"There!" she said, pointing a trembling finger. "Oh, don't look at it!" begged Miss Dixon, covering her face with her hands. "Don't look at the horrid thing!" "No harm in looking at that," laughed Russ. "It's only a log of wood." And so it proved. "Well, it looked just like an alligator," protested Miss Pennington, as the others smiled. "And it sounded like one!" declared Miss Dixon. "How does an alligator sound?" asked Mr. Towne, who was walking about attired in immaculate white. "It made a splash." "So does a bullfrog," observed Paul. "It does look rather alligatory in there," admitted Alice, as she stood beside the young actor, and gazed into the sluggish stream. "'Alligatory' is a new one," he remarked. "I wonder if alligators eat alligator pears?" "Probably," she laughingly agreed. "There, I guess they're ready for you, Paul," for he was to take part in the first scene. Miss Dixon, having had her difficulty straightened out, was prepared to go on, and soon Russ was again at his usual occupation of turning the handle of the moving picture camera. For a description of how moving pictures are taken, developed, printed and thrown on the screen in the theater by means of a projecting machine, the reader is referred to the previous books of this series. "That will do for this part of the drama," announced Mr. Pertell, when an hour or more had been spent in taking various films. "We will now go ashore. Put her over there," he called to the man in the pilot house on deck, pointing to a place where, back of the moss-fringed row of trees, could be seen some stately palms. The rather clumsy boat turned slowly toward shore, and a little later had "poked her nose," as Russ expressed it, against a luxuriant growth of tropical vegetation, in the midst of some low palms and gigantic ferns. The moist smell of earth and plants, and the odor of flowers was borne on a gentle breeze. It was a lonely spot, and just what Mr. Pertell wanted for this particular play. On the way up the stream they had passed several small settlements, and the population, consisting mostly of colored folk, had rushed down to the crude landings to stare with big eyes at the passing steamer. "Everybody ashore!" called the manager, when the boat had been made fast. "Oh, but we can't go through there!" complained Mr. Bunn, who, in attempting to make his way into the deeper part of the woods, had suffered the loss of his tall hat several times, low branches having knocked it off. "Wait, I'll send some of the hands ahead with axes to clear the way," offered the steamer captain. "It'll be easier going, then." This was done, and the moving picture players found it no trouble at all to make their way along the hewn path to where a little grove of palms, in a pretty glade, offered the proper scenic background for the pictures.