DAKOTA JOE'S WRATH
It was a crisp day with that tang of frost in the air that makes the old
shiver and the young feel a tingling in the blood. Aunt Alvirah drew her
chair closer to the stove in the sitting-room. She had a capable
housework helper now, and even Jabez Potter made no audible objection,
for Ruth paid the bill, and the dear old woman had time to sit and talk
to "her pretty" as she loved to do.
"Oh, my back and oh, my bones!" she murmured, as she settled into her
rocking-chair. "I am a leetle afraid, my pretty, that you will have your
hands full if you write pictures for red savages to act. It does seem to
me they air dangerous folks to have anything to do with.
"Why, when I was a mite of a girl, I heard my great-grandmother tell
that when she was a girl she went with her folks clean acrosst the
continent--or, leastways, beyond the Mississippi, and they drove in a
big wagon drawed by oxen."
"Goodness! They went in an emigrant train?" cried Ruth.
"Not at all. 'Twarn't no train," objected Aunt Alvirah. "Trains warn't
heard of then. Why, _I_ can remember when the first railroad went
through this part of the country and it cut right through Silas
Bassett's farm. They told him he could go down to the tracks any time he
felt like going to town, wave his hat, and the train would stop for
him."
"Well, wasn't that handy?" cried the girl.
"It sounded good. But Silas didn't have it on paper. First off they did
stop for him if he hailed the train. He didn't go to town more'n three
or four times a year. Then the railroad changed hands. 'There arose up a
new king over Egypt which knew not Joseph'--you know, like it says in
the Bible. And when Silas Bassett waved his hat, the train didn't even
hesitate!"
Ruth laughed, but reminded her that they were talking about her
great-grandmother's adventures in the Indian country years and years
before.
"Yes, that's a fact," said Aunt Alvirah Boggs. "She did have exciting
times. Why, when they was traveling acrosst them Western prairies one
day, what should pop up but a band of Indians, with tall feathers in
their hair, and guns--mebbe bow and arrows, too. Anyway, they scare't
the white people something tremendous," and the old woman nodded
vigorously.
"Well, the neighbors who were traveling together hastened to turn their
wagons so as to make a fortress sort of, of the wagon-bodies, with the
horses and the cattle and the humans in the center. You understand?"
"Yes," Ruth agreed. "I have seen pictures of such a camp, with the
Indians attacking."
"Yes. Well, but you see," cackled the old woman suddenly, "them, Indians
didn't attack at all. They rode down at a gallop, I expect, and scared
the white folks a lot But what they come for was to see if there was a
doctor in the party. Those Indians had heard of white doctors and knowed
what they could do. The chief of the tribe had a favorite child that was
very sick, and he come to see if a white doctor could save his child's
life."
"Oh!" cried Ruth, her eyes sparkling. "What an idea!"
"Well, my pretty, I dunno," said Aunt Alvirah. "'Twas sensible enough, I
should say, for that Indian chief to want the best doctoring there was
for his child. The medicine men had tried to cure the poor little thing
and failed. I expect even Red Indians sometimes love their children."
"Why, of course, Aunt Alvirah. And you ought to see how lovable this
girl Wonota is."
"Mm--well, mebbe. Anyway, there was a doctor in that party my
great-grandmother traveled with, and he rode to the Indian village and
cured the sick child. And for the rest of their journey across them
plains Indians, first of one tribe, then of another, rode with the party
of whites. And they never had no trouble."
"Isn't that great!" cried Ruth.
And when she told Helen and Jennie about it--and the idea it had given
Ruth for a screen story--her two chums agreed that it was "perfectly
great."
So Ruth was hard at work on a scenario, or detailed plot, even before
Mr. Hammond made his arrangements with the Indian Department for the
transferring of the services of Princess Wonota from Dakota Joe's Wild
West Show to the Alectrion Film Corporation for a certain number of
months.
The matter had now gone so far that it could not be kept from Dakota
Joe. He had spent money and pulled all the wires he could at the
reservation to keep "Dead-Shot" Wonota in his employ. At first he did
not realize that any outside agency was at work against him and for die
girl's benefit.
Ruth and her friends drove to a distant town to see the Indian girl when
the Wild West Show played for two days. They attended the matinee and
saw Wonota between the two performances and had dinner with her at the
local hotel. After dinner they all went to an attorney's office, where
the papers in the case were ready, and Wonota signed her new contract
and Helen and Jennie were two of the witnesses thereto. Mr. Hammond
could not be present, but he had trusted to Ruth's good sense and
business acumen.
In a week--giving Dakota Joe due notice--the old contract would be dead
and Wonota would be at liberty under permission from the Indian Agent to
leave the show. As Helen stopped the car before the torch-lighted
entrance to the show for Wonota to step out, Dakota Joe strode out to
the side of the road. He was scowling viciously.
"What's the matter with you, Wonota?" he demanded. "You trying to queer
the show? You ain't got no more'n enough time to dress for your act. Get
on in there, like I tell you."
Instead of propitiating Ruth now, he showed her the ugly side of his
character.
"I guess you been playin' two-faced, ain't you, ma'am?" he growled as
Wonota fled toward the dressing tent "I thought you was a friend of
mine. But I believe you been cuttin' the sand right out from under my
feet. Ain't you?"
"I do not know what you mean, Mr. Fenbrook," said Ruth sharply.
"You're Ruth Fielding, ain't you?" he demanded.
"Yes. That is my name."
"So they tell me," growled Dakota Joe. "And you are coupled up with this
Hammond feller that they tell me has put in a bid for Wonota over and
above what she's wuth, and what I can pay. Ain't that so?"
"If you wish to discuss the matter with Mr. Hammond I will give you his
address," Ruth said with dignity. "I am not prepared to discuss the
matter with you, Mr. Fenbrook."
"Is that so?" he snarled. "Well, ma'am, whether you want to talk or
don't want to talk, things ain't goin' all your way. No, ma'am! I got
some rights. The courts will give me my rights to Wonota. I'm her
guardian, I am. Her father, Totantora, is dead, and I'll show you
folks--and that Injun agent--just where you get off in this business!"
"Go on," said Ruth to Helen, without answering the angry man. But when
the car had gone a little way along the road, the girl of the Red Mill
exclaimed:
"Dear me! I fear that man will make trouble. I--I wish Tom were here."
"Don't say a word!" gasped Helen. "But not only because he could handle
this Western bully do I wish Tommy-boy was home and the war was over."
"Why don't you offer Dakota Joe a job in your picture company, too?"
drawled Jennie Stone.
"He'd make such a fine 'bad man.'"
"He certainly would," agreed Helen.
Just how bad the proprietor of the Wild West Show could be was proved
the following day. Mr. Hammond sent Ruth a telegram In the morning
intimating that something had gone wrong with their plans to get Wonota
into their employ.
* * * * *
"The Court has given Fenbrook an injunction. What do you know about it?"
* * * * *
Now, of course, Ruth Fielding did not know anything at all about it. And
after what she had seen of Dakota Joe she had no mind to go to him on
behalf of Mr. Hammond and herself. If the Westerner was balking the
attempt to get Wonota out of his clutches, nothing would beat him, Ruth
believed, but legal proceedings.
She telegraphed Mr. Hammond to this effect, advising that he put the
matter in the hands of the attorney that had drawn the new contract with
the Indian girl.
"The goodness knows," she told Aunt Alvirah and Uncle Jabez, "I don't
want to have anything personally to do with that rough man. He is just
as ugly as he can be."
"Wal," snorted the miller, "he better not come around here cutting up
his didoes! Me and Ben will tend to him!"
Ruth could not help being somewhat fearful of the proprietor of the Wild
West Show. If the man really made up his mind to make trouble, Ruth
hoped that he would not come to the Red Mill.
Helen and Jennie drove over to the mill to get Ruth that afternoon, and
they planned to take Aunt Alvirah out with them. She had lost her fear
of the automobile and had even begun to hint to the miller that she
wished he would buy a small car.
"Land o' Goshen!" grumbled Uncle Jabez, "what next? I s'pose you'd want
to learn to run the dratted thing, Alvirah Boggs?"
"Well, Jabez Potter, I don't see why not?" she had confessed. "Other
women learns."
"Huh! You with one foot in the grave and the other on the gas, eh?" he
snorted.
However, Aunt Alvirah did not go out in Helen's car on this afternoon.
While the girls were waiting for her to be made ready, Helen looked
back, up the road, down which she and Jennie had just come.
"What's this?" she wanted to know. "A runaway horse?"
Jennie stood up to look over the back of the car. She uttered an excited
squeal.
"Helen! Ruthie!" she declared. "It's that Indian girl--in all her
war-togs, too. She is riding like the wind. And, yes! There is somebody
after her! Talk about your moving picture chases--this is the real
thing!"
"It's Dakota Joe!" shrieked Helen. "Goodness! He must have gone mad. See
him beating that horse he rides. Why--"
"He surely has blown up," stated Jennie Stone with conviction. "Ruthie!
what are you going to do?"