MOVIE STUNTS
Jennie Stone slept in Ruth's bed that night because, having been parted
since they were both in France, they had a great deal to say to each
other--thus proving true one of Tom Cameron's statements regarding women.
Jennie was just as sympathetic--and as sleepy--as she could be and she
"oh, dear, me'd" and yawned alternately all through the tale of the lost
scenario and notebooks, appreciating fully how Ruth felt about it, but
unable to smother the expression of her desire for sleep.
"Maybe we ought not to have come on this automobile trip," said Jennie.
"If the thief just did it to be mean and is somebody who lives around the
Red Mill, perhaps you might have discovered something by mingling with the
neighbors."
"Oh! Tom did all that," sighed Ruth. "And without avail. He searched the
neighborhood thoroughly, although he is confident that a tramp carried it
off. And that seems reasonable. I am almost sure, Heavy, that my scenario
will appear under the trademark of some other producing manager than Mr.
Hammond."
"Oh! How mean!"
"Well, a thief is almost the meanest person there is in the world, don't
you think so? Except a backbiter. And anybody mean enough to steal my
scenario must be mean enough to try to make use of it."
"Oh, dear! Ow-oo-ooo! Scuse me, Ruth. Yes, I guess you are right. But
can't you stop the production of the picture?"
"How can I do that?"
"I don't----ow-oo!----know. Scuse me, dear."
"Most pictures are made in secret, anyway. The public knows nothing about
them until the producer is ready to make their release."
"I--ow-oo!--I see," yawned Jennie.
"Even the picture play magazines do not announce them until the first
runs. Then, sometimes, there is a synopsis of the story published. But it
will be too late, then. Especially when I have no notes of my work, nor
any witnesses. I told no living soul about the scenario--what it was
about, or----"
"Sh-sh-sh----"
"Why, Heavy!" murmured the scandalized Ruth.
"Sh-sh-sh--whoo!" breathed the plump girl, with complete abandon.
"My goodness!" exclaimed Ruth, tempted to shake her, "if you snore like
that when you are married, Henri will have to sleep at the other end of
the house."
But this was completely lost on the tired Jennie Stone, who continued to
breathe heavily until Ruth herself fell asleep. It seemed as though the
latter had only closed her eyes when the sun shining into her face awoke
the girl of the Red Mill. The shades of the east window had been left up,
and it was sunrise.
Plenty of farm noises outside the Drovers' Tavern, as well as a stir in
the kitchen, assured Ruth that there were early risers here. Jennie,
rolled in more than her share of the bedclothes, continued to breathe as
heavily as she had the night before.
But suddenly Ruth was aware that there was somebody besides herself awake
in the room. She sat up abruptly in bed and reached to seize Jennie's
plump shoulder. Ruth had to confess she was much excited, if not
frightened.
Then, before she touched the still sleeping Jennie Stone, Ruth saw the
intruder. The door from the anteroom was ajar. A steaming agateware can
of water stood on the floor just inside this door. Before the bureau which
boasted a rather large mirror for a country hotel bedroom, pivoted the
thin figure of Arabella Montague Fitzmaurice Pike!
From the neatly arranged outer clothing of the two girls supposedly asleep
in the big four-poster, Bella had selected a skirt of Ruth's and a
shirt-waist of Jennie's, arraying herself in both of these borrowed
garments. She was now putting the finishing touch to her costume by
setting Ruth's cap on top of her black, fly-away mop of hair.
Turning about and about before the glass, Bella was so much engaged in
admiring herself that she forgot the hot water she was supposed to carry
to the various rooms. Nor did she see Ruth sitting up in bed looking at
her in dawning amusement. Nor did she, as she pirouetted there, hear her
Nemesis outside in the hall.
The door suddenly creaked farther open. The grim face of Miss Susan
Timmins appeared at the aperture.
"Oh!" gasped Ruth Fielding aloud.
Bella turned to glance in startled surprise at the girl in bed. And at
that moment Miss Timmins bore down upon the child like a shrike on a
chippy-bird.
"Ow-ouch!" shrieked Bella.
"Oh, don't!" begged Ruth.
"What is it? Goodness! _Fire!_" cried Jennie Stone, who, when awakened
suddenly, always remembered the dormitory fire at Briarwood Hall.
"You little pest! I'll larrup ye good! I'll give ye your nevergitovers!"
sputtered the hotel housekeeper.
But the affrighted Bella wriggled away from her aunt's bony grasp. She
dodged Miss Timmins about the marble-topped table, retreated behind the
hair-cloth sofa, and finally made a headlong dash for the door, while
Jennie continued to shriek for the fire department.
Ruth leaped out of bed. In her silk pajamas and slippers, and without any
wrap, she hurried to reach, and try to separate, the struggling couple
near the door.
Miss Timmins delivered several hearty slaps upon Bella's face and ears.
The child shrieked. She got away again and plunged into the can of hot
water.
Over this went, flooding the rag-carpet for yards around.
"Fire! Fire!" Jennie continued to shriek.
Helen dashed in from the next room, dressed quite as lightly as Ruth, and
just in time to see the can spilled.
"Oh! Water! Water!"
"Drat that young one!" barked Miss Timmins, ignoring the flood and
everything else save her niece--even the conventions.
She dashed after Bella. The latter had disappeared into the hall through
the anteroom.
"Oh, the poor child!" cried sympathetic Ruth, and followed in the wake of
the angry housekeeper.
"Fire! Fire!" moaned Jennie Stone.
"Cat's foot!" snapped Helen Cameron. "It's water--and it is flooding the
whole room."
She ran to set the can upright--after the water was all out of it. Without
thinking of her costume, Ruth Fielding ran to avert Bella's punishment if
she could. She knew the aunt was beside herself with rage, and Ruth feared
that the woman would, indeed, give Bella her "nevergetovers."
The corridor of the hotel was long, running from front to rear of the main
building. The window at the rear end of it overlooked the roof of the back
kitchen. This window was open, and when Ruth reached the corridor Bella
was going head-first through the open window, like a circus clown diving
through a hoop.
She had discarded Jennie's shirt-waist between the bedroom and the window.
But Ruth's skirt still flapped about the child's thin shanks.
Miss Timmins, breathing threatenings and slaughter, raced down the hall in
pursuit. Ruth followed, begging for quarter for the terrified child.
But the housekeeper went through the open window after Bella, although in
a more conventional manner, paying no heed to Ruth's plea. The frightened
girl, however, escaped her aunt's clutch by slipping off the borrowed
skirt and descending the trumpet-vine trellis by the kitchen door.
"Do let her go, Miss Timmins!" begged Ruth, as the panting woman, carrying
Ruth's skirt, returned to the window where the girl of the Red Mill stood.
"She is scared to death. She was doing no harm."
"I'll thank you to mind your own business, Miss," snapped Miss Timmins
hotly. "I declare! A girl growed like you running 'round in men's
overalls--or, what be them things you got on?"
At this criticism Ruth Fielding fled, taking the skirt and Jennie's
shirt-waist with her. But Aunt Kate was aroused now and the four women of
the automobile party swiftly slipped into their negligees and appeared in
the hall again, to meet Tom and Colonel Marchand who came from their room
only partly dressed.
The critical Miss Timmins had darted downstairs, evidently in pursuit of
her unfortunate niece. The guests crowded to the back window.
"Where did she go?" demanded Tom, who had heard some explanation of the
early morning excitement. "Is she running away?"
"What a child!" gasped Aunt Kate.
"My waist!" moaned Jennie.
"Look at Ruth's skirt!" exclaimed Helen.
"I do not care for the skirt," the girl of the Red Mill declared. "It is
Bella."
"Her aunt will about give her those 'nevergetovers' she spoke of,"
chuckled Tom.
"_Ma foi!_ look you there," exclaimed Colonel Marchand, pointing through
the window that overlooked the rear premises of the hotel.
At top speed Miss Timmins was crossing the yard toward the big hay barn.
Bella had taken refuge in that structure, and the housekeeper's evident
intention was to harry her out. The woman grasped a clothes-stick with
which she proposed to castigate her niece.
"The cruel thing!" exclaimed Helen, the waters of her sympathy rising for
Bella Pike now.
"There's the poor kid!" said Tom.
Bella appeared at an open door far up in the peak of the haymow. The hay
was packed solidly under the roof; but there was an air space left at
either end.
"She has put herself into the so-tight corner--no?" suggested the young
Frenchman.
"You've said it!" agreed Tom. "Why! it's regular movie stunts. She's come
up the ladders to the top of the mow. If auntie follows her, I don't see
that the kid can do anything but jump!"
"Tom! Never!" cried Ruth.
"He is fooling," said Jennie.
"Tell me how she can dodge that woman, then," demanded Tom.
"Ah!" murmured Henri Marchand. "She have arrive'."
Miss Timmins appeared at the door behind Bella. The spectators heard the
girl's shriek. The housekeeper struck at her with the clothes stick. And
then----
"Talk about movie stunts!" shouted Tom Cameron, for the frightened Bella
leaped like a cat upon the haymow door and swung outward with nothing more
stable than air between her and the ground, more than thirty feet below!