going over a few rapids, he saw a fire up in the cliffs, on the opposite side of the river.  He landed, and climbed up to the camp where John was at work.  John shared his camp fare with him, and directed him to a hidden trail.  The pursuers, on finding the abandoned boat, quietly followed the trail, and surprised Dodd in John’s camp.  He was disarmed and sent across the river in the tramway, accompanied by the deputy, and was punished as he richly deserved to be.

This was the scenario.  Bert handled the camera.  Emery was the playwright, director, and producer.  All rights reserved.

Everything worked beautifully.  The film did not get balled up in the cogs, as sometimes happened.  The light was good.  Belasco himself could not have improved on the stage-setting.  The trail led over the wildest, and most picturesque places imaginable.  Dodd made a splendid desperado, and acted as if he had done nothing but steal horses and dodge the officers all his life.  A pile of driftwood fifty feet high and with a tunnel underneath made a splendid hiding place for him while the first boat was being tied.  Being a cowpuncher, it may be that he did not handle the oars as well as an experienced riverman, but any rapid could be used for an insert.  The deputy, though youthful, was determined and never lost sight of the trail.  The engineer acted his part well and registered surprise and anger, when he found how he had been tricked.  John, who had returned, humoured us, and dug nuggets of gold out of limestone rocks, where no one would have thought of looking for them.  The fact that the tramway scene was made before any of the others did not matter.  We could play our last act first if we wanted to.  All we had to do was to cut the film and fasten it on to the end.  Emery was justly proud of his first efforts as a producer.  We were sorry this film had not been sent out with Ernest.

This thrilling drama will not be released in the near future.  One day later we found that a drop of water had worked into the lens cell at the last upset.  This fogged the lens.  We focussed with a scale and had overlooked the lens when cleaning the camera.  Nothing but a very faint outline showed on the film.  We had all the film we needed for a week after this, for kindling our fires.

CHAPTER XXI

WHAT CHRISTMAS EVE BROUGHT

In recording our various mishaps and upsets in these pages, it may seem to the reader as if I have given undue prominence to the part I took in them.  If so, it has not been from choice, but because they happened in that way.  No doubt a great deal of my trouble was due to carelessness.  After I had learned to row my boat fairly well I sometimes took chances that proved to be anything but advisable, depending a good deal on luck, and luck was not always with me.  My brother was less hasty in making his decisions, and was more careful in his movements, with the result that his boat had few marks of any kind, and he had been more fortunate than I with the rapids.