"I had rather trust—Sailor Jack Jepson," murmured Ruth in a low voice.
Meanwhile work on refitting the schooner had gone on apace. The moving picture girls, and their friends, had paid several visits to her, and found Captain Brisco, Jack Jepson and the others hard at work making the vessel a semblance of her former self.
"She's an old tub," said Jack to the girls, "but she's in better shape than she was when you were here afore, Missies."
And indeed the Mary Ellen did seem so. A new coat of paint added as much to her appearance, as a new dress and hat does to a young lady, though Mary Ellen could no longer be classed as young.
Then came a day when many members of the theatrical company, including Jack Jepson, who now enjoyed that distinction, were taken down to the seacoast, some distance from New York. They went in a tug specially hired for the occasion.
"Some of the scenes of the marine drama take place on the seacoast," explained Mr. Pertell. "I want to get them now, when we have the chance. I need a rocky shore, and this is the nearest one we can reach. Get ready now. We have rehearsed these scenes, you remember."
They were not easy scenes, and, even though they had been gone over in the studio, when it came to actually going through them on the beach, one difficulty after another arose.
In the first place it was a raw, windy day, and there was a pretty high sea, dashing up among the rocks of the shore, and sending a spray over toward the cameras.
"I can't do anything from this point!" finally complained Russ Dalwood, who was at the machine. "I've spoiled about a hundred feet of film now. We'll have to get around that point."
"All right," agreed Mr. Pertell, "but the scenery isn't so good there."