Mingled in German and English came the shouts of dismay from Herr Switzer inside the dummy shed, through the window of which he had leaped on to the hay.
"Oh, what is it?" cried Ruth, clasping her hands and registering "dismay" unconsciously.
"He must have fallen and hurt himself," ejaculated Alice. "Do, Paul, go and see what it is."
"Stop the camera!" yelled Mr. Pertell through his megaphone. "Don't spoil the film, Russ. You got a good scene there. He went through the window all right, and his yells won't register. Stop the camera!"
"Stopped she is," reported Russ.
Then those of the players who had been looking on and wondering at Mr. Switzer's cries could hurry to his rescue.
For it is a crime out of the ordinary in the annals of moving pictures for any one not in the scene to get within range of the camera when an act is being filmed. It means not only the spoiling of the reel, perhaps, but a retaking of that particular action. When Russ ceased to grind at the camera crank, however, it was the same as when the shutter of an ordinary camera is closed. No more views can be taken. It was safe for others to cross the field of vision.
"What's the matter?" cried Paul, who, with Ruth and Alice and some of the others trailing after him, was hurrying toward the false front of boards that represented a shed.
"Did a cow critter or a sheep step on you?" Russ questioned.
"Ach! My face! My clothes! Ruined!" came in accents of deep disgust from the actor. "Never again will I leap through a window without knowing into what I am going to land. Ach!"