# The Moving Picture Boys and the Flood/Chapter 6

CHAPTER VI
THE MISSING FILMS
Lively and varied were the scenes about the relief train. Wagons were constantly being driven up to the station, loaded with supplies that had been contributed by generous merchants, or bought with public subscriptions.
The soldiers wore serious faces, for it was reported, in a few of the large cities, that rioting and robbery had followed the trail of the flood.
"Well, I'd just like to get my hands on some of those human fiends who'll rob at a time like this!" exclaimed a big trooper, as he banged his gun down on the platform. "I'd show him what's what!"
"That's right!" chimed in his comrades.
More soldiers kept arriving. They were mostly National Guardsmen, though one company of Regulars was on the train.
Some doctors were being taken along, and a quantity of medical stores, for sickness had ​broken out, it was reported. A large supply of tents was being shipped, for many of the sufferers had been driven from home by high water, had been forced to flee to the hills, where they were camping in the open. And tents were much needed for shelter, for, though it was Summer, there was considerable rain, and this made it very uncomfortable for the refugees, especially the women and children, to stay out unprotected.
All these scenes Joe and Blake took with their moving picture camera. Now and then they moved up or down the big depot, to get varied views. Sometimes they would film a pathetic scene, as when a little girl, who had evidently read about the relief subscriptions, brought her bank filled with pennies.
"Here, Mr. Soldier-man," she said, to a bearded Regular. "I've got a dollar an' nineteen cents saved up, and I want you to take it and buy some little girl a pair of rubber boots, so she can wade in the water, and not get drowned."
"All right," cried the soldier, as he wiped away something that glistened in his eyes, and blew his nose unnecessarily hard, it seemed. "All right, little one. I'll take care of your money for you."
​"And don't forget to buy the boots!" cried the tot, shaking her finger at him to impress it on his mind.
"I won't," he promised, and as he stood looking at the penny-bank, rather uncertain what to do with it, Blake filmed him, as a conclusion of the little scene.
"I wonder if I oughn't to make the kid take back this money?" the soldier said, speaking to the boys. "Maybe her folks wouldn't like her to give it away."
"I guess they wouldn't mind," remarked Blake, with a smile. "Anyhow, she's gone now," for she had quickly slipped away in the throng.
"But what am I to do with the stuff?" asked the bewildered trooper.
"Turn it over to some of the ladies," suggested Joe, for a committee of Red Cross women were to go with the relief train.
"I guess I will," the man said, with an air of relief.
There was a dog who refused to be separated from his soldier-master, and every time the animal was put out of the depot it came rushing back again, determined to board the train. The boys got a picture of this odd little scene, and finally the dog had to be given in charge of a ​porter, to be led away at the end of a rope, howling his protest at the separation.
"Good work, boys!" complimented Mr. Ringold, when he saw what they were doing. "I'll use some of these films as part of one of the flood dramas, if we're lucky enough to be able to get other scenes."
"Oh, we'll get some!" declared Blake, confidently.
"That ought to be a fine one," went on the manager, referring to the relief train scene. "Take good care of that film, boys."
It was placed in a metal light-tight box, to be developed later, as was the film of repairing the bridge. Blake and Joe intended leaving them at an agency they knew of, farther West, there to be developed, and printed.
"All aboard!" called the conductor of the relief train, and there was the last scurrying and hurrying to finish up the work. This train pulled out ahead of the one the boys and their friends were to take, and it had the right of way, for help was now urgently needed in the flooded district.
Progress from then on, for those who were seeking the lost actors and actresses, was rather slow and uncertain. They were now on the edge of the flooded district, and, though they saw no ​scenes of actual suffering, as yet, they were held up by such happenings as bridges washed away, or made unsafe, tracks undermined by the rain, and landslides covering the rails.
So they were two days longer on the road than otherwise they would have been. Relief trains, too, had the right of way, and even the regular passenger trains were held back, or switched to other tracks, while the cars laden with soldiers and supplies were rushed forward.
Mr. Ringold fretted and fumed at the delay, but there was no help for it. Those suffering must be cared for first.
"We ought to be at Hannibal to-morrow," said the manager, one night, as the sleeping berths were being made up. "Then we can start in, and do something. I only hope we can find them," he added, referring to his lost company.
Joe and Blake had sections opposite each other, and, after talking across the aisle in low tones for a few minutes, they dropped off to sleep.
It was past midnight when Blake thought he felt someone fumbling at the curtains of his berth.
"That you, Joe?" he asked, sleepily.
"What's that?" inquired his chum, evidently also just awakened.
​"I asked if that was you at my berth just now," repeated Blake. "I'm sure I felt some one."
"So did I. I thought it was you," said Joe. "Were you up?"
"Not a bit of it! Say, maybe we'd better look around a bit. The films are under my berth."
Blake slipped on a bathrobe over his pajamas, and got out in the aisle. The narrow, curtained passage contained no one. Joe thrust his head out between his curtains, to watch Blake as he felt under the berth.
"Joe, they're gone!" cried the young operator, as he faced about. "The cases containing the relief train and bridge films are gone!"
"Are you sure?"
"Positive. I left them right between my two valises, and they're not there now."
"Maybe the porter took them by mistake," suggested Joe.
"I'll ring and find out," declared Blake, as he pushed the button in his berth.
A sleepy colored man shuffled out from the end of the car.
"'Ju ring, sah?" he yawned.
"Yes," exclaimed Blake. "Did you take anything from under my berth?"
​"Yais, sah. Ah done tuck yo' all shoes jest now, fo' to shine 'em. I allers does dat 'long 'bout dish yeah time. I done tuck dat gen'man's shoes, too," and he nodded at Joe.
"Did you just take them?" Blake wanted to know.
"Yais, sah. 'Long 'bout two er free minutes ago. Didn't yo' all want me to?"
"Oh, that's all right," said Blake, as a puzzled look came over his face. "Then it was you who woke me up—taking my shoes?"
"Ah's mighty sorry, sah," spoke the porter, as he saw a vanishing vision of a tip. "Ah didn't go fo' t' do it, sah!"
"I don't mind about that," said Blake, "but there are some films missing from under my berth. Did you see, or take them?"
"'Deed an' Ah didn't, boss!" was the quick reply. "Ah ain't got no use fo' movin' picture films, 'deed an' Ah ain't!"
The man was evidently honest.
"Then they must have been taken earlier in the night," said Blake, slowly.
"By whom?" asked Joe.
"There's only one person I suspect—Munson. He must be on our trail, and that means trouble, Joe," spoke Blake, soberly.