"Come on!" cried Mr. Macksey. "We'll make the change. I guess I'll have to ask you folks to get out again," he said to the players in the first sled. "But it won't be for long. We'll have a good runner in place of the broken one, and then we can pile into two sleds and get into Elk Lodge. We'll leave the last sled until to-morrow."

"But what about our baggage?" asked Miss Pennington. "That is in the rear sled. Can we take that with us?"

"Not all of it," answered the hunter, "but you can crowd in as much as possible. The rest can wait."

"I want all of mine," declared the former vaudeville actress.

"So do I!" cried Miss Dixon.

"You'll be lucky if you get in out of this storm," said Mr. Pertell reprovingly, "to say nothing about baggage. Do the best you can, Mr. Macksey."

"I will. Come now, men, lively!"

It took some little time to make the change, but finally the work was done.

The broken runner was cast aside, and there were now two good sleds, one ahead of the other in the snowy defile. As much of the needed baggage as possible was transferred, and the four horses that had been on the rear sled were brought up and hitched to the remaining sleds—two to each so that each conveyance now had six animals attached to it.

"And by hickory!" exclaimed Mr. Macksey, that appearing to be his favorite expression, "By hickory, we'll need 'em all!"

They were now ready to set forth, and all rather dreaded going out into the open again, for the defile offered a good shelter from the storm. But it had to be done, for it was out of the question to stay there all night.

"Go 'long!" called the hunter, as he shook the long reins of his six horses, and cracked the whip with a report like a pistol. But the lash did not fall on the backs of the ready animals. Mr. Macksey never beat his horses—they were willing enough without that.

Lanterns had been lighted and hung on the sleds, to shed their warning rays through the storm. They now gleamed fitfully through the fast-falling snow.

"Are you feeling better now, Daddy?" asked Ruth of her father, as she glanced anxiously at him.

"Much better, yes. I am afraid I ought to give you back your muffler, Paul," he added.

"No indeed—please keep it," begged the young actor.

Alice reached beneath the blanket and pressed his hand in appreciation.

"Thanks," he laughed.

"It is I who thank you," she returned, softly.

They were now out in the open road, and the fury of the blast struck them with all its cruel force.

"Keep covered up!" shouted Mr. Macksey, through the visor of his cap, which was pulled down over his face. "We'll be there pretty soon."

On through the drifts plunged the straining horses. It was all six of them could do, pull as they might, to make their way. How cruelly the wind cut, and how the snow flakes stung! Soft as they really were, the wind gave them the feeling of pieces of sand and stone.

On through the storm went the delayed party. And then, when each one, in spite of his or her fortitude, was almost giving up in despair at the cold and the anxiety Mr. Macksey shouted out;

"Whoa! Here we are! All out for Elk Lodge!"



CHAPTER XI

THROUGH THE ICE

Warming, comforting beams of light shone from a large, low building set back from the road in a little clearing of the woods. It was too dark to see more than this—that the structure offered shelter, warmth and light. Yes, and something else, for there was borne on the wings of the wind the most delicious odor—the odor of supper.

"Pile out, folks! Pile out!" cried the genial old hunter. "Here we are! At Elk Lodge! No more storm! No more cold! Get inside to the blaze. I reckon mother's about given us up; but we're here, and we won't do a thing to her cooking! Pile out!"

It was an invitation that needed no repetition. It was greeted with a merry shout, even Mr. Sneed, the grouch, condescending to say:

"Ah, that sounds good!"

"Ha! Den if dere iss food to eat I dinks me dot I don't need to eat my pretzels. I can safe dem for annoder time!" cried Mr. Switzer, as he got out.

There was a laugh at this, and it was added to when Mr. Bunn called out in his deepest tragic voice:

"Ha! Someone has my silk hat!"

For he had persisted in wearing that in the storm, though it was most uncomfortable.

"It is gone!" he added. "Stolen, mayhap. Has anyone seen it?"

"Probably blew off," said Russ. "We'll find it—when the snow melts!"

Wellington Bunn groaned—again tragically.

"I'll get you another," offered Mr. Pertell, generously.

"Come on, folks! Pile out!" cried Mr. Macksey again.

"I'm so stiff I can hardly move!" declared Ruth.

"So am I," added Alice. "Oh, but it's good to be here!"

"I thought you liked the storm so," observed Ruth.

"I do, but I like supper too, and I think it must be ready."

Out of the sleds climbed the cold and cramped picture players, all thought of the fierce storm now forgotten.

"Go right in," invited Mr. Macksey. "Supper's waiting!"

"Welcome to Elk Lodge!" called a motherly voice, and Mrs. Macksey appeared in the open door of the main corridor. "Come right in!"

They were glad enough to do it.

"I don't know any of you, except Russ and Mr. Pertell," she said, for the manager and his helper had paid a visit to the place sometime before to make arrangements about using it.

"You'll soon know all of 'em," declared Mr. Pertell with a laugh. "I'll introduce you," which he quickly did.

"Now then, I expect you'll want to wash up," went on the hunter's wife. "I'll have the girl show you to your different rooms, and then you can come down to supper. It's been waiting. What kept you? I'll have to ask you folks because it's like pulling teeth to get any news out of my husband. What happened?"

"A breakdown," explained Ruth, who took an instant liking to motherly Mrs. Macksey. "Oh, we had such a time!"

"Such a glorious time!" supplemented Alice.

"Here's a girl who evidently likes outdoors," laughed the hunter's wife.

"Indeed I do!" cried Alice.

There was some little confusion, getting the players to their rooms, because of the lateness of the arrival, but finally each one was in his or her appointed apartment, and trying to get settled. The rooms were small but comfortable, and the hunters who had built the lodge for themselves had provided many comforts.

"There ought to be a private bath for each one," declared Miss Pennington, as she surveyed her room.

"Indeed there ought," agreed her friend Miss Dixon. "I think this place is horrid!"

"How thoughtless and selfish they are," said Ruth, who shared a room with Alice.

"Aren't they! I think it's lovely here. Oh, but I am so hungry!"

"So am I, dear."

"Glad to hear it for once, Ruth. Usually you have so little appetite that one would think you were in love."

"Silly! I'm going to eat to-night anyhow."

"Does that mean you are not in love?"

"Silly!" cried Ruth again, but that was all she answered.

What a glorious and home-like place Elk Lodge was! Yes, even better than the best home the moving picture girls had known most of their lives, for they had spent part of the time boarding, as their father traveled about with his theatrical company, and who can compare a home to a boarding house?

Down in the big living room a fire burned and crackled, and gave out spicy odors on the great hearth that took in logs six feet long. And how cheerfully and ruddily the blaze shone out! It mellowed and cheered everyone. Even Mr. Sneed smiled, and stretched out his hands to the leaping flames.

As Ruth and Alice were about to go down, having called to their father across the hall that they were ready for him, there came a knock on their door.

"Come in!" invited Ruth.

"Sorry to trouble you," spoke Miss Pennington, "but have you any cold cream and—er—powder? Our things were left in the other sled—I mean all of those things, and Laura and I can't—we simply can't get along without them."

"I have cold cream," said Alice. "But powder—that is unless it's talcum or rice——"

"That will have to do I guess," sighed the vaudeville actress. "But I did hope you had a bit of rouge, I'm so pale!"

"Never use it!" said Alice quickly. Too quickly, hospitable Ruth thought, for, though she decried the use of "paint," she would not be rude to a guest, and, under these circumstances Miss Pennington was a guest.

"You don't need it," the caller said, with a glance at Alice's glowing cheeks, to whom the wind and snow had presented two damask spots that were most becoming.

"The weather is very chapping to my face," the former vaudeville actress went on. "I really must have something," and she departed with the cold cream and some harmless rice powder, which Ruth and Alice used judiciously and sparingly, and only when needed.

The fine supper, late as it was, necessarily, was enjoyed to the utmost. It was bountiful and good, and though at first Miss Pennington and Miss Dixon were inclined to sniff at the lack of "courses," and the absence of lobster, it was noticed that they ate heartily.

"There is only one thing more I want," sighed Paul, as he leaned back in his chair.

"What, pray? It seems to me, and I have been watching you, that you have had about all that is good for you," laughed Alice. "I have seen you get three separate and distinct helpings of fried chicken."

"Oh, I didn't mean anything more to eat," he said, quickly, "and if you are going to watch me so closely I shall have to cut down my rations, I fear. What I meant was that I would like a moving picture of this supper. It has memories that long will linger, but I fain would have a souvenir of it."

"Be careful that you don't get indigestion as a souvenir," laughed Alice, as he followed her sister from the table.

The dining room opened off the great living apartment with that wonderful fire, and following the meal all the members of the company gathered about the hearth.

Outside the storm still raged, and Mr. Macksey, who came in from having with his men, put away the horses, reported that the blizzard was growing worse.

"It's a good thing we thought of changing the bobs and coming on," he said. "Otherwise we might be there yet."

"What really happened?" asked his wife. "I was telling one of the young ladies that it was like pulling teeth to get any news out of you."

"Oh, we just had a little breakdown," he said. "Now, folks, just make yourselves at home. Go to bed when you like, get up when you please. I'll try and get the rest of your baggage here some time to-morrow, if this storm lets up."

"I hope you do get it," complained Miss Pennington.

"Selfish thing!" whispered Alice. "All she wants is her paint!"

"Hush," cautioned Ruth. "She'll hear you!"

"I don't care," voiced her sister.

They talked of many things as they sat about the fire, and then Mr. Pertell said:

"We will film no dramas while the storm continues, but as soon as we can get out on the ice I want to start one."

"Is there skating about here?" asked Alice, who was very fond of the sport.

"There's a fine lake back of the lodge," replied Mr. Macksey, "and as soon as the storm lets up I'll have the men clear a place of snow, and you can have all the fun you want."

"Oh, joy!" cried Alice.

"Save me the first skate," whispered Paul to her, and she nodded acquiescence.

Mr. Pertell briefly outlined the drama he expected to film on the ice, and then, after a little more talk, every one voted that bed was the best place in the world. For the wind had made them all sleepy, and they were tired out from the storm and their long journey.

Alice and Ruth went up to their room. Alice pulled aside the curtain from the window and looked out on a scene of swirling whiteness. The flakes dashed against the pane as though knocking for admission.

"It's a terrible night," said Ruth, with a little shiver.

"Well, much as I like weather, I wouldn't want to be out in it long," Alice confessed. "Elk Lodge is a very good place in a blizzard."

"Suppose we got snowed in?" asked Ruth, apprehensively.

"Then we'll dig our way out—simple answer. Oh dear!" and Alice yawned luxuriously, if not politely, showing her pretty teeth.

In spite of the portentous nature of the storm, it was not fully borne out, and morning saw the sun shining on the piles of snow that had fallen. There had been a considerable quantity sifted down on what was already about Elk Lodge, but there was not enough to hinder traffic for the sturdy lumbermen and hunters of that region.

The wind had died down, and it was not cold, so when Mr. Macksey announced that he was going back after the broken-down sleigh, Ruth and Alice asked permission to accompany him.

Before starting off Mr. Macksey had set a gang of men, hired for the occasion, to scraping the snow off the frozen lake, and when Ruth and Alice came back they found several of the picture players skating, while Russ was getting ready to film one of the first scenes of the drama.

"You're in this, Mr. Sneed," said the manager. "You are supposed to be skating along, when you trip and fall breaking your leg——"

"Hold on—stop—break my leg! Never!" cried the grouchy actor.

"Of course you don't really injure yourself!" exclaimed the manager, testily.

"Oh, why did I ever come to this miserable place!" sighed Mr. Sneed. "I despise cold weather!"

But there was no help for it. Soon he was on the steel runners gliding about, while Russ filmed him. Mr. Sneed was a good skater, and was not averse to "showing off."

"All ready, now!" called the manager to him. "Get that fall in right there. Russ, be ready for him!"

"Oh!" groaned the actor. "Here I go!"

And, as luck would have it, he, at that moment, tripped on a stick, and fell in earnest. It was much better done than if he had simulated it.

But something else happened. He fell so heavily, and at a spot where there was a treacherous air hole, that, the next instant Mr. Sneed broke through the ice, and was floundering in the chilly water.



CHAPTER XII

THE CURIOUS DEER

"Quick! A rope!"

"No, boards are better!"

"Fence rails will do!"

"Oh, get him out, someone!"

These were only some of the cries uttered, following the accident to Mr. Sneed. Meanwhile he was doing his best to keep himself above water by grasping the edge of the ice.

But it crumbled in his fingers, and he was so shocked by the sudden immersion, and by the cold, and his skates were so heavy on his feet, that he went down again and again. Fortunately the lake was not deep at that point, and as he went down his feet would touch bottom, and he could spring up again.

"Don't go out there!" warned Mr. Pertell, as Paul started for the spot.

"Why not?" asked the young actor.

"Because the ice is probably thin all around that place. I don't want two of you in. Hold on, Mr. Sneed!" he cried to the desperate actor. "We'll have you out in no time!"

"Shall I get this?" cried Russ, who had not deserted his camera, even as a gunner will not leave his cannon, nor a captain his ship. More than once brave moving picture operators have stood in the face of danger to get rare views.

"Yes, get every motion of it!" cried the manager.

"But it isn't in the play!"

"I don't care! We'll write it in afterward. You get the pictures and we'll rescue Mr. Sneed. Hi, there, Mr. Bunn, you must help with this. Get some fence rails! We can slide them out on the ice and they will distribute the weight so that the ice will hold us."

"But where will I get fence rails?" asked the actor.

"Oh, gnaw them out of a tree!" cried Mr. Pertell, who was much disturbed and nervous. "Don't you see that fence?" he cried, pointing to one not far off. "Get some rails from that. And then get in the picture!"

"Oh, such a life!" groaned Mr. Bunn.

"This is to save a life!" the manager reminded him.

And while Russ continued to make moving pictures of the unexpected scene, the others set about the work of rescue. Later this could be interpolated in the drama to make it appear as though it had all been arranged in advance.

"Hurry with those rails!" called Mr. Pertell to Mr. Bunn. "He can't stay in that icy water forever."

Some of the men who had been working at removing the snow now came up with ropes and trace chains. Then, when the rails were spread out on the ice, near the air hole, the rescuers were able to get near enough to throw the ends of several lines to Mr. Sneed. He managed to grasp one, and, a moment later was hauled out on the ice.

"I—I—I'm c-c-c-cold!" he stammered, as he stood with the icy water dripping from him.

"Shouldn't wonder but what you were," agreed Mr. Pertell. "Now the thing for you to do is to run to the Lodge as fast as you can. Here, Mr. Bunn, you and Paul run alongside him, with a hold on either arm. We'll call this film 'A Modern Pickwick,' instead of what we planned. In Dickens' story there's a scene somewhat like this. We'll change the whole thing about.

"Russ, you go on ahead, and when Paul and Mr. Bunn come along with Mr. Sneed, you get them as they run."

"All right," assented the young moving picture operator, as he kept on grinding away at the crank.

Exercise was the best thing to restore the circulation of the actor who had fallen into the water, and he soon had plenty of it. With Paul on one side, and Mr. Bunn on the other, he was raced back to Elk Lodge, and there he was supplied plentifully with hot lemonade to ward off a cold. Russ got interior pictures of these scenes as well, and later the film made a great success.

"In view of the accident, and the fact that you are all more or less upset," said Mr. Pertell, when some of the excitement had calmed down, "we will give up work for the rest of the day. You may do as you please until to-morrow."

"Then I'm going for a walk," cried Alice.

"I'm with you," spoke Paul, "only we ought to have snowshoes."

"Oh, could we get any?" she cried.

"I can arrange for some for you," promised Mr. Macksey, "but I haven't any now."

"Good idea!" exclaimed the manager. "An idea for a new film—'The Snowshoe Rescue!' Here, Russ, make some notes of this for future use," and he began to dictate to the young operator, who with his employer frequently thus improvised dramas out of a mere suggestion.

"If you want to walk," said Mr. Macksey to Alice, "you'd better stick to the road. The men have been out with homemade snowplows breaking a trail. That's what we do around here after a storm. You'd better stick to the road."

"We will!" cried Alice. "Will you come, Ruth?"

"Later perhaps—not now. I want to study a new part I have."

"I suppose you're waiting for Russ," whispered Alice.

"Don't be silly!" flashed Ruth. But she did not go out with her sister.

Alice and Paul had a glorious walk in the snow, and saw a beautiful country, even though it was hidden under a mantle of white. For Deerfield was a lovely place.

"Aren't you cold?" asked Ruth, when her sister returned.

"Not a bit. It's glorious. What did you do, and how is Mr. Sneed?"

"He's doing nicely, I believe. As for me, I stayed in. I had some mending to do."

"Is that why Russ has threads on his coat sleeve—was it his coat you were mending?"

"Oh, Alice—you are hopeless!" protested Ruth, but she blushed vividly.

That afternoon, as Mrs. Macksey was overseeing the getting of supper, Alice, who went to the kitchen for something, heard the veteran hunter and his wife in conversation.

"You say they are strangers about here?" he asked.

"Yes, three men. I saw them after you had gone to the station to get the moving picture folks. There were three men, and I think they were after deer."

"After deer, eh? Don't they know that this is a private preserve?"

"They didn't seem to care. They came to ask their direction. They all had guns, and I'm sure they were after deer."

"And you never saw them before?"

"No, I never did."

"And you have no idea where they came from?"

"I couldn't tell—no. I heard one of them ask the other if he thought it was safe."

"If what was safe?"

"He didn't say. Maybe he meant to hunt deer around here."

"It won't be safe if I catch them!" declared Mr. Macksey, as he went out. Alice wondered who the men could be.

It was so quiet and peaceful at Elk Lodge that Mr. DeVere soon forgot all about the annoyance caused by the demand of Dan Merley for the five hundred dollars. At first he had expected some sort of legal summons in a suit, but when none came he breathed easier.

Several days passed, and a few snow scenes were filmed to be used later, and worked into dramas. Mr. Sneed suffered a little cold from his unexpected bath, but that was all.

Meanwhile the weather had remained about the same. There was plenty of snow, but no more storms. Elk Lodge was voted the finest place in the world, and even Miss Pennington and Miss Dixon condescended to say that they liked it.

Then, one day, plans were made for filming a little drama in the snowy woods, and thither many members of the company went to act.

Ruth was supposed to be lost in a dense thicket, and Paul was soon on his way to find her, in the guise of a woodman. He had sighted Ruth, over a clump of bushes, and was making his way to her, when he heard her scream. This was not in the play and he wondered what could have happened.

"Quick!" he heard her cry. "He's going to jump at me!"

Paul broke into a run, and the next moment saw a deer, with large, branching antlers, spring through the underbrush directly in front of Ruth, while Russ, at the camera, yelled to drive away the curious animal.



CHAPTER XIII

THE COASTING RACE

"Oh, I'm so frightened!" cried Ruth.

"Don't be alarmed!" Russ called to her, while he continued to grind away at the camera. "He won't hurt you. This will make a dandy picture! I'm going to film the deer."

"Oh, but suppose he jabs me with his horns?" wailed Ruth, who was not quite so alarmed now. "They are terribly sharp."

"Don't worry!" Russ answered. "This is coming out great. The deer was just the one thing needed to make this film a success."

"Then I won't spoil it by coming in now!" called Paul, who was keeping out of the focus of the camera by crouching down behind some bushes. He had heard what Russ said, and had given up his plan of rushing to rescue Ruth. Evidently there was no need.

The deer, strange to say, did not seem at all alarmed, and stood gazing at Ruth with great brown eyes. She too, realizing that she was not to be harmed, acted more naturally now, and with an appreciation of what was needed to make the film a proper one.

She first "registered" fear, and then delighted surprise, at seeing the animal.

I might explain that in making moving pictures certain directions are given to the actors. As they can not depend on speaking words to let the audiences know what is going on, they must intimate, by appropriate gesture, or facial expression, the action of the play. This is called "registering," and when in the directions, or scenario, an actor or actress is told to "register" fear, surprise, anger, love, jealousy—in fact any of the emotions—he or she knows what is meant.

In this case Ruth was without specific directions save those called out by Russ. And often, in an emergency a good moving picture camera operator can save a film from being spoiled by improvising some "stage directions," if I may call them such.

"Shall I approach him, Russ?" Ruth asked, as she saw that the deer showed no intentions of fleeing.

"Yes, if he'll let you. It will make a dandy scene."

"Not too close," cautioned Paul, who was still out of sight behind the bushes, waiting until he could properly come into the scene. "He might accidentally hit you with a sweep of his horns."

"I'll be careful," answered Ruth. "I believe the poor thing is hungry."

"If we only had something to feed him!" exclaimed Russ. "That would work in fine."

"I have some lumps of sugar," said Ruth, speaking with her head turned aside. The reason for this was that she did not want the movement of her lips to show on the film, and the camera will catch and fix even that slight motion.

The reason Ruth spoke aside was because the little scene was being improvised, and she had no proper lines to speak. And, as I have already explained, often persons in the audience of a moving picture theatre are able to understand what is said, merely by watching the lips of the performers on the screen.

"Sugar! Good!" cried Russ. "See if he'll take it. I don't know what deer like best, but if they're anything like horses they'll revel in sugar. Go ahead!"

Ruth had in her pocket some lumps she had intended giving to the horses attached to the sleds in which they had come to the woods. She now took out some of these and held them out to the timid deer.

The beautiful creature, made bold, perhaps, by hunger, came a step nearer.

"Oh, that's fine!" cried Russ, squinting through the focusing tube to get clear, sharp impressions on the film. "Keep at it, Ruth."

The deer came nearer, thrusting forth its velvet nose. It sniffed at the sugar Ruth held, and then put out its lips and tongue and picked up the lumps.

"Fine!" cried Russ. "Maybe he'd like salt better, for I've read of salt-licks that animals visit, but sugar will do on a pinch; won't it, old fellow?"

Perhaps it was the loud, laughing voice that Russ used, or it may have been because there was no more sugar, but, at any rate, the deer, after taking the sweet lumps gave a sudden turn, and rushed off through the bushes, going rather slowly because of the deep snow.

Russ caught every motion of the graceful creature, however, and called out to Ruth to pose with her hand shaded over her eyes, as though she were looking after the deer. She did this, and that ended the little scene with the timid woodland creature, who, if he ever saw moving pictures, would doubtless be very much surprised to perceive a presentment of himself on the screen.

"Come on now, Paul!" called Russ, indicating to the young actor to show himself so that he would get into the picture.

The other players who had come up on hearing Ruth call out were now ready for their parts in the play. They had kept out of sight of the camera, however, so as not to spoil the picture.

"Very well done!" declared Mr. Pertell, when Ruth had finished her part in the play. "That deer will make a very effective picture, I think."

"It was a dear deer!" punned Alice, and the others laughed.

On the way back to Elk Lodge the manager made an announcement that interested all in the company, the young people especially.

"I have a drama," he said, "that calls for a coasting race in one scene. I wonder if we couldn't do that to-morrow."

"Oh, riding down hill!" cried Alice, with girlish enthusiasm. "What fun! May I steer a bob?"

"Alice, you never could!" cried Ruth.

"Pooh! I've done it lots of times!" her sister answered.

"Yes, when you were a little girl, perhaps, with two sleds held together," laughed Mr. Pertell. "This will be different. Mr. Macksey tells me he has two big, old-fashioned bobsleds in one of the barns. Now I think we can get up two parties and have a big coasting race. The play calls for it, and the young men who steer the bobs are rivals for the hand of the same girl. She has made a condition that whoever gets first to the bottom of the big hill may marry her. So you see the plan of the play."

"Me for a bob!" cried Paul.

"I wish I didn't have to film the play—I'd steer one, too!" exclaimed Russ, with a look at Ruth that made her blush.

"Must I get into this silly coasting play?" asked Mr. Bunn.

"You surely must," answered Mr. Pertell. "And I want to warn you of one thing—you are not to wear a high hat—it would only blow off and embarrass you."

"Not wear my high hat? Then I refuse to take part!" cried the tragic actor.

But Mr. Pertell paid no attention to him, for he had heard the same thing before.

The details of the coasting race were discussed on the way to Elk Lodge, and it was arranged that a partial rehearsal should be held next day.

That night, as Alice and Ruth were going to bed rather early, on account of the wearying work of the day, they heard voices out in the hall near their room.

"Listen!" warned Alice, raising her finger, for Ruth was talking.

"It's Mr. and Mrs. Macksey," said Ruth.

"I know. But what are they saying? It's something about those strange hunters who were seen about here once before."

Mr. Macksey, who had been summoned to the upper hall by his wife to fix a broken window, was speaking in his deep voice.

"So those fellows were around again; eh?" he asked.

"Yes, and I don't like it, Jake," Mrs. Macksey replied. "You know what it means if they kill any of the club deer. It may cost you your place here. The members of the club may say you were not careful enough."

"That's so, wife. I reckon I'd better look after those chaps. If they're trespassing on Elk Lodge I can have them arrested anyhow."

The next day was clear and calm, just right for taking pictures, and after breakfast the entire company went out on the hill where the bobsled race was to take place.

The hill had been prepared in advance by men from Elk Lodge, so that the sleds would attain good speed. The snow had been packed down, and a place made for Russ to set up his camera.

"Paul, you will steer one bob," said Mr. Pertell, as he was arranging the affair, "and Mr. Sneed will take the other."

"What, me steer a bobsled down that hill?" cried the grouchy actor, as he looked at the steep slope.

"Of course," said the manager.

"Something is sure to happen," declared Mr. Sneed.

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Mr. Pertell. "All you have to do is to keep the wheel steady."

The company of players, with a number of men from Elk Lodge, added to fill the bobs, now divided themselves into two parties. Ruth was to go on the sled with Mr. Sneed, and sit directly behind him so as to show well in the camera. Alice was to ride next to Paul on the other sled. The bobs were long ones, with bells and large steering wheels in front.

"All ready?" called Mr. Pertell, when the players were seated.

"All ready!" cried Russ, indicating that the camera was prepared.

"Go!" ordered the manager, and the men detailed to push the bobs shoved them ahead. The moving picture coasting race was on.



CHAPTER XIV

ON SNOWSHOES

"Here we go!"

"Hold on tight, everybody!"

"Let's see if we can't win!"

With shouts and laughter the merry coasters thus enlivened the race down hill. In order to make the moving pictures appear as realistic as possible Mr. Pertell had told the players to forget, for the time being, that they were actors, and to imagine that they were just boys and girls, out for a real frolic.

"And I'm sure I feel like one!" cried Alice, as she clung to the sides of the bob, where she sat behind Paul.

"That's the way to talk!" he laughed. "Look out for yourself now, we're going to bump!"

At that moment they came to a "thank-ye-ma'am," as they are called in the country.

This is a ridge, or bump in the road, made to keep the rain water from rushing down the highway too fast. The ridge turns the water to one side.

As Paul spoke the sled reached this place, rose into the air, and came down heavily.

"Gracious!" cried Alice. "I was nearly bounced off!"

"I warned you!" laughed Paul. "There's another one just below. Watch out for it."

Paul's sled was a little ahead of the one steered by Mr. Sneed, and the latter was unaware of the treacherous nature of the road. So he did not warn his fellow coasters. The result was that two of those on the rear fell off, but as they landed in soft snow they were not hurt.

"All the better!" cried Russ, who was making the pictures. "That will add to it. Keep going, Mr. Sneed!"

"If I go much farther I'll fall off!" cried the grouchy actor. "I can't hold on much longer!"

"You've got to!" ordered Mr. Pertell. "I'm not going to have this picture spoiled."

"Please don't fall off, whatever you do!" cried Ruth, who was back of Mr. Sneed. "That would leave me to do the steering and I don't know the first thing about it."

"Well, I'll do my best," he said, as graciously as he could. "Certainly I don't want to make trouble for you, Miss DeVere."

"Thank you," she said, and then as she looked ahead and saw another bump in the road, she cried:

"Look out! We're going to hit it."

Now Mr. Sneed was still suffering from the effects of the first bump, and not wishing to repeat it he sought to avoid the second by steering to one side. But in steering a long and heavy bobsled, well-laden with coasters, there is one thing to be remembered. That is, it must not be steered too suddenly to one side, for it has a propensity to "skid" worse than an automobile.

This was what happened in the case of Mr. Sneed. He turned the steering wheel suddenly, the bobsled slewed to one side, and, in another instant, had upset.

"Oh, dear!"

"We'll be killed!"

These two expressions came respectively from Miss Pennington and Miss Dixon. Some of the men cried out and a number of the girls screamed; but, after all, no one was hurt, for the snow was soft and luckily the bob rolled to one side, not hitting anyone.

The moment he realized that it was about to capsize Mr. Sneed let go of the steering wheel, and gave a jump which carried him out of harm's way, so the only mishap he suffered was a rather severe shaking up, and being covered with snow. Considerable of the white stuff got in his mouth.

"Wuff!" he spluttered. "I—gurr—will never—burr—steer—another—whew—sled!"

By this time he had cleared his mouth of snow, and repeated his determination, without the interruptions and stutterings.

"Did you get that spill, Russ?" asked Mr. Pertell, who could not keep from laughing.

"Every move of it; yes, sir!"

"Good. I think we can make use of it, though it wasn't in the scenario. But we'll have to start over again. I want to get a good close finish."

"What's that you said?" asked Mr. Sneed, as he dusted the snow from his clothes, and looked at the overturned bob.

"I said," repeated the manager, "that we'd have to do the coasting scene over again, as I wanted to show a close finish of the two sleds at the foot of the hill, and now we can't, for one is down there, and the other is up here."

This was true enough, since Paul had steered his sled properly, and had reached the foot of the slope, where he and the others waved to their less fortunate competitors.

"Well, you can have the race over again if you like," said Mr. Sneed, with decision, "but I am not going to steer. I knew something would happen if I steered a bob."

"Well, you were right—for once," conceded Mr. Pertell, with a smile. "And perhaps you are right not to want to steer again. It may not be safe."

"I'll do it!" offered Mr. Switzer. "In der old country yet I haf steered sleds bigger yet as dis von."

"All right, you may try," said Mr. Pertell. "Now then, is anyone hurt?"

"I am not, I'm glad to say," laughed Ruth, who was brushing the snow from her garments. "But it was a narrow escape."

"Indeed it was!" snapped Miss Dixon. "It was all your fault, too, Mr. Sneed!"

"My fault, how?"

"You steered to one side too quickly. Don't you try that, Mr. Switzer."

"Indeed und I vill not. You can trust me!"

"Get ready then," ordered Mr. Pertell. "Come on back!" he called to Paul and his companions at the foot of the hill.

As the story in which the coasting race figured would have to be changed to make the accident fit in, Mr. Pertell had Russ get all the incidental scenes he could, showing the overturned bob being righted, the coasters getting ready for the new race, and the other bob being pulled up hill.

Once more the rival coasters prepared to start off, with Mr. Switzer replacing Mr. Sneed. This time there was no upset, and the two sleds went down close together.

Then something new developed. Mr. Switzer spoke truly when he said he had been used to steering bobs in Germany. He knew just how to do it to get the best results, and take advantage of every favorable spot on the hill.

Paul, too, seeing that it was to be a real race, as well as one for the benefit of the moving picture audiences, exerted himself to get the best out of his sled. There is little a steersman on a bob can do except to take advantage of the easiest course. And this Paul did.

On and on went the big bobs, nearing the foot of the hill.

"This is great!" cried Mr. Pertell.

"This will be some picture!" declared Russ, with enthusiasm. "Come on, Paul, he's going to win!"

"Not if I know it!" avowed the young actor.

"Oh, don't let them get ahead of us!" cried Alice in Paul's ear.

"I'll do my best," he said, with a grim tightening of his lips.

But it was not to be. Either a little more skillful steering on the part of Mr. Switzer, or a more favorable course enabled his sled to shoot ahead, just at the finish, and he won the race.

And then a curious thing happened. The sled kept on going, and slid into a little clump of bushes, from which, a moment later, a man with a gun sprang.

This man seemed as surprised at being thus driven from his shelter as were the coasters at seeing him.

"Ha! Vot does dis mean?" demanded Mr. Switzer. "Vos you vaiting for us mit dot gun?"

Really the man did look a little menacing as he stood there with poised weapon, looking at the coasters.

"I beg your pardon," he managed to stammer, at length. "I did not see you coming."

"I guess it's our part to beg your pardon," said Mr. Sneed, who, though he did not steer the bob, had been obliged to ride on it. "We did not mean to run into you."

"No harm done; none at all," the man said. "I was hiding here, waiting for a chance to shoot at a fox that has a particularly fine pelt, but I guess I may as well give up. I heard the shouts of you folks, but I had no idea you would coast away down here."

"I didn't haf no idea like dot myself," confessed Mr. Switzer. "But if dere iss no hart feelings ve vill let comeons be bygones."

"That suits me," laughed the stranger, as he turned aside.

And, as he went away Ruth had a queer feeling that she had seen him before and under odd circumstances.

The coasting incident was over, the race had been successfully filmed, and the coasters were turning back up the hill, while Russ was demounting his camera, for there would be no more scenes taken at present.

"Did you notice that man, Alice?" asked Ruth, as she went up the hill beside her sister.

"You mean the hunter who looked as though he wanted to shoot some of us?"

"Oh, what a way to talk! But that's the one I had reference to. Did you notice him particularly?"

"Not very. Why?"

"Do you think you ever saw him before?"

Ruth put the question in such a peculiar way that Alice looked at her sharply.

"You don't mean he was one of the men who tried to get Russ's patent; do you?"

"No. I can't, for the life of me, though, think where I have seen that man before, but I'm sure I have. I thought you might remember."

Alice tried to recall the face, but could not.

"I don't believe I ever saw him before," she said, shaking her head. "He might be one of the many actors we have met on our travels, or in going around with daddy."

"No, I'm sure he never was an actor," spoke Ruth. "Never mind, perhaps it will come to me later."

And all the remainder of the day she tried in vain to recall where she had seen that face before.

Mr. Macksey seemed a trifle disturbed when told of the man being on the hill with a gun.

"One of those pesky hunters!" he exclaimed. "I've got notices posted all over the property of Elk Lodge, but they don't seem to do any good. I guess I'll have to get after those fellows and give 'em a piece of my mind. I'd like to find out where they are stopping."

The next few days were busy ones for the picture actors, and a number of dramas were filmed. In one, two snow forts were built, and the company indulged in a snowball battle before the camera.

"And now for something new," said Mr. Pertell one day, as he called the company together in the big living room of the lodge, and pointed to something piled in one corner. "You'll have to have a few days' practice, I think, so I give you fair notice."

"More coasting?" asked Mr. Sneed, suspiciously.

"No—snowshoes, this time," replied the manager. "I am going to have you all travel on them in one scene, and as they are rather awkward you had better take a few lessons."

"Lessons on snowshoes!" cried Ruth. "Who can give them to us?"

"I have a teacher," said the manager. "Russ, tell Billy Jack to come in," and there entered from the porch a tall Indian, dressed in modern garb.

Miss Pennington screamed, as did Miss Dixon, but the Indian smiled, showing some very fine and white teeth, and said in a gentle voice:

"Don't be alarmed, ladies, I have no scalping knife with me, and I assure you that you will soon be able to get about on snowshoes."



CHAPTER XV

A TIMELY SHOT

Surprise, for the moment, made every member of the moving picture company silent. That an Indian should speak so correctly was a matter of amazement. Mr. Pertell smiled quizzically as he remarked.

"Billy Jack is one of the last of his tribe. He is a full-blooded Indian, but he has been to Carlisle, which may account for some things."

"I should say it would," murmured Paul Ardite. "I'm glad I didn't give a war whoop!"

"I learned to use snowshoes when I was a boy," went on the Indian, who, though roughly dressed was cultured. "I have kept it up ever since," he went on. "I have charge of a gang of men getting out some lumber, not far from here, and when Mr. Macksey told me there was a company of moving picture actors and actresses at Elk Lodge I spoke of the snowshoes."

"And when Mr. Macksey told me of it," put in the manager, "I saw at once that we could use a scene with some of you folks on the shoes. So I arranged with Billy Jack."

"Is that your real name?" asked Alice, who had taken a sudden liking to the rugged son of the forest.

"That's one of my real names, strange as it sounds," he answered. "I don't much fancy it; but what am I to do?"

"I like it!" the girl announced, promptly. "It's better than being Running Bear or something like that."

"I had one of those names—in fact, I have it yet," he said, "but I never use it. Flaming Arrow is my real Indian name."

"Flaming Arrow! How romantic!" exclaimed Miss Dixon. "How did you come to get that?"

"Oh, when I was a boy an Indian from a neighboring tribe shot an arrow, with some burning tow on it, over into our camp, just in a spirit of mischief, for we were friendly. I snatched the arrow out of a pile of dry bark that it might have set on fire, and so I got my name. I am a Western Indian," Billy Jack explained, "but of late I have made my home in New England. Now, if you like, I will show you how to use snowshoes."

A number of the queer "tennis racquets," as Alice called them, had been obtained through the good offices of Billy Jack, he having arranged for them in the lumber camp. Snowshoes, as you all know, consist of a thin strip of wood, bent around in a curve, and shaped not unlike a lawn tennis racquet, except that the handle or heel part is shorter. The shoes are laced with thongs, and the feet are placed in the centre of the criss-crossed thongs, and held there by other thongs or straps.

The idea of snowshoes is to enable travelers to make their way over deep drifts without sinking, the shoes distributing the weight over a larger area. They are not easy to use, and the novice is very apt to trip by putting one shoe down on top of the other, and then trying to step out.

Billy Jack, or Flaming Arrow, as Ruth and Alice voted to call him, first showed the members of the company how to fasten the snowshoes on their feet, allowing for the play of the heel. He put a pair on himself, first, and stepped out over a stretch of unbroken snow. Instead of sinking down, as he would have done under ordinary circumstances, he slipped over the surface as lightly as a feather.

"Now, you try," he told Mr. Sneed, who was near him.

"Who, me? Oh, I can't walk on these things," protested the grouchy actor.

"Try!" ordered Mr. Pertell. "I have a very important part for you in the new play."

"All right, if you say so, I suppose I must. But I know something will happen," he sighed.

It did, and within a few seconds after Mr. Sneed started out. He took three steps, and then, forgetting that the snowshoes were rather large, he tried to walk as though he did not have them on. The result was he tripped, and came down head first in a deep drift, and there he remained, buried to his shoulders while his feet were up in the air, wildly kicking about.

He was probably saying things, but they could not be heard, for his head was under the snow.

"Somebody help him out!" cried Mr. Pertell, trying to keep from laughing too hard.

In fact everyone was so amused that, for the moment, no one rendered any aid to Mr. Sneed. But Flaming Arrow finally went over to him, and succeeded in righting him.

"Take—take 'em off!" spluttered the actor, when he could speak. "I am through with snowshoes."

He tried to unlace the thongs that bound his feet, but could not manage it.

"Better try once more," advised Mr. Pertell. "I really need you in the scene, Mr. Sneed, and you will soon learn to get along on the snowshoes."

"I never will!" cried the grouch. "Take 'em off, I say!"

But no one would, and finally, after Flaming Arrow had given a few more demonstrations, Mr. Sneed consented to try again. This time he did a little better, but every once in a while he would trip. He did not again dive into a snow bank, however.

Other members of the company had haps and mishaps, and Mr. Bunn stumbled about so that he lost his new tall hat in a drift, and he refused to go on with the act until the silk tile was dug out.

But finally after two day's practice, the Indian declared that the company was sufficiently expert to allow the taking of pictures, and Russ began to work the camera.

"Could we come over to your lumber camp some day?" asked Alice of Flaming Arrow, when the little drama was over.

"I would be pleased to have you," he replied, with a smile. "There are a rough lot of men there, but they are always glad to see visitors—especially ladies. It is rather dull and lonesome in the backwoods. This has been quite a little vacation for me."

"Then we'll come and see you; won't we Ruth?"

"I don't know, dear. We'll have to ask daddy," responded Ruth, rather doubtfully.

"Oh, he'll say yes!" Alice cried. "He likes us to see new sights, and I've never been in a lumber camp yet."

"Bring your father along," invited Flaming Arrow. "I think he would be interested."

Alice promised and then the Indian took his leave. He promised to come another day and bring a pair of skis, those long barrel-stave-like affairs, on which experts can slide down a steep hill, and make the most astonishing jumps.

It was a few days after the snowshoe film had been made that Mr. Pertell decided on getting some scenes farther back in the woods than he had yet gone for views. Ruth and Alice, with Paul and Mr. Switzer, were alone needed for those particular acts, and as there was a good road part way it was decided to go as near as possible in a sled, and use snowshoes for the rest of the trip, since there had been quite a fall.

Mr. Pertell went along to see that the proper posing and acting was carried out, and when he reached the place he had Ruth and Alice go on alone into the woods, Russ filming them as they advanced. Later Paul and Mr. Switzer were to come into the picture.

"That's about right," said the manager when Ruth and Alice were in a dense thicket. They were attired as the daughters of lumbermen, and this particular scene was one in a drama to be called "The Fall of a Tree."

"Begin now," ordered Mr. Pertell, and Ruth and Alice started the "business," or acting, called for. Russ was grinding away at the crank of the camera.

Everything went off well and that part of the play came to an end. For the next act another background was to be selected, and Russ went to it with his camera, leaving Ruth and Alice standing together in the thicket.

"We have to wait a few minutes, while Paul and Mr. Switzer go through their parts," said Ruth. "Then we'll go over."

"All right," Alice said. "Oh, but isn't it perfectly heavenly out here? I just love it at Elk Lodge!"

"So do I, dear! Hark! What was that?"

A sound came from the bushes behind them—a growling, menacing sound, and as they heard it the girls drew together in fright.

"It—it's some animal!" gasped Ruth. "Oh, Alice!"

"Look. There it is! It's going to spring at us!" cried the younger girl and with trembling finger she pointed to a crouching beast not far away. Its eyes gleamed balefully, and with sharp switchings of its tail it glared at the girls, ready to spring.

The moving picture girls were faint with fear, and too frightened to shout for help. But suddenly a voice behind them called:

"Don't be afraid! Stand still. I'm going to shoot!"

The next moment a shot rang out. The beast quivered and then whirled in its death struggle, while strong arms reached through the floating powder smoke, and pulled Ruth and Alice back, and out of danger.



CHAPTER XVI

IN THE CAVE

The animal, in its death struggle, bit and clawed at the snow and bushes about it, and actually came almost to the feet of the shrinking girls; but they were safe from harm, for the shot had come just in time.

"I guess I'll have to give him another bullet," said the man who had ended the career of the beast. "I'll put it out of its misery," and he did so. The shot, so close at hand, caused Ruth and Alice to jump nervously, and then, for the first time, as the beast stretched out, and lay still, they took a look at their rescuer.

"Why it's Flaming Arrow!" exclaimed Alice, in delight.

"At your service!" he laughed. "I am glad I happened to be near here."

"So are we!" exclaimed Ruth, with a nervous laugh. "What sort of a beast is that—a young bear?"

"No, it's a wildcat, and a mean sort of animal, once it attacks you. This one must have felt that it was cornered, for they are not usually so bold. It's a big one, though, and the pelt will make a fine rug for your room. May I have the pleasure of sending it to you?" he asked.

"Oh, can you make it into a rug?" asked Alice.

"Yes, I know something of curing, and I have the materials at my shack in the lumber camp. I'll make a rug for you, only I'm afraid it isn't big enough for two," he said, ruefully.

"Oh, Alice may have it!" exclaimed Ruth, generously.

"Then I'll get another for you," offered Flaming Arrow. "They usually travel in pairs, and the mate of this one is sure to be around somewhere. I'll get him."

Later the Indian did get another wildcat, whether or not the mate of the first one he shot could not be determined; but, at any rate, Ruth and Alice each received a handsome fur rug for their room.

The sound of the shots brought up the others of the moving picture company, and Paul turned rather pale when he realized the danger Alice had been in.

"Why didn't you call for help?" he asked.

"We didn't need to. Flaming Arrow was right on the spot when he was needed," replied Alice.

"I happened to be out on a little hunting trip," the Indian explained, "and I saw the wildcat sneak in this thicket. I did not see the girls, though, until just as it was about to jump on them. Then I fired."

"And just in time, too," declared Ruth. "Oh, if that beast had ever jumped on me I don't know what I'd have done!"

"They're pretty bad scratchers," said Flaming Arrow. "I was clawed by one once, and I carry the scars yet."

"Will you be able to go on with the play?" asked Mr. Pertell of the girls, when he had heard the story.

"Oh, yes," returned Alice. "My nerves are all right now. We are getting used to such experiences," she laughed.

"I am all right too," Ruth agreed. "But it was a trying moment."

Flaming Arrow stood to one side and looked on interestedly while the remainder of the drama was being filmed, and then he showed the players the road to his lumber camp. He invited them to come over to it, but as the hour was late and as Mr. Pertell wanted to get a few more scenes in a different locality, it was decided to defer the visit to some other time.

Flaming Arrow said good-bye, and went off with the dead wild cat slung over his shoulder.

"Isn't he just fine!" exclaimed Alice, as she watched him stalking over the drifts on his snowshoes.

"I'm getting jealous!" laughed Paul, and there was more of meaning in his remark than his outward manner indicated.

"Well, I do like him!" Alice went on. "He is so big and strong and manly. And he can shoot straight!"

"Hereafter I'll bring along a gun every time we come out," vowed Paul. "And I'm going to take shooting lessons."

"Yah! Dot vould be a goot t'ing," decided Mr. Switzer. "I gets me too a gun!"

"Gracious! The game around here had better seek new quarters!" laughed Alice. "Next we'll be having Mr. Bunn and Mr. Sneed taking up the calling of Nimrod."

Mr. DeVere was rather disturbed when he heard the story of the wildcat, and once more he spoke seriously of taking his daughters out of moving picture work.

"I really am afraid something will happen to you," he said. "I think you had better resign. I can earn enough for all of us now, for Mr. Pertell has given me another advance in salary."

"Oh, Daddy! We simply couldn't give it up!" cried Alice. "Could we, Ruth?"

"I wouldn't like to give it up," responded Ruth, quietly. She was always less demonstrative than her sister. "And really, Daddy, we don't run into danger."

"I know, my dear, but danger seems to have formed a habit, of late, of seeking you out," said the actor. "However, we will wait a few days. I suppose it would be too bad to disappoint Mr. Pertell now."

The next day, owing to a slight indisposition on the part of Miss Pennington, a drama that included her as one of the cast had to be postponed, and as no other was ready to be filmed, the players had a little holiday.

"Who wants to come for a trip to the ice cave?" asked Russ, when he found that he would not have to use his camera.

"What's the ice cave?" asked Ruth.

"Why, it's a cave made out of ice. There's one about two miles from here, and Mr. Pertell is thinking of having some scenes made there. I'm to go out and size up the situation. Want to come?"

"It sounds interesting," observed Ruth. "I believe I would like to go. Shall we, Alice?"

"Indeed, yes."

"Count me in!" cried Paul.

So a little later the four young people set off for the ice cave. This was a natural curiosity not far from Elk Lodge. Every year, at a waterfall in a local stream, the ice piled up in fantastic shapes. The flow of the water, and the effect of the wind, made a large hollow or cave at the cascade large enough to hold several persons. Mr. Pertell had heard of it and had laid one scene of a drama there.

There was a fairly good road almost to the ice cave, and then came a trip across an unbroken expanse of snow, the snowshoes being used, they having been carried strapped to the backs of the four.

"Oh, how beautiful!"

"See how the sun sparkles on the ice."

"And what big icicles!"

"Oh, if we could only keep that until Summer!"

Thus the young people cried as they saw the beautiful ice cave. It was indeed a pretty sight. Nature, unaided, had done more than man could ever hope to achieve.

"Let's go inside," suggested Russ.

"Will it be safe?" asked Ruth.

"Oh, surely. Why, we have to go in it when we make the moving picture, so we might as well get used to it. They say this ice lasts nearly all summer. It's down in a deep hollow, you see. Come on in."

"Go ahead! I'm game!" Paul said, grimly.

The girls hesitated, but only for a moment. Then they followed the young men into the cavern.

The entrance was rather small, and they had to stoop to get through it, but once inside the cave widened out until there was room for perhaps a dozen persons.

"What a lovely place for a dance!" cried Alice, as she slid about. "It's so slippery that you'd need those new slippers with rubber set in the sole. Come, on, try a hesitation waltz," she cried gaily to Ruth.

Paul whistled one of the latest popular airs, and Ruth and Alice slid about.

"Come on!" cried Paul to Russ. "I'm getting the craze, too."

The two young men danced together a moment, and then came an interruption that caused them all to look at one another.

There was a grinding, crashing sound outside, and the next moment the entrance to the cave was darkened.



CHAPTER XVII

THE RESCUE

"What happened?"

"There must have been an ice slide!"

It was Alice who asked the question, and Paul who answered it. Standing in the darkened ice cave, through the walls of which, however, some light filtered, the four looked anxiously at one another.

"It was the dancing that did it," declared Ruth, in a low voice. "It loosened the ice and it slid down."

"Perhaps not," said Paul, not wanting Alice blamed, for she had proposed the light-footed stepping about on the slippery floor of the cavern. "It might have slid down itself."

"Well, let's see what the situation is," proposed Russ. "We can't stay in here too long, for it's freezing cold."

"Yes, let's see if we can get out," added Paul.

"See if we can get out!" repeated Ruth. "Why, is there any danger that we can not?"

"Every danger in the world, I should say," spoke Russ, and there was a worried note in his voice. "I don't want to alarm you," he went on, "but the fact is that we are shut up in this ice cave."

"Oh, don't say that!" cried Ruth.

"Why shouldn't he—if it's true?" asked Alice. "Let's face the situation, whatever it is. Russ, will you see just how bad it is?"

Without speaking, the young moving picture operator went to the hole through which they had stooped to enter the cavern. In a moment he came back.

"It's closed tighter than a drum," he announced. "A lot of ice slid down from above and closed the entrance to the cave as if a door had been shoved across it. We can't get out!"

For a moment no one spoke, and then Paul asked, quietly:

"What are we going to do?"

"Have you a knife?" asked Russ.

"A knife? Yes, but what good is that?"

"We've got to cut our way out—that's all."

Ruth and Alice looked at each other. They began to understand what it meant.

"Someone from Elk Lodge may come for us—if we don't get back," murmured the younger girl, in what was almost a whisper.

"Yes, they may, but it's dangerous to wait," said Paul. "It is cold in here, and it isn't getting any warmer. It's like being locked in a refrigerator. We've got to keep in motion or we'll freeze."

"Then let's tackle that block of ice at the entrance," suggested Russ. "Get out your knife and we'll see if we can't cut a hole large enough to crawl through."

If you have tried to cut with a pocket knife even the small piece of ice which you get in your refrigerator, you can appreciate the task that confronted the two young men. A solid block of ice had slid down from some higher point, and had blocked the opening to the odd cavern. But the two were not daunted. They realized the necessity of getting out, and that within a short time. Though they were all warmly dressed, the air of the cavern was chilly, to say the least.

"Keep moving, girls!" called Russ to Ruth and Alice, as he and Paul chipped away at the ice. "This exercise will keep us warm; but you need to do something to keep your blood in circulation. Here, take my coat!" he called, as he arose from his knees, and tossed the garment to Ruth.

"I shall do nothing of the sort!" she answered, promptly. "You need it yourself."

"No, I don't," he replied, earnestly. "It only bothers me when I try to cut the ice. Please take it."

"But I can't get it on over my cloak."

"Yes, you can. Put it around your shoulders. I'll show you how." And he did it quickly, wrapping it warmly around her.

"Here, Alice, you take mine!" cried Paul, as he saw what his companion had done. "You need it more than I do, and I can't get at that ice with a big coat like this on."

In spite of her protests he put it about her, and the added warmth of the garments was comforting to the girls.

The boys, really, were better off without them, for they had much vigorous work before them, and in the narrow quarters the heavy coats only hampered them.

For it was an exceedingly narrow space in which they had to work. The fall of the mass of ice had crushed part of the opening into the cave, so that Russ and Paul had to crouch down and stoop in a most uncomfortable position in order to reach the block that had closed the doorway.

With their knives they hacked away at the frozen mass, sending the chips flying. Much of it went in their faces and soon their cheeks were glowing from the icy spray of splinters. Then, too, they had to stop every now and then to clear away the accumulated ice crystals that fell before the attack of their knives.

"Keep moving, girls," Paul urged Ruth and Alice. "Keep circling around or you'll surely freeze."

"Let's dance," suggested Alice.

"Oh, how can you think of such a thing!" cried Ruth, "when it was that which caused all the trouble."

"I'm not going to believe that!" declared Alice, firmly. "And it isn't such a terrible thing to think of, at all. It will keep us warm, and keep up our spirits."

And then she broke into a little one-step dance, whistling her own accompaniment. Surely it was a strange proceeding, and yet it came natural to Alice. The young men, too, took heart at her manner of accepting the situation, and chopped away harder than ever at the ice barrier.

"Think we'll make it?" asked Paul of Russ, in a low voice, when they had been working for some time.

"We've got to make it," answered the other. "We've just got to get the girls out."

"Of course," was the brief reply, as if that was all there was to it.

And yet, in their hearts, Russ and Paul felt a nameless fear. Ice, which melts so easily under the warm and gentle influence of the sun, is exceedingly hard when it is maintained at a low temperature, and truly it was sufficiently cold in the cave.

Now and then the boys stopped to clear away the accumulation of ice splinters, and to note how they were progressing. Yet they could hardly tell, for they did not know how thick was the chunk of ice that covered the cave opening. The edges of the opening itself were several feet in thickness, and if this hole was completely filled it would mean many hours of work with the pitifully inadequate tools at their disposal.

"How are we coming on?" asked Paul.

Russ looked back at the girls who, in one corner of the cave, were pacing up and down to drive away the deadly cold.

"Not very well," he returned, in a low voice. "Don't talk—let's work."

He did not like to think of what might happen.

Desperately they labored, eating their way into the heart of the ice. The splinters fell on their warm bodies, for they were perspiring now, and there the frosty particles melted, wetting their garments through.

Suddenly Paul uttered a cry as he dug his knife savagely into the barrier.

"What's the matter—cut yourself?" asked Russ.

"No," was the low-voiced reply. "But I've broken the big blade of my knife. Now I'll have to use the smaller one."

It was a serious thing, for it meant a big decrease in the amount of ice Paul could chop. But opening the small blade of the knife he kept doggedly at the task.

It was growing darker now. They could observe this through the translucent walls of the cave.

"Do you think they will come for us?" asked Ruth, in a low tone.

"Oh, yes, of course. If we don't get back by dark," responded Russ, as cheerfully as he could. "But we'll be out before then. Come on, Paul. Dig away!"

But it was very evident that they would not be out before dark. The ice block was thicker than Russ and Paul imagined.

"Please rest!" begged Alice, after a period of hard work by the two young men. "Please take a rest!"

"Can't afford a vacation," returned Russ, grimly.

But when he did halt for a moment, to get his breath, there came from outside the cave a sound that sent all their hearts to beating joyfully for it was the voice of some calling:

"Where are you? Where are you? Alice! Ruth!"

"Oh, it's daddy!" cried the girls together, and then Russ took up the refrain, shouting:

"We're in the cave! Get axes and chop us out! We've only got our knives!"

"We'll be with you in a moment!" said another voice, which they recognized as that of Mr. Macksey. "We'll have to go for a couple of axes!"

And then, as the hunter started back to Elk Lodge, Mr. DeVere, who remained outside the ice cave, explained through a crevice in the ice wall that made conversation possible how, becoming uneasy at the failure of his daughters to return, he had set out, in company with Mr. Macksey to look for them.

In their turn Ruth and Alice, with occasional words from Russ and Paul, told how they had become imprisoned.

"Are you hurt?" asked Mr. DeVere, anxiously.

"Not a bit of it, but we're awfully cold, Daddy," replied Alice.

"We must give the boys back their coats," said Ruth to her sister in a low tone. "They are not chopping now, and they'll freeze."

Russ and Paul did not want to accept their garments, but the girls were insistent, and made them don the heavy coats. Then the four walked rapidly around the cave to keep their blood in circulation.

"I wish Mr. Pertell would come and bring the camera," said Russ. "He could get a good moving picture of the rescue."

"Maybe he will," suggested Paul.

There was a little silence, and then Mr. DeVere called, from outside the cave;

"Here they come! Now you will soon be rescued! There's help enough to chop away the whole cave!"



CHAPTER XVIII

SNOWBOUND

Alice and Ruth fairly flew together, holding their arms tightly about one another in the excess of their emotion, as they heard this joyful news shouted to them by their father.

Ruth cried on her sister's shoulder. She could not help it. Perhaps Alice felt like crying, too, so great was the relief; but she was of a different temperament. She laughed hysterically.

"Is Mr. Pertell there?" called Russ, getting down close to the hole he and Paul had made in the ice barrier to enable his voice to carry better. "Is he there, Mr. DeVere?"

"Yes, he's there, and I guess the whole company."

"Has he the camera?"

"That's what he has, Russ."

"Good! Tell him to get a moving picture of the rescue. We can fix up a story to go with it."

"I will, Russ!" exclaimed the actor.

Then, as those within the ice cave waited, they faintly heard other voices outside, and a little later the sound of axes vigorously applied told that the ice which had imprisoned them was being chopped away.

Fast and furiously the rescuers worked. The ice flew about in a sparkling spray as the keen weapons bit deep into it, and the hole grew larger and larger.

Meanwhile Mr. Pertell was operating the moving picture camera, getting view after view of the rescue. There were enough helpers so that his aid was not needed in chopping the ice.

"There she goes!" cried Mr. Macksey, as his axe went through an opening and into the cave. "I've made the hole!" and he capered about like a boy, so delighted was he that he had been the first to bring aid to the imprisoned ones.

"Oh, now we can get out!" cried Ruth, as she saw the head of the axe come through.

"As if there had ever been any doubt of it," laughed Alice. She could laugh now, but even with all her gay spirits, there had been a time, not many minutes back, when it was quite a different story.

The hole once made, was soon enlarged, and then, when it was of sufficient size to enable a person to crawl through, Russ shouted to the rescuers;

"That'll do! Don't chop any more! We can wriggle out."

"Surely, yes," agreed Ruth, as the young moving picture operator looked to her for confirmation. "I'm not a bit fussy," she added. "I've done harder things than crawl on my hands and knees out of an ice cave."

"Don't chop any more!" called Paul, for Russ was leading Ruth to the opening.

"Come ahead!" called Mr. DeVere, and a moment later he was holding his daughter in his arms. Alice soon followed, and she too was clasped tightly.

"Hurray!" cried Mr. Switzer, as Russ and Paul emerged from their strange prison. "Dis is der best sight vot I have yet had in more as a month. Half a pretzel!" he exclaimed, holding out one of the queer, twisted things. He was never without them since the sled breakdown. He said they were his mascots.

There was a scene of rejoicing, and even the gloomy Mr. Sneed condescended to smile, and looked almost happy.

"There, I guess we can use this film in some sort of a play, if I have to write it myself!" exclaimed Mr. Pertell, as he finished grinding away at the camera crank. "I can call it 'Caught in The Ice,' or something like that," he went on, "We can make some preliminary scenes, and some others to follow, and get quite a play out of it."

"I'm glad you thought to bring the camera," said Russ. Even in the stress of what had happened to him and his companions, his instinct as a moving picture operator was ever foremost.

"We had better get them to Elk Lodge, and feed them upon something warm," suggested Mr. Macksey. "I told the wife to have a good meal ready, for I knew they would be chilled through."

"It was pretty cold in there," confessed Alice.

"Oh, don't let's talk about it!" cried Ruth. "It was too terrible."

An examination of the exterior of the ice cave showed that just what the young men surmised had taken place. A large chunk of ice had slid down from above, and had jammed against the opening to the cavern.

Back at Elk Lodge, with warm garments on, the four who had passed through such a trying experience soon forgot their troubles. They had to tell all over again just what had happened, and the young men were considered quite the heroes of the hour.

The next day none of the four was any the worse for the experience, save in the matter of a nightmare memory, and that would gradually pass away.

Feeling that the two girls were not capable of doing any hard work in posing for the camera that day, Mr. Pertell announced another vacation, save that Russ was engaged in making some scenes of snow and ice effects.

Late in the afternoon, when the shadows were lengthening, and the long winter evening was about to close in, Alice, who was out on the side porch, saw Mr. Macksey coming in from the barn. The hunter had an anxious look on his face, and as he walked toward the house he cast looks up at the sky now and then. And Alice heard him murmur:

"I don't like this! I don't for a cent, by hickory!"

"What's the matter now?" she asked, merrily. "Have you seen some of those strange men about again, hunting on your preserves?"

"No, Miss Alice. Not this time," he replied, slowly.

"What is it then?"

"Well, to tell you the truth, I don't like the looks of the weather."

"Do you think we're going to have another blizzard?" and there was a note of alarm in her voice.

"I'm thinking that's what's coming," he made answer. "I never knew the weather to act just this way before except once, and then we had the worst storm I ever remember. That was when I was a boy, and more snow fell in that one storm than in any three winters put together."

"Gracious! I hope that won't happen now!" cried the girl.

"So do I," went on the hunter. "And I'm going to take all precautions. I'll get the men, and we'll pile the fodder in the barn so if we can't get out to feed the stock they won't starve for a week, anyhow."

"Does it ever happen that you can't get out to the barns?" Alice wanted to know.

"Indeed it does, young lady. When there is a heavy fall of snow, and the wind blows hard, it drifts almost as high as the house. Yes, I think we're in for a storm, and I'm going to get ready for it. Best to be on the safe side."

A little later he and a number of his hired men, as well as some of the picture players, were engaged in looking after the horses and cows. Great piles of hay and grain were moved from the barns where the fodder was kept in reserve, to the buildings where the stock were stabled.

"How about our rations?" asked Mr. Bunn, who was not of much help in work of this sort. "Have we enough to last through a storm?"

"Well, we've got some," Mr. Macksey admitted. "But I own I would like a little better stock in the Lodge. I counted on some supplies coming in to-day; but they haven't arrived. We'll have to do the best we can."

"What is all the excitement about, Alice?" asked Ruth as she came out to join her sister on the porch.

"A big storm coming, Mr. Macksey says. They're getting ready for it. I want to see it!"

"Oh, Alice. Suppose it should be a blizzard!"

"Well, I want to see it anyhow. If it's going to come I can't stop it; but I can enjoy it," Alice remarked in her characteristically philosophical way.

There was a curious humming in the air, as though someone, a great way off, were moaning in pain. It did not seem to be the wind, and yet it was like the sigh of a breeze. But the gaunt-limbed trees did not bow before this strange blast.

The air, too, had a bite and tingle to it as though it were filled with invisible particles of ice. The clouds were lowering, and as the afternoon wore away there sprang up in the west a black band of vapor, almost like ink.

Alice induced Ruth to pay a visit to the barn, to watch the preparations for providing for the stock. Even the animals seemed uneasy, as though they sensed some impending disaster. The horses, always nervous, were doubly so, and moved restlessly about, with pricked-up ears, and startled neighs. The cows, too, lowed plaintively.

"Well, we've done all we can," announced Mr. Macksey, as night came on. "Now all we can do is to wait. There's plenty of fuel in the cellar, and we'll not freeze, at any rate."

There was a sense of gloom over all, as they sat in the big living room of Elk Lodge that night, and looked at the blazing logs. Everyone listened apprehensively, as though to hear the first message of the impending storm.

The sighing of the wind, if wind it was that made that curious sound, was more pronounced now, and as the blast came down the chimney it scattered ashes and embers about, and at times rose to an uncanny wail.

"Oh, but that gives me the shivers!" exclaimed Miss Pennington, tossing aside the novel in which she had tried to become interested. "This is positively awful! I wish I were back in New York."

"So do I!" added her chum.

"Oh, but a good snow storm is glorious!" cried Alice. "I am just wild to see it."

"That's right," exclaimed her father, with a smile. "Take a cheerful view of it, anyhow."

Some one proposed a guessing game, and with that under way the spirits of all revived somewhat. Then came another simple game, and the time passed pleasantly.

Mr. Macksey, coming back from a trip to the side door, startled them all by announcing:

"She's here!"

"Who?" asked his wife, looking up from her sewing.

"The storm! It's snowing like cotton batting!"

Alice rushed to the window. She shaded her eyes with her hands at the side of her head and peered out. It seemed as though the lamplights shone on a solid wall of white, so thickly was the snow falling.

The wind had now risen to a blast of hurricane-like velocity and it fairly shook Elk Lodge, low and substantial as the house was.

By ones and twos the picture players went to their rooms, and soon silence and darkness settled down over the Lodge. That is, silence within the house, but outside there was the riot of the storm.

Two or three times during the night Alice awakened and, going to the window, looked out. She could make out a dim whiteness, but that was all. Around the window there was a little drift of snow on the sill, where it had been blown through a crack.

And in the morning they were snowbound. So heavy was the fall of snow, and so high had it drifted, that some of the lower windows were completely covered, from the ground up. And before each door was such a drift that it would be necessary to tunnel if they were to get out.

"The worst storm I ever see!" declared Mr. Macksey, as he closed the door against the blast. "It would be death to go out in it now. We are snowbound, by hickory!"



CHAPTER XIX

ON SHORT RATIONS

Apprehensive as all had been of the coming of the big storm, and fully warned by the hunter, none of the picture players was quite prepared for what they saw—or, rather, for what they could not see. For not a window on the lower floor of the Lodge but was blocked by a bank of snow, so that only the tops of the upper panes were clear of it. And through those bits of glass all that could be seen was a whirling, swirling mass, for the white flakes were still falling.

Not an outer door of the house but was blocked by a drift, and it was useless to open the portals at present, as the snow fell into the room.

"But what are we to do?" asked Mr. Pertell, when the situation had been made plain to him. "We can't take any moving pictures; can we?"

"Not in this storm," Mr. Macksey declared. "It would be as much as your life is worth to go out. It is bitter cold and the wind cuts like a knife!"

"I wish I could get some views," spoke Russ. "It would give New York audiences something to talk about, to see moving pictures of a storm like this."

"You might go up in the cupola on the roof," suggested Mr. Macksey. "You could stand your camera up there and possibly get some views."

"I'll do it!" cried Russ.

"And may I come?" asked Alice, always ready for an adventure of that sort.

"Come along!" he cried, gaily.

The cupola was more for ornament than use, but it was large enough for the purpose of Russ. After breakfast he took his moving picture camera up there, and managed through the windows, to get some fairly good pictures. The trouble was, however, that the snow was falling so thickly that it obscured the view. At times there would come a lull in the storm, and then Russ was able to get scenes showing the great black woods, and the white banks of snow.

"Oh, but it's cold work!" he cried, as he stopped to warm his hands, for the little room on the roof was draughty, and the snow blew in.

"It's a wonderful storm," cried Alice. "I wouldn't have missed it for worlds!"

All that day the storm raged, and all that night. There was nothing which could be done out of doors, and so the players and the men of the Lodge were forced to remain within. Great fires were kept up, for the temperature was very low.

The wise forethought of Mr. Macksey in providing for the stock prevented the animals from starving, as they would have done had not a supply of fodder been left for them. For it was out of the question to get to the barns.

After two days the storm ceased, the skies cleared and the sun shone. But on what a totally different scene than before the coming of the great blizzard!

There had been plenty of snow in Deerfield before, but now there was so much that one old man, who worked for Mr. Macksey, said he never recalled the like, and he had seen many bad storms.

"Well, now to tunnel out!" exclaimed Mr. Macksey when it had been ascertained, by an observation from the cupola, that the fall of snow was over. "We'll see if we can't raise the embargo."

But it was no easy matter. All the doors were blocked by drifts, and in making a tunnel through snow it is just as necessary to have some place to put the removed material as it is in tunneling through the side of a hill.

"We can't start in and dig from the door, for we'd have to pile the snow in the room back of us," said the hunter. "So the only other plan is to get outside, somehow, and work up to the house, tossing the snow to one side. I may have to dig a trench instead of a tunnel. I'll soon find out."

Finally it was decided that the men should go to the second story, out on a balcony that opened from Mr. DeVere's room, and get down into the snow that way. They would use snowshoes so as to have some support, and thus they could attack the drifts.

This plan was followed. Fortunately Mr. Macksey had thought to bring in snow shovels before the storm came, and with these the men attacked the big white piles.

It was hard work, but they labored with a will, and there were enough of them to make an effective attack. Mr. Macksey, in spite of the fact that he had food and water for his stock, was anxious to see how the animals were doing. So he directed that first paths, tunnels or trenches be made to the various barns.

In some places, around the lee of a building, the ground was bare of snow, and in other places the drifts were fully fifteen feet high.

Russ, who had not gone out to shovel snow, was observed to be nailing some light broad boards together in a peculiar way.

"What are you making?" Ruth asked him.

"Snowshoes for my camera," was his surprising answer.

"Snowshoes for your camera?"

"Yes, I want to get out and take some views, but I can't stand the thin legs of the camera on the snow. They'd pierce through it. So I'm going to put a broad board under each leg, and that will hold the machine up as well as snowshoes hold me."

"What a clever idea!" she cried. "I'm going to watch you. What sort of views do you expect to get?"

"Some showing the men digging us out. We can get up a film story and call it 'Prisoners of the Snow,' or something like that."

"Fine!" cried Alice. "I'm coming out, too."

She and Ruth got their snowshoes, and by this time the men had a deep trench up to the front door, so that it was not necessary for the girls to go out by the way of the balcony. They were delighted with the strange scene, and Russ obtained many fine pictures of the men laboring in the snow.

It was hard work to tunnel and trench out to the barn where the animals were, but finally it was done. They were found to be all right with two exceptions. A horse had died from getting into the oat bin and eating too much, and a cow was frozen, having gotten away from the rest, and broken into a small outbuilding.

But the rest of the stock was in good condition, and, as Alice said, they seemed almost human, neighing or lowing at the sight of the men.

"I believe they were actually lonesome," said Alice.

"Indeed, animals do get that way!" declared Mr. Macksey.

As the snow was so deep, no dramas could be filmed in it, so Mr. Pertell and his players were enjoying enforced idleness. The time was spent, however, in learning new parts, in readiness for the time when some of the snow should have melted.

Many more paths, tunnels and trenches were made, but it was impossible to go more than a short distance from Elk Lodge, even on snowshoes. Later, when the snow had packed more, and a crust had been formed, it was planned to take many pictures of various happenings in the great piles of white crystals.

Three days after the storm saw little change in the appearance of the country and landscape about the hunting lodge. It was snow, snow, snow everywhere—on all sides. Within the house it was warm and cozy, and for months afterward it was a pleasant recollection to talk of the hours spent about the great fire in the living room.

But in spite of the fact that his animals were safe, except for the two that had died, Mr. Macksey seemed worried. Several times he paid a visit to the cellar, or the store room, where the provisions were kept, and more than once the girls heard him murmuring to himself.

"What is the trouble?" Alice asked him once, as he came up from a trip to the cellar.

"Well, I'm afraid you folks will have to go on short rations if the supplies don't come in soon from the store," he replied. "I've got plenty of meat on hand, but other things are somewhat scarce."

"Then we won't starve?" she asked.

"Well, maybe not actually starve, but you may be hungry for certain things."

"Oh, I'm not fussy!" Alice laughed. "I can eat anything."

The storm was so severe and so wide-spread, that, in about a week, there was an actual shortage of provisions at Elk Lodge. The meals had to be curtailed in regard to certain dishes, and there were loud complaints from Mr. Bunn and Mr. Sneed, as well as from Miss Pennington and Miss Dixon. But the others made the best of it.

"I wish I had never come to this horrid place!" exclaimed Miss Pennington, when her request for a fancy dish had to be denied.

"You may go back to New York any time you wish," observed Mr. Pertell, with a grim humor, as he looked out on the great piles of snow. It would have been impossible to get half-way to the station.

Miss Pennington "sniffed" and said nothing.

But there was no actual suffering at Elk Lodge. Before it got to that point Mr. Macksey hitched up six horses to a big sled and made his way into town. He brought back enough provisions for a small company of soldiers.

"Now let it 'bliz' if it wants to!" he cried, as he and his men stocked up the storeroom.



CHAPTER XX

THE THAW

"Now for some hard work," said Mr. Pertell one day, about ten days after the big storm. "I think we can safely go out, and make some of the scenes in the play 'Snowbound,'" he went on. "There will not be much danger that we will be caught in another blizzard; will there?" he asked of Mr. Macksey.

"I should hope not!" was the answer. "I don't believe there is any snow left in the clouds. Still, don't take too many chances. Don't go more than ten miles away."

"Oh, I wasn't thinking of going half that distance!" said Mr. Pertell. "I just want to get a scene or two at some place where the snow is piled in fantastic forms. The rest of the story takes place around the Lodge here."

"Is it the one that is something like the story of Lorna Doone?" asked Alice, who had been reading that book.

"That's the one," said Mr. Pertell. "And I think I shall cast you as Lorna."

"Oh, how nice!" she laughed. "But who will be John Ridd? We need a great big man for him!"

"Well, I was thinking of using Mr. Macksey," went on the manager, with a look at the hunter.

"What? Me have my photograph took in moving pictures!" cried the keeper of the Lodge. "Why, I don't know how to act!"

"You know how a great deal better than some that are in the business," returned Mr. Pertell, coolly. "Present company always excepted," he added, as Mr. Bunn looked up with an injured air. "What I mean is that you are so natural," he continued. "In fact, you have had your pictures taken a number of times lately, when you and your men were clearing away the snow. So you see it will be no novelty for you."

"But I didn't know when you took my pictures!" objected the hunter.

"No, and that's just the point. Don't think of the camera at all. Be unconscious of it. I'll arrange to have it masked, or hidden, if you think you can do better that way. But I have some scenes calling for a big man battling in the snow to save a girl, and you and Miss Alice are the proper characters. So I hope you won't disappoint me."