Page:Wilson - Merton of the Movies (1922).djvu/182

 "Well, well, as I live, the actin' kid once more! Say, you're getting to be a regular studio hound, ain't you?"

For the moment he had forgotten his troubles. He was burning to ask her if Beulah Baxter would really work in a shipwreck scene that night at the place where he had watched the carpenters and the men on the sailboat; but as he tried to word this he saw that the girl was again scanning him with keen eyes. He knew she would read the collar, the beard, perhaps even a look of mere hunger that he thought must now be showing.

"Say, see here, Trouper, what's the shootin' all about, anyway? You up against it—yes." There was again in her eye the look of warm concern, and she was no longer trying to be funny. He might now have admitted a few little things about his screen career, but again the director interrupted.

"Miss Montague—where are you? Oh! Well, remember you're behind the piano during that gun play just now, and you stay hid till after the boys get out. We'll shoot this time, so get set."

She sped off, with a last backward glance of questioning. He waited but a moment before leaving. He was almost forgetting his hunger in the pretty certain knowledge that in a few hours he would actually behold his wonder-woman in at least one of her daring exploits. Shipwreck! Perhaps she would be all but drowned. He hastened back to the pool that had now acquired this high significance. The carpenters were still puttering about on the scaffold. He saw that platforms for the cameras had been built out from its side.

He noted, too, and was puzzled by an aëroplane propeller that had been stationed close to one corner of the pool, just beyond the stern of the little sailing-craft. Perhaps there would be an aëroplane wreck in addition to a shipwreck. Now he had something besides food to think of. And he wondered what the Montague girl could be doing in the company of a really serious artist like Beulah Baxter. From