"All ready," Estelle answered, looking to saddle girths and stirrups.
"Then come on!" yelled the director through his megaphone.
Estelle urged her horse forward. With shouts and yells, which, of course, had no part in the picture, yet which served to aid them in their acting, the players who were portraying the Confederates came after her, spurring their horses and firing wildly. On and on rushed the steed bearing the daring girl rider.
She reached the place of the burned bridge, halted a moment, made a gesture of despair, and then raced for the bank, down which she would leap her horse to the ford.
"Come on! Come on!" yelled Mr. Pertell. "That's fine! Come on! You men there put a little more pep in your riding. Turn and fire at them, Miss Brown! Fire one shot, and one of you men reel in his saddle. That's the idea!"
Estelle had quickly turned and fired, and one man had most realistically showed that he was hit, afterward slumping from his seat.
Now the girl was at the edge of the bank. She was to make a flying jump over its edge and come down in the soft sand, sliding to the bottom—in the saddle if she could keep her seat, rolling over and over if, perchance, she left it.
"That's the idea! Get every bit of that, Russ! That's fine!" yelled Mr. Pertell.
"There she goes!" cried Alice, grasping her sister's arm, and as she spoke Estelle spurred her horse and it leaped full and fair over the edge of the embankment. Estelle had made her big jump. Would she come safely out of it?