In the first volume of the present series, entitled “The Motion Picture Chums’ First Venture; Or, Opening a Photo Playhouse in Fairlands,” their adventures and experiences have been given in a way that showed the courage and enterprise that infused them. Frank Durham was the elder of the trio, and it was he who had started a partnership that soon outgrew odd chores about Fairlands and making themselves handy around the lake during the outing season.
Early in the Fall preceding, after a great deal of thinking, planning and actual hard work, Frank, Randy and Pep had become proprietors of a motion picture show at Fairlands. It had been no play-day spurt, but a practical business effort. They had worked hard for nearly a year, had saved up quite a sum, and learning of the auction sale of a photo playhouse outfit in the city, they had bid it in and started the “Wonderland” in the busy little town where they lived.
In this they had been greatly helped by a good-hearted, impulsive fellow named Ben Jolly. The latter was in love with the novel enterprise, liked the boys, and played the piano. Another of his kind who was a professional ventriloquist, had plied his art for the benefit of the motion picture show, delaying the auction sale with mock bids until Frank arrived in time to buy the city outfit.
They had enemies, too, and the son of a Fairlands magnate named Greg Grayson had caused them a good deal of trouble and had tried to break up their show. Perseverance, hard work and brains, however, carried the motion picture chums through. They exhibited none but high-grade films, they ran an orderly place, and with Frank at the projector, Randy in the ticket booth, Pep as the genial usher and Ben Jolly as pianist, they had crowded houses and wound up at the end of the season out of debt and with a small cash capital all their own.
For all the busy Winter, warm weather hurt the photo playhouse at Fairlands. It had been a debated question with the chums for some weeks as to shutting down for the summer months. They finally decided to “close for repairs” for a spell and look around for a new location until fall. Seaside Park was suggested as an ideal place for a first-class motion picture show, and so far prospects looked very encouraging, indeed.
Right in the midst of their business deliberations the incident just related had now come up. All three of the boys had answered the call of humanity without an instant’s hesitation.
Frank forgot everything except the business in hand as he set eyes, mind and nerve upon reaching the burning motor boat in time to be of some practical service. He was near enough now to pretty well grasp the situation. The launch had been going at a high rate of speed, but the expert young engineer set the lever another notch forward, and sent the craft slipping through the water like a dolphin.
The man in charge of the burning boat, Frank saw, had a pan with a handle. He was dipping this into the water and throwing its contents against the blazing after-part of the boat. Some gasoline or other inflammable substance, however, seemed to burn all the more fiercely for this deluge, and the man had to shrink farther and farther away as the flames encroached upon him.
A portly lady was shrieking constantly and waving her arms in a state of terror. It was all that a younger woman, the other passenger, could do to hold her in her seat and restrain her from jumping overboard.
Frank had just a passing glance for the other actor in the scene. This was the fellow he had seen leap overboard when the boat blew up. He was somewhat older than Frank, and having cast adrift a box, the only loose article aboard that would serve to act as a float, he had drifted safely out of reach of the flames.