Mr. Bunn continued to sink in the bog. He pulled and struggled to get out, apparently without success. Then his tall hat fell off from the violence of his exertions, and he barely saved it from a muddy bath.
"Good! That's the way to act it!" encouraged Mr. Pertell. "Now, Mr. Towne, you come up to the rescue in a few seconds. Don't mind the mud, either. Go right out to him. You can't be much worse off."
"Indeed I cannot," agreed the other, as he glanced at his soiled suit.
"Wait just a minute more," said Mr. Pertell to the prospective rescuer. "Give him a chance to struggle more. It will look better."
"No, let him come at once and save me! Save me at once!"
"Because I really am sinking! This isn't play! The quicksand has me in its grip!"
And, as Mr. Pertell looked about, unable to tell whether the actor was saying that as part of the "business," or because he was in earnest, the unfortunate man cried out in real anguish:
"Save me! Save me! I am in the quicksand and it's sucking me down!"
"That's right! He is in a quicksand bog!" cried one of the steamer hands who had helped hew a path through the swamp. "He'll never get out if you don't help him quick!"
It was true, then. The frantic appeals of Mr. Bunn were not in the interests of acting for moving pictures, but because he felt himself in actual danger. None of his friends had thought of that, until the man from the steamer offered confirmation. They had all thought the actor was doing a realistic bit of work.
"Quicksand! Do you mean it?" gasped Mr. Pertell.
"I certainly do," answered the steamer hand. "There are a lot of those bogs around here, and he's stumbled into one. He's going down every minute, too, and if you don't get him out soon you never will."
"Oh, mercy!" screamed Miss Pennington. "How horrible!"
"Quiet!" commanded Mr. Pertell, sternly. "Come on, gentlemen!" he called to the male members of the company. "We must save him!"
"Oh, do get me out!" cried the unfortunate Mr. Bunn.
"We'll save you!" shouted the manager, as he made a dash toward the bog hole. He was followed by Mr. DeVere, Paul and some of the others.
"Keep back!" yelled the man from the steamer. "If you get in you won't get out either."
"But they must save him!" cried Alice, who had gone forward with her father.