“Boys, it’s a splendid idea!” cried Frank Durham.

“What is?” asked his friend and business partner, Randolph Powell.

“You look as if you had something big to tell,” chimed in Pepperill Smith, moving his chair nearer to his two comrades. “Out with it, Frank.”

The motion picture chums were seated in the cozy office of the Empire photo playhouse on upper Broadway, New York City. It was “their” playhouse, they might proudly say. Their energy, patience and genius had made it a success. They were lively, up-to-date boys, the kind who work as well as dream and play. They[2] had learned business ways. The animated yet earnest face of their leader just now showed that it was a genuine business proposition that he was bringing to the notice of his companions.

“Why,” returned Frank, “you know what our motto has always been—to keep abreast of the times.”

“And a little ahead of ’em, Durham!” added a new voice, as a bustling man of middle age entered the little office. It was Mr. Hank Strapp of Butte, Montana, the liberal, cheery-hearted financial backer of the boys. “It appears to me that this last venture of ours up at Riverside Grove has about capped the climax.”

“Let Frank go ahead with his story, Mr. Strapp!” cried Pep, who was a privileged character, his constant willingness to help out making full amends for his sometimes boisterous manner. “We’d have been good and sorry if we had missed running the Airdrome; wouldn’t we, now?”

“Well, it has doubled the value of our investment, that’s sure,” admitted Mr. Strapp, with great satisfaction.

“Then how do you know but what Frank now has a proposition up his sleeve that is twice as good? He’s always looking for new ideas. What’s the last one, Frank?”

[3]“Well,” explained the latter, “to tell it in a word: What do you say to opening a photo playhouse that shall be devoted exclusively to educational films?”

Each of Frank’s auditors received this declaration in a characteristic way. Pep came to his feet with a bound and seemed to be ready to voice his opinion in his usual tumultuous fashion. Randy’s eyes snapped as his vivid imagination seized upon the new thought. The impulsive ex-ranchman, Mr. Strapp, brought his bronzed hand down upon his knee emphatically with the words:

“Durham, I believe you’ve struck a big thing! It catches my fancy. There’s one first point we’ve got to look to, though: Can it be made to pay?”

“I feel sure that it can,” replied Frank, “in the right place.”

“And where is that,” inquired the impetuous Pep.

“Boston,” was the reply. “Boston is the home of culture. Anything high up in the entertainment line is encouraged there. I first thought of the plan a week ago. Yesterday, quite by accident, I ran across a gentleman who crystallized my vague ideas.”

“How was that, Durham?” asked the interested Westerner.

[4]“It was down at the film exchange. I was waiting for the crowd to thin out, as I had some special business with the manager, and sat down on a bench. Right next to me was a thin, intellectual looking man whom nobody could help but notice as entirely out of the ordinary. He was nervous, abstracted, impatient. He took out his watch to look at the time.

“I saw that he had opened the back case instead of the dial. I heard him say: ‘Remarkable! Extraordinary!’ Then he began poking in all his pockets. He made a vain search. He got up and looked all over the bench, and knelt down and searched under it.

“‘Can I help you, sir?’ I asked.

“‘Well, yes, I’ve lost my glasses,’ he informed me.

“‘Why,’ I told him, ‘you’ve got them on.’

“‘Aha! So I have,’ he admitted. ‘Ridiculous!’

“‘And you’re looking at the wrong side of your watch,’ I added.

“‘Dear me!’ he groaned. ‘Preposterous!’”

“Say, he’d make a good character in a funny film,” chuckled the mischief-loving Pep.

“Well,” continued Frank, “he came out of his absent-mindedness and gathered his scattered[5] wits. Those dreamy eyes of his pierced me like a gimlet.

“‘Movies man?’ he asked.

“I told him yes. You ought to have seen how eager he was. He began firing questions at me so fast I could hardly answer. They were all about motion pictures. He was like a curious youngster hungry for facts. We got so interested in my experience, before he got through with me, that he found out about all we know or have down in the movies business. Finally he jumped to his feet.

“‘See here,’ he said, grabbing my arm, ‘you are just the fellow I’ve been looking for. You come along with me.’

“‘Where?’ I asked.

“‘To my hotel,’ he replied. ‘I’ll make you rich and famous.’ There was no resisting him, so I went.”

“Who was he, anyway?” asked Randy.

Frank took a card from his pocket and held it so that all could read the name inscribed upon it:

Professor Achilles Barrington.

“And what was he after?” pressed Pep.

“Someone to exploit his ideas about a great educational film photo playhouse,” replied[6] Frank. “I never saw a man so enthusiastic over an idea as he was. It seems that he had been a professor of astronomy at Yale, or Harvard, I forget which. A rival professor set up a new theory as to the red spots on Jupiter in opposition to his own. There was a wordy war. Professor Barrington stood on his dignity and resigned. He had a little money and an ardent ambition to ‘enlighten the masses,’ as he termed it. He has mapped out a wonderful series of films for popular exhibition. I tell you, they’re great. He wants to start the finest photo playhouse in the world, facing Boston Common, and his plan has a lot of good points.”

“It would seem so,” nodded Mr. Strapp, whose face showed that he was intensely interested. “Go ahead, Durham. I’m mightily attracted by what you are telling us.”

“The professor must have talked to me for an hour when we got to his hotel. It appears he has been working on his pet idea for several months. I was surprised at the way he had planned his film subjects and sources of information and supply. He convinced me that his plans, influence and scheme for working up business were magnificent.

“It appears he was waiting to see what encouragement the film men would give him in his[7] scheme when I met him. Now he is thoroughly convinced that there never was a combination so able to put through his plans as ourselves. He was for getting my decision at once, so that some of us could go at once to Boston and see the location he had picked out for the new playhouse. I told him I would have to consult with you people and I promised he should hear from me by noon. What do you think of it, Mr. Strapp?”

“Well, you know we have run across all kinds of dreamers in this business,” replied the Westerner. “I’ve a great respect for college folks, though; little education as I’ve had myself. You’re a shrewd sort of a fellow, Durham, and don’t make many mistakes.”

“That’s right!” came with emphasis from the ever-admiring Pep.

“Thank you,” returned Frank, modestly, and with a laugh.

“Yes, sir-ree! We can trust your judgment every time, Durham,” continued Mr. Strapp. “As to the idea you’ve spoken of, it can’t be beat. As to the man who has worked it up, I suspect we’d all better see him before we come to a decision.”

“I’ll bet he’s an odd genius,” commented Pep, with an expectant twinkle in his eyes.

[8]“He’s smart, or he couldn’t have interested Frank the way he has done,” observed the loyal Randy.

“Well, if you leave it to me,” spoke the young motion picture manager, “I’ll go back to his hotel, as I promised. I think I had better bring him back here with me. It’s three hours before we start the show, so we can have a good long talk.”

“I’ll be glad to see this professor of yours, Durham,” said Mr. Strapp.

“Hello!” broke in Pep, abruptly. “Here’s somebody.”

The door of the little office swung open as someone knocked timidly on it.

Frank, craning his neck, discerned a man standing still and apparently awaiting an answer to his summons. It struck Frank that the visitor must be near-sighted, or very absent-minded, to thus mistake a wide open door for a closed one.

“Come in,” he sang out and the caller seized the knob of the door. As he did this, the unexpected ease with which the door swung towards him moved him off his balance, drove him back and banged shut, quite taking him off his feet.

“Stupendous!” gasped the caller, as he went sprawling upon the floor headlong, his tall silk[9] hat rolling in one direction, the goggles he wore in another.

“Why!” cried Frank, “It’s Professor Barrington himself!”

“Outrageous—unpardonable!” gasped the professor, as he struggled to his feet, thus rudely aroused from his habitual abstraction.

Pep stooped to pick up the rolling hat and to hide a grin. Randy, as he rescued the glasses, bit his lip to keep his face straight. Even Mr. Strapp was amused; but he did not allow himself to show it.

Frank was always the gentleman and the boy of business. He had arisen to his feet. He extended his hand, sober as a judge, with the words:

“I am glad to see you, Professor Barrington. We were just going over that matter of yours and I was about to start for your hotel.”

“Good—glad. Then you favor my plan?”

“We are all very much interested,” observed Mr. Strapp. “Will you have a chair, sir?”

The eyes of the little coterie were fixed upon their odd visitor. Knowing Frank as they did,[11] his chums were as one in the conviction that their bright young leader had brought about a situation that promised interesting developments.

It was not the first time that some such an incident had proved the beginning of an important move in the business to which the three boys had been now devoted for nearly two years. From the first day that the movies idea had captivated these close comrades and friends, Frank had been the main mover in discoveries, suggestions and activities that had led them up to the present pleasant and useful position they filled in their own little business world.

It was Frank who had originally found a way to employ their little stock of savings, to obtain an outfit for the starting of their first motion picture venture in their native village of Fairlands, known as the Wonderland, as related in the first volume of the present series, entitled, “The Motion Picture Chums’ First Venture; Or, Opening a Photo Playhouse In Fairlands.”

It was Frank who, when the winter season was past and local trade grew dull, had discovered a promising outlook for a Wonderland No. 2 at Seaside Park. This was a popular outing resort some fifty miles from New York City. Their success with that venture has been told[12] in a second book, called, “The Motion Picture Chums at Seaside Park; Or, The Rival Photo Theaters of the Boardwalk.”

When they retired temporarily from that enterprise with the departing excursion crowds, a higher ambition had led them to seek a wider sphere of action.

In the third volume, entitled, “The Motion Picture Chums On Broadway; Or, The Mystery of the Missing Cash Box,” has been narrated the struggles, trials, and triumphs of the boys in founding their Empire photo playhouse on upper Broadway in New York City. All along the line they had found rivals, even enemies, but friends as well.

Mr. Strapp, who now sat in their midst, was one of the latter, and a loyal, helpful, companion he had become. Frank had saved the unsophisticated Westerner, fresh from ranch life, from being swindled out of a large sum of money. The ex-ranchman had appreciated this and the good qualities of the three chums, and had become their partner, to the benefit of all.

Ben Jolly, a musician of no mean ability, was another who had come into their lives. Then there were several lads whom Frank had found poor, in trouble, and needing a friend badly. He had given them a helping hand.

[13]In the last preceding book of the series, named, “The Motion Picture Chums’ Outdoor Exhibition; Or, The Film That Solved a Mystery,” the ups and downs of a new venture, the Airdrome, at Riverside Grove, located on the Palisades of the Hudson River, have been recited.

Each of the group was now filling some efficient part in the operations of the Amusement Company organized by Mr. Strapp and the motion picture chums to bring system and success to the chain of photo playhouses they conducted.

An old comrade of Ben Jolly, a professional ventriloquist named Hal Vincent, had managed the Wonderland No. 2 at Seaside Park during the season. At Fairlands a capable young fellow was in the harness, and another deserving lad was operating the Model, a small affair at Belleview, up the Hudson. Dave Sawyer, whom Frank had rescued from the clutches of a cruel taskmaster, named Slavin, had assisted Frank and his partners in making a success of the famous Airdrome, and was now located at Riverside Grove.

Now, at the beginning of the autumn season, the little group had taken up their headquarters at the principal playhouse of the chain. The Empire was the most profitable institution of the group. It was a model, up-to-date, and well[14] patronized the year around. It was like getting back home to once more enjoy its coziness. The motion picture chums had plenty to do with so many ventures on their hands, but “the Tip Top” was the constant ambition of the partners.

Frank was always on the lookout for something new to keep them abreast of the times. As has been seen, he had made an attractive discovery that day. Now its progress was signalized by the extraordinary appearance of Professor Achilles Barrington.

The odd intruder upon the little group seemed now at ease through the generous reception he had received. He set his glasses straight and brushed his hat with his coat sleeve. Then he tapped his head sharply with his knuckles, as if punishing truant ideas that had led him into a blunder, and summoning up new ones.

“Embarrassed—decidedly so,” he observed. “Deep in thought—and all that. Scarcely respectable—bolting in on you this way. Made a bad impression, I fear.”

“Not at all, sir,” responded Mr. Strapp, indulgently. “Our friend, Frank Durham, has paved the way for a genuine welcome. Let me introduce myself—Strapp is my name, and I never say what I don’t mean. I am very glad to meet a person of your education, Professor Barrington.[15] This is Randolph Powell, and this Pepperill Smith.”

“I declare, it’s like home to be among you,” said the professor, smiling expansively at the friendly greeting he received. “I must apologize for coming here uninvited, gentlemen; but I couldn’t rest thinking over the possibilities suggested by Mr. Durham. You don’t know how my heart is set on my great enterprise, nor the bother and trouble I have had getting at the right people.”

“I reckon you’ve found ’em this time, sir, if your scheme holds water at all,” declared Mr. Strapp, in his blunt fashion.

“Thank you—it makes me happy to hear you say that. I ought to apologize, Mr. Durham, for showing childish anxiety about you; but I was fooled once and I do not wish to waste any time. Now that I see what a really pretentious business you have here, I realize that you did not tell half. You see, I fell into the hands of a fellow who made all kinds of false representations, beside fleecing me out of money. It’s made me nervous about getting things started before someone else exploits the idea. I’ve become so afraid of speculators and promoters that I shall breathe more freely when I get back to my home city.”

[16]“Meaning Boston, I assume?” asked Mr. Strapp.

“That’s right, sir! And it’s the right place, and the only one where the educational film will be accepted with open arms. I know the people, Mr. Strapp. They know me, too, in my humble way.”

“And exactly what do you expect us to do?” inquired the Westerner, in a business-like tone.

“Why, I have not the capital myself to start such a photo playhouse as my plan deserves. Another thing: I am not a practical showman in any sense of the word; I have, though, enough money to arrange for the films. The films, gentlemen, comprise the whole essence of this proposition.”

“You have a special interest in that direction; eh?” intimated Mr. Strapp.

“I may say that—yes,” declared the professor. “Mediocre stuff will not do at all. The scarce, the odd, the new, the remarkable—I saw my needs when this idea first occurred to me. In my satchel at the hotel, locked up in its strong safe, are credentials showing that I am to-day in touch with film producers all over the world.”

“Why—what for?” burst out the curious Pep.

[17]“What for—what?” in turn challenged the professor, with wondering eyes.

“Locked up—in a safe! Valuable, I suppose?”

“So much so, that I am satisfied a group of unscrupulous men are after it,” asserted Professor Barrington, solemnly. “You see, in planning out my campaign I have had to proceed with caution, so that rivals would not forestall me. I have even designed a telegraphic code so that messages sent and received may not be deciphered by others to my disadvantage.”

Frank’s eyes were opening wider with mingled interest and excitement. As their eccentric visitor warmed up to his subject, the young leader of the motion picture chums saw that the professor had used order and system in his preliminary work.

“I have a primary list of many subjects, some of which are already in the hands of the picture takers,” continued the professor. “My object has been to have really educational films.”

“For instance, what?” questioned Mr. Strapp.

“Well, showing how flowers grow—animal, bird and insect life—the mysteries of the deep. Then again, in the mechanical arts—the great industries—factories, lighthouses, conventions. I am now working out a scenario for a natural[18] wonder that will electrify the thinking public. I simply give you an outline; details will come later if we make a deal.

“I have already invested several thousands of dollars in the venture. What I propose is that someone else finance the exhibition of the films in the right way. I will defray the expenses up to that point.”

Mr. Strapp arose and paced a few steps in a restless manner. This was always his way when interested in something of a business nature. Frank caught a glance from his eyes and at once saw that his clear-headed business partner had made up his mind.

“I have listened to you, sir,” remarked Mr. Strapp, bluntly, “and I will say I am very much interested. In plain words: I favor your proposition. I’m not much on education, though, and Durham is. What do you propose, sir?”

“That you come to Boston and look over a location I have selected, go over the papers I have in my satchel, look me up to see if I am the kind of man to deal with, and make your decision.”

“Fair enough,” agreed Mr. Strapp. “Let Durham act as our representative. He’s only a boy, professor, but smarter than most grown[19] men. I’d trust his good judgment any time; and if he says go ahead, that settles it.”

“Most satisfactory,” exclaimed the professor; his thoughtful face brightening magically. “I feel I can trust you.”

“When would you wish me to go to Boston, Professor Barrington?” asked Frank.

“Right away!” cried the professor, consulting his watch and jumping to his feet with the celerity of a pleased schoolboy.

“That’s queer!” said Frank Durham.

He said it to himself, for he was seated alone in the railroad station awaiting the arrival of Professor Barrington. When that personage heard the decision of the young movies leader and his business partners, he was for getting to Boston forthwith. After Frank had glanced at a time-table, the arrangements had been made quickly.

“There is a through express at eleven o’clock,” he reported.

“Then we must make it,” insisted the professor, briskly. “Meet me at the station. I will just have time to go to my hotel, settle up affairs there and get my satchel. That train will land us in Boston in five hours, leaving a chance to do some business there by daylight.”

Then he had departed, and after a brief talk with Mr. Strapp, Frank had made his way to[21] the railroad station. As his mind and eyes were always active he became interested in studying human nature about him. Some peculiar actions on the part of three men seated on a bench opposite him attracted his attention and caused him to utter an exclamation.

What seemed queer to the mind of Frank was the fact that one of the trio, a slouch-shouldered, furtive-eyed man, after some confidential talk with the two others, took up his satchel from the floor. He glanced keenly all about him to see that he was not observed. Then a crafty smile came to his lips as he partly reversed the satchel. To the amazement of Frank the satchel appeared to have no bottom.

Some coiling springs seemed to fill the inside space. The man chuckled as he righted the satchel again. One of his companions laughed and the other slapped him on the shoulder as though it were all a great joke. Then the three men walked towards the waiting trains. Frank felt that somehow the incident was suspicious. He wondered if the hollow satchel might not after all be some new invention. But just then the professor put in an appearance.

He swung a satchel in one hand and seemed flustered as he rushed to the ticket office and thence with Frank to the train.

[22]“Just made it!” he explained, sinking breathlessly into a seat. “Got sort of bothered.”

“How was that, Professor Barrington?” inquired Frank.

“Why, I’ve told you I bungled into talking over my plans with a man who, I am now convinced, was bent upon stealing my ideas. When I went back to my hotel I noticed this fellow skulking about the entrance. When I came down from my room to get my satchel, the hotel clerk said someone had been to him asking when I was leaving and where I was going. I don’t like the look of things.”

“You are probably rid of the man, now you are leaving the city,” suggested Frank.

“I sincerely hope so,” returned the professor, with a relieved sigh. “Now we’re by ourselves and comfortable, let us have a thorough talk over our affairs.”

There was a double seat directly behind the one they were in, occupied by a lady and her two children. The little ones were romping and noisy, and after a glance at these neighbors the professor plunged into his subject, not fearful of any eavesdroppers. He had carelessly thrown his satchel in the space behind the seat, just off the aisle. One of its straps had come loose and trailed forward under the seat.

[23]Frank had placed his foot on this. He had no right to suggest or interfere with the personal affairs of his companion, but a memory of what the professor had said about the valuable contents of the satchel in the safe at the hotel, led Frank to wonder if this was the one. In his engrossed way the professor might have lost sight of the necessity of keeping guard over his treasures. Frank pressed his toe against the buckle on the end of the loose strap and resolved to keep it there.

Professor Barrington was a very entertaining man when he conversed on his pet subject. As he related the slow, patient and careful work he had done to have at command movies parties all over the world, ready for any rush order he might give, Frank was amazed.

“Think of it!” remarked the professor, “the photo play speaks the silent but universal language of sight, and the eventual triumph of motion photography is the educational film. I can see this movement lead to education in schools, exhibitions, in conventions.

“I can see marvels of nature we have heretofore only read about brought right into natural action before our eyes. I have already forty-two thousand feet of negatives, including the split reels. I have in view double that volume,[24] and not a film to be released to outsiders until we have gathered the first cream of profit and popularity. It will startle you, my young friend—more, it will thrill you, when you go into the details of the outfit gathered and gathering. Did you know,” demanded the professor, “that there are insects that wash their faces, just as humans do?”

“Why, no, sir—” began Frank.

“You shall see the proof of it, taken from nature. Of course you know what the telepathic sense means?”

“As I take it, it is the ability of dumb creatures to use a mysterious sixth sense that enables them to scent danger at a distance or communicate with one another.”

“Right—especially with ants,” responded the professor. “In Africa scientists have marvelled that an army of these intelligent little creatures should halt in a second when their leader strikes an obstacle. This is done with system and order, when the last ant is half a mile distant and shut out of sight of the head of the procession by a hill or some other object.”

“That seems wonderful,” remarked Frank.

“Well,” declared Professor Barrington, triumphantly, “I have solved the mystery. I have had photographs taken with such an insect army in[25] motion. It took twenty machines to catch the subject, but the film is made continuous. The king ant halted at a stream. Instantly it shot out a hind foot. Almost as quickly as electricity the ant next behind and those beyond it transmitted that signal down down the line. We estimate that it took just fifty-four seconds to deliver the ‘Halt’ message to the last ant. The photo, magnified, shows the most interesting kicking picture you ever saw.”

For over an hour the professor kept up such an interesting discourse that Frank was charmed. The train was slowing up, and the professor, leaning close to Frank, was pouring into his ear a description of a leaping kangaroo film among his treasures, when Frank straightened up suddenly and fixed his eye upon a man who had just left his seat and was coming down the aisle.

In a flash Frank recognized him as the person he had seen at the city railway station with the hollow satchel. The fellow carried the article now. He swung along as if it was heavy, which Frank knew could not be the case. He stumbled as he passed the seat containing the professor and Frank and seemed to momentarily drop his satchel to the floor as if to regain his balance.

Frank’s nerves thrilled as the man picked up his satchel again. A jerk moved the strap upon[26] which Frank had his foot. He arose quickly and turned his head. The professor’s satchel was gone!

The man, who Frank knew in a flash must have taken it up inside his “patent” satchel, was hurrying to the door of the car. With a bound our young hero, guessing at the shrewd trick attempted, was after him.

“Hold on, there!” shouted Frank, so sharply that he attracted the attention of everyone in the coach.

“Meaning me?” retorted the fellow he was after, as Frank ran up to him and grabbed one arm.

“Yes, I do,” cried Frank. “You just took a satchel from behind that seat yonder and I want it.”

“Nonsense! What are you talking about?” shouted the man. “Don’t delay me. This is my station. Let go!” But Frank had slipped his hand down to the satchel the man swung about, and deftly reversing it, unset the stolen satchel from the coiling springs that had caught it up and held it.

“You meddler!” he hissed savagely. The man saw that he was unmasked and outwitted, and with a vicious swing brought his own satchel against Frank’s head. The latter went spinning[27] to the floor, but he held on to the professor’s property.

“Astonishing!” exclaimed his fellow-traveler, arising in wonder to his feet. “Stop that man!” But the fellow whom Frank had baffled darted for the rear door of the car, leaped outside, slammed it shut after him and sprang to the platform of the station before the train stopped.

A dozen curious passengers questioned Frank as to the details of the strange incident they had noticed.

“A slick thief with a trick satchel,” Frank explained, briefly. “Keep tight hold of your property, Professor,” he told his mystified friend. The train halted only for a moment to let off a few passengers. Frank had gone to the car platform. He leaned from it, gazing keenly down the length of the platform to see if he could find any trace of the thief.

The latter was nowhere in sight, however, until after the train had started. Then Frank saw him come into view around the distant end of the depot building. The fellow made some motions with his hands as if conveying a signal to someone. Frank turned and sharply took in the interior of the car. He saw a man just shutting down a window. He had not noticed this person before. Now he recognized him as one of the[28] men who had been with the thief in the city railway station.

“The professor’s fears are well founded, it seems,” reflected Frank. “There has been a plot afoot to get possession of that satchel. Well, the schemers haven’t done it so far. I don’t think they will get it if I can help it.”

Frank found the professor seated with the rescued satchel in his lap, holding it tightly in both hands. He looked both bewildered and timorous.

“That fellow was trying to steal my satchel!” he declared, in a nervous, alarmed way. “Mr. Durham, that means something.”

“Yes,” assented Frank, “I suppose he singled out your satchel with a purpose.”

“You mean he has followed us from New York with the intent of depriving me of my property?” asked the professor.

“It looks that way, sir,” answered Frank, gravely.

“It is a good thing you were with me,” said Professor Barrington, with a grateful look. “Audacious! Unheard of! Dear me! What villainy there is in the world!”

Frank felt that all was safe now, and tried to allay the concern of his companion. He thought it best not to alarm the latter by revealing his[29] suspicion that the man six seats ahead of them was probably a member of the group that was after that precious satchel.

Frank kept his eye on this man, who pretended to be absorbed in a newspaper. He showed no outward sign that the incident had affected or interested him. Frank was about to ask the professor to walk to the front end of the car and take a look at the man’s face, when there came a sharp whistle from the locomotive.

Almost instantly the brakes were set. There was a grinding jar, then a shock and a crash. Frank realized that something was coming and grasped the seat brace.

Not so the professor. As the train came to an abrupt stop amid the jangle of broken glass and parting timbers, he was lifted from his seat violently. He shot past Frank and landed in the aisle like a lump of clay.

Frank had never taken part in a scene of greater disorder and excitement. He knew at once that the train had run into some heavy obstacle or had been derailed. A dozen of the passengers were thrown from their seats. Women were shrieking, and the two little children in the seat just behind the one the professor and Frank had occupied were wailing in fright as their mother caught them in her arms and crouched speechless and dazed.

Frank saw that they were not seriously injured. The car had tilted and then, as a great shock passed through its strained woodwork, come to a stop. The frightened passengers were rushing for the doors. One or two men threw open windows and tumbled outside. Frank’s first thought was of his new friend. He sprang to the spot where the professor lay senseless and just in time managed to drag him out of the path[31] of the terrified people crowding the aisle in an attempt to escape.

“I declare!” spoke the dazed savant, as Frank pulled him into a seat. “What happened?”

The speaker rubbed a contusion on his head and gazed about him vacantly. Then his eyes closed and he swayed to and fro.

“Come out,” directed a train hand at the rear doorway. “It’s a wreck; but nobody is seriously hurt.”

Frank piled over the backs of half a dozen seats and got at the water tank. He wet his handkerchief, returned to his charge, and applied it to his head. In a minute or two the professor recovered his senses.

“There’s been a collision, I assume,” he remarked. “Look at that front end all smashed in! We’re lucky. Let us get out of this and see where we’re stranded.”

“Why, yes,” agreed Frank, “only—where’s the satchel!”

For the first time Frank thought of it. The car was pretty well vacated by this time, and many had left wraps and satchels behind in their haste to reach a place of safety. Frank made a casual and then a more careful survey of the floor of the coach. He finally returned to his anxious-faced friend.

[32]“Professor Barrington,” he said, “I fear, after all our vigilance and trouble, we have been outwitted.”

“What do you mean, Mr. Durham?”

“Your satchel is missing.”

“Perhaps somebody caught it up by mistake. See, a lot of people have left their belongings behind them all mixed up. Maybe someone took it in the excitement of the moment.”

“I’d like to think that; I hope you are right,” rejoined Frank. “We must get outside and make a search right away.”

Frank had not told the professor about the man who had sat just ahead of them, and who he felt sure was an accomplice of the fellow who had tried to steal the satchel. In his own mind Frank felt sure that this accomplice had obtained the professor’s satchel during the confusion in the passenger coach.

Frank’s mind was centered on the satchel, but when he got outside the uproar and confusion took up his attention. It appeared that in making a curve the express train had run into a derailed freight car, ignoring the danger signal of a red flag, another somewhat back having been overlooked by the engineer.

The locomotive and baggage car were badly damaged. They had plunged into the rear of a[33] freight train and demolished it. Both tracks were blocked. No one apparently had been seriously hurt, although there had been a bad shake-up all around.

The accident had occurred in a lonely cut crossed by a typical country road. The train hands were getting the passengers into the rear coaches that had not been badly damaged. Frank gathered enough from the talk of the trainmen, amid the hurly-burly of the emergency, to understand that it would be several hours before a wrecking train could arrive.

“We’re stalled here, probably till midnight,” Frank heard the conductor say to the engineer.

“You had better get into that coach while I make another search for that satchel, Professor Barrington,” Frank suggested.

“I sincerely hope you will find some trace of it,” was the anxious reply. “I declare! I thought all my troubles had ended when I left New York City with you, and here I find myself in a worse mix-up than ever.”

Frank kept a sharp eye out for the man to whom the fellow with the hollow satchel had signalled. Although he inspected all the coaches and looked over the crowd along the tracks, he could gain no trace of the one he was so anxious to find.

[34]By the time Frank rejoined the professor the conductor of the train had got word to and from a towerman, about a mile away. He announced that it would be some hours before the track could be cleared, a fresh engine obtained, and the journey resumed.

“Any trace of the satchel, Mr. Durham?” was the first question the professor asked.

“I fear we shall never see the satchel or its contents again,” returned Frank, and thought it best to impart all of his suspicions. His companion listened with attention.

“You’ve got it right,” he decided, reluctantly. “They have been bound to get at that satchel all along. As soon as they did so they got away—crossed over to some other railroad line or went into hiding. I don’t see how we can trace them from this forlorn, out-of-the-way spot.”

“Are the contents of the satchel so very valuable, Professor Barrington?” inquired Frank.

“To men who I am assured are trying to steal my plan, immensely so,” was the reply. “You see, in the bag are all my private memoranda, lists of my connections, and the details of the very important lease I expect to close on playhouse quarters in Boston. If they get an inkling of that and obtain an option on the lease ahead of[35] us, it takes away about half of the merit of our proposition.”

Frank realized that they were in a pretty bad predicament. To think of running down the thief or thieves with the start the latter had would be folly. Long since, undoubtedly, the knaves had rifled the satchel and possessed themselves of the secrets of the professor’s project.

The pair grew tired of sitting in the coach and strolled outside, but the ardor of the professor seemed dampened. He did not say much, but acted as though depressed. They walked up and down the level space beside the track, each busy with his own thoughts. Finally Frank touched the professor’s arm and directed his attention to a group gathered about a figure on a stump, who was apparently addressing them.

“Someone seems to be making a speech,” observed Frank. “I wonder what he is saying.”

“Yes, it looks that way,” assented Professor Barrington, after a casual glance at the individual Frank had indicated.

Both walked towards the center of the group of people. As they neared the spot Frank saw that a bronzed, intelligent-faced lad of about sixteen was the orator. He was dressed in blue jeans and had the appearance of a typical farm boy.

[36]“Gentlemen and ladies,” he said, “this train will be delayed for several hours. Half a mile up the road is Home Farm, where I work. Mr. Dorsett—that’s my boss—sent me down here to tell you that there will be a lunch ready for all that want it from now up to dark.”

“What kind of a lunch, sonny?” asked a big man who seemed happy over finding himself with a whole skin after his shaking up on the train.

“Doughnuts, pumpkin pie and cider—apples thrown in, price fifteen cents,” was the prompt response. “Besides that, there’s a big veranda up at the house, with easy chairs, and hammocks and a swing.”

“I think I’ll take that in,” said the fat man, smacking his lips.

“That sounds refreshing,” observed Professor Barrington. “I declare! I have been so taken up with our business that I forgot lunch in the city.”

“I think I would like to try this home-made fare,” said Frank. “If it’s as good as it is cheap, it’s worth testing. Will you act as pilot?” he asked of the boy.

“All aboard! It’s just the walk for an appetite,” declared the lad, briskly, jumping down from the stump and starting for the road.[37] Frank, the professor and several others followed and they soon came in sight of a pleasant old homestead. Under a towering oak tree was a long picnic table, a bench on either side. The thrifty farmer and his wife ministered to the needs of their guests.

“That was prime,” remarked Professor Barrington, after they had eaten of the plain but appetizing fare. “A great relief, this cool shady spot, after the bustle and excitement down at the railroad. There’s a rustic bower over yonder; let us rest there for a bit. I would like to get my scattered wits together.”

Frank assented to this arrangement. Others of the visitors installed themselves on the porch or went into the big “company room” of the house. The professor became talkative again. He went over the playhouse project, which brought up the loss of the precious satchel.

“We had better forget that loss,” suggested Frank, “for I don’t see any way to remedy it. If certain schemers are going to become our business rivals on what they stole from you, they won’t succeed. Such people never do in the end. I shouldn’t worry about it, if I were you. It’s your brains that have worked up this idea, and you are bound to have the best of it.

“Oh, did you want something?” Frank interrupted[38] himself, as the boy who had piloted them from the railroad appeared at the doorway of the bower.

“Why, yes—no—I don’t know,” stammered the lad, in an embarrassed way. “Say, I don’t want you to think I’m any eavesdropper. I was resting outside here, though, and couldn’t help but hear your talk. I’m so dead gone on shows that I just had to listen, and when you spoke of the satchel——”

“Ah!” broke in the professor, eagerly, “you know something about that?”

“I think I do—I don’t know for certain,” was the reply; “but if you’ll wait here for five minutes I’ll find out if what I guess amounts to anything.”

And then the strange lad was off like an arrow, leaving Professor Barrington in a state of great suspense and Frank wondering what the next happening of their eventful journey was to be.

“Incomprehensible!” exclaimed Professor Barrington, gazing after the excited lad who had scudded up to them and then away. “What do you think that young fellow means by all this?”

“It is simple, to my way of thinking,” responded Frank. “He heard us talking about that missing satchel and knows something about it.”

“But what can he know?” inquired the professor, arising to his feet and pacing the floor of the summer house in his quick, nervous way.

“Well, he strikes me as an unusually keen and intelligent boy,” returned Frank. “He is of the kind who keep their eyes open, and may possibly have noticed the man who got the satchel. Here he is back again, to report for himself.”

At an amazing pace, his bright young face showing keen interest, the farm boy was steering straight for the summer house. As he approached[40] he waved some object in his hand. Frank started as he recognized its familiar outlines.

“Is that it?” questioned the farm boy, breathlessly, dropping his burden on the little round table.

Frank’s eyes brightened and Professor Barrington uttered a cry of delight The farm lad had placed upon the table the stolen satchel. It seemed to Frank as if a great weight had been lifted from his mind. Certainly the situation had cleared wonderfully.

Professor Barrington grasped the satchel in both hands. Frank had never seen him so excited as he tore it open. Then the old savant dug down into the open receptacle with feverish haste. Its contents covered the table. He fell back, stared at the various articles in astonishment and began to rub his head in a bewildered way.

“I declare!” he said, feebly. “Confusion worse confounded! Not mine, after all.”

“If you mean the satchel,” spoke Frank, quickly pouncing upon the article in question, “it is the one I got back from the fellow who tried to steal it with the hollow satchel. Of that I am positive—see, here is the strap and the buckle I kept under my foot when he got aboard.”

[41]“But that—truck?” objected the professor. “Why, just look at it—a pair of gloves, a veil, a lady’s toilet outfit and a dressing sack.”

“That’s so,” assented Frank, for the moment all at sea. Then he took up an envelope bearing an address. It read: “Mrs. Clara Barnes,” and had been directed to the hotel in New York City, where the professor had lived during his recent stay there.

“I think I understand,” said Frank to himself, and his thoughts cleared. He placed the envelope in his pocket and proceeded to repack the satchel, while he inquired of the boy who had brought it to them:

“How did you happen to come across this satchel?”

“Why, you see I saw two men squabbling over it,” explained the farm lad.

“That was when?” pressed Frank. “I wish you would describe what they were like.”

The boy proceeded to do this while Frank listened attentively. When the narrator had finished Frank recognized one of the persons as the man who had received the signal from the fellow with the trick satchel. His companion did not tally with anyone Frank could recall just then.

“When I first went down to the train,” went on the farm boy, “I heard voices behind the hedge[42] of the old farm house that burned down. Two men were talking. One had just flung that satchel to the ground.

“‘You’re a blunderer,’ he said to the other man. ‘You’ve missed on everything.’

“I went on to guide the people to the farm and thought no more of it, until I overhead your conversation here. Then I made up my mind it was the same satchel you were talking about. I went back to the hedge and found it, but the men were nowhere about.”

“I don’t know how to solve this problem,” remarked Professor Barrington with a groan; “but there has been tricky work somewhere. At all events, my precious papers are gone. We had better get to Boston and head off these men. Then we can get to work to see if we cannot mend matters in some way.”

“You have done us a favor,” said Frank to the farm boy, and he handed him a dollar bill. “You know the lay of the land around here. Can you figure out any way of our going on without waiting for that wreck to be cleared away?”

“Sure I can,” responded the lad, briskly. “If you’re willing to foot the bill I think Mr. Dorsett will let me hitch up the surrey and take you over to Woodhill.”

[43]“How far is that?” inquired Frank.

“Eighteen miles. You see, a branch road runs from there and hits the main line further along.”

“That’s good,” said Frank. “Go ahead and make the arrangements. We’ll pay what’s fair for the service.”

The professor sat at the table absorbed in making some notes in his memorandum book. Frank walked to a little distance and sat down on a rustic seat. He was thoughtful, but his face showed energy.

“I think I have figured out about the mystery of the satchel,” he told himself with some satisfaction. “I don’t think, though, that I will raise the professor’s hopes or burden his mind with any further suspense, until I am sure of my ground. As soon as I reach Boston—hello!”

The farm boy had again come up to him. He regarded Frank shyly, then wistfully, and then blurted out:

“Say, I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

“Fire away,” responded Frank, with an encouraging smile.

“Mr. Dorsett is getting the rig ready, and I’m to drive you over to Woodhill. You’ve sort of riled me all up coming here and I wanted to get it off my mind.”

[44]“How is that?” asked Frank, wonderingly.

“Why, from what I heard you say I guess you’re show people,” said the lad.

“Well, we are in what is called the movies line—yes,” admitted Frank.

“That’s still better,” declared the boy. “Here’s the way it is! I want to break into the business. It’s a new idea and I want a chance before it gets stale. I was sort of born to the show line. You see, my father was a lion tamer. He’s dead now. My uncle is with a menagerie out West. He settled me in a comfortable home here, but I just dream all the time about the show life I know I’d just love. Many a time I’ve had a mind to go to my uncle, whether he liked it or not, or run away from here and join a show.”

“Oh, you mustn’t think of doing that,” declared Frank.

“I know that,” confessed the lad, naively, “and that’s why I spoke to you, thinking maybe you would help me break into the business respectably. See here, my name is Vic Belton and a letter directed in care of Mr. Dorsett will reach me by rural free delivery. If you have a show or are going to have one, can’t you try and give me a chance?”

Frank had to smile. He was constantly running across ambitious young fellows who saw[45] nothing but glare and glitter in the movies line—and wanted to “break into it,” as the lad put it. Frank in a few words explained some of the cold facts of the business, which did not seem to make much impression on his lively auditor.

“That’s all right,” said the young fellow, in an offhand way; “but I may line up right to do what I want some day. Won’t you give me your address? I may want to write to you some time.”

Frank obliged the persistent Vic, telling him of the Empire at New York City and the possibility of locating in Boston. Then the surrey was ready and there was a brisk drive to Woodhill, where they had to wait nearly three hours for a train.

It was late in the afternoon when they reached Boston. It was Frank’s first view of the great center of culture. Its crooked streets confused and puzzled him as they walked the short distance from the station to the Parker House at the corner of Tremont and School streets, just a block from the famed Boston Common.

“We will not be able to do much in the way of business until to-morrow,” announced the professor as they were shown to a pleasant room in the great hostelry. “I want to show you around the Common in the morning, however. Then we will map out our programme.”

[46]Professor Barrington was pretty well tired out with the excitement and cares of the day. Frank was glad when he announced that he would go to bed, as it was then past 10 o’clock.

“Now for it,” Frank said to himself, following out an idea he had carried in his mind for several hours. Frank went to the telephone booth in the hotel, directing the operator to call up long distance.

New York City was the connection he desired, specifically the hotel at which Professor Barrington had been a guest. Frank was at the ’phone for some time and left the booth with animated step and a bright face. He returned at once to the room upstairs. The Professor was slumbering peacefully as a child. Frank closed the door softly after him and proceeded to lift to a stand the satchel he had found, and which he had brought to Boston with him.

Frank repacked the satchel carefully, wrote an address on a card and tied it to the handle. Then he also went to bed. The next morning Frank was astir early and was dressed before the professor awoke. The latter blinked at Frank, then at the satchel.

“H’m!” he observed. “Disagreeable impression. That satchel. Mystery, too—clouded. What you doing with it now?”

[47]“I am sending it back to the owner, Professor Barrington,” explained Frank.

“Why, how can you do that? Do you know the owner?”

“Yes, sir,” replied Frank. “In the same connection, I have a very pleasing announcement to make to you. I have located your own satchel and expect it will be in your hands safe and sound again within the next twenty-four hours.”

Professor Barrington jumped to his feet as though he had received an electric shock. He fumbled about for his glasses, adjusted them and then stared at Frank.

“You can’t mean it, Durham,” he declared, quaveringly. “The satchel all right? I’m to get it back?”

“Yes, sir, I promise that,” returned Frank. “I didn’t want to bother you, Professor Barrington, with all you had on your mind. Besides, I wasn’t sure of my ground until after you had gone to sleep. I will explain, if you like.”

“You’ve dazed me,” declared the professor, sinking to a seat. “I can’t understand it at all.”

“It is very simple,” stated Frank, but there was pride in his tone. “You see, what you did when you left the hotel in New York City was to pick up a satchel which did not belong to you.”

“Dear me!” gasped the professor. “Just like[49] me. I declare! My wits will go wool-gathering some day and get me into all kinds of trouble. Stupidity—unutterable!” and the old gentleman gave his head a sharp crack with his hand.

“The idea came to me when I found an envelope in that satchel there,” continued Frank. “It bore the address of a lady at the hotel you had just left. I got the hotel on long distance. Your mistake——”

“Incalculable blockheadedness!” corrected the professor.

“Your mistake,” went on Frank, mildly, “had already been discovered by the clerk. He did not know where to reach you, but when I took the liberty of ’phoning to him as your representative, we straightened out affairs at once. He will ship your satchel by the first express. I must get this one back to its owner.”

Professor Barrington was moving about the room briskly when Frank returned, after expressing the satchel that had gone through so many adventures. He rubbed his hands together in a pleased way and beamed on Frank with satisfaction as he remarked:

“I’ve been told I ought to have a guardian; you have proven it, Durham. I declare, it was fortunate I had you with me. You see, those fellows who followed us on the train are a desperate lot.”

[50]“There is no doubt that they are a dangerous crowd,” assented Frank.

“And they won’t let us alone now, I’ll warrant,” observed the professor. “If I didn’t know I was in such safe and able hands, I believe I’d call in the police for protection.”

“There will be no occasion for that, I fancy,” responded Frank. “I believe as you do that these men realize that you have an idea of value and want to steal it from you. That comes up every day, though, especially in the movies line. Everybody in that field is trying to get ahead of his neighbor. We must expect lots of rivalry. Of course you would know the man you met in New York City who pretended to be able to help you in your plans?”

“Oh, yes, I should recognize him on sight,” the professor assured Frank. “He knows my plans, and he knows that the elaborate outline of its details in my satchel is well worth stealing. He doesn’t know the main essential of my project, however.”

“You mean, Professor?” queried Frank.

“The big chance there is in getting an ideal location here in which to start the educational photo playhouse.”

“You have got that; have you?” asked Frank, very much interested.

[51]“I certainly have,” replied the professor, with manifest pride. “I saw at once at the outset that there might be some difficulty in introducing a new kind of motion picture feature to the public. I spent fully two months in deciding as to the best city. Of course it was Boston.”

“A very wise choice, I should say,” agreed Frank.

“Then I also knew that location was everything. I devoted days and days to visiting every section of the city. It was an educational experience for me and brought me against many practical, business facts. At one time I fancied I must locate in a very cultured neighborhood and hire a prim, eminently respectable hall. Then for a spell I favored a location near several educational institutions.

“It dawned on me, though, that my possible patrons would be comparatively few in number; that maybe they had already a surfeit of learning. So, I decided on one point—it was that if I couldn’t in some way interest the masses and popularize my project as an entertainment, I couldn’t make a lasting success of it.”

“I think your idea was a good one,” commented Frank.

“Thank you, Durham,” replied the professor, “and I think a great deal of your good judgment.[52] Well, I finally determined that there was one best location and that was on Boston Common.”

“Why, Professor Barrington,” spoke Frank, “can it be done?”

“It can,” answered the professor, positively. “It’s taken some digging to find that out, but I accomplished what I was after. It is true that Boston Common is a limited and very exclusive bit of territory, but it is changing, as all business centers do, and the quick and ready man with capital can get his opportunity by watching out for it and acting quickly when the right time comes.

“I’ve brought you down here because I’ve got to decide on a location within the next two days or lose my option on a most valuable lease. I don’t expect you and your people to go into this thing blindfolded, although you’ve got to act quickly. I suggest that we fortify ourselves with a good breakfast. Then I will take you for a stroll, that will show you the exact situation far better than I can tell it to you.”

“That will be fine, Professor Barrington,” said Frank. “I shall be interested in more ways than one, as this is my first view of Boston.”

Everything seemed going so smoothly now that the professor was as gay as a schoolboy on a lark. As they reached Tremont street just opposite[53] the Common, Frank halted involuntarily, caught by the novelty of the scene. His first glance singled out several playhouses already located there. His companion pointed out the Temple, given over to educational exhibitions, concerts and the like; a well-known vaudeville theater, and several popular playhouses.

“There’s the subway to Cambridge, on Tremont street,” explained the professor, “and that is the State House at the far end of the Common. This is the hub of Boston, just as the city itself is the ‘Hub of the Universe.’”

Frank as yet knew little of the city, but he was quick-witted enough to realize that the professor had selected a fine location for his enterprise. The places of entertainment already established, the presence of the crowds, the general environment decided Frank, just as it had done when he had picked out the vacant structure on upper Broadway in New York City that had become the best venture of the moving picture chums—the Empire.

“Yes,” observed Frank, thoughtfully, “location is everything. I am at your command, Professor Barrington, to go through with the proposition as speedily and thoroughly as possible.”

“There are two places on the Common that[54] are available,” explained the professor, “although the fact is not generally known. We will take in the first one, as it is nearest at hand. Here we are,” announced the speaker, stepping to the curb out of the way of passing pedestrians and halting his companion by his side.

They faced a narrow building of an old type. It was not yet open, but the lettering on the windows apprised Frank of the fact that it was a large stationers’ supply store.

“The people here are going to move as soon as their new building on Washington street is ready for them,” spoke the professor. “The place is not yet on the market, but the present occupants are anxious to transfer their lease.”

“Why,” remarked Frank, “the place does not strike me very favorably. It is narrow, it can’t be of very great depth and would not hold much of an audience.”

“Oh, well, I never thought seriously of it,” explained the professor. “There’s some kind of a warehouse at the rear goes with it. I just mentioned it because it is one of the only two places on the Common where there is the slightest chance of getting space.”

“And the other place?” questioned Frank, who was not at all impressed with the one just inspected.

[55]Professor Barrington led the way for about a square. A double building used as a restaurant finally faced them. The depth was fair, it showed plenty of floor space, but, unfamiliar as he was with the city, Frank did not like the location. The structure suggested business rather than entertainment. It was out of the amusement belt.

“How do you like it?” questioned Professor Barrington, eagerly.

“To tell you the truth, it appears sort of lonely and isolated to me.”

“But look at the roominess!” urged the professor.

“That is something; but not everything,” replied Frank. “The place would have to be remodeled, and in constructing an attractive entrance and rounding the stage end so all of the audience can see the pictures, a good deal of room must be used up.”

“You must remember, Durham, that you might not find as large a space as that again on the Common within the next ten years. You see—”

In the midst of his earnest championship of his pet location, the professor came to so abrupt a pause that Frank was startled. His companion had grasped his arm violently. With his other hand he pointed at two passing men.

[56]“Look—look sharp, Durham,” he whispered in a low, quick tone, “there’s the man I spoke about; the fellow I told my scheme to in New York City.”

Frank’s glance swept the two persons. The one nearest to him he recognized at once as the man who had sat in the same car with them on the train and who had stolen the satchel.

It was the companion of this person at whom the professor was pointing. In a flash Frank identified this individual.

“Why,” he said instantly, “that is Slavin!”

“Slavin?” exclaimed Professor Barrington, not understanding Frank’s remark. “Why, in New York City he told me his name was Taylor.”

“He was deceiving you,” declared Frank. “If that is the man who tried to worm your secrets out of you, all that has happened since we left New York is easily explained. He is a dangerous man. I am glad I now know who is at the bottom of all this mischief. We need not work in the dark any longer.”

“What do you mean, Durham?” inquired the professor, curiously.

“That he is a criminal,” replied Frank, “and if he troubles us any further I shall hand him over to the police.”

“Tell me—” began the professor, but Frank took his arm and moved along in the direction pursued by the two men in advance of them.

“I will explain all this to you later,” he told[58] his companion rapidly. “I want to see where those men are bound. They must have just arrived in the city. I suspect where they are headed. Yes,” added Frank, “I thought so.”

“Thought what, Durham?” inquired the professor.

“They have turned towards our hotel. They must guess or know that you would put up there. They have gone inside. We will go in too, Professor Barrington, but please keep in the background as much as possible while I try to find out what they are up to.”

Without making himself at all conspicuous Frank soon found out what the precious pair were doing. He saw them go to the clerk’s desk. One of them looked over the register. He seemed to find what he was looking for in the list of guests and pointed it out to his companion. Then they left the hotel.

“We had better get up to our room, Professor,” suggested Frank, rejoining his friend. “There is a good deal to talk about.”

“I should say there was,” replied Professor Barrington, quite disturbed. “About that man who told me his name was Taylor—I want you to explain, Durham. Dear! Dear! The pitfalls of business that yawn for an innocent old fossil like myself!”

[59]“His real name is Slavin,” explained Frank, as they seated themselves in their room. “He is a man who has been a sort of brigand and pest in the movies line for two years. The fellow has no standing with the good film exchanges and I fancied he had been forced out of the field months ago.”

“He fooled me completely,” declared the professor. “From what he told me I thought he was hand in glove with all the big movies men.”

“You were lucky to get out of his clutches as easily as you have,” said Frank, “for he is a crafty swindler. I knew him when we first started the Airdrome at Riverside Grove. He had a hold on a poor lad named Dave Sawyer, whom we rescued from his clutches and who is now looking after the Airdrome. Slavin got mad because we were first in securing a lease he was after. He annoyed us in a dozen mean ways, shunting a searchlight down into the Airdrome while an entertainment was going on, and finally trying to blow us up with dynamite. When we got the proofs of that he disappeared, leaving all kinds of unpaid bills behind him.”

“A regular rascal; eh?” observed the professor. “If he’s as bad as that, won’t he bother and harry us?”

“He won’t be permitted to do that,” replied[60] Frank, decidedly, “for I shall not allow it. There is no doubt to my way of thinking but that he is bound to find out how and where you are going to locate and try and get ahead of you. I think, too, he dislikes me, so he would be glad to injure me. Being fully advised of his probable intentions, I am forewarned. First and foremost, we must guard against those fellows discovering where we hope to locate.”

“They’ll spy on us and follow us,” said the professor.

“Then leave it to me to throw them off the trail,” returned Frank. “The great point in this plan of yours is the chance of finding a suitable stand on Boston Common. Can it be done? If it can, then I feel sure that my partners will think as I do that your educational film project is a first-class proposition and that we will be glad to go in with you.”

“That is good news,” declared the professor, his frank face betraying the pleasure and satisfaction he felt. “As to the location, I’m sorry you do not look with favor on the ones I had selected.”

“I don’t say that,” Frank hastened to explain. “I am only thinking that there may be a better one. I always look for the best, and it may pay us well to search more closely before[61] we decide on something that only half satisfies us.”

“You forget, Durham,” responded the professor, earnestly, “that I have spent nearly a month seeking a location. I have visited nearly every building facing the Common, and have interviewed owners and agents. I would almost guarantee that there is not another lease existing or prospective that could be secured. It took a deal of inquiry and probing to find out about the two we have in view.”

“Well,” said Frank, “I would like to go over those two in a thorough way, and I suggest that I investigate them in detail later in the day.”

“That’s all right,” was the reply, “in fact the very thing,” and then the speaker went on to explain the condition of the two leases and the terms, with which Frank familiarized himself.

“When my satchel arrives,” the professor added, “I want you to see what a splendid programme I have laid out. Nobody will get ahead of us as to that, Durham, for it has taken months to arrange my connections and get up the material to start with films that are simply wonderful.”

From the later talk of the professor, Frank was satisfied that the operating end of the proposition was no dream. The rarity, nature and variety of[62] some of the films his companion described quite enthralled the young leader of the motion picture chums.

He was neither uneasy nor alarmed as to the enmity and plotting of Slavin and his cohorts. Every inch of the way in his former progress in the movies line Frank had been called upon to fight for his rights. Keen wit and straightforward action had heretofore scored success for him. He was now ready for a new battle, if occasion demanded it.

Frank had every reason for believing that his enemies would be on the alert to spy on their movements. They had been baffled in getting hold of the precious satchel; but a knowledge of the ideas of Professor Barrington was theirs. Outwitting a business rival by getting ahead of him in securing some desirable lease was a favorite line of tactics for Slavin. He was notorious for this kind of scheming, generally seeking to block the plans of the people he was after, relying on their paying a big bonus to buy him out.

Frank was about his business shortly after luncheon. The satchel had not arrived, and the professor was so anxious about it that he decided to remain at the hotel until it came. Frank was glad of this. He had been put in possession[63] of all the facts about the leases by his new friend and had calculated the risk of Slavin or his emissaries shadowing them. Alone, he knew he could more easily evade his rivals than if the slow-going, blundering professor were in his company.

“I’ll give the big double store fair play,” Frank decided; “but it isn’t exactly what we want.” As he approached the place and looked it over from the outside and took in its entire environment, he was less in favor of the location than ever.

However, he entered the place and inquired for a Mr. Page. This was the person with whom the professor had been negotiating. Frank introduced himself.

“I had not heard from Professor Barrington as I expected, and I began to think he had given up considering us,” said Mr. Page. “In fact, I felt warranted in looking out for a new tenant. I have not definitely found one, but several business firms are figuring on the lease. You know that the verbal option I gave to the professor expired yesterday.”

“I did not know it,” replied Frank, in some surprise. “The professor must have got confused in his dates, for he supposes the choice is open for him for some days to come.”

[64]“Well, it must be a free chance for everybody if you do not decide quickly,” announced Mr. Page in a business-like way. “Will you look around the place?”

This Frank did and his inspection was a thorough one. His past experience was a great guide to him. A good deal was at stake, Frank realized. He was able to picture just how the place would look when transformed. He was also able to calculate the cost, the opportunities for improvement, and the conveniences as to light, heat, ventilation, exits and seating capacity.

Frank devoted nearly an hour to his investigation. At the end of that time he informed Mr. Page that he would see the professor and decide upon what they would do at once. He came out upon the street to again look critically over the exterior. He was thoughtful and serious as he stood on the edge of the sidewalk taking in the surroundings.

“Now for the other place,” soliloquized Frank, and he passed down the square until he came to the old stationery store. All the time he had kept a sharp lookout for Slavin and his friend. As he entered the store, however, Frank was satisfied that no one had been following him.

The interior of the stationery store certainly was not very inviting, but Frank was not inclined[65] to form a decision from a superficial inspection. The store was indeed narrow, as he had observed in the morning, but Frank had in view the old warehouse at the rear that the professor had told him about.

The proprietor of the place directed him to this. The present rental was less than half what the people at the other location asked. Frank’s eyes took on a speculative expression as, after crossing a few feet of yard space, he looked into the building that covered waste room at the rear of the store.

“Why, this is simply great!” he told himself a minute later. “This old building is as big as a theatre. What a palace paint and gilt could make of it!”

Frank had entered the stationery store rather cool in his views of the location. He came out of it with some new ideas in his mind. His face was bright and he walked quickly. As he passed the first store he had visited he chanced to glance through its windows.

“Hello!” he ejaculated. “Slavin and his friend were earlier birds than I thought.”

He hurried his steps in the direction of the hotel, but not until he had fully recognized the two men inside the store. They were talking with Mr. Page, its proprietor.

[66]“They must have seen me go in; they must have been watching me clear from the hotel,” mused Frank. “They are after that lease. Perhaps they are now closing their negotiations.”

A queer smile crossed Frank’s face. It was as though some pleasing thought occupied his mind. Then he said, with satisfaction:

“Well, I’m going to fool them!”

Frank hurried back to the hotel. A brilliant picture filled his thoughts, his eyes sparkled, and the harder he cogitated the more alluring became the prospect.

“There never was a chance like it,” he said almost breathlessly, as he reached the hotel. “Why! Professor Barrington is not here!” he added, as he entered their room.

Frank was about to go downstairs again, counting on finding his friend in the lobby, when he noticed a sheet of paper with writing on it lying across the table in the middle of the room.

“What’s this, now?” he spoke, picking up the document and scanning it closely. It read:

[68]The scrawl was signed “Aaron Bissell.” It seemed to Frank that he had heard the professor refer to a person of that name high up in educational circles. It appeared as though the message had called the professor away from the hotel and that this explained his absence.

Frank noted that the message had been hurriedly scrawled and that it had not been folded. In one corner was the notation in pencil: “Tel. 3:43,” and Frank readily discerned that it had come over the hotel telephone about fifteen minutes before.

“I’ll make sure of that,” he reflected, and he verified his surmise from the operator downstairs. There was no valid reason why Frank should entertain any suspicions. It was natural that a friend in distress should send for the professor, who was kind to everybody; still, a memory of the sly nature of Slavin and his adherents flashed into Frank’s thoughts. He went to the clerk at the desk.

“Do you know if anything came by express for Professor Barrington to-day?” he asked.

“Why, yes—just now,” was the response. “Is that it?” and the clerk searched in a rack behind him and produced a satchel with a tag attached to it.

Frank noted that it was addressed to his[69] friend, and bore the printed name of the hotel in New York that he had ’phoned to the evening before. The clerk pushed the satchel towards him as if he expected Frank to take it away, but the latter said:

“I won’t take it just now; not until I see Professor Barrington. It would be a great favor to me if you would place that satchel under special lock and key, and not deliver it to anybody under any circumstances except to the professor himself.”

“It contains something of value, then?” asked the hotel clerk.

“Immensely valuable, yes,” responded Frank.

“I’ll put it in one of the safes, then,” declared the clerk, and did so.

Frank went back to his room. He was satisfied now. If the professor had been called away to leave the coast clear for some new rascality, then Slavin and his friends would be disappointed. Frank’s faint suspicions faded from his mind as he sat down at a table and began figuring on a pad of blank paper.

For an hour he was wrapped in many calculations. Then he sat back like a person planning and dreaming. Finally he got to pacing the floor, his face still wearing an expression of deep thought.

[70]“Hello!” he exclaimed at length, gazing in surprise at his watch. “Why, here I’ve been dreaming the time away for nearly two hours. And it’s strange, with all the interest the professor has in those leases, that he doesn’t return or send me some word. I can only wait, though.”

Frank sat down again at the table, and resumed his figuring on dimensions and estimates. The result seemed to please him. A great many thoughts flashed through his active mind.

“I’ll do it!” he exclaimed at last, rising to his feet and putting on his hat. “I’ll send the telegram, so there may be no delay. I don’t know how Professor Barrington may take it—perhaps Mr. Strapp may not come into my ideas; but I feel I’m right and I’m going ahead on my own hook.”

Frank went downstairs and wrote out and dispatched a telegram to New York City. It was addressed to Mr. Hank Strapp at the Empire photo playhouse. Then Frank went out to the Common, after making sure that no lurking spy was watching him. When he arrived at the stationery shop he dodged in quickly.

It was nearly half an hour later when he reappeared. Thoughtfulness had given place to a buoyant, confident manner. Frank snapped his fingers briskly, and hurried back to the hotel as[71] if he had taken a definite stand on the subject of his recent cogitations, and had done something final regarding it.

“I don’t care much if a dozen Slavins are watching me now,” he soliloquized. “I’ve blocked their game for certain.”

Frank was first impatient, then amazed and finally anxious as six o’clock arrived and no word came from his absent friend. His early suspicions took a more definite form. He finally went downstairs again and asked the hotel clerk the location of Burdell Row. He found it to be about four miles distant, but a street car would take him there. By this time Frank was worried. It was strange, he thought, that the professor should remain away so long when his mind was so set on the leases they had under consideration.

Within an hour Frank reached Burdell Row. It was a narrow, crooked thoroughfare in a poor section of the city, and lined with cheap stores. Frank came to No. 22 to find it a low, rickety building occupied by an ice cream parlor.

The proprietor, a coarse featured, shabbily dressed man, was the only person visible through the grimy front windows. Frank entered the place and was about to question the man when, glancing past the straggly strings of curtains festooning the archway leading to the back room,[72] he descried a familiar form at a table. It was Professor Barrington.

“I came about that gentleman,” said Frank, going straight into the rear room. “Why, he is asleep.”

The professor sat in a chair, his eyes closed and his head leaning over. Frank went up to him and seized his arm and shook it.

“Professor—Professor Barrington!” he called loudly. “Wake up! What does this mean?”

Frank eyed the proprietor of the place suspiciously as his friend stirred, mumbled some meaningless words and sank further down in the chair.

“Why, he’s asleep, as you see,” retorted the man, indifferently.

“How long has he been here?” inquired Frank, both suspicious and alarmed now.

“He came here about three o’clock this afternoon and asked if a man named Bissell was here. I told him no; but that a man had been here an hour before who said that if anybody inquired for a Mr. Bissell, he was to wait. So this man took a seat, as you see. In a little while the first fellow came in again. He talked with this one here. Then he ordered two glasses of lemonade. Then he came out. He said the old man was asleep, that some friends would call for him, but[73] to let him sleep until they came. He gave me a dollar for the privilege. That’s all I know about it.”

Frank doubted this. The speaker had a bad face and looked sneaking and untruthful. More than ever did Frank distrust the man. He was satisfied from the professor’s condition that something to make him drowsy had been mixed with the lemonade.

“I think I see it all,” mused Frank, succeeding in getting his friend to his feet. He led him to the street, where the fresh air began to revive him.

“Eh? Ah! Why, Durham, have I been asleep? No, no—I must not leave here,” he resisted, as Frank strove to move him along. “I must wait for a friend.”

“You have waited for him for over four hours already, Professor,” observed Frank, “and he has not come, nor will he come——”

“But I received a telephone message from Mr. Bissell.”

“You are mistaken,” insisted Frank. “I have reason to believe that the person who sent the message to the hotel, did so to keep you out of the way until he carried out some new nefarious scheme to block your educational film project.”

“Durham!” almost shouted the professor.[74] “You amaze me. You do not mean that that man who told me his name was Taylor has been playing a new trick on us?”

“Just exactly that, I fear,” replied Frank. “You have certainly been lured away and kept away from the hotel for some purpose.”

“Why,” cried the professor, fully roused, “it’s a new plot to get that satchel!”

“No, not that,” declared Frank. “The satchel is all right. It arrived just before I started in search of you. I got the clerk to place it in the safe and instructed him to deliver it to nobody but yourself.”

“You relieve me greatly, Durham,” declared the professor. “But what could be the object of sending me on this fool errand?”

“I can only guess,” replied Frank, “but I think our enemies are busy on that lease.”

“You don’t mean the big place I’m so anxious about?” questioned the professor, growing excited again.

“Just that,” said Frank, and explained about being followed by Slavin and his confederate and about seeing them in the place afterwards.

The recital had an extraordinary effect upon Professor Barrington. He became greatly excited and wrung his hands. Then, noticing a[75] taxicab coming down the street, he ran out in front of it, heedless of danger.

“Hi, there!” he shouted; “stop that machine! Jump in, quick,” he directed Frank, and then to the man: “Boston Common—and drive for your life!”

“It’s ruin! All my fine plans gone for nothing! Durham, those rascals have outwitted us! They have got the lease of that place and our educational film project has tumbled to pieces like a house of cards!”

Professor Barrington came bursting out of the store building into which he had just rushed precipitately, like a man out of his senses. His spectacles hung from one ear. With one hand he clutched a bunch of his sparse hair. His hat was on awry and he looked as if he had lost his last friend.

“Hold on,” said Frank gently, as he caught hold of the speaker, who seemed about to collapse from excess of emotion. “See here, you’re all wrong. Those fellows have fallen into a trap. I’ve got something ten times better than that lease and— Help me in with him,” Frank had to appeal to the driver of the taxicab, for his charge was swaying to and fro.

[77]The man jumped out of the machine and got their burden safely into the seat of the machine. The professor sank back among the cushions with a groan. He did not hear or was heedless of what Frank had said.

“Drive to the Parker House,” directed the latter. “He is not able to walk there.”

The doctored lemonade, his recent excitement and the shock of disappointment he had sustained, or all together, had overcome the sensitive savant. Frank supported him in the seat. When they got to the hotel he partly roused him.

“We will get to our room at once,” he suggested. “I have some good news for you.”

“Atrocious! Disreputable!” mumbled the professor, indifferent to everything but the apparent blasting of all his high ambitions. Frank managed to guide him into the lobby of the hotel and thence to the elevator. He got his charge up to their room. The professor weakly sank to a couch.

“I’ll be back as soon as I settle with the chauffeur,” said Frank, but his friend did not appear to hear him. He was moving his head from side to side and mumbling incoherent words, such as “pick of locations,” “the ideal place gone—gone!”

Frank paid the chauffeur and came back into[78] the hotel. He paused at the clerk’s desk long enough to order a pitcher of ice water for their room. He was starting for the elevator when a hearty slap on the back caused him to turn sharply.

“Hi, hello!” piped a cheery voice, and there was Pep Smith, brisk and lively as ever, his face on a broad grin.

“I had to bring him along, Durham,” spoke Mr. Strapp, extending his hand to his favorite.

“You bet he did!” cried Pep. “Why, as soon as that telegram came saying ‘All right,’ I told Mr. Strapp you had run against something big or you would never have wired so soon. We were at the depot inside of ten minutes and just caught the fast train.”

“Is it ‘All right,’ Durham?” inquired the ex-ranchman, showing more curiosity than doubt, as to the judgment of his young business associate.

“Mr. Strapp,” replied Frank animatedly, “it’s more than all right. It’s so good that I couldn’t take the risk of any delay. If I am not mistaken I have stumbled across one of those chances that come around about once in a lifetime.”

“Say, what is it?” pressed the excitable Pep, fairly wriggling with suspense.

“There’s something to tell before we get down[79] to the real kernel of the proposition,” explained Frank. “Come up to the room and I’ll unfold my story. It has been quite an exciting one.”

“You don’t say so!” observed the Westerner. “Our wise old friend been making you some trouble?”

“Not a bit of it,” dissented Frank, “but other people have. You remember that fellow Slavin, who nearly put us out of business at Riverside Grove?”

“Hello!” exclaimed Pep. “Has he bobbed up again?”

“I should think he had,” replied Frank, and as they went upstairs, he recited briefly the eventful history of the missing satchel. Mr. Strapp looked pretty grim and his firm mouth set in a stern way. Pep’s fists worked as though he was ready and anxious for a fight.

“And you outwitted the miserable schemers after all; eh?” asked Mr. Strapp, as Frank told of his long distance message to New York.

“Yes, the satchel is here safe and sound,” replied Frank. “That hasn’t squelched Slavin, though. Come in,” he added, for they had reached the door of the room.

Professor Barrington lay on the couch with his eyes closed. He was apparently asleep. Frank ranged some chairs at the other end of[80] the apartment and beckoned his friends to seats.

“Professor Barrington has just had a pretty bad shaking up,” Frank told them. “He must be weak and exhausted after the shock. I don’t think he had better be disturbed, and I will have an opportunity to tell you the rest of my story.”

Frank had left off at a recital of his starting out that morning to decide upon a location. He now told of the plot to trap the professor and keep him out of the way until Slavin and his fellow schemers got ahead of him, as he supposed.

“My! All that would make a regular motorphoto film,” broke in Pep.

“It makes me furious,” exclaimed Mr. Strapp—“to think that honest people are to be so pestered by such riff-raff! I have a good mind to hand this Slavin fellow over to the police on the charge of blowing us up at the Grove.”

“His associates would go right on with their plans, just the same,” said Frank. “They think they have got ahead of us.”

“Why, it looks so; doesn’t it?” observed the Westerner in a rather sober tone.

“It looks that way; but it isn’t,” answered Frank, a twinkle of confidence in his eye. “The big double store was never the place for a first-class show—I saw that at a glance.”

[81]“But—being the only one?” suggested Mr. Strapp.

“Not at all,” was Frank’s confident reply.

“Why, you said the other store was so narrow it wouldn’t allow for four rows of seats.”

“Just that,” returned Frank, rather enjoying the perplexity of his friends. “But you see that was the professor’s point of view. This morning I made a discovery. The people who occupy the stationery shop have a lease as well of a big building at the rear. It almost connects with the shop. There is just a narrow passageway, and then you are in a great structure nearly fifty by one hundred and fifty feet. It’s been used as a warehouse. Look here.”

Frank took up from the table the sheets of paper he had been figuring and sketching on half the afternoon. He showed one which reproduced in diagram the space covered by the lease. Then he held up the columns of figures on the other sheets.

“Mr. Strapp,” he said, “I have figured it all out. We get that big building almost thrown in. It will make the finest auditorium you ever saw, as it will seat over five hundred people. Paint, gilt and other improvements will make it a playhouse. It’s away from the noise and crush of the street.”

[82]“Yes, that’s all right, and it’s a dream; but what about the store space?”

“We will make a foyer and entrance of it,” declared Frank, growing enthusiastic as he painted the picture of his imagination.

“Think of it—the finest, roomiest entrance in Boston! Not a little box of a place, where people crowd and crush one another, but a beautifully tiled and decorated room. It will be dazzling with electric lights. The walls, frescoed, will be covered with pictures. There will be chairs, settees, comfort and elegance. We will have vases of real flowers set on graceful stands. Our patrons can rest, chat, fill their souls with their beautiful surroundings, waiting for the dispersing crowd to make room for them. We can make of the outside the most attractive front of any place of entertainment on Boston Common.”

Frank paused in his description as Mr. Strapp gave him a nudge. He turned quickly to observe that Professor Barrington had arisen from the couch. The old man, it seemed, had heard all that had been said. His eyes were eager, his face was flushed and his lips were parted in a delighted smile.

“Durham,” he said, “you’ve saved the day. It’s like a dream!”

“Which we are going to make come true,”[83] cried Mr. Strapp, springing to his feet and waving his hand excitedly. “Durham, you’re a wizard, and we’re going to have the finest photo playhouse in the world!”

“There was never anything like it in the movies!” exclaimed Randy Powell, enthusiastically.

“It can’t be beat,” echoed the excited Pep Smith. “We’re up at the top—we can’t get any higher.”

“When this playhouse is all done and the electric lights on—say, it will be a real fairyland!” continued Randy.

“And to think of the poor back country Wonderland we started with less than two years ago,” said Pep. “It’s like a dream—all of it.”

“Then don’t wake me up!” begged Randy.

He and Pep stood just within the great building at the rear of the former stationery store fronting Boston Common.

How swiftly the time had passed since the day Mr. Strapp and Pep had arrived in the city in answer to the urgent wire from Frank Durham, his lively lieutenants had not realized until the[85] present moment. The events crowded into a few weeks’ time ran through Pep’s active mind as swiftly as an unwinding film.

Frank had soon convinced his friends that he had not overestimated the value of the new location. “Right on the nail head” the impetuous Mr. Strapp had paid down a sum to bind the lease. When Frank had shown them what capital, taste and art could do, they mentally saw the old warehouse structure transformed into a veritable palace.

And to that end work had been promptly begun. The stationer moved out at the end of ten days and the front of the store building was boarded up. The motion picture chums made no public announcement of their intention. Everything was done on a carefully thought out plan.

It cost money to obtain the services of a skilled architect and builder, but the partners knew they would get good results from the investment. The outside houses of the amusement company were put on a basis of independent operation, with agents in charge. The Empire was too well-paying a proposition to drop, and it continued to be their official headquarters.

For all that, however, the main interest was centered on the new educational film project. Randy and Pep, with Ben Jolly, who had joined[86] the main party, were in love with it. There were many initial steps to take. The details employed all hands busily and Hal Vincent was called to New York and a capable movies man substituted for him at Seaside Park. Jolly, Randy and Pep would be needed at Boston when the new photo playhouse was opened.

“It’s going to be a permanent thing, if I don’t miss my guess,” Mr. Strapp had declared. “The lads are aching to rummage around the new show. Let ’em do it, Durham, and get acquainted with it and the city generally. To my way of thinking this is going to be a high-toned sort of proposition. Let the boys get the Boston flavor—see?”

So arrangements were made for a suite of rooms at a cheaper hotel than the Parker House. Daily the new venture took on form and substance. It was delightful to see the “Standard” grow. That was the name Mr. Strapp had picked out after meditating for nearly a whole day.

“There may be a better one,” Frank told Randy; “but Mr. Strapp feels proud over his selection and we must let him have his way.”

Professor Barrington was probably the happiest man alive; at least he declared he was. He proved how little he knew of business methods by signing the partnership contract without even[87] looking at it. Then when Frank insisted that he should read it over, his face beamed with confidence and delight.

“It’s too fair on my side,” he declared. “I knew you were the right kind and I find you are the very best kind. Thanks, and I’ll deserve all you are doing for me.”

All the professor asked was to be told the date on which the Standard would open. His mind became engrossed with his own particular section of the project. No one intruded any bothersome details upon his thoughts. He was expected to get his many correspondents ready to send in the special films he had ordered and think up new subjects.

Of his ability to do this there was not the slightest doubt in the minds of his associates, after the eager enthusiast had opened up the treasures of that wonderful satchel of his. It was a marvelous evening for all, upon which he did this.

It was not what the professor had to show ready for use that comprised the essence of his scheme. It was what he could get. There was scarcely a subject—educational, classical or historical—that he had not covered in the tabulation he had prepared of interesting themes that would appeal to the public.

[88]“It’s just—compelling!” declared Randy Powell. “Wise old fellow! He’s got a programme that will fascinate an audience from a four-year old boy up to a centenarian.”

“Say, I’ve got a new idea myself,” broke in Pep, but Randy squelched him by proceeding:

“It’s the wonders of nature features that are going to win. Why, it looks as if the professor had just slashed up the map of the world, figured out what each section had that was odd and wonderful, and set his agents at work to produce results.”

“You see, this scheme of mine is a big idea for opening night,” persisted Pep.

“Oh, bother!” shrugged his comrade. “This is no cheap nickel business to fool with.”

“Huh!” returned Pep. “Maybe you don’t know what I’m thinking about.”

“Well, then, tell it,” said Randy.

“No. I won’t now. I guess I’ve got some brains. And I’ve got a big thought. You sha’n’t even have a hint of it. I’ll tell Mr. Strapp—I bet he’ll encourage me.”

“If there’s a wild horse of the plains in it you’ll catch him—sure!” remarked the mischievous Randy.

Pep nursed a grudge against Randy all one day for snubbing him so. If he went on with[89] his “big thought,” he did not tell his comrade. However, Pep forgot any rancor he might have harbored as greater things coming along turned the current of his thoughts.

The two young friends fancied they had reached the height of their ambition the afternoon that opens the present chapter. Mr. Strapp was at their hotel auditing some bills. Ben Jolly was touring the local music houses looking for a pipe organ and a piano for the Standard. Frank had gone to New York the evening previous to visit the Empire. He was also to meet Professor Barrington, who was getting his films in order.

The workmen had just left the building they were reconstructing. Randy had a key to the rough door set into the slanting board front. He and Pep had wandered about the place taking in its details.

It would take another week to complete the decorations of the entrance, but enough had been done to show what it would look like. An exquisite tiling had been laid, handsome chandeliers set in place and the ceiling had been arched. The effect aimed at was that of a brilliant, roomy space suggesting a big reception room.

The rear wall of the store had been torn away and the fifteen-foot space behind it built[90] over so as to join the warehouse. The latter had been turned into a spacious auditorium. The stage and its surroundings were handsome and massive and the fresco work on the walls was the finest that money could produce. The floor had been inclined so that there was not a poor viewpoint in the house. The folding seats, piled up ready to set in place, were comfortable, and broad and deep as easy chairs. The floor was covered with a tinted canvas cloth that deadened the sound of persons moving about.

“Well, this part of the show is pretty nearly done,” remarked Pep. “Mr. Strapp tells the truth when he boasts of this as the finest photo playhouse in America.”

“I’d like to stay a whole hour looking it over,” said Randy, “but it’s getting dusk. Come, we’ll get to the hotel and tell Mr. Strapp what we think of it.”

“I wonder what that Slavin crowd think of our doings?” remarked Pep, curiously. “Of course they know what we’re up to.”

“Yes,” replied Randy, “I heard Frank say there was no doubt of that. They’ve found no way to bother us, though, so far. Frank says they’ve got their hands full with their own affairs.”

“How do you mean?” asked Pep.

[91]“About fixing up their place. They’ve had a fight with the city building department about fire regulations, exits and all that. Then they’ve discovered what Frank, our clever Frank, saw the first thing—that the place was too broad and shallow to make a roomy auditorium. They’ve got to make it still more shallow if they have any kind of a decent front.”

“Say, talking about exits, no trouble here; eh, Randy?”

“I should say not. There couldn’t be a safer playhouse,” was the reply.

It had already pleased Frank and the others to have the city inspector compliment them on the splendid arrangements for the safety of the audience. On two sides there were vacant spaces. At the rear there was a roofed-over building only one story high. A part of this structure was used for storage purposes. The rest of it was a day garage. This accommodated the automobiles of persons who did business in the vicinity.

The Standard had doors all around two sides which would slide back by the mere turning of a lever, which opened as many as twenty immediate avenues to the outer air at one time. In case of fire the audience could disperse through the garage[92] space or the side courts, and the house could be emptied in less than two minutes.

The upper part of the doors had a small sash set in. Several of these near the rear were now open. The workmen had adjusted them thus to carry out the close air, pungent with turpentine, and dry with paint.

“All right,” spoke Pep, reluctantly, turning to leave by the street entrance. He cast a last look about the place. Then he started and sniffed the air.

“Why, Randy!” he cried. “It smells like burning wood.”

“What’s that?” asked his comrade, sharply.

“Say—” and Pep’s tones seemed sharpened by alarm, “there’s smoke coming in through those windows. Worse—look! Oh, Randy, it’s fire!”

“Gracious!” cried Randy. “See! See! Flames!”

Both boys ran to the rear of the place. A puff of smoke had entered the open window of the last door. Then there came a tongue of flame—fierce, devouring—then more smoke.

Pep uttered a shrill cry—half moan, half sob. His vivid imagination depicted the splendid playhouse going up in flames. He was trembling all over as he approached the open sash. He tried to look out, but a great cloud of dense black smoke drove him back, choked and blinded.

“It’s a real blaze!” shouted Randy. He had stuck his head through a window farther from the rear. He saw that the garage was all ablaze, the flames leaping towards the rear wall of the playhouse.

In an instant Randy guessed that oil or gasoline stored in the shed had become ignited.

[94]“Fire! Fire!” he yelled at the top of his voice, dashing toward the street. “Follow me,” he called to Pep. “There’s no good staying here. Send in an alarm!”

Pep paid no heed to the words. By the time Randy had reached the entrance lobby and was half-way down its length, his comrade had run to the lever operating the side exit doors. He gave this a turn. Then he dashed outside.

Pep headed for the rear of the playhouse to see how far the fire had progressed. Turning the corner of the building a great quantity of water struck him in the face.

It drove him back and he dodged out of range. In half a second, however, there came a drenching shower. Then it turned from him again, and Pep descried the cause of the flood.

Half-way down the vacant space between the garage and the playhouse, stood a boy. He held in his hand the nozzle of a large hose, connected with a water plug farther away.

The lad was shielding his eyes with one arm and bending over as smoke and cinders enveloped him. He staggered back as a sheet of flames swept over him. Resolutely, even defiantly, however, he maintained his position.

He would direct the hose at the flaming garage. Then he would sweep the stream around. This[95] was why its cascade had showered Pep. Then the boy would shoot the torrent up and down and across the wall of the playhouse. This was blistered with the heat, and smoking.

Some projecting timbers were ablaze. He extinguished these, turned the stream back of him and directed it towards the garage. There, however, the blaze was too fierce—had gained too strong a headway to subdue. In fact, the lad seemed more anxious to protect the playhouse than the sheds.

“Oh! will he make it? Why don’t somebody come? Fire! Fire!” screamed Pep frantically, and then from the rear of the buildings fronting on the Common their occupants began to pour. Randy must have acted quickly, Pep realized, for he heard clanging bells in the distance.

Suddenly the boy with the hose staggered as a dense cloud of smoke enveloped him. Pep saw him fall, the hose dropping from his hand. Pep ran to where he lay and dragged him out of range of the leaping flames. He darted at the hose, lifted it and began playing the water on the rear of the playhouse, now burning in half a dozen places.

“If they’d only hurry!” he gasped. “I can’t stand this!”

Pep was obliged to stand to one side as the[96] end of the garage was now a mass of flames. The wooden wall of the playhouse would smoulder, then it would blaze up. All Pep could do was to play the stream of water against this.

A great uproar rang through the vacant space alongside the garage shed. Amid shouts and orders the groups crowding from the rear doors of the surrounding buildings drew back, as a dozen helmeted firemen came dragging a hose through one of the stores. Pep sprang out of the way as a great rush of water came shooting from a nozzle. It drenched him from head to foot and almost carried him off his feet. Then the stream was steadied and played upon the burning shed.

Pep continued his efforts against the playhouse wall. He felt a thrill of hope as the dousing extinguished the blazing timbers and they did not relight. For two seconds the big hose was played across the wall. This dashed out farther danger to the playhouse and the firemen began to fight the blaze in the garage shed.

“It’s safe—it won’t burn!” quavered Pep. “And that boy—he did it! You brave fellow!” he cried, running up to the strange lad.

The latter had by this time gotten to his feet. While he rubbed his eyes, supporting himself by leaning against the show building, he swayed[97] to and fro. In his excitement and gratitude Pep put his arms around him and almost hugged him.

The strange boy gazed at Pep blinkingly. Then rubbing the cinders from his eyes he took in the scene about him. He uttered a glad cry.

“The theatre’s all right; isn’t it?” he asked. “That’s all I care for.”

“What?” stammered Pep, opening his eyes wide at this manifestation of interest in the Standard.

“Yes, you see I know the fellows who own it. They’re friends of mine—that is, I hope they are.”

“Oh, is that so?” observed Pep, wonderingly. “You mean Mr. Strapp.”

“Who’s he? No, I don’t know him. It’s Frank Durham whom I know, and Professor Barrington. Say, look at the fire, I reckon they’ll save the storage house yonder; but the garage and shed are gone. They’ve got it under control now. Heigho! There goes my lodging—my supper, too, if I don’t see Mr. Ridge, the man who runs the garage.”

“Why, what do you mean?” asked Pep.

“I’ve been working there. It wasn’t much of a job; but you see I was waiting for Frank Durham—”

The speaker shook himself as if to get the[98] chill out of his limbs. He pulled off his coat and began wringing out the soaked sleeves.

“Br-r-r!” he shivered, as the coarse cloth grazed a seared and blistered hand, “that hurts.”

Pep caught hold of the lad’s arm, his face full of sympathy.

“See here,” he said, “you’re hurt and chilled. You’re a hero; do you know it? You’ve saved Our beautiful playhouse——”

“Who played that hose?” demanded a hoarse voice, and looking up the boys faced a tall fireman wearing a silver badge of office on his white rubber coat.

“This boy did,” Pep hastened to reply.

“Yes, sir,” explained the strange lad, “you see the hose is always attached to wash the mud off the machines. I sort of hang around here and have been sleeping in the office for two nights. I don’t know how the fire started; but when I came out some rags soaked with cylinder oil were ablaze. I did what I could.”

“What you did saved that theatre building,” announced the battalion chief. “If that frame end there had got blazing—good-bye to the whole block, maybe. You’d make a good fireman, son.”

“You come with me,” said Pep, grasping the arm of the lad firmly.

“Why, what for?” inquired the boy.

[99]“To get dry clothes—to be made just as comfortable as can be—to give me and my friends a chance to show you what we think of the fellow who has saved our beautiful new playhouse!”

“Shake!” spoke bluff Hank Strapp,—then, quite as expansively—“and shake again!”

It was the lad who had saved the Standard from destruction to whom the genial Westerner spoke. The hero of the hour had been taken in tow by Pep from the moment that the latter was assured that the photo playhouse was safe. Randy had seen to the closing up of the place. Then he had become second pilot in the march to the hotel.

The honest-faced, wonder-eyed youth whom they ushered impetuously in upon Mr. Strapp had not resisted their urging. Perhaps he had not possessed much power of resistance after his fire-fighting experience.

“You’re sort of drifting me along; aren’t you?” he had observed, with a quaint smile. “I don’t know where; but if you’re friends of Frank Durham, and I guess you are, it’s all right.”

[101]Pep’s mind was in a turmoil over this repetition of the name of the young movies leader. The strange boy seemed to know no other. To him it appeared to be one to conjure by. Pep was devoured with curiosity as to how this poorly dressed refugee, working at odd jobs and sleeping in a garage, could know Frank.

Unceremoniously the chums ushered their companion into the presence of Mr. Strapp at the hotel. The Westerner stared hard at Pep, whose attire was disordered, and then at the strange lad, who resembled a half-drowned rat.

“Well, what’s all this?” he demanded, and Pep burst out in a breezy account of what had happened at the Standard. It was then that the impulsive ex-ranchman sprang to his feet, seized the hand of the visitor and gave it a grasp that made the latter wince, accompanying the welcome with the hearty words: “Shake—and shake again!”

“You sit down,” said Randy, urging their guest to the softest chair in the room. “Mr. Strapp, he’s dead beat after that bout, I guess, and he’s soaked through. Look at that hand—all blistered, too. If you’ll tell me where your baggage is, I’ll go and bring you a change.”

The stranger startled his auditors with a laugh that made the echoes ring.

[102]“Baggage?” he repeated, and he chuckled. “Change? Why, I never had more than one suit of clothes in my life, and that a poor one. I only brought a couple of shirts and some handkerchiefs with me to Boston, and they’re burned up in the fire.”

“Here, Randy!” broke in Mr. Strapp—taking some money from his pocket. “You take this young friend of ours in hand. Mend him up, dress him up and bring him back here. I want to get better acquainted with you, young man. Let me see—what’s your name?”

“Vic Belton,” was the prompt reply. “I come from Home Farm. That was where I met Frank Durham. And Professor Barrington. It was when the train was wrecked——”

“Why, I know—I remember!” cried Pep. “Frank told us about that. You’re the boy who wanted to join the movies.”

“Yes,” nodded Vic gravely, “I’m here to break into the show business.”

Randy and Pep took the young fellow in charge, and at the end of an hour they reappeared before Mr. Strapp. The latter stared hard, for a transformation had indeed taken place. Attired in a neat suit, brushed up and cleaned up, Vic Belton appeared like quite another[103] person. The expression of Mr. Strapp’s face showed how greatly he was pleased.

“After supper you’ll tell us something; eh, Vic Belton?” he remarked, and he linked the arm of their young guest into his own as they proceeded to the dining room of the hotel.

Vic was a puzzle to Pep. The boy simply followed where he was led, seeming to have sublime confidence in his new friends. He made no demur nor resistance to their guidance. In a pleased way he put himself completely in their hands. It was after he had dispatched what was probably the first hotel meal he had ever sat down to, that he made the observation:

“I don’t know what I’ve fallen into; but you’re treating me fine.”

“There was no insurance on the Standard,” remarked Mr. Strapp, pointedly. “I reckon we’re going to adopt you, son.”

“Well, I need it,” remarked Vic, so artlessly that Pep had to laugh. “No folks, no home—I’d be glad.”

They all had to smile. It was plain to be seen that the boy was without guile.

“You see,” he continued, “when Frank Durham saw me down at the farm I told him how I was sort of born to the show business and wanted to break into it. He gave me his New[104] York address; but advised me to stick to the farm.”

“Which in a general way is good advice; don’t you think, Vic?” asked Mr. Strapp.

“Not when a fellow hates farming and hears the call of the show business,” dissented Vic, in his plain, matter-of-fact way. “These two best fellows in the world and Durham himself branched out; didn’t they? Then why not me?”

“That’s so,” agreed Pep. “There’s an argument for you, Mr. Strapp.”

“Well, something came up and I wrote to the Empire in New York City,” went on Vic, “and whoever got the letter wrote back that Mr. Durham was in Boston, at the Parker House. Then I came here, day before yesterday. They told me at the hotel that he had moved here. The clerk here said he was in New York. I found out he was going to run the Standard, so I hung around there a bit. Then the man running the garage gave me a job. I took it until Mr. Durham got back, to take me into his show.”

“Oh, you think he will do that; do you?” grinned Pep, carried off his feet by the amazing confidence this odd boy had in his friends and prospects.

“Yes, I know he will,” declared Vic, with assurance. “You see, when he talked to me I was[105] only a poor farm boy, anxious to get away from haymows and turnips. Then something came along—something amazing.”

“Is that so?” inquired Pep, his curiosity aroused.

“Oh, yes. You see, when I talked to Mr. Durham I had nothing—no money, no property, no prospects.”

“And it’s different now; is it?” questioned Pep, wondering what was coming next.

“I should say so!” exclaimed Vic. “I don’t come to Mr. Durham now, though, asking him to pull me along like a helpless raw recruit. No, sir. I can help him, I can.”

“Well, well, here’s an original one,” murmured the amused Westerner.

Randy puckered his lips. Pep grew big-eyed at viewing the boy who slept in a shed yet talked with the confidence of a millionaire.

“How do you mean help him, Vic?” inquired Mr. Strapp.

“Well, I can lend him some money—put in some capital, I suppose you call it. Say, you’re laughing,” Vic interrupted himself to say, but solemn as a judge. “That’s all right. I know it must seem funny to you to hear this kind of talk, when I haven’t got enough in real cash to buy a meal. But I never tell a lie. I’ve got[106] some capital—quite a heap of it. It’s in property—not money; but it can soon be changed into money.”

“How much, now?” insinuated the interested ex-ranchman.

“Well, maybe several thousand dollars.”

“Whew!” ejaculated Pep. “That’s a pile for a boy.”

“Yes, sir,” went on Vic, earnestly, “it is for a fact. When I first found it out I was stunned. But, I’ve got it. It’s too big, that property, to carry around with me; but it’s mine, just the same. It’s value. It can be sold.”

“Say, what is this property of yours?” fairly exploded Pep, consumed with curiosity.

“Four camels,” replied Vic Belton, calmly.

Pep Smith had never before seen a boy who owned camels. It was such a big thought that he was at a loss what to say. He stared at the extraordinary youth before him.

“Yes, I own four camels,” repeated Vic Belton, as evenly as if he had said that he owned a pocketknife.

“It sounds like a fairy story,” said Randy Powell as he glanced quickly at Mr. Strapp to see how he took it. The Westerner sat with his eyes fixed on Vic. He was studying him curiously. However, he made no comment.

“What kind of camels?” suddenly burst out Pep. “Real camels—live ones?”

“Awfully alive,” replied Vic, promptly. “Guess you’d think so if you knew some of their doings when they get on a rampage.”

“Where are these animals you speak of?” asked Mr. Strapp.

[108]“Either at Wardham, a little town in Connecticut, or on their way there.”

“How?” inquired Pep.

“On a train, of course,” was the reply; “for they came clear from the Pacific Coast. You see, it’s this way: My dead father was a circus man. So was my uncle. It was Uncle Gregory who put me in charge of Mr. Dorsett at Home Farm. He’s sort of looked after me for the last two years. Well, just a week ago I got a letter I didn’t expect. It was from Bill Purvis.”

“Who’s Bill Purvis?” queried Pep, almost breathlessly, so immersed was he in the outcome of Vic’s narrative.

“Bill is an old menagerie roustabout,” explained Vic. “He used to be with my father. Afterwards he was Uncle Gregory’s handy man. No one could ever keep Bill straight except those two. Well, Bill had got someone to write me the letter I’m telling you about, for he can’t write himself. The letter told me that Uncle Gregory was dead and buried and the show he was with had broken up. They divided the animals and their traps among the people they owed for salaries. Besides that, my uncle had a lot of money invested, so he got the camels for his share.”

“And you say that this uncle of yours is dead now?” inquired Mr. Strapp.

[109]“Yes, sir,” replied Vic. “He died right after he got the camels. It seems he had told Bill just what to do before he died. It was to take them East, as there wasn’t any market for camels on the Coast. Maybe there isn’t any here—I don’t know, and Bill didn’t know. He wrote me, though, that he had raised enough money to pay for the transportation of the camels to Wardham. He wrote, too, that a few miles from there a distant relative of his, named Wright, had a farm. His idea was to stake the camels there until he could look around and take his time finding a good place to keep them.”

“Has he got there with the camels yet?” asked Randy.

“I think he has. I was to join him there, but I had a row getting away from Mr. Dorsett at Home Farm. He said that my uncle owed him some money for my education. Humph! I never got any at that dead old place. I had no money and Wardham was a long way off. So I tramped it to Boston after I found that Frank Durham was here.

“You see, Frank Durham is mighty smart. I know he feels friendly towards me and I was going to ask him to stake me to go down and join Bill Purvis. Then I wanted Mr. Durham to help[110] me sell the camels. Then I was going to buy into your show here—see?”

The earnestness of the speaker made Mr. Strapp smile. Then, too, a pleased expression crossed his bronzed face. The ex-ranchman was fond of boys and the sincerity of Vic appealed to his rugged nature.

“See here, Vic,” he said, “you tell a clear story and I can see you are straight. Besides that, we owe you a lot for this fire business down at the Standard. We can’t do too much for you. I think Durham and the professor will be here to-night; but they may possibly be detained in New York City over to-morrow. So, if you are at all anxious to go to Wardham and see about your camels, you can draw what money you want from me.”

“Why, thank you, sir,” replied Vic; “but I think I’ll wait. You see, I’ve sort of set my mind on seeing Frank Durham and getting his advice. You’re all the finest people I ever ran across; but I know him best. If you’ll take my note against those camels for a dollar or so till I see Mr. Durham, I’ll be obliged to you. I’ll have to hunt up somewhere to sleep to-night, you know, for I’d muss up these nice clothes bunking in at the old garage, even if there’s any place there left to sleep in.”

[111]“Well, you are an original and no mistake!” cried the ex-ranchman, with a laugh. “No, no, my young friend—you can have a hundred dollars if you want it and free gratis for nothing; but we’ll not let a fellow with a ten thousand dollar quartet of camels go bunking around hit or miss. You’ll stay right here with the rest of us. And if I don’t miss my guess Durham will find a place to work you into at the Standard.”

Mr. Strapp proceeded to lay down the law, as he called it, in his pleasant way. Vic was to stay at the hotel. He suggested to Pep that he take the boy in tow and show him something of the town.

“I’d like to do that,” said Vic. “I’ve never seen but two moving picture shows. I’d like to see some more.”

“You come with me, then,” suggested Pep, and he beckoned to Randy to join them. The boys put on their caps and started to leave the room. They had just got to the elevator, Pep chattering in his usual way, when the elevator door swung back and Randy uttered a cry:

“It’s Frank—and Professor Barrington!”

“Hello!” exclaimed the former as he recognized Vic, and gazed in some surprise at his natty[112] appearance. “Why, how do you come to be here?”

“You’re glad to see me; aren’t you?” asked Vic wistfully, fixing his appealing eyes on Frank.

“So glad,” replied the young leader of the motion picture chums, with a hearty handshake, “that I want to know right away all about you. Professor Barrington, you remember our young friend of the railroad smash-up?”

“H’m—surely,” nodded the professor, after an inspection of Vic. “Looks older; don’t he?”

“That’s because I’ve got a new suit, and it fits, you see,” replied Vic, naively.

“Say,” broke in Pep, as they moved towards their rooms, “Vic saved the Standard from burning up this afternoon.”

“What’s that?” demanded Professor Barrington. Then as Pep related the circumstances of the blaze, the professor moved towards him and placed an affectionate hand upon Vic’s shoulder.

“Excellent—heroic—great boy—grand boy!” he exclaimed. There was a genial greeting from Mr. Strapp when they entered the sitting room of the suite. Vic gently pulled Pep’s arm.

“The movies,” he whispered. “You know we were going to see them.” But Pep was so immersed in the bustle and hubbub of the moment[113] that he was reluctant to leave at once. Then Frank came up to Vic and drew him to one side, questioning him with interest as to what had led to his giving up farm life.

Professor Barrington had but one thought as soon as he had got through answering some questions put by Mr. Strapp.

“My mail,” he said, and Randy noticed that he seemed anxious and nervous as he hastened over to a desk between the windows and picked up a dozen or more letters and telegrams.

“Told them to wire here,” Randy heard him mumble. “No—no—no,” he added as he hurriedly ran over letters evidently of no importance. “Ah, from Halifax. No news—too bad! Magdalen Island—no news. Dear! dear!”

Finally he tore open a third telegraph envelope. Its inclosure fluttered in his fingers. His eyes bored into the contents Then it fell from his nerveless hands. He looked so agitated, and sank back in the chair with such a piteous face, that Randy called out sharply in alarm:

“Frank!”

“Eh?” questioned the young movies leader, and then observing that something was amiss with his old friend he ran up to him.

“Durham—telegram!” muttered the professor[114] in a weak, gasping tone. “From Trinity, Newfoundland.”

“Bad news?” questioned Frank, supporting the professor, who seemed about to faint.

“The worst!” replied Professor Barrington, with a hollow groan. “The schooner Plymouth—”

“Yes! yes!” urged Frank, his own face growing drawn with anxiety.

“The great film—lost! Gone!”

“The Great Film!” Somehow those words impressed Pep deeply. He stood still, staring at Professor Barrington. Randy moved a step nearer to him. Vic had been forgotten.

“Bless me!” murmured Mr. Strapp. “Something new and lively in the movies line all the time, it appears to me.”

From the first the professor had outlined his films in a way that led his business friends to expect great things of the future. More than once, too, he had given an exciting hint as to some novel and original themes that were being worked out by his foreign assistants. They would startle the movies world, he had declared. Thinking of that, Pep instantly decided that his present emotion was caused by some slip in his plans.

“You have received bad news, Professor Barrington?” inquired Frank, and the elderly man[116] roused sufficiently to select one of the telegrams he had just opened.

“Read,” he said. “You know how I wired to all northern points from New York City, directing the replies to come here. The Plymouth has not been seen at a single point until this message from Trinity. Read,” and the speaker, overcome, could say no more.

They were a family, in a sense, those in the room. Frank read the dispatch which had so affected his old friend. It ran:

“And Randall was aboard of the Plymouth,” quavered Professor Barrington, “and the film—the great film!”

“Don’t take it so hard, Professor,” said Frank in a soothing tone, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Your friend may have escaped.”

“No, no, Durham,” groaned the professor. “It would not be the way of Randall to neglect advising me by the first wire if he had met with a disaster and had escaped.”

“And as to the great film—is it really that, now?” went on Frank.

[117]“Can you ask that, after knowing that half I had in the world was staked on the securing of motorphoto pictures on a subject never yet covered by the film maker? Think of it! That unique variety of subjects, showing the crowning glories of the universe. Ah, it is a cruel blow!”

“Frank, is it something serious?” whispered Pep, stepping to the side of his chum. Frank did not reply. He stood for a moment lost in thought, his eyes fixed on Professor Barrington. He appeared to be groping mentally to find some means of relieving the distress of his friend.

Suddenly Frank’s face lit up as if he had solved a problem. His hand went to an inside pocket and he drew out a wallet well filled with bank notes. He ran them over, estimating what sum they represented, rather than actually counting them. The inspection seemed satisfactory and Frank replaced the money in his pocket. Then Pep, who had watched every shadow that crossed his face, saw the impression there that always told that his clever chum had made up his mind to something.

Professor Barrington crouched in his chair as if all his hopes had been crushed. He had sunk into a kind of lethargy of despair. Frank roused him with the words:

“I am going to find out.”

[118]“You are going to find out what, Durham?” questioned the professor in a hollow tone.

“The best—the worst—whatever it is. Don’t give up hope. We will know a good deal more when I return than we do now. That, at least, is sure.”

There came a dash of rain against the window. Frank glanced out at the wind-swept street. Then he went to a wardrobe, and donned a heavy raincoat.

“Hold on, Durham,” spoke Mr. Strapp, worked up to a high pitch of excitement. “Isn’t there something to say before you go away?”

“Just step into the hall for a minute, Mr. Strapp,” asked Frank. Pep, with ears wide open, tried to catch some inkling of what was going on, but Frank had closed the door after himself and the Westerner. Then in about half a minute the ex-ranchman returned to the room alone. He sank into a chair with a grave face, speaking the words half aloud:

“If anybody can do it, Durham can.”

A gloom had spread over the apartment so recently filled with cheeriness. Professor Barrington sat with his face buried in one hand. Mr. Strapp got up and moved about in a fidgety way. Vic, half understanding that something of serious importance had interrupted his interview with[119] the young leader of the motion picture chums, retired to a corner of the room, feeling uneasy and out of place. Pep came up to him.

“I say, Vic,” he observed, “I wish you’d put off this tour of the movies for to-night.”

“Why, certainly,” responded Vic. “Say, what’s the matter—some trip-up in the plans of you people?”

“Yes,” returned Pep, with a disturbed face, “and it’s taken the heart clear out of me for any junketing or fun.”

Randy had gone out into the hall. Pep soon joined him and then Vic followed them.

“I feel as if I was in the way, somehow,” he observed.

“You needn’t,” responded Pep. “It’s a kind of a mystery to me, all this; but you can trust Frank Durham to clear things up if it’s possible. What do you think’s up, Randy?”

“Why it’s plain to be seen that some ship that Professor Barrington sent out, or that was coming to him, had someone aboard with ‘the great film,’ as they called it. The professor seems to have set great store by it, the way he acts.”

“But if that telegram says the ship is wrecked and nobody saved, what Frank expects to do is what is puzzling me,” observed Pep.

The trio tramped up and down the hall to pass[120] the time. Then they went down to the lobby of the hotel. They sat down in arm chairs and tried to get interested in the guests about them. Pep, however, could not keep still. He had Randy on the jump, keeping track of his movements. Vic never spoke a word, but followed them about like a faithful dog.

Finally Pep ventured but into the street. The rain soon drove him and his companions under shelter again, however. Then they returned to their room. The professor still sat as they had seen him last. Mr. Strapp still seemed worried.

“See here, boys,” he spoke after a period of silence, “you had better get to bed. Durham may not be back for hours.”

“I sha’n’t stir a step until he comes back,” declared Pep, “I’m too worried to sleep.”

Randy seemed of the same mind, for he sat down as if planting himself for an all-night vigil, and Vic placidly followed his example. In about half an hour, however, Pep, glancing toward them, saw that both were napping.

“H’m! this is dismal enough,” he commented, stirred up by the suspense.

He must have nodded and dozed for some time, Pep realized, for he awoke with a start as the knob of the room door clicked. Mr. Strapp was yawning and stirring himself.

[121]“It’s Frank!” cried the quick-eared Pep, springing to his feet, and, half-way across the room, he faced Frank as he entered.

“Good news or bad, Durham?” asked Mr. Strapp, arising stiffly.

“The best in the world!” replied Frank promptly, his eyes snapping, his face one smile of satisfaction.

“Why, where have you ever been?” inquired Pep in wonder, for Frank’s coat was glistening with rain, his cap was dripping and his face weather beaten and flushed.

“I’ve been trying to find out something,” explained Frank, “and I have. It’s a queer adventure. There was one thing only to try in an effort to gain news of the wrecked Plymouth, in whose safety or loss there is so much at stake for us.”

“Frank, quick! Is she a goner? Is the great film——”

“Safe, I have every reason to believe,” replied Frank.

“Hurrah!” shouted the excited Pep, with a fervor that brought Randy out of slumberland and to his feet.

“For fifteen minutes,” went on Frank, “under special orders from the Government, the wireless service has been combing the North Atlantic and[122] the air above it with orders to every station and ship in the service to find out what has become of the derelict, Plymouth.”

“What’s that? What’s that?” shouted Professor Barrington, scrambling to his feet with wide eyes.

“From off the Newfoundland coast, near Trinity,” went on Frank Durham, “one response, among over a hundred, came: ‘Steamer Montreal homeward bound with the Plymouth in tow. All on board safe.’”

“The great film! The great film!” chattered rather than spoke the old professor. Then he sank in a heap on the floor.

“Now then, Mr. Jolly,” called out Frank Durham.

His voice echoed across a deal of hollow space, for there were only six people in the auditorium of the Standard photo playhouse. With the exception of Jolly, seated at the organ, and Pep, posted at the electric light switchboard, all the others were standing in the middle aisle—Professor Barrington, Mr. Strapp, Frank and Randy.

The Standard was in complete readiness for the opening two evenings later. Some of the furnishings of the reception hall had not yet arrived, but the auditorium was equipped even to the electric fans, and the organ and piano over which Jolly was to preside.

The musical programme was to be a particular feature of the Standard. Ben Jolly had been for days ransacking the music stores of the city in search of select compositions.

[124]“We’re going to have a crowd ’way up on organ recitals and the like,” he had said, “and I’m going to make that instrument just hum. On the lighter parts I’ll vary with the piano, and its bell and string attachments will go well in the livelier scenes.”

Jolly was making the organ “hum” now. This was the first time that the lights had been turned on in the finished auditorium. The introductory notes of a swelling march echoed as Pep swung the switches. Then he, too, joined the group of his friends and fellow workers.

For fully a minute not a word was spoken. Five pairs of eyes swept the splendid apartment from end to end. It was a rare feast of light and beauty. There was more than comfort—there was luxury and richness; not loud or tawdry, but artistic and harmonious.

“I didn’t think it could be done,” was the utterance of Pep Smith.

“You said it would be the finest playhouse in America, Durham,” observed Mr. Strapp, his eyes expressing the liveliest satisfaction, “and here it’s a proven fact.”

“My dream has come true!” murmured the exultant professor. “Gentlemen, I congratulate you on having set motor photography ahead ten years.”

[125]“It’s nice to have you say so,” remarked Frank, with a radiant smile.

“It’s just perfection!” declared Randy, his eyes dancing with excitement and pleasure.

Frank’s heart beat fast with pride. It seemed a pretty long step from the little Wonderland picture show he had started in his home village, to this acme of an active business career. All the plots of rivals, all the hard struggles, all the difficult problems met and conquered, were obscured by the present moment.

“If Randall had only arrived a little sooner!” spoke the professor, with something of a sigh.

“You mean the delay in featuring that great film of yours?” asked Mr. Strapp. “Don’t let it worry you. That will keep. It will probably be all the better to hold it off. Then we’ll spring it in a blaze of glory—see?”

“We have certainly got some fine specials to present,” declared Frank.

“It’s the toy pictures that will catch the youngsters,” said Pep.

“And the butterflies,” supplemented Randy.

“I count greatly on the century plant,” observed Professor Barrington. “Once before it has been exploited, at the famous Gaumont Palace at Paris; but that was still life. My agent[126] traveled one thousand miles up the Amazon to catch our film. It is perfect.”

“Wish you’d got something with hosses acting,” observed Mr. Strapp, “for they can act.”

“A little local touch—something right on the spot wouldn’t have been amiss,” suggested Jolly.

“Say, do you think that?” broke in Pep, eagerly. “I’ve thought of that, too. It was part of the scheme I once tried to tell you about, but Randy shut me up. Frank, I’d like to tell you about that.”

“All right,” answered the young movies leader, indulgently.

“Right after we came to Boston,” said Pep, “knocking around and poking into everything that had to do with playhouses, I ran across a queer fellow named Bohm, who runs a dramatic school. He can’t speak English plainly, but he’s the most patriotic fellow I ever saw. It seems his father was a soldier in the Civil War, and he was so brave they made him a major.

“Bohm flounders around in a muddy ditch of broken Dutch when he speaks, but he’s all there on patriotism, and he’s got some great ideas. He wears a red, white and blue necktie; his watch charm is a miniature American flag, and most of the time he is whistling or humming ‘The Star Spangled Banner.’”

[127]“Get down to the facts, Pep,” ordered Randy.

“He’s bow-legged and so cross-eyed that if he cried the tears would run behind his ears,” declared Pep, going on with his story in his own way, in lofty disdain of his tormentor. “For all that, he’s a rare genius. It seems that he got a big idea. It was for a play and pageant on Forefathers’ Day. He wrote a sort of dramatic screed all around a lot of subjects and scenes—historical—see?”

“Historical,” repeated Professor Barrington. “That sounds promising. In what way, may I ask, my young friend?”

“Why, he got up a lot of scenery. Then his amateurs played the pilgrims landing on Plymouth Rock. He worked in one or two well-known battles the colonists had with the Indians. Then he has that tea-throwing act in Boston Harbor. Oh, yes, and the Battle of Bunker Hill, and Paul Revere’s Ride, and—oh, a heap of things!”

“What good is a play for us?” asked Randy. “The Standard isn’t a theatre.”

“Wait till I get to the point; won’t you?” pleaded Pep. “Well, Frank, Bohm intends to interest patriotic citizens in a big blowout with his play and pageant Forefathers’ Day. Then the idea came to him that it would make a good film, so he had all the scenes photographed in[128] order. They are full of action and they make a good one thousand-foot reel.

“I asked Bohm if he didn’t want to release it. He said perhaps, after his own exhibition. Then I got him interested in what we were going to do here at the Standard. He said that if he was paid a fair price and got the announcement before the public that the film was to be pictured on Forefathers’ Day, he might consider it.”

“Why, see here,” remarked Ben Jolly, “that would make a fine special. It’s local and it would take, I am sure. A ‘Tabloid of History.’ Don’t you think that sounds right, Durham?”

“I do, indeed,” responded Frank. “Pep, I would like to see this Mr. Bohm.”

“Come along; I’ll take you to him,” urged Pep.

“If there’s anything to it, Durham,” spoke up Mr. Strapp, “you want to get that film for opening night.”

“It would give variety to the entertainment,” observed the professor.

“I believe I’ll see what there is to it right away,” declared Frank. “Come on Pep.”

The two chums left their friends in the auditorium and passed through the reception hall. A canvas sheet had been spread across the street entrance to protect the new paint and gilding, and a guard had been stationed there.

[129]“Oh, Mr. Durham,” the latter spoke, as Frank approached him, “there’s a boy outside who has been trying to break in to you for the last five minutes. Says he knows you; but my orders were to admit no one.”

“A boy—wonder who he is?” said Pep speculatively.

“Why, it’s Vic!” replied Frank, as the guard pulled the edge of the canvas aside, and the lad in question became visible, seated astride a nail keg and dolefully surveying the ground.

Three days before, furnished with money by Frank, the farm boy had gone by rail to Wardham to look up his friend, Bill Purvis, and the camels.

“Why, hello, Vic,” spoke Frank in a friendly tone as he came outside.

Vic looked up rather falteringly. He grasped Frank’s extended hand. His face lengthened and his lips puckered.

“What’s the matter, Vic?” asked Pep, puzzled at the downcast appearance of their young friend, who had left them so full of hope.

“Nothing,” answered Vic, dismally, “only someone has stolen my camels.”

“Your camels stolen!” exclaimed Pep in his excitable way. “Say, that’s bad. Are you sure of it?”

“Oh, yes,” replied Vic, in a dispirited fashion. “They’re gone.”

“Come inside,” invited Frank. “I’ll fix it after this so you won’t have to ask permission,” and, after indicating to the guard that Vic was a favored friend, he led the way to the auditorium.

“Oh, say! but you’ve fixed it up fine; haven’t you?” ejaculated Vic the moment his eyes took in the scene about him.

“These are pretty busy times, Vic,” said Frank as they sat down in the rear row of seats. “You see, we are getting ready for the opening. All the same, we must find time to help our friends where we can. Now then, tell us your troubles.”

[131]“There’s only one, the big one, the camels,” replied Vic, soberly. “You know how kind you were in giving me the money to go down to Wardham, and advising me how to set about selling the camels. I felt pretty good when I started out. You know I met an old circus man. He said that it would take time to find just the show that wanted some camels, but there were city parks, and using them advertising, to fall back on. He said that four healthy camels ought to sell for several thousand dollars.”

“Yes, Vic,” observed Frank; “go ahead with your story.”

“Well, I got to Wardham and found the farm where Bill’s relatives live.”

“Was he there?” inquired Pep.

“Yes,” responded Vic, “he’d been there for three days, in bed, his leg broken and out of his head.”

“The camels—” began Pep.

“No, they would never hurt Bill,” protested Vic. “Bill had turned up one night at his relatives’ house dragging his leg behind him, smelling of liquor and acting strange. The first sensible spell he had was just after I got to Wardham.

“Bill was all broken up, crying and ashamed. He told a queer, rambling story of leaving the[132] freight train thirty miles across country from Wardham. I’ve got to tell you that Bill’s failing has always been strong drink.”

“Too bad, that generally complicates things,” commented Pep, philosophically.

“He’d kept straight clear along the route. It was night time when he got the camels off the car and started for Wardham. They were glad to get on solid ground again, and so was Bill. He says he came to a crossroads settlement where he got the camels a good feed.

“He himself was foolish enough to drink some liquor. He says it went to his head. Then he dimly remembers going to another town, and then another. By that time he wasn’t able to take care of the camels. He recalls traveling along a lonely country road, following directions as to Wardham. Then it’s all a sort of mist to him. When he came to his senses, he was lying in an old stone quarry with his leg broken. How he got to the Wright farm he doesn’t know.”

“Why,” suggested Pep, “the camels must have wandered away from him, and must be roving around somewhere. Didn’t you try to find out?”

“Didn’t I?” repeated Vic. “I guess I did; and so did Bill’s folks. They found out where Bill had shown off some tricks with the camels[133] at a tavern. Three strange men who had been drinking with him went off when he did. I suppose we had as many as twenty people looking for the camels all over the country.”

“And you found no trace of them?” inquired Frank.

“Hide nor hair—none,” was the dejected answer.

“It looks queer to me, that does,” asserted Pep. “Four camels are too conspicuous to drop out of sight like a horse or a dog.”

“I think somebody stole them—I feel sure of it,” declared Vic. “Maybe Bill got to talking too much and telling all about the camels, and those three men thought they saw a chance for a speculation.”

“They couldn’t hide the animals very easily,” observed Frank. “Whoever has them must be at some distance from Wardham.”

“That’s the way I figure it out,” agreed Vic. “It’s made me almost frantic, losing those animals and all they mean to me in a money way. And poor Bill—he needs his share in them just now worse than he ever did.”

“I see that,” said Frank, thoughtfully, “and I shall try to get a man right on the track. Don’t be so downhearted, Vic; we are sure to get some trace of them.”

[134]“I hope so,” replied Vic, shaking his head dolefully. “You see, I had pretty high hopes of the money I expected. I might have gone in with you—see?”

“You’re in with us now, Vic,” declared Frank in his friendly way. “You put us under a great obligation by saving the Standard from burning up. Here, Randy,” added Frank, calling to his chum, “you try and make Vic see something cheerful in life till I get back.”

Frank then started off on his mission to see the man, Bohm, whom Pep had told him about. Randy then took Vic under his wing. He showed him all over the place and tried to get his mind off his troubles.

“You’re fine people,” declared Vic, gratefully, as they came out on the street on their way to the hotel. “I wish I could do something to pay you back for your kindness.”

“You’ll feel all right when Frank finds your camels for you,” replied Randy. “He’ll do it, too, you can count on that. And if you want to join the movies, he’ll find a place for you.”

They were at that moment passing the rival photo playhouse which Frank’s enemies had been getting into shape. Those of the Standard had paid little attention to Slavin and his friends of late. With the securing of the lease on the[135] double building, they apparently felt that they had scored a victory over their competitors and had troubled their minds about them no further.

Slavin and his crew had made no further attempts to molest or annoy Professor Barrington or his property. How they might feel when they learned what Frank was up to with the Standard, the motion picture chums did not know, or care.

Frank had received a sneering smile from Slavin when he passed him on the street two days after the Professor had been lured away from the hotel. Several days later, however, this had changed to an angry scowl. Frank decided that Slavin had learned of their new enterprise, and realized that he had not scored so valuable a point against his rivals as he had fancied.

Just then Vic came to a halt and stood staring at a man who was just entering the “New Idea,” as Slavin and his crowd had dubbed their playhouse.

“See that fellow?” asked Vic, pointing after the man.

“What about him?” inquired Randy.

“I know him,” declared Vic, apparently much roused.

“Is that so? We know him, too,” retorted Randy,—“to our loss. He’s a bad character.[136] Ran movies against us at Riverside Grove and nearly put us out of business. He’s the head and front of this new show—the New Idea. Humph! it will be ‘new,’ all right, if he runs it.”

“Well,” said Vic, “I’ve heard you speak his name and all that, but I didn’t guess it was the man who was with the fellow who stole that satchel from the train. He is the man I saw near Home Farm who was rating the other fellow for getting the wrong grip. Say,” and a new idea seemed to strike Vic, “is he up to any new mischief with you people?”

“No; but he likely will be,” replied Randy. “He’s a dangerous customer. We have tried to keep the public, Slavin included, from knowing our plans. He has probably had somebody spying on us, though.”

“It would be a good thing to watch such a fellow, I should think,” observed Vic, thoughtfully. “It would be a shame if anything happened to your beautiful show here, after all your hard work. A rascal like this fellow Slavin ought to be headed off.”

“Yes, we’re going to keep a sharp eye out for him,” said Randy.

He took Vic to the hotel, and gave him to understand that he was to take up his residence[137] with them until Frank decided what could be done to recover the stolen camels. Then Randy went out to attend to an errand for the Standard. When he returned he was surprised and puzzled to find that Vic had disappeared. A scrawled note lay on a table in the room, reading:

Frank, Pep, Mr. Strapp and Ben Jolly showed up at supper time. Frank’s first inquiry concerned Vic. He was only half satisfied with the report Randy made. Frank had read deeper into the odd farm boy than the others. He knew that Vic, when he got an idea in his head, was anxious to work it out. Frank felt sure that some such situation was responsible for Vic’s unexplained absence.

However, about eight o’clock Vic came quietly into the main room of the suite. He did not appear at all excited; but that was rarely his wont. The moment Frank scanned his face, however, he guessed that their original young friend had something on his mind.

Vic responded to the casual questions of those about him. Then he sidled up to Frank in an uneasy sort of way with the words:

[138]“Say, Mr. Durham, I’ve been at the New Idea for the last three hours.”

“Have you, indeed?” responded Frank, discerning something under the surface in the declaration just made. “I didn’t know they were open for business yet.”

“Oh, they’re not,” answered Vic. “I’ve been working there.”

“Working there?” exclaimed Pep, jumping from his chair in wonder. “You don’t mean to tell us you’ve gone in with those fellows; do you?”

“Yes, for one appearance only,” replied Vic, with his odd smile. “I knew what I was about. I sort of hung around the New Idea with a ‘new idea’ in my head. A lot of chairs were delivered from some wagons while I was snooping around. Some fellow connected with the show came out, saw me and asked me if I wanted to earn a little helping carry in the chairs. That was my chance.”

“For what?” inquired Frank.

“To get inside and see the lay of the land,” declared Vic, with a slight twinkle in his eyes as he noted Frank’s interest.

“Say, how does it look?” asked Pep.

“It looks too bulky, if you must know. There’s no grace to it, nor elegance, nor taste,[139] nor style. It’s clumsy. That big sprawling room was never meant for a movies show. Why, I helped set some of the chairs, and, honest, at the ends of the twenty-seat rows it makes you cross-eyed to get in focus with the stage. But I got what I was after, finally.”

“What were you after?” inquired Randy.

“To find out if those fellows had any idea of bothering you folks any more.”

“Say, you’re clever!” burst out Pep. “That was a fine move. Are they?”

“I’m afraid they are,” answered Vic. “Mr. Durham, I want to tell you something. It’s only suspicion; but I believe it. I managed to overhear that man Slavin talking with his partner. I pricked up my ears when they said ‘Standard.’ Then Slavin sort of chuckled, and I caught the word ‘fire.’ I honestly believe that some of that crowd started the fire in the garage shed back of the Standard.”

“Oh, you mustn’t say that, Vic,” protested Frank.

“Well, I have said it, and it may give you an idea of what a hard crowd they are. They’re up to more mischief, too. Slavin was storming because he said they could get only stock films. He said there were very few that could be called educational, and called down his partner for not[140] hurrying some special films they seemed to be after. He said, too, that if the Standard cut into business too much, there would be some wings clipped.”

“This looks as if we should be on the alert, Durham,” remarked Mr. Strapp, seriously.

“You certainly do,” observed Vic in his blunt way. “Slavin’s partner made a remark about waiting to see what the Standard was up to before they burned their fingers, as he put it. Then Slavin himself made a significant remark.”

“What was that, Vic?” inquired Frank.

“He said roughly: ‘This is no time for a pillow fight; turn on the hot stuff!’”

“I’m staggered!” spoke Pep Smith, breathlessly. “I didn’t think it could be done this fine.”

“Yes, Professor Barrington has certainly made good,” agreed Randy Powell.

The long and arduous efforts of the motion picture chums and their helpers had come to a splendid climax. The Standard had just thrown open its doors to the public. Like the unfolding of a fairy dream, at seven-thirty o’clock that evening the protecting canvas covering the entrance to the photo playhouse had been removed.

Those passing by had been dazzled. Instantly the glowing front of the building shone like a casket of jewels. Those in front viewed a reception hall that suggested the tasteful portal to some royal palace.

No placards had been placed—no advertising had been done in any general way. Professor Barrington had pleaded for that opening night as his especial own.

[142]“Gentlemen,” he had said, “the programme we put out the first night must meet the unqualified approbation of the elite of Boston and the local press. I have thousands of friends in Boston and I have as many more in its vicinity, who for my sake would travel a good many miles. Let admission the first night be by special card. I will guarantee that the wealth and culture of the community put the seal of approval on this great enterprise.”

The old gentleman had not predicted wrongly. Over a thousand invitations had been sent out. From seven-thirty until eight-forty o’clock a constant string of private automobiles delivered load after load of well-dressed people at the entrance to the Standard. They showed themselves to be something more than mere invited guests. They took a pleased interest in viewing the comfortable and luxurious outfitting of the reception room and expressed their approval of the venture of Professor Barrington when the artistic beauties of the auditorium burst upon their view.

Frank wore a smile of great satisfaction as he and Mr. Strapp stood at the rear of the auditorium and looked over the assembled audience.

“It’s pretty fine, Durham—playhouse and people,” observed the latter. “I’d warm up[143] quicker to the popular crowd; but their turn will come after we get the good word from these people. There’re a dozen newspaper men here.”

“I suppose we will get quite a lot of free advertising,” remarked Frank. “I’m sort of anxious about the programme. You see, the special film we counted on is delayed. That historical reel that Pep so luckily ran across has taken its place.”

The house was well filled at eight o’clock. Probably a finer audience had never before attended a motion picture show. Those who disdained the cheaper grade of entertainments lost all consciousness of being out of place. There was a flutter of interest and curiosity. The beauty of the place had appealed to their artistic sense.

There was a hush of expectancy as Ben Jolly, at the organ, started a grand rolling patriotic tune. The outer curtain rolled up.

At once a picture flashed upon the screen—it was that of the old flag of the colonies. It came so suddenly, so keenly outlined, so rich in coloring, that it startled the audience. It was no study in still life; the wind waved its silken folds, the silver stars glowed and glittered. There was a hum of pleased delight. The beautiful[144] flag faded away, and there showed on the screen: “A Tabloid of Home History.”

It was not so much the well delineated but familiar scenes presented that caught the audience. The flag view had stirred them up, and the views of familiar scenes emphasized their patriotic ardor.

“Sixteen feet of film to the second,” Frank told Mr. Strapp, but the Westerner was too engrossed in viewing the screen to heed him. At the “Boston Tea Party” there was vigorous hand-clapping. “The Battle of Bunker Hill” caused a renewal of the enthusiasm. Half a dozen Revolutionary battle and skirmish scenes followed, then the waving flag again dissolved and the crowd “broke loose,” as Pep put it.

“Say, it’s acted just like an appetizer—short and sharp,” spoke Pep, moving to Frank’s side, a-quiver with delight.

“That friend of yours, Bohm, was certainly a happy thought,” remarked Frank.

“I hope the heavy stuff is going to make as good an impression,” observed Mr. Strapp.

“Oh, it’s sure to strike these wise heads right,” assured Pep.

“Is This the Kind of Fish That Swallowed Jonah?” was flashed across the screen, and a great monster was depicted occupying the entire[145] length of a freight car. Against it was a placard giving a few facts, such as: “Five harpoons and one hundred and fifty-one bullets used to subdue the monster,” “five days required to finally kill it,” “towed one hundred and twelve miles by a tug, weight thirty thousand pounds, length forty-five feet, circumference twenty-three feet nine inches, diameter eight feet three inches, mouth thirty-eight inches wide, forty-three inches deep, several thousand teeth, tail ten feet from tip to tip, hide three inches thick.”

“The Florida Keys” was the next slide. This glided into a scene where the biggest fish known in those waters was sighted by a Miami sportsman. The chase began. The harpoons flew. It took half a reel to give the exciting incidents of the battle and capture.

One scene was thrilling. This was where the monster smashed a boat into pieces and crushed the rudder and propeller of a thirty-one ton yacht. Even after it had been landed and was supposed to be dead, the leviathan, with a sudden flip of its tail, demolished a dockhouse. There was a final scene where a fisherman was seen sitting in the fish’s mouth as it was being hoisted to a flat car to be shipped to the Smithsonian Institution.

Pep, circulating about unobtrusively, but with[146] eyes and ears wide open as he directed the half dozen lads dressed in neat uniforms who acted as ushers, had a constant smile on his face. He gathered a score of compliments on the reel that he caught from august professors and scientists in the audience.

“Making A Pin” was the third film. Then the little ones in the audience were given a show. Many had been purposely invited. They had shown strict attention to the first three features. “Toy Making In Germany” brought out the ecstatic “Oh’s!” and “Ah’s!” So many Santa Claus specialities were exhibited that they fairly bewildered the little ones.

“A Hard Sum” catered to the juvenile portion of the audience old enough to attend school. There was an educational element in the school scene where the teacher wrote a sum upon the blackboard. Those who attempted its solution daubed themselves and the board with chalk as they wrestled with the problem. The film worked in the laggard, the dunce and other familiar characters of the schoolroom. When a bright little fellow wrote out the answer, the juvenile spectators cheered and then woke up as from a delightful dream, as a romping scene brought forth gales of laughter.

Professor Barrington’s face was one expansive[147] smile as, after the audience dispersed, he joined his business friends, rubbing his hands gleefully.

“An emphatic success,” he declared. “Gentlemen, there was not a flaw in the entertainment from beginning to end. It was simply perfection.”

“That’s my way of thinking,” crowed Pep. “Oh, but we’ve got the machine in grand order. All we’ve got to do now is to keep it running.”

There was a scramble for the morning papers at their room the next morning. Pep was the first to discover what the leading journal said about them.

“A whole column,” he announced, waving the paper to and fro, wild with enthusiasm. “Read, Frank—the Standard has awakened—famous!”

There was to be a lapse of two days. Then the Standard was to give four shows daily—two in the afternoon and two in the evening. There were some general details to attend to, but it gave Randy, Pep and Vic some leisure.

“Say,” remarked the latter one afternoon, “the New Idea opens to-night. I was just past there and saw their big sign.”

“Is that so?” said Randy, with awakening interest. “What do they announce?”

[148]“‘Life Among the Lowly—Great Philanthropic Film,’” replied Vic.

“That sounds sort of good,” observed Pep.

“Yes, there ought to be some human interest in that kind of stuff,” said Randy.

“Then they’ve got another specialty,” went on Vic. “‘The Beaver Colony.’”

“That’s old,” said Pep. “They had that in New York. It’s on the educational order, though. What else, Vic?”

“‘Training Camels,’” reported Vic. “Say, fellows, I’m interested there. Let’s go and see how they make out.”

“Agreed,” answered Pep, promptly.

“It’s too bad to pay out our good money here,” said Pep. “About half the people going in have complimentaries.”

“I noticed that,” answered Randy, “I suppose they want to make a good showing, though.”

“Yes, I overheard that man Slavin talking about ‘papering the house’ freely,” said Vic.

The three friends got beyond the ticket taker to look about the new playhouse with a good deal of curiosity. The place looked clean, but was poorly ventilated. There had not been much attempt made at ornamentation. The auditorium looked barn-like on account of its great width.

“They might better have had the stage at the side,” was Pep’s criticism.

“Say, fellows,” remarked Vic, “if you want to see anything clearly, you had better get seats on a line with the stage.”

“Yes, I see that,” nodded Randy. “Here we are. There’s quite a crowd,” he added, looking around the room. “It isn’t half bad for a[150] common everyday movie, but it isn’t in the class of the Standard.”

“I should say it wasn’t,” retorted Pep, spicily. “Say, upon my word all the music they’ve got is an electric piano! Hope you see me,” added Pep in a quick undertone, but loud enough for his companions to hear.

As Pep spoke he stared back at a bustling, officious-acting man coming down the aisle, who was staring hard at him. This individual paused, as if taken off his guard. Then he scowled slightly, shifted his glance, and went on his way.

“Slavin,” observed Randy, with a shrug of his shoulders.

“Yes, our old friend of Riverside Grove, sure enough,” responded Pep. “And he saw us, too.”

Pep followed the former rival of the Airdrome with his eyes. He noticed Slavin approach an usher and give him some orders as to seating the people as they came in. Then Slavin went over to a man lounging near the back row of seats. Slavin looked at Pep and his friends, and the man with him followed his example. In a minute the man started down the center aisle.

“Say, fellows,” whispered Pep, hastily, “I’ll wager the suppers that Slavin has set a spy on[151] us, who is coming to take a seat directly behind.”

“Why, what for?” inquired Vic, in a wondering way.

“To listen to what we say about the show, and probably hoping we’ll let out some points about the Standard that Slavin would like to know. S—st, now!”

Pep’s surmise was correct. The man he had noticed Slavin talking to—evidently some hanger-on of the place—took a seat in the row directly behind them. Pep gave Randy a wink.

“Say,” he said, in a voice he did not try to restrain, “I’ve had enough training in the movies line to see that these people here are going to have a visit soon from the city building department.”

“How’s that?” inquired Randy with affected artlessness.

“Look at the exits—none on the sides and just one at the rear, and not even a red light set.”

“Sure enough,” nodded Randy, as if intensely interested. “In New York they wouldn’t be allowed to run this way,” and Randy added to himself: “That will give this spy something to set Slavin thinking.”

“Did they tell you about the big features the Standard has coming,” was Pep’s next purposeful break.

[152]“Oh, you mean the great film?” answered Randy. “Say, that must have cost a lot of money. Just think! A man sent specially thousands of miles away to get reels on things never before seen by civilized man, and covering subjects never before caught by the camera! It will create a sensation; won’t it?”

“I should say so!” declared Pep, and then he subsided as their watcher squirmed and rustled about in his seat.

“That’s pretty fair,” said Randy, as the first film of the entertainment was concluded.

The subject was “Beaver Land.” It was old to Pep and Randy, but they were fairly indulgent about it. Vic had never seen it before.

“Those are real good pictures,” he observed. “Interesting, too. I know something about beavers and they show them up quite natural.”

“The Great Philanthropic Film—Among the Lowly,” was next announced on the screen. The delineation began with a guide starting out with a party of slummers to view the under life of a great city. The only philanthropic part of the display was where one of the group gave some money to a cripple, and another paid off a constable who was about to eject an invalid widow, and her little family of children, for non-payment of the rent.

[153]“The Modern Fagin” was the central feature of this film. This was an elaborate showing of the life of petty thieves. There was a scene where one street gamin tripped up a market woman, while his accomplice made away with the contents of her basket.

Then there was a training scene in the thieves’ school. A wretched old man showed his apt pupils how to pick a pocket, snatch a purse, and pry up a window. The film ended with the successful robbers making a great raid by smashing in the window of a jewelry store.

“Why!” gasped Randy, “that ought to be censored! It’s the kind of a picture that gilds crime. Those pictures are the most dangerous I ever saw.”

“The camels next,” said Vic, as a new announcement flashed across the screen. “I lived in a tent with some of them with my father when I was a small boy. My!” he added rather dolefully, “I do hope we get some word about my camels from the man Mr. Durham has hired to look them up.”

“Frank always knows what he’s doing,” replied Pep, encouragingly, “and the man he has sent to look up your camels, does, too, very likely. You’ll soon hear some news, I feel sure.”

The film showed a fenced-in space, the tops[154] of trees beyond it. A camel was standing feeding in one corner of the enclosure. A man with a hooked pole came in by a little gate. He approached the animal and gave it a jab with the pole.

The camel turned around. As it did so, its other side came into full view. It was a clean, intelligent looking animal and as the man tapped one of its feet the camel lifted that leg and waved it.

“Say, oh, say!” burst from Vic so suddenly and sharply that Pep glanced at him in sheer wonderment. Vic had started from his seat. His eyes were dilating. He seemed about to blurt out the cause of his extraordinary emotion.

“What’s the matter?” inquired the marveling Pep, placing a hand on the arm of his companion to quiet him.

Vic was trembling all over. He appeared to be in a paroxysm of suppressed excitement. He was about to reply to Pep, when apparently he was put on his guard by a glance back of him. The spy was leaning over with an eager face to catch what he might say.

“Just get out of this, Pep; will you?” whispered Vic in a positive gasp. “I’ve something to tell you—something of great importance.”

“What’s the matter, fellows?” propounded Randy, as he noticed Pep arising to his feet and, also, the evident perturbation of Vic.

Pep gave him a nudge and a look which told his quick-witted comrade that something was up. The trio crowded past the others in the seat and started for the door. Pep shot a glance backward. He caught sight of the man who had sat directly behind them and whom they had every reason to believe was a spy on their movements, staring after them in a wondering and undecided manner.

Pep led the way to the sidewalk, out of the way of passing pedestrians and possible watchers from the playhouse.

“Now then, Vic,” he challenged—“what’s new and strange?”

“That film!” gulped Vic, his face pale and his frame in a quiver of excitement.

“You mean that camel reel?” inquired Pep.

[156]“Just that. Say, I thought I’d holler right out! That camel was mine!”

“You mean to say it is a picture of one of your stolen camels,” asked Pep.

“Sure—don’t I tell you so?” retorted Vic. “Why, I’d know him anywhere.”

“Camels are a good deal alike—” began Randy, but Vic interrupted him with the words:

“That’s so, but there’s only one marked as he is marked.”

“Marked—how do you mean?” questioned Pep, tremendously worked up now.

“On his right forefoot,” explained Vic. “Bolivar is branded there, plain as day. It’s what they call a monogram. This one is ‘G. B.,’ the initials of my uncle’s name. Bill told me about it—Bill Purvis, you know?”

“Yes,” nodded Pep assentingly.

“That’s the clew we gave the people down at Wardham who went hunting for the camels when they were stolen. It’s in the picture, too—that mark.”

“What picture?” demanded Randy.

“Oh, didn’t I ever show it to you—the one Bill gave me? Here, get nearer to the electric light—see?” and Vic drew from his pocket a fair sized card photograph.

At this both Pep and Randy gazed closely.[157] Sure enough, as Vic had told, on the right forefoot of the leading animal pictured the mark Vic had described was clearly to be seen.

“I didn’t notice that mark on the camel in the film,” said Pep, “but of course I wasn’t looking for it. There’s something to this, Vic, sure.”

Pep was always ready to jump at a speedy conclusion, especially if something new and exciting was involved in the subject in hand. He pushed his cap back in his impulsive way, as if here was a new mystery to solve.

“It looks as if that camel in the film was yours,” said Randy. “If that’s so——”

“It is so,” declared Vic confidently. “That being true, you can see what it means. That camel is alive, and he’s being used as an actor, or a model, or whatever you call it—”

“In motion picture scenarios!” burst out Pep, seeing the light in a flash. “You’ve hit it. Just that.”

“Well, well, isn’t it strange to get a trace of the camel this way now?” cried Randy. “All you’ve got to do is to find out where these New Idea people get their films, and you’ve got the starting point to running down the whole four camels.”

“Hold on,” directed Pep at once. “Maybe that isn’t so easy. Say, there’s some thinking to[158] do here,” and his brow wrinkled in a dreadfully wise way. He wriggled about as if his mind was acting at lightning speed. “If anybody but this especial New Idea crowd was running those films, I’d say you could get on the track of the people who made that film right away. Where that rascal Slavin has a hand in anything, though, look out, I say. Didn’t you tell me, Vic, that you heard Slavin say something about the poor stock films in the educational line?”

“Yes, I did,” assented Vic, “and that they must get some special features to keep up with the procession.”

“Then you just make up your mind that this is one of them, and I’ll bet that it doesn’t come from any of the regular exchanges,” declared Pep. “A real live camel isn’t so common. A real clever scenario man with a central feature like that could keep on getting out a whole lot of real taking stuff. Slavin would steal a whole menagerie if he had the chance. I can’t see how he might have come across your camel. Maybe he didn’t. A bad crowd did, though, of course, or they wouldn’t have stolen him. It’s just such people Slavin trains with. You can figure it out your own way,” concluded Pep sapiently, “but Slavin is clever enough to hide his evil work, if he really has any hand in this business, and you’re not going to catch him napping.”

[159]“I think as Pep does, Vic,” put in Randy. “Some pirate movies have got hold of your camel. They’re a kind decent folks in the line won’t usually trade with. Slavin would. He must know the whole four camels are being hunted and that they might be traced down by someone interested accidentally seeing that film, so he has probably fixed it so the crowd using the camel can’t be easily traced.”

“I’ve got it!” exclaimed Pep, suddenly. “I’ve thought it all out! Say, fellows, you wait here till I come back; will you? I’ll be gone only a few minutes. Come farther away from here, too.”

“What for?” inquired Vic blankly.

“So if that spy of Slavin gets sight of us, he won’t guess what we’re plotting and suspect us and head us off.”

“What’s your idea anyway, Pep?” asked the curious Randy.

“I’ll tell you when I get back. It’s only as far as the hotel. I want to get to the New Idea in time for the second camel film.”

Pep bounded away, leaving his comrades puzzled but hopeful. He was not gone five minutes and came back with sparkling eyes.

“I’ve got it,” he said, and tapped a side pocket of his coat which bulged out considerably.

“What have you got, Pep?” asked Randy,[160] straining his eyes to guess from the object in his pocket its identity and purpose. Pep drew into view a flat book-shaped case.

“Hello! your camera,” exclaimed Randy.

“That’s it,” nodded Pep. “I am going to take a photo of that camel film.”

“Why, say, what’s the good?” inquired Vic, “I’ve got a bigger and better picture of that camel than you can get.”

“It isn’t the camel so much I’m after,” explained Pep.

“What, then?” inquired Vic.

“His surroundings. There may be some figure, or building, or view that might give a hint as to where the picture was taken. Now, see here, you two had better go to the hotel. The three of us going back to the New Idea might excite suspicion. I’ll slip in quietly, watching out for the fellow who sat behind us there. Leave it to me to get what I’m after.”

“All right,” assented Vic, only somewhat dubiously. “The main thing, though, is to find out where the film was made. If you’ll let me, I’d hang around and run up against a couple of the boy ushers there. We worked together carrying in the chairs, you see. Maybe it’s generally known around the New Idea where the reels came from.”

“It’s not, that I know,” declared Pep.

[161]“How do you know it, Pep?” asked Randy.

“From the fact that the name of the film maker wasn’t shown in announcing the reel. It’s an independent, in the first place—under cover, I’ll wager. Say, fellows, don’t waste my time. Let me try out my idea. There’ll be plenty to do after that to keep us thinking.”

Rather reluctantly Randy and Vic started in the direction of their hotel. Pep proceeded straight back to the Slavin playhouse. He knew a good deal about photo work and he had an excellent small camera. Once inside he waited in a rear seat until the third film ended. Then, the dispersing crowd out of the way, he selected a seat near the center aisle close to the front of the house, securing just the right focus on the stage.

Pep was so absorbed in his plans that he noticed little of those around as the first film played on the screen. When the camel film was announced. His eyes were in full use. Again he noticed that no credit was given to the maker of the film. What he was looking for was the introduction of some object, surroundings or person likely to give him a hint that could be followed down.

Pep kept the camera in his lap ready to raise, focus it and snap it at the right moment. He had kept it out of view when the lights were on.[162] All of the time he held the camera in an unobtrusive way. He did not wish to excite suspicion or even attention.

From all that Pep could judge, the training scene in which half a dozen characters appeared had been enacted in some kind of an enclosure. He was disappointed in it. He did not like to let the slides pass by without catching the faces of the actors, which might count for something.

“There’s something!” almost aloud in his excitement Pep soliloquized.

A large box had been carried into the scene by two men. It was upside down, but Pep could make out the words, a name made by a marking brush.

“That is probably an address—maybe a shipment box to the scenario camp,” mused Pep. “It’s a good time, too, for the actors and the camel are nearly stationary.”

Pep lifted the camera even with his chest.

Click! the shutter closed back. The operation was over and Pep felt that he had accomplished something.

Just at that moment a hand shot out at his side. His neighbor, whom he had not particularly noticed, grasped him suddenly by one wrist.

“Give that up!” he ordered hoarsely, snatching out for the camera, which Pep instantly thrust behind him.

Pep Smith at once decided that the man who now held his hand captive was another of the Slavin spies. He was sure of it as the latter added to his fierce command the words:

“I’ve been watching out for your sort—stealing, hey?”

“Stealing what?” retorted Pep, vigorously. “No, you don’t!” he added, as the man tried to reach the camera. “That’s my property, as it happens.”

Several persons had caught the echo of the snap-clip of the camera. The rising up of the man and Pep, the start of a struggle, began to attract attention. Pep’s captor took a new tack. He waved a hand towards the entrance, uttering a low whistle. The house policeman came hurrying to the row of seats where the commotion was going on.

“Take this fellow out of here, officer,” spoke Pep’s captor. “He’s been up to tricks.”

[164]Pep knew that resistance would be useless. Further than that, some ladies and children near to him were becoming nervous and alarmed. No one better than Pep knew how quickly a dangerous panic might start from a trifling incident. He went quietly with the officer, his captor following.

“What is it—an arrest?” inquired the policeman, as they got down the aisle away from the center of excitement.

“Later, maybe,” was the response. “Let the management decide that. Take him to the office.”

The policeman now grasped Pep’s arm, which the other man released. He marched him clear to the rear, then around the rows of seats and down a side aisle to the stage end of the house. He opened a door at one side of the stage, went through a passageway, and ushered Pep into a lighted room.

This was the office of the New Idea. It little resembled the tasty business-looking office of the Standard. It contained chairs, a desk and a table. The air was cloudy with tobacco smoke. Their chairs tilted back against the wall, their feet elevated on the table, and smoking cigars, were Slavin and another person.

There was no doubt that Slavin instantly[165] recognized Pep, for at a sharp stare at the youth down came chair and feet.

“Hello! what’s this?” he shot out.

“Stealing,” reported Pep’s first captor, stepping forward briskly. “You can go, officer. We’ll let you know if we need you later.”

“All right,” nodded the policeman, lightly, and retired with a knowing look on his face.

“Stealing; eh?” spoke Slavin, bending a scowling face towards Pep. “Picking pockets?”

“Say, you don’t have to ask that,” retorted Pep, hotly. “No one better than yourself knows I don’t have to do that.”

“He was stealing, all the same,” insisted his captor, and as Pep realized the special emissary of Slavin. “I caught him red-handed.”

“What doing?” inquired the other man, evidently Slavin’s business partner.

“You get him to give you that camera and you’ll probably find out,” was the explanation. “I know the fellow, for I’ve seen him before. He’s one of the Standard crowd.”

The speaker concluded by snatching at the camera. Pep was off his guard for that. His despoiler handed it to Slavin, who looked it over casually and pushed it into a drawer of his desk with the words:

[166]“We’ll keep that for evidence and look it over later. Stealing a film; eh?” he interrogated the previous speaker.

“That’s what. He had that camera in his lap ready for snapping. It’s an old trick and I suspected him, knowing the crowd he came from.”

“What was he stealing?” interrogated Slavin’s partner.

“The camel film,” was the reply.

“Eh? What’s that?” ejaculated Slavin, with a start. Then he swept Pep’s face with swift suspicion and added: “Of course that—one of our own specials. You’re in fine business, you Standard people; aren’t you? I believe I’ll just hand you over to the police.”

“I wasn’t stealing your films,” protested Pep.

“What do you call it, then?” sneered Slavin.

“I wanted a photo for a friend of mine, who was interested.”

“Yah, that!” jibed Slavin. “It’ll be a fine thing to have the public know that a partner in the high and lofty Standard goes around stealing New Idea films; won’t it, now? Say,” he added to his partner, “we’ll just cage this fellow. It will be a downfall for old Strapp and his crowd and a capital advertisement for us. Call the officer and make a regular complaint, Norris,” he[167] ordered, to the man who stood on guard between Pep and the doorway.

Pep felt that he had placed himself in something of a quandary. He thought quickly and to some purpose. He turned upon Slavin in a defiant, fearless way.

“You’ll do nothing of the sort, I’ll guarantee,” he said boldly, “if you think twice about it.”

“Oh, is that so?” jeered Slavin. “Why won’t I?”

“Because I shall explain why I photographed that film. I said a friend of mine wanted a picture of the camel in it. I spoke the truth. He wants that picture because the animal in your film was stolen.”

“The mischief!” ejaculated the partner of Slavin, staring at Pep as if he had found him out to be a pretty smart boy—and one to be feared.

But if this man was startled—the effect upon Slavin of Pep’s audacious statement, impolitic though it might have been, was fairly extraordinary. He actually paled and trembled. For a moment his mind seemed taking in all the words might imply. Then springing to his feet he pounced down upon Pep.

“Norris,” he spoke in husky, unsteady tones, “take this fellow down to the lumber room. Lock him in safe and sound. When the crowd[168] is gone we’ll put him through the third degree. It isn’t safe to let him loose.”

“No, he knows a lot too much for our good,” growled Slavin’s partner.

Pep’s eyes glowed. He had deftly got these men to verify his suspicions. There was something underhanded about their possession of the camel film. Pep had surmised correctly when he had told Vic Belton and Randy that the starting point in the hunt for the stolen camels was the New Idea photo playhouse.

Pep was a fighter on most occasions when cornered. However, he knew that Slavin was in an ugly mood. The three men he faced were big burly ruffians. Pep did not care about being battered. They could not detain him long, for Randy and Vic knew that he had come to the New Idea. They would suspect Slavin and look for him there if he was absent for any length of time.

“Go ahead,” said Pep, indifferently. “You won’t help yourself by locking me up.”

The man Slavin had called Norris led the youth to a door at the rear of the room.

“Get down there,” he ordered, and turned on an electric light in the vague darkness below. As Pep descended a pair of rickety steps Norris closed and locked the door.

[169]The apartment Pep found himself in was used as a lumber room. It seemed to run under the entire stage space. It was littered up with damaged chairs, pieces of boards, some stage scenery and such trumpery as is regularly broken or discarded in a motion picture playhouse.

There was not a break in the solid stone wall enclosing the apartment except where a deep, barred window showed, too high for Pep to reach. Even could he have done this and have removed the bars, he quickly discerned that a cat could hardly hope to squeeze through the narrow aperture.

“I’m fairly booked, I guess,” reflected the youth. “I wonder how it will all come out? There’s a ventilator that might help me, if I could reach it. No, it isn’t that. It’s a dump chute.”

As Pep spoke he advanced under a hole in the floor that formed the ceiling overhead. It was far beyond ready reach. Studying the break in the floor, however, he found that a box-like structure ran up about four feet into the room overhead. Then Pep knew that it was a chute into which the sweepings of the playhouse were dumped.

A heap of dust, scraps of paper, splinters of wood and the like, littered the floor. Pep the[170] inquisitive pulled the mass over. He apparently had some leisure to spare. He proceeded to utilize it to some purpose.

He felt that he could not know too much of the enemies of the Standard. There were quite a lot of envelopes, postals, advertising matter and the like. He inspected what there was. There were several duns for unpaid bills, applications for engagements, offers of service from film houses.

Pep’s eyes brightened as he fished out a part of a letter. There was not much of it and he could not find the connecting fragments, but he felt satisfied with his discovery.

“It’s from the people who got up that camel film,” decided Pep. “‘Can make a series of about twenty camel subjects’ that scrawl says, ‘and then work in educational nature reels like bees, butterflies and birds. Must be secret and cautious and will ship from B twice a week.’ Where’s ‘B’, I wonder?”

Pep pulled over the papers in the heap several times, but he could not find the rest of the letter. He had kicked aside a creased sheet of manilla paper several times. Casually picking it up, Pep noticed that it had enclosed some goods shipped to the New Idea. It bore an address in ink. Then he noticed that it had the[171] impress of a red stamp in one corner. As he read what this said he almost uttered a shout.

“Got it, sure!” he crowed and he tore address and stamped words from the manilla sheet. “This is the paper a package of camel films came in, sure as shooting. I want to get out of here now, if I can. Yes, I’m going to do it.”

Pep cast his eyes once more up at the ceiling five feet overhead. Then he went over to a long plank. This he lifted, dragged and tilted in an incline against the side wall just under the chute.

It was no task for a healthy, nimble boy to scale this. When Pep reached the top of the plank he elbowed his way up into the chute, keeping a safe anchor purchase on the top of the board with one toe.

Very cautiously he grasped the edge of the top of the chute and stuck his head up. The chute was located in a partitioned-off space behind the stage. Pep lifted himself out of the chute, felt a blast of fresh air, and groped his way to its source, an open window.

It was a ten foot drop to a paved court, and to find his way to the nearest street was nothing. Inside of five minutes Pep was at the hotel.

Randy and Vic greeted him with expectant faces as he burst in upon them.

[172]“Did you get the picture?” questioned Vic eagerly.

“No—lost my camera; but I’ve found something better. Look here.”

Pep drew forth the scrap of manilla paper. In ink it bore the address of the New Idea. A red stamp across one corner read “Prepaid” and under it were the words: “Brinton, Massachusetts.”

“That’s part of the covering that enclosed the camel film,” announced Pep. “Vic, I think you’ll find your camels at or near Brinton.”

“What have you decided, Frank?” asked Pep.

“I think our duty to Vic is to do what we can for him,” was the prompt reply of the whole-souled leader of the motion picture chums.

“Yes, he is a good-hearted fellow,” declared Pep, warmly, “and he is worrying more than you think about those camels of his.”

“I can see that. I can see also,” added Frank with a quizzical expression of face, “that you are about as anxious as he is to play detective and get on the track of the animals.”

“I’ll do better than that man you sent out to find the camels, I’ll bet,” vaunted Pep. “Why, he just wasted time. Then when you gave him the tip about Brinton, he either missed his cue or botched it and scared away the game. No, sir—you give Vic and me a chance and we’ll find out where the camels are hidden unless the animals have been spirited away to some distant place.”

[174]“It’s a bad time to spare you, Pep,” said Frank, in a business-like way.

“I know that,” responded Pep. “The last two days have shown what people think of the Standard. Wasn’t it just grand last night?”

“See you in a minute, Pep,” interrupted Frank, as Mr. Strapp called to him from the office, and he left Pep to think over how grand, indeed, had been the progress of the Standard since opening up regularly.

The week had started in with a programme of only two daily entertainments—a matinee from two to four and an evening bill from eight to ten. This was to continue for that week to try out the plan. The programme was quite a long one, but this very fact induced the class of people the Standard was reaching for to come from a distance to an entertainment lasting two hours.

There had been almost a scramble for seats the day before. The Standard, roomy as it was, had its auditorium packed at both afternoon and evening entertainments. The night before, Pep, as he now sat recalling it, fancied he would never forget.

The feature of the evening was the most beautiful floral film he had ever seen. It was labelled “The Century Plant.” Professor Barrington[175] had held high hopes as to the attractive qualities of this unusual film and had not been disappointed.

It appeared that a convention of horticulturists from all over the East was being held in Boston. The professor knew its officers. His suggestions and influence had resulted in a viva voce resolution on the part of the convention to go and see the famous film in a body.

By eight o’clock nearly three hundred of the delegates and their wives filled one entire section of the big auditorium. Then there filed in over one hundred students from Harvard University and Wellesley College.

“You could fairly smell the perfume!” declared Mr. Strapp.

It was no wonder, therefore, that Pep reflected that he was missing a great thing in leaving Boston on the proposed mission. He was, however, loyal to Vic. They had become great friends, and to Pep more particularly Vic betrayed his deep anxiety to learn the fate of the stolen “ships of the desert.”

The day after Pep’s stirring adventures at the New Idea he and Vic had related their details to Frank. The latter was fully convinced that Pep had made an important discovery. Frank at once telegraphed to the special agent who was[176] trying to find the stolen animals to go to Brinton and see what he could find out. As a matter of fact the man had discovered nothing and Frank had called him in and paid him off.

Frank handed Pep a roll of bank notes as he returned from the office of the playhouse.

“Mr. Strapp thinks you and Vic had better try your luck on this proposition,” he advised his eager chum. “Don’t let money stand in the way of accomplishing something.”

“Oh, we’re going to find those camels,” declared the optimistic Pep. “I’d better go to the hotel and get Vic and start for Brinton on the first evening train.”

“All right,” nodded Frank. “I’ll go with you as far as the hotel.”

“Say, Frank,” remarked Pep, as they left the Standard, “I hope we’re not going to miss ‘the great film.’”

“Oh, I don’t think that will be ready until next week. That reminds me, too: I must send Randy with a message right away to Mr. Randall. He hasn’t been feeling very well for a day or two. I don’t want to have him think we are neglecting him, but we have been so busy yesterday and to-day that neither Professor Barrington nor myself could find time to visit him.”

Mr. Randall was the man who had been sent[177] out on the big film expedition. Pep and Randy had seen him only once, and he had impressed them greatly. He had received a joyous greeting from the professor when he arrived, and had at once been placed in possession of a little studio about a mile from the playhouse. The location was retired and pains had been taken to keep it secret.

Mr. Randall had come back from his wonderful expedition a good deal of a wreck. One ear had been bitten off by some beast of prey, the other had been frozen and a part of it was missing.

The scarred and battered adventurer was now working on the development of the negatives of the great film and had been given a full studio equipment to perfect this.

Meantime, the Standard had whetted public curiosity and interest by putting out in the daily prints little hints as to the coming great film. They had also announced this grand feature on the screen at the Standard.

“I suppose Slavin and his crowd are just worrying themselves to death guessing what the great film really is,” Randy had remarked.

Frank had decided it the best policy to leave the New Idea crowd entirely alone. He did not even strive to find out how they were succeeding[178] with their new enterprise. The bustling Pep, however, was an inquisitive news gatherer. He had reported only the evening before.

“Slavin had no crowd at all the second night.”

“And the third?” Randy had asked.

“There wasn’t any third night,” explained Pep with a grin. “They had some trouble with the people who furnished their electric light outfit, I heard. Anyway, they weren’t allowed to open till they settled the bill. Last night they ran a second camel film, but there weren’t many there to see it.”

When they got to the hotel it took Pep and Vic only a few minutes to make up a package of necessaries for what they believed would be a brief trip. Frank had written a hurried note while they were packing up.

“Here, Randy,” he said, “I would like to have you take a message to Mr. Randall and see how he is getting along. You know where his studio is?”

“Oh, yes,” replied Randy, “I’ve been there once already, you know. Why, it’s on the way to your depot, fellows,” he added to Pep and Vic. “We’ll take the walk together; eh?”

“Nothing better,” chirped the lively Pep, and the little coterie bade Frank good-bye and started on their way.

[179]Pep kept up his usual brisk chattering the mile or less they had to cover. When they came to a point where the street leading to Randy’s destination diverged they parted.

“Come on,” directed Pep, as Randy turned away with an expressed hope that they would have all kinds of good luck in their mission. Pep had found Vic staring back of him and caught his arm urging him along.

“What’s the matter?” he added.

“I was just looking,” replied Vic, rather strangely.

“Looking for what?” asked Pep.

“Well, I fancied I saw two fellows who looked a good deal like some men we saw at the New Idea the other night dodge into a doorway back of us. They’ve disappeared, though. Say, do you suppose they were following us?”

“If they were,” replied Pep, “I’ll fool them. Quick, now!” as they turned a sharp corner.

Out of view of any possible pursuers, Pep made a dive through a narrow space between two buildings and Vic followed him. In three minutes’ time they had reached the next street.

Randy proceeded on his way, chirp and chipper and whistling a careless tune. There was so much to feel proud and happy over as to present and future prospects, that all of life seemed to him to be gilded with sunshine.

Randy had been to the studio of Mr. Randall once before. He knew the location generally and had no difficulty in finding the house where the professor’s agent lived. Its lower part was occupied by a woman who rented out the rooms above. She was scrubbing out the little front hall as Randy appeared.

Randy stepped past the woman and ascended the stairs. If he had chanced to look behind him as he left the street, he might have made out two men dodging after him. They were the twain who had just recently attracted the attention of Vic and aroused the suspicions of Pep.

All unconscious of being followed, Randy proceeded to the second story of the old house.[181] The rear room of that floor was a large glass-roofed apartment. It had been once used as a photograph gallery. It was now being utilized not only as a living room by Mr. Randall, but also to develop and perfect the films he had brought back with him from over a year’s travel and adventure.

Randy knocked at the door of the room, but no attention was paid to the summons. He waited a minute or two and knocked again. There was still no invitation to enter. Randy held his ear close to the door.

“There’s surely someone in there, for I can hear hard breathing,” he declared. “Maybe Mr. Randall is asleep.”

Randy tried the door, and the knob turned readily in his grasp. It was quite late in the afternoon, but by no means dusk yet. However, the slanting glass roof had inside screens to exclude the sunlight. These had been pulled close. They were made of thin cambric and while they were thin and did not entirely shut out the light, they shadowed the interior and for a moment caused Randy to make out his surroundings imperfectly.

Then he saw that someone was lying on a couch set in an embrasure in the wall. Randy approached the recumbent figure. He made out[182] the man he had come to see. Mr. Randall was apparently asleep, and the youth touched his arm.

“Mr. Randall, it’s a messenger from Professor Barrington,” he announced.

The sleeper roused up, turned over, and blinked his eyes in a tired, bothered way at Randy. The latter became concerned at once. The man appeared quite ill. His face was flushed and his eyes watery. As he sat on the edge of the couch he moved to and fro. His hand rubbed his brow in a confused, unsteady way. Then, as he gave a lurch forward, Randy sprang to his side and eased him back on the pillow, the man gasping painfully. His hands were hot as fire and he lay there panting weakly.

“It’s another attack of the old fever coming on,” voiced the sufferer, faintly. “You see, I had a hard tussle of it. The Esquimaux got me just in time. Did you say Professor Barrington sent you?”

“Yes, sir,” answered Randy, “and I’m going straight back to tell him how sick you are. He never dreamed it and I know he will be very anxious about you.”

“Maybe it’s nothing,” said Mr. Randall. “I’ll soon get over it. Feel very much prostrated, though. I—I wish you would tell Professor[183] Barrington to bring a doctor with him. And—on the table. That package. Just take it to him, will you? I’ve got the film in shape. He’ll find directions for the shade and color effects in the envelopes inside.”

“You mean this?” inquired Randy, as he moved towards the table where lay an oblong package.

His fingers tingled as he placed them upon this. The great film! The thought filled the impressible Randy with an awed sense. Here was the great photo production secured at the cost of so much money, patience, intelligence and peril!

Just then the patient uttered a sharp cry and started up on the couch, his eyes wild looking, his hands waving about excitedly.

“It’s blinding me—the sun shining on those icebergs!” he shouted out. Then he shivered. “The cold—the cold!” he added. “Seventy-two below at noon! I’m perishing!”

“He’s out of his mind—he’s delirious,” exclaimed Randy, very greatly alarmed. He replaced the package on the table and hastened down the stairs. The woman below was just wiping off the stone sill of the street doorway.

“Quick!” he spoke—“the gentleman upstairs is dangerously ill.”

[184]“I knew that,” interrupted the woman. “I wanted to bring him hot tea when I was cleaning up his room just now, but he said it was nothing.”

“He is in a fever and out of his head,” said Randy. “Could you go up and stay with him till I come back and watch him to see that he does himself no harm? I must fetch a doctor at once.”

“Surely I’ll attend to him,” responded the woman, readily.

“Where can I find the nearest doctor?” inquired Randy.

“There’s none very near here that I know of,” said the woman. “The way we do is to go to the nearest drug store.”

“Keep a watch on Mr. Randall,” was Randy’s hasty direction, and he bolted through the open doorway for the street.

He almost ran into two men who stood at one side of the steps as he flew down them. They must have overheard his conversation with the landlady of the house, was the thought that flitted through Randy’s mind. He was so intent on calling aid for the sufferer, however, that he paid no particular attention to the men.

Randy ran all the way to the drug store, two squares distant. Its proprietor stared rather[185] wonderingly at the breathless, excited boy who dashed into the place precipitately.

“Mister, will you call the nearest doctor, quick!” panted Randy.

“Urgent case?” questioned the druggist.

“Yes, sir, very much so,” declared Randy. “It’s right on this street—No. 217.”

“Mrs. Dean’s? I know the place,” nodded the druggist. “You had better wait till I see who I can get,” and the speaker hurried to the telegraph booth.

Randy was on pins and needles of suspense. He knew that Professor Barrington would never forgive himself if anything happened to his faithful agent through any real or seeming neglect. The druggist had to make several calls on the telephone before he found a doctor at home.

“I’ve caught Dr. Rolfe at home,” he advised Randy as he came out of the booth. “He says he’ll come at once. His office is a mile away, though, and it will probably be fully fifteen minutes before he shows up.”

“Oh, thank you,” said Randy, gratefully. “I must hurry back,” and he bolted out.

He was dreadfully stirred up and anxious as he ran up the steps of the house he had recently left. The stairway was dark and shadowy. Someone coming down them half-way up jostled[186] violently against Randy. The latter supposed it was some roomer in the place. Then, as he reached the upper hall, he almost bolted into the landlady. She had just come up the rear stairs from the kitchen, it appeared, and she carried a basin of steaming hot water in her hands.

“Oh, it’s you?” she hailed. “I was just bringing the doctor some boiling water he ordered. You got him here very quick; didn’t you?”

“What doctor?” bolted out Randy.

“The one you went for. He got here ahead of you. I took him up to the studio and he sent me for this.”

“The doctor—here?” cried Randy. “That is impossible! The doctor the druggist telephoned for lives a mile away and couldn’t possibly get here inside of the next fifteen minutes.”

“I don’t understand—” began the landlady, but Randy darted past her.

“Something’s wrong,” he faltered, as he crossed the threshold of the studio. “See,” he added to the landlady—“there is no doctor here.”

“Why, I left him here not two minutes since,” declared the woman, staring about the room and almost dropping the basin she carried in her sheer amaze and bewilderment.

Randy’s quick eyes swept the room with a[187] swift, comprehending glance. Mr. Randall lay quiet as if exhausted on the couch where Randy had seen him last. Except for him and themselves the apartment held no occupant.

Suddenly Randy uttered a startled cry. It was a fairly terrified one, shocking afresh the already disturbed nerves of the landlady.

“Where is the package that was on that table?” he cried, wildly.

“Eh—oh, yes, I noticed it when I went for the hot water. It’s gone; isn’t it?”

“Gone—it’s been stolen!” shouted Randy, almost overcome by the discovery. “Oh, I see it all. It was no doctor whom you saw.”

“But he said he was,” declared the landlady. “He said he was sent for. He even mentioned Mr. Randall’s name and—”

Randy did not wait to hear the rest of the sentence. He was out of the room, down the stairs, and out upon the street in a flash. The worst of fears appalled him.

“Those two men!” he faltered, gazing up and down the deserted street. “They must have followed me! They overheard me and one of them impersonated the doctor. They are gone and with them,—oh the fearful loss!—the great film!”

It was well on towards midnight when Pep and Vic reached Brinton. There had been two changes to make and the village was asleep when they got off the cars at the little railroad depot. Its door was locked, they were the only passengers who had left the train and they stood looking about them in a cheerless, undecided way.

Brinton was decidedly a way-back, one-horse town. When they traced the only light visible to its source, the boys found that it hung over the doorway of a little restaurant. Across this there was a sign reading: “Hotel.”

They had to knock long and loud to arouse a frowsy appearing old man, who opened the door and viewed them with a sleepy and unfriendly eye.

“What do you want?” he challenged, holding the door open about two inches.

“A room, if you’ve got it,” was Pep’s prompt reply.

Somewhat grudgingly the old man finally admitted[189] them. He waited until they had produced a dollar, which was his demand for a double-bedded room. Then he led them to the apartment.

The boys made a very fair shift in getting comfortably landed in beds that sagged at one end and bumped up in the center.

They were supplied with a capital breakfast in the morning, to their surprise this being included in the one dollar paid in advance.

“Now then—what?” inquired Vic, as they came out upon the street.

“Why, my idea is to see the express agent here. It was by express that the film we saw at the New Idea came. It was stamped as coming from here. We’ll make for the depot first.”

The boys came across the man in charge of the railroad depot. He was a loose-jointed, lazy-acting man who pottered about as if he was tired of living.

“Are you in charge here, mister?” inquired Pep.

“Yes, depot agent, telegraph operator, real estate, loans and insurance on the side, baggage master——”

“Stop there,” said Pep. “That’s where we want you. We are looking up some packages that have been sent from here to the New Idea,[190] a picture show in Boston.”

“Hello!” exclaimed the man with a start—“you’re the second one.”

“Second one, what?” propounded Pep.

“To come here, asking about them packages. Yes, there’s been two we sent—‘John Smith’ to the ‘New Idea.’ Don’t believe that’s his right name, though. He sent two of the packages, as I say. About a week ago he stopped sending ’em. Haven’t seen him since.”

“About a week ago?” ruminated Pep. “I can guess that Slavin sent him a warning. Where did the man come from?” he asked.

“Dunno, and no one else. A man who was here a few days since asked me that same question. I gave him a description of the man. He went out searching for him, but he came back and took the train for Boston next morning, looking sort of discouraged, so I reckon he didn’t find out much.”

“The detective Frank Durham hired, I’ll bet,” whispered Vic to Pep.

“Likely enough,” replied the latter. Then he said to the station agent: “Describe the man to us, too; will you, mister?”

The agent did so, “John Smith” was tall, dark and wore a light suit. He had come to the depot on two occasions on horseback, and, it looked, from some distance.

[191]“You’d know that hoss if you saw him,” declared the man. “He was a succus hoss.”

“Oh, a circus horse?” guessed Pep.

“That’s what I said—all mottled like a zebra. And spotted—brown and white. Say, is there something wrong about that fellow that so many people are looking after him?”

“Nothing that you are mixed up in,” assured Pep. Then he learned the direction the shipper of the packages had come from, and he and Vic went outside and held a brief consultation.

“South,” decided Pep, “and that road,” and he pointed in the direction the man they were seeking had taken when last seen by the express agent. “Now then, my opinion is this man comes from some movies camp probably quite a distance from Brinton and in an isolated spot. The railroad map shows no railway to the west for thirty miles. We will follow this road till we strike that line. Then we will make inquiries at the stations we reach if we don’t strike a clew before then.”

“I hope we may do that, Pep,” sighed Vic. “This looks like a dreadful tangle.”

“We’re here to untangle things; aren’t we?” demanded Pep. “Here’s the programme: You take one side of the road, and I’ll take the other. We must make inquiries at every farm house we[192] come to about a tall dark man and a piebald circus horse.”

That was tedious work. At noon they came to a little village some ten miles from their starting point. It had a few houses only and a small general store. The boys bought some crackers and cheese and rested for an hour while they compared notes. Altogether they had found five persons who recalled seeing the mottled horse. They had only casually noticed it, however, and had no idea of where it came from or where it was going.

“Well,” commented Pep, “we’re only sure of one thing.”

“What’s that?” inquired Vic.

“That the man we are looking for came this far, homeward bound on this road.”

“Yes, that’s so,” agreed Vic, “for the people in the last house you called at saw the horse, and that was less than a mile away.”

During the next two hours they found only one more person, a field hand, who had seen the circus horse and its rider. Then they seemed to have lost the trail. There were many confusing cross roads, and the boys were uncertain as to which they should pursue. It was fairly dusk, when dusty, travel worn and tired out, they entered a farm yard and put their usual question[193] to a man refreshing himself at the pump after a hard day’s work.

“We’ll put up here till morning, if they can accommodate us,” Pep told Vic. “Say, mister,” he added, advancing to the farmer, “have you seen anything of a man and a horse—” and Pep rattled off the tiresome formula comprising a description of man and beast.

“A piebald horse!” fairly snorted the man, looking both interested and suspicious—“no, I haven’t; but I’d give a dollar to anyone who has.”

“Is that so?” spoke Pep, pricking up his ears and believing he was going to find out something of value. “Why do you say that?”

“Because I’m looking for jest sech an animal,” was the spirited reply. “Night afore last someone drove into my orchard over by the field gate with a wagon and a sheet. He lifted one of my bee hives, stand and all, wrapped it in the sheet and scooted.”

“But you didn’t see who did it?” queried Vic, eagerly.

“No, but a neighbor boy coming home late did. That’s how I know about the horse being a piebald one. He saw the sheet tied around the hive and got scared. Thought at first it was a ghost.”

[194]“We are looking for just that horse,” Pep advised the farmer.

“Oh, robbed you, too?”

“No, sir, the people who own that horse did worse than that. We’ve been hunting for them the last twenty miles.”

“You won’t find that horse, I’m thinking,” said the farmer. “The animile is a total stranger to these parts. Never heard none such in the country. My boys spent a hull day trying to run down the varmints.”

“Well, we are on the track of the thieves,” said Pep, “and we’ve got to run them to cover. Can you put us up for to-night, mister?”

The farmer looked the boys over critically. Pep had taken out his pocketbook and that had some influence.

“I calculate I can,” he said. “How do I know, though, that you hain’t in cahoots with the crowd that took that bee hive, come to get hold of something more?”

“I guess I haven’t got as honest a face as you have,” replied Pep naively. “If I had, you’d trust me. Here,” and he extended the pocketbook. “There’s over a hundred dollars there. You can keep it as security until morning to feel safe that we won’t make away with your property.”

[195]“Put it up, put it up,” said the farmer, hastily, shamed by the boyish appeal of Pep and a glance at the wistful, appealing eyes of Vic. “I was only fooling. You can stay, and if you’ll agree to let me know if you get track of them robbers it’ll cost you nothing.”

“Oh, we will surely do that,” promised Pep, “but we want to pay for what we eat.”

“None of that—I’ve said my say,” retorted the farmer. “Just sit down on the stoop till I shut up the tool house and I’ll take you in to marm.”

“What are you thinking of, Pep?” at once inquired Vic, as left alone with him his companion’s face was crossed by a reflective smile.

“I’m thinking that we’re ‘getting warm,’” replied Pep, briskly. “No regular thief would drive away with only one bee hive. He’d take two or a dozen. To my way of thinking, that mottled horse we are after carted away that bee hive to some movies camp near here to get up ‘an educational film.’”

“I’ll bet you’ve hit it!” cried Vic Belton, hopefully.

“Of course I have,” declared Pep. “The horse this farmer describes is the very horse we’ve been trying to run down; isn’t it?”

“Yes, that is sure,” assented Vic.

“Those movies fellows wouldn’t rummage all[196] over the country to steal a bee hive,” continued the confident Pep. “They would naturally select the nearest point where they could find one. They weren’t after honey, or they would have brought a tub and robbed the whole line of hives. Why, it’s clear as crystal to me. They wanted the material for a bee film.”

“Say, Pep, you’re just smart, the way you figure things out so quick and right,” commended Vic, who had come to like his new comrade so greatly that he considered him the cleverest fellow in the world. “That movies crowd must have a regular hideout, though, to be able to come and go with no one able to find out where they have their camp.”

“Yes, they seem to have fixed themselves right in getting out of the way when they want to,” admitted Pep. “You see, though, this district isn’t very well filled up and it would take a long time to go all over it. I think we are ‘getting warm,’ though, as I told you. There’s something in the back of my head tells me we are closer to them than we have been before. We’ll take a fresh start in the morning and see what we can make out.”

“Say, there’s where I can help!” exclaimed Vic, suddenly, and he darted away to where two boys were driving some cows from pasture into a shed.

[197]“I’ve got my twelve quarts fair and square,” announced Vic triumphantly, at the end of fifteen minutes, and he lifted his pail foaming nearly to the brim. “Why, you’re ages behind me,” he rallied his competitors.

The incident made the quartette quite chummy. They went in to an excellent supper. Vic was in high spirits over the exercise and excitement of his exploit. He jollied his rivals in true farm boy fashion. Finally Pep brought up the bee hive incident, and the farm boys learned of his interest in the despoilers who had visited them.

“I say, Pep,” observed one of them, “you ought to try my plan of trailing that stolen hive. I read about it in a farm paper and maybe there’s something to it.”

“What was that?” asked Vic, curiously.

“Why, yesterday I noticed that the bees in the next hive to the stand where the hive was stolen were gone all day. They didn’t go near the clover field. This morning there were only about half the regular bees in that hive. The others didn’t come back.”

“Why,” queried Pep, animatedly, “you don’t think they’ve gone after the stolen bees?”

“Yes, sir, that’s just what I do think,” insisted the lad who had spoken. “Some of ’em couldn’t find the other hives, maybe, and came back; but where are the missing ones?”

[198]“Say,” exclaimed Vic, “that’s a great idea! If you could only follow them——”

“Pshaw!” dissented the farmer, “what do the newspapers know about bees? They just make up all kinds of ridiculous things to fill up their columns.”

“Well, I believe they know something about it in this case,” declared his son. “Why don’t you let me try it, Pop? The papers says to sprinkle the bees with fine flour and keep sight of them for miles and miles.”

“Rubbish!” retorted the self-opinionated father, but after a general discussion of the situation he agreed “to fool away the time on the nonsensical experiment,” as he called it.

Bright and early in the morning both Pep and Vic were down at the breakfast table. The farmer’s boys had already attended to the flouring of the bees and told them about it. They took their guests to the orchard and showed them the hive they had doctored. Then they had to start for their work in the fields.

“I declare, you’ve been right good and entertaining,” declared the farmer, as Pep and Vic came to the house to say good-bye. “None of that!” he roared, as Pep started to take out his pocketbook. “You let us have the news if you find out anything, hey?”

[199]“We will do just that, you can depend upon it,” promised Pep.

Then the boys went back to the orchard. The bees had begun to come out of the hive. They fluttered around, shook their wings, rolled into the grass and seemed working to get the foreign substance from their bodies. Some of them returned to the hive, some followed the denizens of other hives to the clover field. Then one by one, until they comprised quite a floating cloud, a great many of them headed down the road.

“There’s our start,” announced Vic, triumphantly. “All we’ve got to do is to follow them; eh, Pep?”

“Oh, of course we must do that,” was the answer. “As to keeping them in sight, though, that is another question.”

After that they tramped several miles, coming across single bees resting in flowers as if they had given up the task of going any further. Then, too, some bees headed back in the direction of the farm. The trailers were so tired out and hungry by about eleven o’clock that they sat down in a little thicket, and decided to rest for an hour and eat the generous lunch the farmer’s wife had provided for them.

Both dozed for a spell. Pep nudged his snoozing companion at length and started to wrap up[200] the remnants of their feast. As he stooped over to do this, he drew back suddenly with the sharp sudden hail:

“Come here, Vic—quick!”

“What is it?” inquired his comrade, rising to his feet and approaching.

“Look there. See, where the sugar off those cookies has littered the paper.”

“Why, there’s half a dozen bees—our floured ones, too.”

“That’s right,” said Pep. “Now then, try and keep them in sight,” and he gave the newspaper a smart flip, scattering the sugar into the grass. Instantly the intruders arose, circled about in the air and then made a true bee-line away from the spot.

“Say, we can’t go there,” spoke Vic, as they followed an erratic dash through the thicket, coming to a spongy meadow, a rise created with undergrowth and finally the edge of a bog.

“We’ve got to,” declared Pep. “For the last ten minutes all of the bees have disappeared except two of them, which flew right in among those high rushes.”

“I say,” cried Vic, abruptly, “there’s a stream of them flying into the bog! See—see! They’ve dropped! No, there they are again.”

The boys followed the edge of the swamp for over half a mile. Suddenly, a few feet in advance of Pep, his companion came to a staring halt and cried out:

“There they are!”

Pep hurried to Vic’s side to obtain a glimpse of an opening in the flags and willows. A quarter of a mile away, sloping up ten feet above surrounding water and bog land, was an island. It was well wooded, but through the trees in the[202] centre they could see some kind of a high-boarded enclosure.

“See it?” cried the excited Vic. “I’ll bet we’ve discovered something. Looks like a stockade.”

“We have located our people,” asserted Pep, with a thrill of exultation in his voice. “The boards around that enclosure look just like those in the film.”

“Let’s find out right off if my camels are in there,” spoke Vic, eagerly.

Pep looked dubiously at the prospect before them. The large area surrounding the island was at places covered with water several feet in depth, at others with a sticky mass of black mire. There might be some more secure way of reaching it from the other side of the swamp, but this would necessitate a three or four miles’ tramp.

“I’ve a good mind to try it,” remarked Pep, after a brief thinking spell. “See here, Vic, there seems to be more of mushy mud from here across than at the first place where we struck the swamp. There’s clumps of flag roots here and there, and I think we can get across.”

“I think so, too,” responded Vic. “We can try it, anyhow.”

The boys divested themselves of their shoes[203] and stockings, rolled up their trousers above their knees, selected two long stout poles from the debris of a fallen tree, and started forth on their expedition, Pep in the lead.

It was no easy nor pleasant task they had chosen. They discovered this before they were half-way across the swampy stretch of ground. There were places where a misstep sent them waist deep into a spongy mass of rotted bog grass. At others a jump to a seemingly solid clump of roots sent the water spurting up about them in cascades.

Twice Vic got mired in the mud and Pep had to pull him out. They were fully an hour getting to the edge of the island. Thus far they had caught no sight of anybody about the place. They were so exhausted, that as they reached dry land at last they threw themselves down upon the ground, panting for breath and completely exhausted.

“That was a hard pull,” spoke Pep, at length. “Say,” he added, pointing, “just as we calculated there is a kind of a road, or rather half solid path, leading from the island across that other side of the bog.”

“I see it,” responded Vic and he got up and ran to the outside of the high, board enclosure. “Pep! Pep!” he instantly whispered, beckoning.

[204]In an instant both lads were peering through a broad crack between two boards. Their hearts fluttered and their eyes distended. An old man was setting up some painted scenery screens. Just beyond him was a kind of shed, or covered stall. Within it, feeding on some hay, was a camel.

“Oh,” gasped Vic, tumultuously, “it must be mine!”

They could view only the hind feet of the animal and could make out that one of these was encircled by a chain running to an iron stake driven into the ground.

“We’ve found one of your stolen camels,” proclaimed Pep, in a satisfied tone. “There don’t seem to be anybody around except that old man. Judging from the costumes and features lying around, though, it’s easy to see that this is a regular movies camp.”

“Perhaps the rest of the crowd have gone somewhere to act out a scene,” suggested Vic. “Say, Pep. I’m going to find out if that is really mine and if the others are here.”

As he spoke Vic drew from his pocket a three-tubed wooden whistle. Pep had seen this before, for Vic had shown it to him on several occasions and explained its use. Bill Purvis had given it to him, telling him that it was a signal[205] whistle to which the camels always responded. In fact he guided the animals through the whistle, which he had made himself and which gave out a triple hollow note unlike any whistle Pep had ever heard before.

“Try it, if you want to,” advised Pep, and Vic placed the whistle to his lips. He blew one brief trilling blast.

“Gracious!” ejaculated Pep.

“It’s my camel!” exclaimed the overjoyed Vic.

That strange echoing call had produced a startling effect. There was a roar from the shed confining the camel and then a ripping, tearing sound. Out of the stall the animal swung, tearing up the iron stake which now dangled from the end of the chain behind him.

The old man within the enclosure turned to view the aroused camel with frightened eyes. He ran for a sharp-pointed spear nearby. Before he could reach the animal, however, the camel—for the mark on the forefoot proved that it was one of the stolen pets of Bill Purvis—had made a reckless, devastating dash for the spot outside where the familiar signal call had sounded.

“He’s coming straight for the fence,” shouted Pep. “Get out of the way, quick!”

There was a frightful crash. The high boards[206] went hurtling to splinters. The animal crowded past the wreckage as if the barrier had been made of tissue paper.

Overjoyed, but with a great deal of trepidation, Vic ran in the direction of the beaten way forming a sort of passage to the mainland, Pep accompanying him. The camel started after them, as if he, too, sought a means of leaving the island where he had been a captive.

The animal dropped the furious manner he had shown when he had made his onslaught upon the fence of the enclosure. He looked as pleasant at the boys as a camel can look. Apparently there would have been no trouble whatever, had not the old man rushed out through the hole in the fence carrying a sharp, hooked pole.

As he saw the boys he shook his fist at them, as if connecting them with the disaster of the moment. Then he ran up behind the camel and viciously buried the pointed end of the hook deep in one flank. The animal uttered a shrill cry of pain and then turned on the man and gave him a savage nip in the arm.

Surprised and alarmed, the man turned and ran away. At that same moment came other strange sounds from a sort of barn not far away.

“Look!” cried Pep.

“The other camels!” yelled Vic, joyfully.

[207]He was right, from out of the structure three more camels had come. They now ran to join the leader, and all trotted behind Vic and Pep.

“Let us lead them to that farm!” cried Vic.

“Yes, we had better get out of here while we have time,” was the panting answer.

“We’ll ride!” went on the owner of the camels. “Wait, I’ll show you how.”

He made two of the beasts kneel down and he climbed up on the back of one and Pep got on the back of the other. Then the boys lost no time in finding their way through the marsh once more. Several times they looked back, but saw nothing of any pursuers.

They breathed more freely as, four hours later, they came within sight of the Bacon place. The camels in their cumbersome but steady way had kept up a tramp without a single halt.

There was a startled scream from the kitchen of the Bacon homestead as its mistress caught sight of the camels walking into the yard and approaching the water trough. From the direction of the fields Pep saw Mr. Bacon and his two sons scampering towards them, attracted by a distant sight of the unfamiliar intruders.

They had just reached the center of activity and Pep had barely made them understand the situation,[208] when two horsemen came dashing along the road they had just followed.

One of them rode the piebald horse that had been so often described to the boys during their search for its owner.

“You’ve stolen our camels!” shouted its rider, leaping to the ground. “Slip the chain hooks on ’em, Ben,” he spoke to his companion.

“They are mine!” cried Vic. “You stole them once. You’d better leave them alone and be off, or you’ll get yourself in a whole heap of trouble.”

“No, he won’t be off,” sounded a grim voice, and Farmer Bacon, who had momentarily run into the house, now ran out of it. He held a double-barreled shotgun in his hand.

“See here, what is this your business?” demanded the first movies man.

“Just this! that horse of yours drove away with one of my bee hives two nights ago. Dick,” went on the farmer to one of his sons, “Saddle Nellie and get lickety-switch to Squire Bisbee. Tell him to fetch a couple of constables with him. I’m going to sift this business and know the rights of things before you leave this farm, stranger!”

“It’s great news!” declared Mr. Strapp.

“Grand—wonderful!” added Professor Barrington. “That Pep Smith of yours is a genius. As to this Vic Belton, he deserves his good fortune in every way.”

The “great news” was the arrival of a letter from Pep, reciting his own and the adventure of Vic in their search for the stolen camels. Farmer Bacon had soon straightened out matters. The leader of the movies bandits was in jail for stealing, his accomplices had fled, and the camp on the swamp island was broken up and deserted.

The two young heroes, as the admiring Ben Jolly insisted on dubbing them, had the camels in safe and comfortable charge and would be in Boston and back at the Standard the next day.

“Yes,” said Frank, brightly, “things are coming out finely all along the line. We should be very happy and hopeful, Professor, over the wonderful success of your educational films.”

“There’s no doubt of that,” acknowledged the[210] old savant gratefully, but he added with a sigh: “if we only hadn’t lost the great film!”

“Forget it!” instantly advised Mr. Strapp, in his brusque, practical way. “It’s gone, and we haven’t any time to spare crying over spilled milk. That Slavin crowd got it. There is no doubt of that, according to my way of thinking.”

“It hasn’t brought them much luck,” submitted Ben Jolly. “Randy here says they’ve not had the money to go on smoothly. They have almost dropped the educational line, working in two ‘funnies’ for part of their programme. Just as you said at the start, too, Durham, their location is wrong. It’s just far enough off the lively belt to lose the transients.”

“I think we had better give up any idea of ever getting trace of the stolen film,” said Frank. “It is my opinion that it has been destroyed, just to block us. If Slavin hasn’t, he can’t dispose of it in this country without implicating himself as a thief. He knows, too, that as soon as it is used we can stop it and get it back. Going to the hotel, Randy?”

“No, I’ve got something to attend to.”

“Pretty late in the evening for business; isn’t it?” questioned Frank, curiously.

“That’s all right,” answered Randy, very seriously. “I’ve been watching the New Idea and[211] I’m going to keep it up until I find out something.”

“You mean about the stolen film? Don’t waste the time, Randy,” advised Frank. “As to how their show is progressing, we don’t care a snap of a finger. They are pretty nearly at the end of their rope. Did you know that Trudelle, the partner of Slavin, met Mr. Strapp on the street yesterday and hinted at selling out to him if he would pay a liberal bonus on the lease?”

“I didn’t,” replied Randy, “but I do know that Slavin and Trudelle are quarrelling with one another most of the time. I’ve got a friend in one of their ushers—and he’s keeping me posted.”

It was to meet this friend in question that Randy now proceeded to the neighborhood of the New Idea, instead of going with the others to their hotel. Randy could not get the great film out of his mind, and an incident had occurred a night previous that had started him on a plan for getting as close to the affairs of Slavin as was possible. His idea in doing this was the hope that he might find out what had become of the great film.

Randy had been passing the New Idea late at night. The place had been shut up for over an hour, but one of the entrance doors was open and a young fellow about his own age sat outside—on[212] a stool. He was crying and Randy went up to him.

Sympathy and help was what the lad wanted, Randy soon found out. He was an usher and handy boy about the place, slept behind the stage nights, and he said had not been paid his wages for a week. He had asked for some money to send to a sick mother after the show that night. Slavin, in an ugly mood, had refused to give him even the two dollars he so badly needed and had kicked him over on a chair, badly bruising his arm.

“And Slavin and his partner take what money comes in and go off every night with it, playing cards and wasting it,” complained the little fellow, bitterly.

“Will they be back again to-night?” asked Randy.

Yes, the boy said they usually returned a little after midnight and sat up quarrelling usually. Randy fancied he saw his chance. He told the boy he would let him have the two dollars and would see that he got a better job, if he would let him share the little den he occupied back of the stage.

Randy did not entirely explain to the lad what he was after when he made his second visit, after leaving his friends at the Standard. The boy, however, had little love for his swindling[213] employers and did not much care. It was thus that, an hour later, Randy found himself just where he wanted to be—in a room adjoining the office of the New Idea.

About one o’clock Slavin and Trudelle came into the office apartment. The latter acted reckless and as if he was under the influence of drink. Slavin began to upbraid him for gambling away some money he had taken from the box office.

“Huh! what you got to kick about?” growled Trudelle. “You’ve got that big film. You say it’s a fortune. Why don’t you turn it into cash?”

“Yes, I’ve got it and I intend to keep it,” retorted Slavin. “I’ll tell you one thing: If you don’t straighten up I’ll quit and get to a place where I can find my price for that little piece of property.”

“It’s half mine. Aren’t we partners?” demanded Trudelle. There was some fierce bickering, he shook his fist in his partner’s face and Slavin picked up a chair and knocked him flat.

All this Randy saw and overheard, crouched close to the partition which had several cracks in it. He noticed Slavin glance viciously and then uneasily at the senseless man on the floor. Then he went over to the desk, opened it, and began hurriedly to ransack its drawers, selecting several[214] papers and stowing them in his pocket. Suddenly Slavin, as if seized with some urgent idea, shouted out:

“Jim—hey, you boy Jim, come in here.”

“Go ahead,” whispered Randy. “See what he wants.”

The boy Jim entered the office room and Slavin took a key out of his pocket.

“See here,” he said, “if you want your back pay and something more, all in cash, take that key and go to the place where I room. You know where it is?”

“I’ve been there a dozen times—yes, sir,” answered Jim.

“Well, you get quietly to my room. There’s a broken trunk under the bed. In the bottom is a package done up in a pasteboard box. You can’t miss it. Fetch it here and I’ll pay you as I say.”

“Let me go instead of you,” whispered Randy, breathlessly, as Jim returned to his room. “Go to my hotel,” and he told the lad where it was. “Wait for me there and I’ll give you double what that man promised.”

“You will?” challenged Jim, earnestly.

“Yes, and a position at the Standard in the bargain. Slavin is arranging to run away, I can see that.”

[215]The boy Jim agreed willingly. Randy’s pulses beat high as he left the New Idea by the rear. Jim, accompanying him as far as the hotel, told him in detail of the location of Slavin’s room.

“If it’s only the great film that Slavin has sent for!” cogitated Randy, as he hurried on his way. “It looks so. He’s going to throw up his hands here and maybe make for Europe, where he could dispose of it easily.”

Twenty minutes later, as Randy reached the room indicated and lifted the box Slavin had told about from under the bed, he made investigation enough to be sure that he had found what he had hoped to find. It was the great film.

Frank was still up reading, Mr. Strapp and Professor Barrington were going over some business papers. All hands looked up in startled wonderment as their young friend fairly burst into the room.

“Oh, Frank!” almost shouted the breathless Randy—“I’ve got it!”

“Got what?” inquired the professor, lifting his astonished eyes to the excited lad.

“The great film—and there it is!” and Randy placed the parcel before him. A satisfied smile passed over the face of Mr. Hank Strapp of Montana. He grasped the hand of his young partner in a grip that made Randy wince.

[216]“Great, boy!” was all he said. “I’d be proud to be your father!”

It was a gala night at the Standard. The decks had been cleared for action; the occasion heralded all over the city. The great film was to be produced.

All the motion picture chums were present. Pep and Vic had returned from their adventurous quest of the camels, more in love with the beautiful playhouse than ever. The sale of the camels was under negotiation and it looked as though Vic Belton in a few days would have a tidy sum to share with his faithful old friend, Bill Purvis.

The New Idea was completely off the books. There was no doubt that Slavin had planned to flee to Europe with the stolen film. He had disappeared, and his partner closed up the playhouse with a broken head and an empty pocket.

Mr. Randall was in the audience and the boy Jim was an usher. The handsome reception entrance was crowded with waiting throngs, for the “full house” signs had been put up half an hour previous.

Then as the curtain went up, for the first time in the history of motion photography the wonders of the polar world were exhibited to the[217] world. Mr. Randall was something more than a mere photographer. He had infused his scenes with rare human interest, every one of them.

“A New World” was a faithful reproduction of all that appertained to the far away, almost unattainable Arctic circle. The film was four thousand feet in length, divided into that number of sections, and a story and a romance were deftly woven into it.

A spellbound audience saw something new, indeed—pictures of a land and people that they had only heard of or read about in books.

There was shown the building of a snow house, the capture and skinning of the bearded seal, the hunting of the caribou and ptarmigan, the skin boats of the natives, the most northerly white man’s dwelling on the continent. There were the dog teams of the Esquimaux, the famous mud volcano on Lagton Bay, the wreck of a great whaler, cooking with oil for fuel, heather and dwarf willows, and a scene showing polar bears swimming in the sea.

The last film seemed to revivify some grand transformation scene. It was here that the art of the expert Randall shone at its full zenith. There burst upon the view of the enchanted audience the glories of the aurora borealis.

There was one unified breath of delight as[218] the last reel ran off. A flutter of the most grateful appreciation swayed the great audience, and the motion picture chums realized that the future of the Standard photo playhouse was assured.

“We’ve got to celebrate,” voiced bluff, hearty Mr. Hank Strapp, as the last light went out in the beautiful playhouse. “Entertaining the world in the right way is a big thing. Educating ’em at the same time is a bigger thing. My friends,” and he gazed devotedly at the bright faces of his young business associates, “it was a lucky day when Mr. Hank Strapp of Montana met you—yes, sir!”

“You have made my last days my best days,” said the old professor, with a tender touch of feeling.

“Why,” cried the impetuous Pep, “this is only a beginning in the educational film field.”

“Yes, we must keep our eyes open for still other conquests,” declared Frank Durham in his cheery, confident way.

And so we leave the motion picture chums, who had scored their last and greatest triumph through diligence, pluck and loyalty—each to the other, and all to their many friends.

THE END