In its original form the scene of that play was “A Middle Western Town” (Missouri), its five characters were Caucasian, and its story was one of erring love, deceit, shame, and rescue set in a commonplace rural environment,--a main purpose of its author being, presumably, to exhibit a group of conventional persons impelled by violent passion yet restrained by religious feeling. In that form it received a trial presentment, June 28, 1915, at Atlantic City, New Jersey, with this cast: _In the Prologue._ _David Greer_ William H. Thompson. _Elizabeth Greer_ Lenore Ulric. _In the Play._ _Jonathan Wells, D.D_ Arthur Lewis. _Anthony Wells_ Lowell Sherman. _The Rev. Frederick Forbes_ John Miltern. _Elizabeth Greer_ Lenore Ulric. _David Greer_ William H. Thompson. “Although its material was undeniably good, I had felt strong doubts about the piece, from the first, but I gave it a ‘try-out,’ anyway,” said Belasco. “Then I saw that it would not do as it stood and took it off, and, at my suggestion and under my supervision, with such assistance as I could give, Mr. Scarborough rewrote ‘The Girl’ and eventually we had a real success with it.” The rewritten play was first acted, January 20, 1916, at Stamford, Connecticut, under the title of “Oklahoma”; soon after it was called “The Heart of Wetona,” and under that name it was brought forth, February 29, at the Lyceum Theatre, New York, where it held the stage until May 20. In its definitive form the scene of “The Heart of Wetona” is an Indian Reservation, in the torrid State of Oklahoma; several of its persons are aborigines of the Comanche tribe, and,--though its action and incidents are sometimes arbitrarily directed,--it is a remarkably good melodrama of a long-familiar kind. Belasco’s purpose in directing the revision was to provide an effective play for the exploitation of the young actress whose talents had so favorably impressed him, and that purpose was well accomplished,--the interest centring continuously in the principal female part, a girl named _Wetona_, the child of a Comanche chieftain and a white mother, deceased. This girl, who has been seduced under a lying promise of marriage by _Anthony Wells_, a visitor to the Indian Reservation, is chosen as a sort of vestal virgin in ceremonial rites of the Comanches, and thereupon, in the Tribal House, before her father and his assembled warriors, though concealing her lover’s identity, she confesses her transgression. The girl is then subjected to a harrowing inquisition by the Indians, who desire to find and slay her lover. At last, unable to endure longer, she agrees to reveal his name on condition that she first be permitted to warn him of his danger. She seeks him in the home of his friend _John Hardin_, the Indian Agent on the Reservation (who secretly loves the girl and desires to make her his wife), and is followed by her father, _Chief Quannah_, who, finding her