CHAPTER IXAT PRACTICE
There was silence between man and boy for a space, and then Blake, understanding how hard it would be to keep the news from Joe, said:
“I’ll have to tell him something, Mr. Stanton. Joe will want to know why his father went away, and where. Isn’t there any way in which we may get a clue to the direction he took?”
“Wait a minute until I think, lad,” said the old man. “It may be that we can find a clue, after all. Nate Duncan left some papers behind. I haven’t looked at ’em, not wishing to make trouble, but there may be a clue there. I’ll get ’em.”
“And I’ll call Joe in to go over them with me,” said Blake. “He’ll want to see them.”
“But, mind you, not a word about what I’ve told you.”
“No, I’ll keep quiet,” promised Blake. “I’ll call him in, while you get the papers.”
Going to the door of the little cottage, Blake called to his chum.
“What is it?” asked Joe, eagerly. “Was there some mistake? Is my father somewhere around here, after all?”
“Well, we hope to find him,” said Blake, with an assurance he did not feel. “Look here, Joe, your father went away rather suddenly, it seems, but you mustn’t think anything about that. He’s been traveling all over, you know, looking for you and your sister——”
“Sister?” cried Joe.
“Yes, you had a sister, though I can’t get much information about her. Neither could your uncle tell you, as you remember.”
“That’s right. Oh, if I could only find dad and her!” and Joe sighed. “But maybe she isn’t alive.”
“It’s this way,” went on Blake, and he told as much of the lighthouse keeper’s story as was wise, keeping from Joe all information about the wreckers. “Now, your father may have heard of some new clue about you,” continued Joe’s chum, “and he may have gone to hunt that up,” which was true enough, for with the warning that he was likely to be arrested as a criminal, there may have come to Mr. Duncan some information about his missing children.
“But in that case,” asked Joe, “why didn’t he leave some word as to where he was going?”
“He may have been in too much of a hurry,” suggested Blake, realizing that he was going to have considerable difficulty in keeping Joe from guessing the truth.
“Well, perhaps that’s so,” agreed the lad. “But maybe Mr. Stanton has some clues.”
The lighthouse keeper came downstairs at this moment with a bundle of papers in his hand.
“Here is all I found,” he said. “It isn’t much, but among the things he left behind is the letter you wrote,” and he extended to Joe the missive the lad had penned in such hope at Flagstaff.
“Poor Dad,” murmured Joe. “I wonder if he will ever get this?”
Together he and Blake looked over the documents. As the keeper had said, there was not much. Some memoranda, evidently made as different clues came to him; paid bills, some business letters, a few notes, and that was all.
“What’s this?” exclaimed Blake, as he read one letter. “It seems to be from some shipping agent in San Francisco, saying he can place—why, Joe, it’s to your father, and it says he can have a place as mate any time he wants it. Was he a sailor?” he asked, eagerly, turning to the keeper.
“So I understood.”
“Then this is the very thing we’re looking for!” cried Blake. “Look, it is dated only a short time before he left. I see now,” and he gave the lighthouse keeper a peculiar look, when Joe was not glancing in his direction. “Mr. Duncan got word that he could ship as a mate, and he left in a hurry.”
“Maybe so,” assented Mr. Stanton.
“Perhaps he had some new clue about you, Joe, or possibly about your sister,” suggested Blake, hoping his chum would come to take this view.
“Maybe,” assented Joe. “But it’s queer he didn’t leave some word, or tell someone he was going.”
“He may not have had time,” went on Blake. “Vessels have to sail in a hurry, lots of times, and he may have had to act quickly.”
“It’s possible,” admitted the keeper.
“Then I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” continued Blake. “We’ll go to San Francisco the first chance we get, and see this shipping agent. He may be able to put us on the right track.”
“I guess it’s the only thing to do,” agreed Joe, in despondent tones. “Poor Dad! I nearly found him, and then I lost him again.”
They looked over the other papers. None offered as promising a clue as did the agent’sletter, and this Joe took with him, also his own to his father.
“Maybe I’ll get a chance to deliver it to him myself,” he said, with a smile that had little of hope in it.
There was nothing more to be learned at the lighthouse. The boys left, after thanking the keeper, and promising to come and see him again. As they went out Mr. Stanton gave Blake a little sign, warning him not to disclose the secret.
“Well, failure number one,” said Joe, as they took a carriage back to San Diego, it being rather late.
“Yes, but we’ll win out yet!” declared Blake, with a confidence he did not feel. “We’ll find your father and your sister, too.”
“I’ll have more relations than you, Blake, if I keep on, and can find them,” said Joe, after a bit.
“That’s right. Well, I wish you luck,” and Blake wondered if Joe would be glad he had found his father, after all. “Wrecking is a black business,” mused the lad. “But, like Mr. Stanton, I’m not going to think Joe’s father guilty until I have to. I wonder, though, if the story is known about San Diego? If it is I’ll have trouble keeping it from Joe.”
But Joe’s chum found he had little to fear on this score, for, on getting back to the quarters ofthe theatrical troupe, the boys were told that the next day they would all take up their residence in a small seacoast settlement, out on the main ocean beach, away from the land-locked bay and where bigger waves could be pictured.
“And there we’ll enact the first of the sea dramas,” said Mr. Ringold.
“And all get drowned,” murmured C. C., in his gloomiest tone.
“I’ll wash your face with snow—the first time it snows in this summer land—if you don’t be more cheerful,” threatened Miss Shay.
“Well, something will happen, I’m sure,” declared C. C. “When do we move?”
“To-morrow,” said Mr. Ringold, while Blake and Joe told Mr. Hadley of their poor success in finding Mr. Duncan. The photographer, as did the other members of the company, sympathized with the lad. Mr. Ringold said that as soon as they got settled the boys could go to San Francisco to look up the shipping agent.
The transfer to the small seacoast settlement was a matter of some work, but in a week all was arranged, and the members of the company were settled in a large, comfortable house, close to the beach.
“And now for some rehearsals,” said Mr. Ringold, one morning. “One of the scenes callsfor a shipwrecked man coming ashore in a small boat. Now, C. C., I guess you’ll have to be the man this time, as I need the others for shore parts. Get the cameras ready.”
“I—I’m to be shipwrecked; am I?” inquired Mr. Piper. “Do I have to fall overboard?”
“Not unless you want to,” said Mr. Ringold, consulting the manuscript of the play.
“Then I’m not going to, for I’ll catch my death of cold if I do.”
“Hum! I’m glad he didn’t have any other objections,” murmured the theatrical man. “This is going to be easy.”
The preparations were made, it being customary to rehearse the scenes and acts before “filming” them to secure good results. A boat was launched, after some trouble on account of the surf, and with the aid of some fishermen, “C. C. was finally sent to sea,” which was a joke, as Blake remarked.
“And now come in with the waves,” ordered Mr. Ringold, who was directing the drama. “Hang over the edge of the boat, C. C., and look as if you hadn’t had any food or water for a week.”
“They say an actor never eats, anyhow,” murmured Mr. Hadley, who, with the boys, wasready with the cameras; “so I guess C. C. won’t have to pretend much.”
“Come on!” cried Mr. Ringold. “Hang more over the side of the boat.”
C. C. Piper obeyed orders—too literally, in fact. He leaned so far over that, a moment later, when there came a particularly large wave, the craft slewed sideways, got into the trough, and an instant later capsized.
“He’s overboard!” yelled Miss Lee.
“Save him!” cried Miss Shay.
“Stop the cameras,” came from Mr. Ringold. “We don’t want that in the picture.”
“Man overboard!” bawled the fishermen, who were interestedly watching the scene. “Launch the motor boat!”
CHAPTER XTO SAN FRANCISCO
For a moment there was excitement, and then the trained men of the sea got into action. Nearby there were several fishing boats, operated by gasoline motors. There were planks at hand, and rollers on which the craft could be launched in the surf, being eased along the slope by releasing a cable rigged to a post some distance away.
It did not take long for the fishermen to launch one of these motor boats, and while C. C. Piper was struggling in the surf, endeavoring as best he could to climb into his overturned boat, they put out to rescue him.
“Do you want that in the picture?” asked Joe, who was at one of the cameras.
“No indeed!” cried Mr. Ringold. “It won’t fit in at all! He must drift ashore. We’ll have to do all this over again.”
“I can see Gloomy doing it,” murmured Blake.
At that moment there came a hail from the comedian.
“Hello!” he cried. “Are you going to—gulp—let me—glub—sink out here? Can’t some of you——” and the rest was lost amid a series of gurgles as the salty water got in C. C.’s mouth.
“Hold on just a little longer,” called one of the fishermen, as he directed the craft toward the struggling actor. “We’ll have you out presently.”
“You’d—better—hurry—up!” panted the comedian, who might well be excused at this moment from taking a gloomy view of life.
He managed to cling to one side of the dory until the rescuing motor craft reached him. Then he was soon hauled aboard, dripping wet, all but exhausted, and unable to utter a sound save sighs.
“Well, it was too bad,” said Mr. Ringold, when C. C. was once more ashore. “I guess we’ll have to get you a little larger boat.”
“Getmeone?” asked the actor, with the accent on the personal pronoun.
“Certainly. We’ll have to do this scene over again. I guess we could use one of the fishing boats, though they’re a little large. But we can move the cameras back. Take one of those, C. C.”
“I guess not.”
“What’s that?”
“I said I guess not. No more for mine!”
“Do you mean to say you won’t go on withthis act? Are you going to balk as you did in the Indian scene?”
“Say,” began C. C., earnestly, as, dripping wet as he was, he strode up to the theatrical man, “I can’t swim, and I don’t like the water. I told you that the time you took me up in the country, where we found these boys,” and he motioned to Blake and Joe, who were looking interestedly on, ready to work the cameras as soon as required.
“And yet,” went on Mr. Piper, “you insisted that I jump overboard then and rescue Miss Shay. Now you want me to drift in as a shipwrecked sailor. It’s too much, I tell you. There is entirely too much water and tank drama in this business. I know I’ll get my death of cold, if I don’t drown.”
“Oh, can’t you look on the bright side?” asked Miss Shay, who was to come into the drama later. “Why, it’s so warm I should think you’d like to get into the surf.”
“Not for mine!” exclaimed C. C., firmly, and it took some persuasion on the part of the theatrical manager, accompanied by a promise of an increase of salary every time he had to go into the water, to induce C. C. to try the shipwreck scene over again.
This time a larger boat was used, and, though it came near to capsizing, it did not quite go over,though considerable water was shipped. C. C. managed to stay aboard, and the cameras, rapidly clicking, registered each movement of the actor and those who later took part in the drama.
Then some shore scenes were photographed, the supposed shipwrecked persons building a fire, pretending to catch fish from the ocean, and cooking them.
All this the moving picture boys, or Mr. Hadley, faithfully registered on the films, to be later thrown on the screen for the delight of the public.
“I wonder if the folks who look at moving pictures realize how they are made?” said Joe, as they stopped work for the day.
“I don’t believe so,” answered Blake. “There are tricks in all trades, it’s said; but I guess the moving picture business is as full of them as any.”
The next two days were busy ones, as a number of elaborate acts had to be filmed, and the boys were kept on the jump from morning to night. Mr. Hadley, also, had all he could do with the camera. There were fishing views to get, scenes on the beach, where a number of children were induced to play at games in the sand, building castles and tunnels, boating incidents and the like.
C. C. did not fall overboard again, though he often was sent out to do some funny stunt that was to be used in the play.
“I wonder when we can go to San Francisco?” queried Joe one afternoon, following a particularly hard day. “I want to see that shipping agent, and ask him if he can give me any clue to my father.”
“Maybe we’d better speak to Mr. Ringold,” suggested Blake, and they did, with the result that the theatrical man informed them that the end of the week would be free, as he had to wait for some costumes to arrive before he could produce any more dramas.
“I want to get a good wreck scene,” he said, “and that is going to be rather hard.”
“Will it be a real wreck scene?” asked Joe.
“Yes, as real as we can make it. I’m negotiating now for an old schooner that I can scuttle out at sea. All the company will be aboard, and they’ll drift about for a long time without food and water.”
“Am I supposed to be in on that?” asked C. C., suspiciously.
“Of course,” was the theatrical man’s answer. “This is a circus company returning from abroad that is wrecked, and you are the clown. Be as funny as you can.”
“Wrecked?” queried C. C.
“That’s it.”
“And I’m to be funny?”
“Certainly.”
“Without food and water for days, and I’m expected to be funny!” exclaimed the comedian, with a groan. “Oh, why did I ever get into this business? I’ll not do it!”
“Oh you’re onlysupposedto be starving and thirsty,” explained Mr. Ringold. “If you want, you can take some sandwiches and cold coffee with you, and have lunch—but don’t do it when the cameras are working. It wouldn’t look well in the moving pictures to have a note on the screen saying that the shipwrecked persons were starving, and then show you chewing away; would it, now?”
“No, I suppose not,” admitted C. C., with a sigh. “Oh, but this is a miserable business, though! I’m sure I’ll be drowned before we get through with it!”
“Oh, cheer up!” called Miss Lee, but there seemed to be no need for the advice, for a moment later C. C. broke forth into a comic song.
While the preparations for producing the wreck scene were under way, there was small need for the services of the boys, and they made ready to go to San Francisco.
“Even if he has gone away somewhere,” suggested Blake, “he may have left some address where you can reach him.”
“Do you think he’ll be gone?” asked Joe.
“Well, if he left the lighthouse in a hurry, intending to call on a shipping agent, naturally he wouldn’t stay in port long,” said Blake. “Besides——” He stopped suddenly, being on the verge of saying something that would give Joe a hint of the truth.
“What is it?” asked his chum, quickly. “What were you going to say, Blake?”
“Nothing.”
“Yes, you were, I’m sure of it. Blake, is there anything you’re holding back from me?”
Joe looked earnestly at his chum.
“I—er—” began Blake—when there came a knock on the door.
“What is it?” called Blake, glad of the interruption.
“Mr. Ringold wants you to get ready to take some scenes to-night,” said the voice of Macaroni.
“Scenes at night?” inquired Joe, opening the door, and forgetting the question he had put to his chum.
“Yes,” went on their young helper. “Flashlight scenes. He wants you at once.”
The boys reported to their superiors, and learned that a smuggling scene, to fit in one of the sea dramas, was to be attempted. By means of powerful flash and electric lights, the currentcoming over cables from San Diego, it was planned to make views at night.
As this was an unexpected turn to affairs, they had to postpone their trip to San Francisco for a few days. The night pictures came out well, however, and the first of the following week saw Joe and Blake start on their way to the city of the Golden Gate.
CHAPTER XIA STRANGE CHARGE
“Are you going to take a camera with you, boys?” asked Mr. Ringold, as Joe and Blake were saying good-bye to their friend, preparatory to making a brief stay in San Francisco.
“A camera? No. Why?” inquired Blake.
“Well, I happen to need some San Francisco street scenes for one of the dramas,” went on the theatrical man; “and it occurred to me that you could get them when you weren’t busy.”
“Of course we could,” answered Joe. “We can take the automatic, and set it up wherever you say, and go looking for that shipping agent. When we come back we’ll have all the pictures we need.”
“Good!” exclaimed Mr. Ringold. “Try that, if you don’t mind. Get some scenes down in the financial district, and others in the residential section. Then, as long as you have to go to the shipping offices, get some there.”
The boys promised they would, and added the small but compact automatic camera to their luggage as they started off.
This camera worked by compressed air. There was a small motor inside, operated by a cylinder of air that could be filled by an ordinary bicycle pump. Otherwise it was just like the other moving picture cameras.
There was the upper box, in which was wound the unexposed reel of film. From this it went over a roller, and the cog wheel, which engaged in the perforations, thence down by means of the “gate,” behind the lens and shutter. There two claws reached up and grasped the film as the motor operated, pulling down three-quarters of an inch each time, to be exposed as the shutter was automatically opened in front of the lens.
Each one of the thousands of moving pictures, as I have explained in previous books, is three-quarters of an inch deep, though, of course, on the screen it is enormously enlarged.
After the film has been exposed, three-quarters of an inch at a time, it goes below into another light-tight box of the camera, whence it is removed to be developed and printed. The movement of the film, the operation of the claws and the opening and closing of the shutter, making itpossible to take sixteen pictures a second, was, in this camera, all controlled by the air motor.
Joe and Blake found much to amuse them in San Francisco, which they had never before visited. They were a bit “green,” but after their experiences in New York they had no trouble in finding their way around.
“We’d better go to some hotel, or boarding house,” suggested Joe, after their arrival. “Pick out one where we can leave the camera working while we’re gone.”
They did this, being fortunate enough to secure rooms in a good, though not expensive, hotel near the financial district. One of their windows looked directly out on a busy scene.
“That’ll be just the place, and the sort of scene Mr. Ringold wants,” declared Blake. “Let’s set the camera there on the sill and see what it gets. The light is good to-day.”
It was, the sun shining brightly, and being directly back of the camera, which would insure the proper illumination.
They adjusted the machine, and set the mechanism to go off about an hour after they had left the room. Then they went to find the shipping agent, to see if they could get any news of Joe’s father.
But, to their disappointment, he was out, andnone of the clerks could tell them what they wanted to know. They were directed to return the next day.
“More disappointment!” exclaimed Joe. “It does seem as if I was up against it, Blake.”
“Oh, don’t worry. To-morrow will do just as well as to-day. And you don’t want to get in C. C.’s habit, you know.”
“No, that’s right. Well, what shall we do?”
“Let’s look around a bit, and then go see how the camera is working.”
They found so much to interest them in the streets of San Francisco that they did not go back to the hotel as soon as they had intended. When they did reach the street on which it stood they saw a crowd gathered.
“Look at that!” cried Blake.
“Yes! Maybe it’s a fire!” exclaimed Joe. “Our camera——”
“There’s no fire, or else we’d see some smoke,” answered his chum. “But we’ll see what it is. There’s been some sort of an accident, that’s sure.”
They broke into a run, pushing their way through the throng about the front doors of the hotel. As they entered the lobby, they were surprised to see the clerk point his finger at them, and exclaim:
“There are the two lads now!”
Everyone turned to look at Joe and Blake, and a man, dressed in some sort of uniform, approached them.
“Are you the lads that have rooms sixty-six and sixty-seven?” he asked, sharply.
“Yes,” replied Blake.
“Why, has anything happened there?” asked Joe.
“Well, yes, there has, and we thought perhaps you could explain.”
“Have we been robbed?” burst out Blake.
“Robbed? No,” answered the clerk. “But——”
“Perhaps I had better explain,” put in the uniformed man. “I think I shall have to ask you boys to come with me,” he went on.
“Come where?” Joe wanted to know.
“To police headquarters.”
“What for?” burst out Blake. “We haven’t done anything! We only came here to——”
“Be careful,” warned the man in uniform. “Whatever you say may be used against you.”
“Why—why?” stammered Joe. “What’s it all about?”
“An infernal machine!” exclaimed the hotel clerk. “How dare you poke one out of the window, right toward one of our largest banks, andgo out, leaving the mechanism clicking? How dare you?”
Joe and Blake staggered back, half amused and half alarmed at the strange charge.
CHAPTER XIION A LONG VOYAGE
“This is a serious charge,” went on the man in uniform, who was evidently from the police department. “We have had some dynamiting outrages here, and we don’t want any more.”
“Dynamite!” exclaimed the hotel clerk; “do you think it could be that, officer?”
“That’s what it seems like to me,” said the other. “I have investigated a number of infernal machines, and they all make the same sort of sound before they go off.”
“Go off!” cried the clerk, while Joe and Blake were vainly endeavoring to get in a word that would explain matters. “If it’s dynamite, and goes off here, it will blow up the hotel. Get it away! Porter, go up and get that infernal machine, and dump it in a pail of water.”
“’Scuse me!” exclaimed the colored porter, as he made a break for the door. “I—I guess ashow it’s time fo’ me to sweep off de sidewalk. It hain’t been swept dish yeah day, as yit. I’se gwine outside.”
“But we’ve got to get rid of that infernal machine!” insisted the clerk. “It’s been clicking away now for some time, and there’s no telling when it may go off. Get it, somebody—throw it out of the window.”
“No! Don’t do that!” cried the officer. “That will only make it go off the sooner. I’ll get some one from the bureau of combustibles and——”
“Say, you’re giving yourselves a needless lot of alarm!” interrupted Blake. “That’s no infernal machine!”
“No more than that ink bottle is!” added Joe, pointing to one on the clerk’s desk.
“But it clicks,” insisted the clerk. “It sounds just like a clock ticking inside that box.”
“And it’s pointing right at the bank,” went on the officer. “That bank was once partly wrecked because it was built by non-union labor, and we don’t want it to happen again.”
“There’s no danger—not the slightest,” cried Blake, while the crowd in the hotel lobby pressed around him. “That’s only an automatic moving picture camera, that we set this morning, and pointed out of the window to take street scenes. It works by compressed air, and the clicking youhear is the motor. Come, I’ll show you,” and he started toward his room, followed by Joe.
“Is—is that right?” asked the hotel clerk, doubtfully.
“Are you sure it isn’t dynamite?” inquired the officer.
“Well, ifwe’renot afraid to take a chance in going in the same room with what you call an infernal machine,youought not to be,” said Joe, with a smile.
This was logic that could not be refuted, and they followed the boys to the room. There, just where they had left it, was the camera, the motor clicking away industriously. It worked intermittently, running for five minutes, and then ceasing for half an hour, so as not to use up the reel of film too quickly. Also, it made a diversity of street scenes, an automatic arrangement swinging the lens slightly after each series of views, so as to get the new ones at a different angle.
“Now we’ll show you,” said Blake, as, having noted that all the film was run out, and was in the light-tight exposed box, he opened the camera and showed the harmless mechanism. Several of the hotel employees crowded into the room, once they learned there was no danger.
The boys explained the working of the apparatus, and this seemed to satisfy the officer.
“But we were surely suspicious of you at first,” he said, with a smile.
“Yes,” said the clerk. “A chambermaid called my attention to the clicking sound when she was making up the room. I investigated, and when I heard it, and saw the queer box, and remembered that we had had dynamiting here, I sent for the police.”
“We’re sorry to have given you a scare,” said Blake, and then the incident was over, and the crowd in the street dispersed on learning there was to be no sensation.
“Say, I think there’s some sort of hoodoo about us,” remarked Joe, as he and Blake sat in their room.
“Why, you’re not going to come any of that gloomy C. C. business on me; are you?” asked Blake.
“Not at all,” went on his chum. “But what I mean by a hoodoo is that something always seems to happen when we start out anywhere. We’ve been on the jump, you might say, ever since we lost our places on the farms and got into this moving picture business.”
“That’s so. And the latest is being taken for dynamiters.”
“Yes. But if things are going to keep on happening to us I wish they’d take a turn and helpme find my father,” went on Joe. “You don’t know how it feels, Blake, to know you’ve got a parent somewhere and not be able to locate him. It’s—why, it’s almost as bad as if—as if he were dead,” and Joe spoke the words with an obvious effort.
“That’s right,” agreed Blake, and then there came to him the memory of what the lighthouse keeper had said about Mr. Duncan being implicated in the wrecking. If this was true, it might be better for Joe not to find his father.
“But he may not be guilty,” thought Blake, and he mused on this possibility, while Joe looked curiously at his chum.
“Say, Blake,” suddenly asked Joe. “What’s the matter?”
“Matter? Why, what do you mean?” asked Blake, with a start.
“Oh, I don’t know, but something seems to be the matter with you. You’ve acted strangely of late, ever since—yes, ever since we were at the lighthouse. Is anything troubling you?”
“No—no—not at all; that is, not exactly.”
“You don’t speak as if you meant it.”
“But I do, Joe. There’s nothing the matter with me—really there isn’t.”
“Well, I’m glad of it. If there is, and you need help, don’t forget to come to me. Rememberwe’re pards, and chums, not only in the moving picture business, but in everything else, Blake. Anything I’ve got is yours for the asking.”
“That’s good of you, Joe, and if you can help me I’ll let you know. I didn’t realize that I was acting any way strange. I must brighten up a bit. I guess we’ve both been working too hard. We need some amusement. Let’s go to a moving picture show to-night, and see how they run things here, and what sort of films they have. We may even see one of our own.”
“All right. I’ll go you. We can’t see that shipping agent until to-morrow. A moving picture show for ours to-night, then. Though, being in the business, as we are, it’s rather like a fireman going around to the engine-house on his day off, and staying there—a queer sort of a day’s vacation.”
But, nevertheless, they thoroughly enjoyed the moving picture play, interspersed, as it was, with vaudeville acts. Among the films were several that Mr. Ringold’s company had posed for, and several that the boys themselves had taken. The reels were good ones, too, the pictures standing out clear and bright as evidence of good work on the part of the boys and Mr. Hadley.
“Had enough?” asked Joe, after about an hour spent in the theatre.
“Yes, let’s go out and take a walk.”
“Feel any brighter?” went on Joe.
“Yes, I think I do,” and Blake linked his arm in that of Joe, wondering the while, as they tramped on, how he should ever break the news to his chum, in case Joe himself did not find it out. “The only hope is that he isn’t guilty,” mused Blake, “and yet running away just before the accusation was made public looks bad, just as Mr. Stanton said. However, I’m not going to think about it.” As long as it had gone thus far without any outsider giving away the secret to Joe, his chum began to feel that there was little danger.
“Well, you haven’t any more infernal machines; have you, boys?” the hotel clerk asked them when they came in to get their keys. “Because, if you have, just keep quiet about ’em. I don’t want to be awakened in the middle of the night with some one from the bureau of combustibles coming down here,” and he laughed.
“No, we’re all out of dynamite,” responded Blake, in the same spirit.
He and Joe were early at the office of the sailing master, who made a specialty of fitting out vessels with crews. With a rather trembling voice Joe asked for information about Mr. Duncan.
“Duncan—Duncan,” mused the agent, as he looked over his books. “Seems to me I remember the name. Was he the Duncan from somewhere down the coast?”
“The Rockypoint light,” supplied Joe.
“Oh, yes, now I know. But why are you asking?” and the agent turned a rather suspicious look on Joe. “Is there anything wrong—is Mr. Duncan wanted for anything? I always try to protect my clients, you know, and I must find out why you are asking. Has he committed any crime, or is he wanted by anyone?”
Blake started at the coincidence of the words.
“Yes,” answered Joe; “he is wanted by me—I’m his son, and I’d like very much to find him. We found some of his letters, and there was one from you about a berth you might have vacant.”
“That’s right, my boy, and I’m glad to learn that is why you want Nate Duncan, for he and I are friends in a way.”
“But has he shipped?” asked Joe, eagerly.
“He has,” answered the agent. “He signed for a trip to China, and it will be a good while before he gets back here, I’m afraid. It’s a long voyage.”
“To China!” cried Joe. “Oh, if he had only received my letter he would be here now with me. Poor Dad!”
CHAPTER XIIIA MIMIC FIRE
“Sorry I can’t do any more for you,” went on the agent, after a pause, during which he gazed sympathetically at Joe. “I can give you the name of the vessel your father is on, and you can write to Hong Kong, but it will be some time before she arrives. She’s a sailing ship, you know, one of the few left in the trade.”
“I didn’t know my father was a regular sailor,” said Joe.
“You didn’t know he was a sailor? Say, don’t you know your father’s business?”
“It’s been a good many years since I’ve seen him,” spoke Joe. “In fact, I can’t remember him,” and he told something of how he came to be on the strange quest.
“Well, this is certainly odd,” remarked the agent. “I’ve known Nate some years, more or less, and I’ve often heard him speak of a son he had lost track of. Of late he had given up hope.”
“And just when I was on the verge of finding him,” added Joe.
“His daughter, too,” continued the agent. “He said he felt sure he’d never locate her, though he’d spent lots of money in hunting. And he felt pretty bad, too, over the thought that he might never see his children again.”
“And have I really a sister?” asked Joe, eagerly.
“I can’t rightly say,” spoke the shipping master. “You had one, but whether she’s alive now or not no one seems to know. There’s one satisfaction, though, you can find your father in time, and as soon as he hears from you, when his ship reaches Hong Kong, he won’t lose any time taking the fastest steamer back. I know Nate Duncan well enough for that.”
“Will he, though?” thought Blake. “Will he come back when he knows of the wrecking charge that may be made against him? Even the prospect of seeing Joe may not overbalance that. Yet, I suppose he could send for Joe. They couldn’t make any charge against him over in China. But it’s a bad business.”
Joe talked a little longer with the agent, who gave him the name of the ship on which Mr. Duncan had sailed, and also directions how to address the letter.
“Well, there’s no use staying in ’Frisco muchlonger,” said Joe, as they finished their business. “We’ll get what other moving pictures of street scenes we want, and as I can’t find Dad here, we’ll leave. We’ll get back to San Diego, and out to the beach colony to film some more dramas.”
A return trip to their hotel, a visit to various localities for films, then to pack their belongings—and the automatic camera did not take them long—and they were soon journeying down the coast again. They were welcomed warmly by the members of the theatrical colony.
As I have said, for the purpose of being unhampered in their work of taking films, Mr. Ringold had moved his company from San Diego proper to a small fishing settlement, directly on the beach. This place was called Chester, after the man who owned the fishery there. He had a fleet, consisting of several motor boats, in which the fishermen went out twice each day to pull up the nets that were fast to long poles, sunk into the sand of the ocean bed in water about forty feet deep.
The fish were brought to the main building, and packed in ice for transportation. Numbers of local dealers called each day with wagons to get a load to peddle about. There were only a few houses in the place, and a store or two.
Once some millionaire had built an elaborate cottage on the beach, but gave it up for some whim. It was in this cottage, which in size was almost a mansion, that the moving picture boys and their friends had their abode. A boarding mistress was installed, and thus the actors and actresses lived right at the scene of their work, with almost as much comfort as they would have had in a hotel. The place was not far from San Diego, and it had the advantage of a heavy surf on the beach, the big waves making just the background Mr. Ringold wanted. Of course, not all the scenes were on the water-front, some taking place in front of, or within, some of the cottages, which were hired for the short time needed. The fishermen could not seem to understand why a man should pay them good money for the use of their humble dwellings for a short time.
“It just seems plumb foolishness,” declared one grizzled salt. “I don’t see why folks want to make so many pictures of men and women walkin’ in and out of my cottage and sayin’ such outlandish things like: ‘Gal, you shall give me them papers!’ or, ‘Meet me on yonder cliff at midnight!’ I give up!”
“It does seem out of reason, Pete,” agreed another. “But as long as they pay me for it, and don’t go to bustin’ up things, I’m willin’.”
“Oh, so’m I. Keep it up, I says,” and Mr. Ringold did, using different cottages in turn to get a diversity of views.
Sympathy was expressed for Joe on the failure of his mission to find his father.
“But don’t you give up!” exclaimed Mr. Hadley. “China is far off, but it isn’t out of the world. Don’t give up, Joe.”
“I’ll not. I’m going to write to him to-day,” and he did, dispatching the letter to far-off Hong Kong.
There was plenty of work waiting for the boys, some new manuscripts of sea dramas having come in. Mr. Ringold decided to film several of them, and rehearsals were already under way.
“I’m going to have a novelty in one of the plays,” said the manager. “It’s going to be a fire scene. We’ll buy one of these cottages, or else have one built that will do well enough for picture purposes, and set it ablaze. Then, when C. C. comes running out, carrying Miss Shay—or maybe Miss Lee, for she’s lighter—we’ll——”
“Hold on there!” called the comedian. “Did I understand you to say I had to rush out of a burning building?”
“That’s it, C. C.”
“But to rush out I’ve got to go in; haven’t I?”
“Why, naturally, C. C.”
“Then I serve notice here and now that I resign. I’m tired of being an actor. I’m going into the coal business,” and he stopped making odd faces in the glass, practicing some facial contortions for a new clown act, and began to dress as though to go out.
“Hold on, C. C.; what’s the matter?” asked Mr. Ringold.
“Plenty! If you think I’m going to run the risk of being burned to death you’ve got another guess coming. I’m through.”
“Why, C. C.,” spoke the theatrical manager, with a laugh; “there’s no danger.”
“Not in going into a burning building, even if it is only a fisherman’s shanty! No danger!”
“No. Listen. You go in before the building is afire. The blaze is started from the outside by your enemy, and with some red fire, which makes a lot of smoke, we can show on the screen some pictures that will look like a real fire. Then out you rush, before the flames have had a chance to spread, and after you and the lady are safe, the fire gains great headway, and the cottage burns to the ground. But the pictures are being taken all the while, and it will show up great! There’s not a bit of danger.”
“Not that way,” said Miss Lee. “I’m willing to do my part, Mr. Ringold.”
“Well, I suppose I’ll have to also,” spoke C. C., with a sigh. “But I know something will happen. Some sparks will fall on me and scorch me, anyhow, I’m sure.”
“Oh, Gloomy!” reproachfully exclaimed Miss Shay. “Do look on the bright side for once.”
“There isn’t any,” asserted the comedian, as he resumed his practice of making strange faces.
Mr. Ringold succeeded in purchasing, for a moderate sum, one of the older cottages, and it was put in shape for its share in the moving picture story, some changes being necessary. The fisherman and his family moved out, glad of the chance to better themselves.
“We won’t say anything about planning to fire the shack,” declared Mr. Ringold to the boys and the members of his company. “If we do it will attract a crowd, and that’s just what we don’t want. The fewer the better. Now we’ll go over to the shack, and have a rehearsal.”
“A dress one?” asked Mr. Piper, meaning that everything would be done just as if the pictures were being taken. “You’re not going to have the real fire now; are you?”
“No, indeed,” said the manager. “We can only burn the cottage down once.”
The rehearsal went off well, and Blake and Joe, who were to make the films, watched the workwith interest. They were anxious for the time to come to set the fire.
“Well, I guess that will do,” decided Mr. Ringold, after a day or two spent in getting the actors and actresses familiar with their parts. “We’ll do the business to-morrow morning.”
Accordingly, they all assembled at the shack, and went through the various acts leading up to the fire scene. The boys ground away industriously at the handles of the moving picture cameras.
All went well until it came time to set the fire. Then, whether the building was older and more tinder-like than was supposed, or whether Mr. Levinberg, the “villain” who fired the shack, used too much red fire and kerosene, was not explained.
At any rate, the little building was more quickly wrapped in flame and smoke than was expected, and Mr. Ringold yelled excitedly:
“Come on out, C. C.! Don’t wait any longer. Never mind if it isn’t time! Rush out with the girl before it’s too late!”
“That’s what I’ll do!” cried the comedian, appearing in the doorway, carrying Miss Lee. There was little danger now, as long as he was in the open, unless some tongue of fire should catch the girl’s dress.
“Hurry!” cried the manager, and C. C. sprinted out of the reach of the fire.
And then something entirely unexpected, and not down on the bill, happened. A number of fishermen, who had seen the blaze from down the beach, came running up, all excited, thinking the fire was an accident.
“Get that old pumping engine!” shouted one grizzled salt. “We’ll have that blaze out in no time!”
“Form a bucket brigade!” suggested another.
“No! No! Let it burn!” cried Mr. Ringold. “We want it to burn!”
“Want it to burn?” was shouted at him, by the fisherman who had proposed the pump. “Be you plumb crazy? Come on, boys, form that bucket brigade. Some of you run that hand-pump over here where we can pour water in the tank. Stretch the hose!”
“They’ll spoil the picture!” cried Mr. Ringold, rushing about, and trying to keep the fishermen away.
Joe and Blake, not having orders to the contrary, and not knowing but what this was all part of the play, continued to grind away at their cameras, two reels of this play being taken, as an additional one was needed.
“Here she comes!” cried the fisherman, as someof his companions came rushing from a shed with an ancient style of hand fire-engine, consisting of a tank, on wheels, with a force-pump arrangement, worked by long handles. Water was poured in the tank by means of buckets, and forced out on the blaze through a hose.
“Bring her up as clost as ye kin!” directed the self-appointed chief of the amateur fire department; “’cause our hose ain’t very long. Form lines now, and dip water up from the ocean. Salt water is good for fires!”