EVADING THE TRAFFIC POLICE
Ruth had turned her back on the car and did not see it slip out of the
crowd of motor traffic and turn into the avenue. But Wonota, the Indian
girl, saw her friend's danger. She uttered a loud cry and bounded out of
the camera field just as the two camera men began to crank their
machines.
"Look out, Miss Fielding!"
The cry startled Ruth, but it did not aid her much to escape. And
perhaps the chauffeur of the car only intended to crowd by the girl of
the Red Mill and so escape from the traffic hold-up.
At Wonota's scream the director shouted for the camera men to halt. He
started himself with angry excitement after the Indian girl. She had
utterly spoiled the shot.
But on the instant he was adding his warning cry to Wonota's and to the
cries of other bystanders. Ruth, amazed, could not understand what
Wonota meant. Then the car was upon her, the mudguard knocked her down,
and her loose coat catching in some part of the car, she was dragged for
several yards before Wonota could reach her.
Over and over in the dust Ruth had been whirled. She was breathless and
bruised. She could not even cry out, the shock of the accident was so
great.
The instant the Indian girl reached the prostrate Ruth the motor-car
broke away and its driver shot the machine around the nearest corner and
out of sight.
A policeman charged after the car at top speed, but when he reached the
corner there were so many other cars in the cross street that he could
not identify the one that had caused the accident.
To Ruth, Wonota gasped: "That bad man! I knew he would do something
mean, but I thought it would be to me."
Ruth could scarcely reply. The director was at her side, as well as
other sympathetic people. She was lifted up, but she could not stand.
Something had happened to her left ankle. She could bear no weight upon
it without exquisite pain.
For the time the taking of the picture was called off. The traffic
officer allowed the stalled cars to pass on. A crowd began to assemble
about Ruth.
"Do take me into the hotel--somewhere!" she gasped. "I--I can't walk--"
One of the camera men and the director, Mr. Hooley, made a seat with
their hands, and sitting in this and with Wonota to steady her, the girl
of the Red Mill was hurried under cover, leaving the throng of
spectators on the street quite sure that the accident had been a planned
incident of the moving picture people. They evidently considered Ruth a
"stunt actress."
It was not until Ruth was alone with Wonota in a hotel room, lying on a
couch, the Indian girl stripping the shoe and stocking from the injured
limb, that Ruth asked what Wonota had meant when she first bounded
toward her, shrieking her warning of the motor-car's approach.
"What did you mean, Wonota?" asked the girl of the Red Mill. "Who was it
ran over me? I know Mr. Hooley will try to find him, but--"
"That bad, _bad_ Dakota Joe!" interrupted the Indian girl with
vehemence, her eyes flashing and the color deeping in her bronze cheeks.
"When your friend told us he was in this city, I feared."
"Why, Wonota!" cried Ruth, sitting up in surprise, "do you mean to say
that Dakota Joe Fenbrook was driving that car?"
"No. He cannot drive a car. But it was one of his men--Yes."
"I can scarcely believe it. He deliberately ran me down?"
"I saw Dakota Joe in the back of the car just as it shot down toward
you, Miss Fielding. He is a bad, bad man! He was leaning forward urging
that driver on. I know he was."
"Why, it seems terrible!" Ruth sighed. "Yes, that feels good on my
ankle, Wonota. I do not believe it is really sprained. Oh, but it hurt
at first! Wrenched, I suppose."
Jim Hooley, the director, had telephoned for Mr. Hammond, and the
producer hurried to the hotel. He insisted on bringing a surgeon with
him. But by the time of their arrival Ruth felt much easier, and after
the medical man had pronounced no real harm done to the ankle, Ruth
dressed again, insisting that a second attempt be made to shoot the
scene while the sun remained high enough.
The police had endeavored to trace the motor-car that had caused the
accident. But it seemed that nobody had noted the numbers on the
machine, or even the kind of car it was. Ruth had forbidden Wonota to
tell what she revealed to her. If it was Dakota Joe who had run her down
there was no use attempting to fasten the guilt of the incident upon him
unless they were positive and could prove his guilt.
"And you know, Wonota, you cannot be _sure_--"
"I saw him. It was for but a moment, but I _saw_ him," said the Indian
girl positively.
"Even at that, it would take corroborative testimony to convince the
court," mused Ruth.
"I do not understand paleface laws," said Wonota, shaking her head. "If
an Indian does something like that to another Indian, the injured one
can punish his enemy. And he almost always does."
"But we cannot take the law into our own hands that way."
"Why not?" asked Wonota. "Is a redman so much superior to a white man?
If the redman can punish an enemy why cannot a white man?"
"Our law does not leave it in our hands to punish," said Ruth, quietly,
though rather staggered by the Indian girl's question. "We have courts,
and judges, and methods of criminal procedure. A person who has been
injured by another cannot be the best judge of the punishment to be
meted out to the one who has harmed him."
"Why not?" demanded Wonota, promptly. "He is the one hurt. Who other
than he should deal out punishment?"
Ruth was silenced for the time being. In fact, Wonota looked upon
mundane matters from such a different angle that it was sometimes
impossible for Ruth to convince her protégé that the white man's way was
better.
However, this incident gave Ruth Fielding a warning that she did not
intend to ignore. A little later she told Mr. Hammond of the Indian
girl's suspicion that it was Fenbrook who had been the cause of Ruth's
slight injury. It was too late then to set the police on the track of
the showman, for on making private inquiry Mr. Hammond found that Dakota
Joe's show had already left Brooklyn and was _en route_ for some city in
the Middle West.
"But it seems scarcely probable, Miss Ruth," the producer said, "that
that fellow would take such a chance. And to hurt _you!_ Why, if he had
tried to injure that Indian girl, I might be convinced. She probably saw
somebody in the car with a sombrero on--"
"I noticed two men in that car with broad hats," confessed Ruth. "But I
gave them only a glance. It doesn't seem very sensible to believe that
the man would deliberately hurt me. Yet he did threaten us when he was
angry, there at the mill. No getting around that."
Mr. Hammond shrugged his shoulders and laughed. "You will begin to
believe that the making of moving pictures is a pretty perilous
business."
"It may be." She laughed, yet rather doubtfully. "I am to be on the
watch for the 'hand in the dark,' am I not? At any rate when we are hear
Dakota Joe again, I will keep a very sharp lookout."
"Yes, of course, Miss Ruth, we'll all do that," returned Mr. Hammond,
more seriously now, for he saw that Ruth was really disturbed. "Still,
whatever his intentions, I do not believe Fenbrook will have the power
to do any real harm. At any rate, keep your courage up, for we are
forewarned now, and can take care of ourselves--and of you," he added,
with a smile, as he left her.