# The Trey o' Hearts

* information about this edition.
* sister projects: Commons category, Wikidata item.
The photographs are stills from the B&W 1914 film serial of the same name. The stills of the (lost) movie, along with the novel, were used to create a photonovel published in July 2005.
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.—[From the Preface]
THE TREY O' HEARTS
A Motion-Picture Melodrama
BY LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE
Author of "The Lone Wolf," etc.
Illustrated with photographs from the picture-play production by the Universal Film Manufacturing Company
NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1914, by
Louis Joseph Vance
All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages, including the Scandinavian
A GIRL AND A HALF-BREED FOLLOWED HIS EVERY MOVEMENT.
THE TREY O' HEARTS
By LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE
Extravaganzas
The Day of Days
Terence O'Rourke
The Pool of Flame
Romances
The Destroying Angel
The Bandbox
Cynthia-of-the-Minute
No Man's Land
The Fortune Hunter
The Bronze Bell
The Black Bag
The Brass Bowl
JOAN THURSDAY: a Novel

### 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.
L. J. V.
Los Angeles, California, October, 1, 1914.
CONTENTS
* CHAPTERPAGE
* I.The Message of the Rose3
* II.The Sign of the Three13
* III.The Trail of Treachery20
* IV.Flower o' the Flame26
* V.The Hunted Man31
* VI.The Haunting Woman34
* VII.Disclosures36
* VIII.White Water41
* IX.Forewarned47
* X.The Captain of the Seaventure51
* XI.Blue Water54
* XII.The Counterfeiter57
* XIII.Holocaust64
* XIV.Marooned68
* XV.Dead Reckoning75
* XVI.Debacle80
* XVII.The Masked Voice85
* XVIII.The Island89
* XIX.The Sunset Tide94
* XX.The Rocket101
* XXI.Crack o' Doom110
* XXII.Juggernaut115
* XXIII.The House Divided121
* XXIV.A Sporting Offer126
* XXV.The Time o' Night130
* XXVVI.Changeling136
* XXVII.The Ring141
* XXVIII.Mock Rose148
* XXIX.Jailbird153
* XXX.Bird-man160
* XXXI.As a Crow Flies166
* XXXII.Pullman171
* XXXIII.Hand-car176
* XXXIV.Caboose181
* XXXV.Detail185
* XXXVI.The Painted Hills192
* XXXVII.The Up Trail196
* XXXVIII.Hopi Jim202
* XXXIX.The Man in the Shadow206
* XL.The Trail of Flying Hoof-prints209
* XLI.Avalanche215
* XLII.As in a Glass, Darkly226
* XLIII.Jaws of Death233
* XLIV.Debacle240
* XLV.The Last Warning—And Flight244
* XLVI.Sacrifice252
* XLVII.The New Judith263
* XLVIII.The Old Adam267
* XLIX.The Last Trump274
* L.The Wife280
THE TREY O' HEARTS
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1933, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 90 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse