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Title: The motion picture chums' new idea
        or, The first educational photo playhouse

Author: Victor Appleton

Release date: January 29, 2025 [eBook #75238]

Language: English

Original publication: New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1914

Credits: Aaron Adrignola, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MOTION PICTURE CHUMS' NEW IDEA ***


[Illustration: THE START OF A STRUGGLE BETWEEN THE MAN AND PEP BEGAN TO
ATTRACT ATTENTION

  _Motion Picture Chums’ New Idea._         _Page 163_]




  The
  Motion Picture Chums’
  New Idea

  OR

  The First Educational Photo Playhouse

  BY
  VICTOR APPLETON
  AUTHOR OF “THE MOTION PICTURE CHUMS’ FIRST
  VENTURE,” “THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS,”
  “TOM SWIFT SERIES,” ETC.

  _ILLUSTRATED_

  NEW YORK
  GROSSET & DUNLAP
  PUBLISHERS




BOOKS BY VICTOR APPLETON

_12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. Price, per volume, 50 cents, postpaid._


THE MOTION PICTURE CHUMS SERIES

  THE MOTION PICTURE CHUMS’ FIRST VENTURE
  THE MOTION PICTURE CHUMS AT SEASIDE PARK
  THE MOTION PICTURE CHUMS ON BROADWAY
  THE MOTION PICTURE CHUMS’ OUTDOOR EXHIBITION
  THE MOTION PICTURE CHUMS’ NEW IDEA


THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS SERIES

  THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS
  THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS IN THE WEST
  THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS ON THE COAST
  THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS IN THE JUNGLE
  THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS IN EARTHQUAKE LAND

  (_Other volumes in preparation_)


THE TOM SWIFT SERIES

  TOM SWIFT AND HIS MOTOR CYCLE
  TOM SWIFT AND HIS MOTOR BOAT
  TOM SWIFT AND HIS AIRSHIP
  TOM SWIFT AND HIS SUBMARINE BOAT
  TOM SWIFT AND HIS ELECTRIC RUNABOUT
  TOM SWIFT AND HIS ELECTRIC RIFLE
  TOM SWIFT AND HIS SKY RACER
  TOM SWIFT IN THE CAVES OF ICE
  TOM SWIFT AMONG THE DIAMOND MAKERS
  TOM SWIFT AND HIS WIRELESS MESSAGE
  TOM SWIFT IN THE CITY OF GOLD
  TOM SWIFT AND HIS AIR GLIDER
  TOM SWIFT IN CAPTIVITY
  TOM SWIFT AND HIS WIZARD CAMERA
  TOM SWIFT AND HIS GREAT SEARCHLIGHT
  TOM SWIFT AND HIS GIANT CANNON


  GROSSET & DUNLAP
  PUBLISHERS          NEW YORK

  COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY
  GROSSET & DUNLAP

  _The Motion Picture Chums’ New Idea_




CONTENTS


  CHAPTER                            PAGE

      I. SOMETHING NEW                  1

     II. AN ABSENT-MINDED VISITOR      10

    III. THE MISSING SATCHEL           20

     IV. THE RAILROAD WRECK            30

      V. A NEW MYSTERY                 39

     VI. ON BOSTON COMMON              48

    VII. RIVALS IN ACTION              57

   VIII. A TRICK OF THE ENEMY          67

     IX. A GLOWING PROSPECT            76

      X. FIRE                          84

     XI. THE HERO FRIEND               93

    XII. AN AMAZING STATEMENT         100

   XIII. THE SHIPS OF THE DESERT      107

    XIV. PLYMOUTH--DERELICT           115

     XV. HIGH HOPES                   123

    XVI. THE LOST CAMELS              130

   XVII. A GRAND SUCCESS              141

  XVIII. THE “NEW IDEA”               149

    XIX. DONE WITH A CLICK            155

     XX. PEP A PRISONER               163

    XXI. A GRAND SUCCESS              173

   XXII. A FEARFUL LOSS               180

  XXIII. “GETTING WARM”               188

   XXIV. THE MOVIES CAMP              201

    XXV. EXCELSOR!--CONCLUSION        209




THE MOTION PICTURE CHUMS’ NEW IDEA




CHAPTER I

SOMETHING NEW


“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 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?”

“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.

“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 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 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 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.

“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 hat rolling in one direction, the goggles he
wore in another.

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




CHAPTER II

AN ABSENT-MINDED VISITOR


“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, 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 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.

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 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. 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.”

“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.

“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 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 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.




CHAPTER III

THE MISSING SATCHEL


“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 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.

“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.

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, 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
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 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 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
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
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.




CHAPTER IV

THE RAILROAD WRECK


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 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.

“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 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.

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 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.

“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. 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 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.




CHAPTER V

A NEW MYSTERY


“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
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.”

“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 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.”

“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.”

“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 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.”

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?”

“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.”




CHAPTER VI

ON BOSTON COMMON


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 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.”

“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.

“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. 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
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 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.

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.

“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!”




CHAPTER VII

RIVALS IN ACTION


“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 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!”

“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 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 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 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 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.”

“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 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.

“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!”




CHAPTER VIII

A TRICK OF THE ENEMY


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:

  “I am in serious trouble and wish you to see me and take some
  messages to friends. Please come at once to 22 Burdell Row.”

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 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.

“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 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,
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 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. “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 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!”




CHAPTER IX

A GLOWING PROSPECT


“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.

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 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 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 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.”

“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.”

“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,” 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!”




CHAPTER X

FIRE


“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 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 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 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.

“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 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 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.

“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 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_!”




CHAPTER XI

THE HERO FRIEND


“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.

“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 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 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 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 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.

“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!”




CHAPTER XII

AN AMAZING STATEMENT


“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.”

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.

“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 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 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 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 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.




CHAPTER XIII

THE SHIPS OF THE DESERT


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.

“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.

“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 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.”

“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 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 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 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!”




CHAPTER XIV

PLYMOUTH--DERELICT


“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 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:

  “Plymouth sighted in a great sleet storm off Despair Bay two nights
  since. Dismasted, no one seen on board, and a drifting wreck.”

“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.

“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.”

“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 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 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.

“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 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.




CHAPTER XV

HIGH HOPES


“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.

“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.”

“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 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.’”

“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
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.

“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.”




CHAPTER XVI

THE LOST 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.”

“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 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
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.”

“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 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. 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 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:

  “Got some business to attend to. Will be back this evening.”

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:

“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, 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
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!’”




CHAPTER XVII

A GRAND SUCCESS


“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.

“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 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 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 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 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 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?”

“‘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.




CHAPTER XVIII

THE “NEW IDEA.”


“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 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 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.

“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.

“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 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.”




CHAPTER XIX

DONE WITH A CLICK


“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.

“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. 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 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.”

“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, 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.

“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.
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.




CHAPTER XX

PEP A PRISONER


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.”

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 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:

“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 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 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.

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 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 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.

“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.”




CHAPTER XXI

A GRAND SUCCESS


“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.”

“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
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 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 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 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.

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.




CHAPTER XXII

A FEARFUL LOSS


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. 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 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
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.”

“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 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 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 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!”




CHAPTER XXIII

“GETTING WARM”


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 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, 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.

“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 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 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.”

“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.”

“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 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.

“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?”

“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?”

“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 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.




CHAPTER XXIV

THE MOVIES CAMP


“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 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 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.

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 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 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.

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, 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!”




CHAPTER XXV

EXCELSOR!--CONCLUSION


“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 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 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 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 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 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.”

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.

“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 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 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




TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:


  Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

  Perceived typographical errors have been corrected.

  Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

  Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.





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