LOST IN THE DESERT was to have been a challenge thrown by Mr. Hill and me straight in the face of Augustin Daly, Belasco and Charles Frohman. We had made a lot of money with THROUGH THE BREAKERS and one or two other plays and saw no reason why we shouldn’t spend it. We built a wonderful production, hired a band of Arab acrobats, trained four horses, engaged a fine cast and worked very hard, but although the play wasn’t a failure it never made any money and in the end we lost our investment. During the season in which Mr. Hill and I produced LOST IN THE DESERT which was, I think, my third year as a writer of sensational melodramas, I had played Syracuse and met Sam, Lee, and Jake Shubert, who had not at that time invaded New York but were in control of theaters in Syracuse, Rochester and Utica. They were boys at that time. I was twenty-six and Lee, the oldest of the Shuberts, was at least two years younger. Sam was a man of picturesque and colorful personality and had a real taste for the theater but I always thought the great success of these young men was due to Lee. He himself gave all the glory to his younger brother whose tragic death, however, forced him to come out as the head of the firm. Lee Shubert is a strong and absolutely fearless man, not a lover of the theater as David Belasco is but a business man who plays with theaters and plays, with authors and actors as pawns in a game of high finance. His influence in the theater has been very great and no one who knows the story of his fight against Klaw and Erlanger and their powerful associates can fairly withhold real admiration for his courage and energy. During the week my play was at the Bastable Theatre in Syracuse, Lee Shubert persuaded me to sign a contract taking over the Baker Theatre, Rochester, for a season of summer stock. I eagerly fell for his idea as I was hungry for the experience and knew that it would be of great benefit to me. I have always been curious to see the inside workings of every branch of the theatrical business and in the years since then I doubt if there is any ramification of the game in which I have not had a finger, sometimes a burned finger, but always an eager one. I signed this contract and engaged a company in New York before I started on a western tour with LOST IN THE DESERT. Unfortunately, however, before the date of the Rochester opening came round, my share of the losses on LOST IN THE DESERT had so eaten up my profits on THROUGH THE BREAKERS that I arrived in Rochester with no assets beyond a perfectly good wife and fifty-four dollars in cash to meet fifteen trusting actors who were to depend upon me for their living for the next twenty weeks.