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
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.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE I. The Message of the Rose 3 II. The Sign of the Three 13 III. The Trail of Treachery 20 IV. Flower o' the Flame 26 V. The Hunted Man 31 VI. The Haunting Woman 34 VII. Disclosures 36 VIII. White Water 41 IX. Forewarned 47 X. The Captain of the Seaventure 51 XI. Blue Water 54 XII. The Counterfeiter 57 XIII. Holocaust 64 XIV. Marooned 68 XV. Dead Reckoning 75 XVI. Debacle 80 XVII. The Masked Voice 85 XVIII. The Island 89 XIX. The Sunset Tide 94 XX. The Rocket 101 XXI. Crack o' Doom 110 XXII. Juggernaut 115 XXIII. The House Divided 121 XXIV. A Sporting Offer 126 XXV. The Time o' Night 130 XXVVI. Changeling 136 XXVII. The Ring 141 XXVIII. Mock Rose 148 XXIX. Jailbird 153 XXX. Bird-man 160 XXXI. As a Crow Flies 166 XXXII. Pullman 171 XXXIII. Hand-car 176 XXXIV. Caboose 181 XXXV. Detail 185 XXXVI. The Painted Hills 192 XXXVII. The Up Trail 196 XXXVIII. Hopi Jim 202 XXXIX. The Man in the Shadow 206 XL. The Trail of Flying Hoof-prints 209 XLI. Avalanche 215 XLII. As in a Glass, Darkly 226 XLIII. Jaws of Death 233 XLIV. Debacle 240 XLV. The Last Warning—And Flight 244 XLVI. Sacrifice 252 XLVII. The New Judith 263 XLVIII. The Old Adam 267 XLIX. The Last Trump 274 L. The Wife 280
THE TREY O' HEARTS
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published in 1914, before the cutoff of 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.
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