.

"We'll have to make a rope!" cried Mr. Towne. "Tear up our coats, or something like that."