PREFACE

THE work between these covers, however grave its many faults and shortcomings, was penned with a single aim, to wit, to compose a story susceptible to adaptation to motion-picture purposes. Its brazen impudence in respect of probability was demanded by the fact that each episode of the fifteen here presented must of necessity embrace sufficient moving incident to warrant some two thousand feet of film exhibiting from ninety to one hundred and twenty animated scenes.

It is offered in its present form mainly for the amusement of those who in common with the author liked the pictures, who conceived a fondness for the several characters: for the dashing, impish Judith, and the brave, long-suffering Rose so admirably portrayed and differentiated by Miss Cleo Madison; for the gallant if persecuted Alan, who could never have been played by any one lacking the cool-headed daring and good-will of Mr. George Larkin; for that frigid villain, Seneca Trine, as delineated by the always amiable Mr. Edward Sloman; for that notorious bad-shot of unremitting ubiquity and ever-lasting stupidity, Marrophat, as played (with blank ​cartridges) by Mr. Ray Hanford; and for the cynically devoted Barcus of Mr. Thomas Walsh.

If the work is lacking in the quality known as characterization, the fault is all the author's: if the picture were not, the merit is all the players'. But the work of both would have gone for nothing without the never-failing patience, ingenuity, and intelligence of Mr. Wilfred Lucas, who directed the production of the pictures.

(The author would be guilty of high treason to his kind if he forgot the traditional feud between author and adaptor long enough to give any credit whatsoever to Miss Bess Meredyth, the scenario-writer, who minced the stories into such scene-fodder as is most palatable to the reeling camera.)

The thanks of the author and his publishers are due to the Universal Film Manufacturing Company for permission to reproduce the "still pictures" of scenes in the production here presented as illustrations.

Los Angeles, California,
⁠October, 1, 1914.