BOUND FOR THE NORTHWEST
Because of the accident in which Ruth might have been seriously hurt,
the company was delayed for a day in New York, Altogether the various
shots (some of them of and in one of the tallest office buildings on
Broadway) occupied more than a week--more time than Mr. Hammond wished
to give to the work in the East.
Nevertheless, Ruth's finished script, as handled deftly by the
continuity writer, promised so well that the producer was willing to
make a special production of it. The money--and time--cost were
important factors in the making of the picture; but the selection of the
cast was not to be overlooked. Jim Hooley had chosen the few acting in
the Eastern scenes with Wonota, including the hero, whom, to tell the
truth, the Indian girl considered a rather wonderful person because she
saw him in a dress suit"
"Yes, it is true! No Indian could look so heroic a figure," she
whispered to Ruth. "He looks like--like a nobleman. I have read about
noblemen in the book of an author named Scott--Sir Walter Scott.
Noblemen must look like Mr. Albert Grand."
"And to me he looks like a head waiter," said Ruth, when laughingly
relating this to Helen and Jennie.
"Don't let Mr. Grand hear you say that," warned Helen. "They tell me
that he refuses to appear in any picture where at least once he does not
walk into the scene in a dress suit. He claims his clientele demand
it--he looks so perfectly splendid in the 'soup and fish.'"
"Then why laugh at Wonota?" demanded Jennie Stone. "She is no more
impressed by his surface qualities than are the movie fans who like Mr.
Grand."
"Well, it is a great game," laughed Ruth. "Some of the movie stars have
more laughable eccentricities or idiosyncracies than that. I wonder what
our Wonota will develop if she becomes a star?"
The development of the Indian girl was promising so far. She had feeling
for her part, if it was at first rather difficult for her to express in
her features those emotions which, as an Indian, she had considered it
proper to hide. She did just enough of this to make her feelings show
on the screen, yet without being unnatural in the part of Brighteyes,
the Indian maid.
Mr. Hammond was inclined to believe that "Brighteyes" would be a big
feature picture. The director was enthusiastic about it as well. And
even the camera man (than whom can be imagined no more case-hardened
critic of pictures) expressed his belief that it would be a "knockout."
Mr. Hammond arranged for a special car for the cross-continent run, and
he took his own family along, as the weather prophesied for the ensuing
few weeks was favorable to out-of-door work and living. The special car
made it possible for Ruth and her two friends, Helen and Jennie, as well
as the Osage Indian girl, to be very comfortably placed during the
journey.
Ruth had traveled before this--north, south, east and west--and there
was scarcely anything novel in train riding for her. But a journey would
never be dull with Jennie Stone and Helen Cameron as companions!
They ruined completely the morale of the car service. The colored porter
could scarcely shine the other passengers' shoes he was kept so much at
the beck and call of the two wealthy girls, who tipped lavishly. The
Pullman conductor was cornered on every possible occasion and led into
discourse entirely foreign to his duties. Even the "candy butcher" was
waylaid and made to serve the ends of two girls who had perfectly idle
hands and--so Ruth declared--quite as idle brains.
"Well, goodness!" remarked Helen, "we must occupy our minds and time in
some way. You, Ruthie, are confined to that story of yours about
twenty-five hours out of the twenty-four. Even Wonota has thought only
for her tiresome beadwork when she is not studying her part with Mr.
Hooley and you. I know we'll have fun when we get to the Hubbell Ranch
where Mr. Hammond says your picture is to be filmed. I do just dote on
cowboys and the fuzzy little ponies they ride."
"And the dear cows!" drawled Jennie. "Do you remember that maniacal
creature that attacked our motor-car that time we went to Silver Ranch,
years and years and years ago? You know, back in the Paleozoic Age!"
"Quite so," agreed Helen. "I have a photographic remembrance of that
creature--ugh! And how he burst our tires!"
_"He,_ forsooth! What a way to speak of a cow!"
"It wasn't a cow; it was a steer," declared Helen confidently.
Ruth retired from the observation platform where her chums were
ensconced, allowing them to argue the matter to a finish. It was true
that the girl of the Red Mill was very busy most of her waking hours on
the train. They all took a recess at Chicago, however, and it was there
a second incident occurred that showed Dakota Joe Fenbrook had not
forgotten his threat to "get even" with Ruth Fielding and the moving
picture producer with whom she was associated.
The special car was sidetracked just outside of Chicago and the whole
party motored into the city in various automobiles and on various
errands. The Hammonds had relatives to visit. Ruth and her three girl
companions had telegraphed ahead for reservations at one of the big
hotels, and they proposed to spend the two days and nights Mr. Hammond
had arranged for in seeing the sights and attending two particular
theatrical performances.
"And I declare!" cried Helen, as they rolled on through one of the
suburbs of the city, "there is one of the sights, sure enough. See that
billboard, girls?"
"Oh!" cried Wonota, who possessed quite as sharp eyes as anybody in the
party.
"We can't escape that man," sighed Jennie, as she read in towering
letters the announcement of "Dakota Joe's Wild West and Frontier
Round-Up."
"I am sorry the show is here in Chicago," added Ruth with serious mien.
"I am still limping. Next time that awful man will manage to lame me
completely."
"You ought to have a guard. Tell the police--do!" exclaimed Jennie
Stone.
"Tell the police _what?"_ demanded Ruth, with scorn. "We can't prove
anything."
"I know it was Joe in that car that ran you down, Miss Fielding,"
declared Wonota, with anxiety.
"Yes. But nobody else saw him--to recognize him, I mean. We cannot base
a complaint upon such little foundation. Nor would it be well, perhaps,
to get Dakota Joe into the courts. He is a very vindictive man--he must
be----"
"He is very bad man!" repeated Wonota vehemently.
"Yes. That is just it. Why stir up his passions to a greater degree,
then?"
"Of course, Ruthie would want to turn 'the other cheek,'" scoffed
Jennie.
"I am not going around with a chip on my shoulder, looking for somebody
to knock it off," laughed the girl of the Red Mill. "I just want Joe to
leave us alone--that's all."
Wonota shook her head and seemed unconvinced of the wisdom of this. She
was not a pacifist. She knew, too, the heart of the showman, and perhaps
she feared him more than she was willing to tell her new friends.
The four girls made their headquarters at the hotel, and then set forth
at once to shop and to look. As the hours of that first day passed
Wonota was vastly excited over the new sights. For once she lost that
stoic calmness which was her racial trait. The big stores and the tall
buildings here in the mid-western city seemed to impress her even more
than had those in New York.
There was reason for that. She was, while in New York, so much taken up
with the part she was playing in "Brighteyes" that she could think of
little else. She saw many things in the stores she wished to buy. Ruth
had advanced Wonota some money on her contract with the Alectrion Film
Corporation. But when it came right down to the point of buying the
things that girls like and long for--little trinkets and articles of
adornment--the Indian girl hesitated.
"Buy it if it pleases you," Ruth said, rather wondering at the firmness
with which Wonota drew back from selecting and paying for something that
cost less than a dollar.
"No, Miss Fielding. Wonota does not need that. Chief Totantora may be
lost to me forever. I should not adorn myself, or think of
self-adornment. No! I will save my money until I can go to that Europe
where the great chief is held a prisoner."
The girls--Helen and Jennie--were both for buying presents for the
Indian girl, as she would not use her own money. But Ruth would not
allow them to purchase other than the simplest souveniers.
"That would spoil it all. Let her deny herself in such a cause--it will
not hurt her," the girl of the Red Mill said sensibly. "She has an
object in life and should be encouraged to follow out her plan for
helping Chief Totantora."
"Maybe he is not alive now," said Helen, thoughtfully.
"I would not suggest that," Ruth hastened to rejoin. "As long as she can
hope, the better for Wonota. And I should not want her to find out that
Totantora has died in captivity, before my picture is finished."
"Whoo!" breathed Jennie. "You sound sort of selfish, Ruthie Fielding."
"For her sake as well as for the sake of the picture," returned the
other practically. "I tell you Wonota has got it in her to be a valuable
asset to the movies. But I hope nothing will happen to make her fall
down on this first piece of work. Like Mr. Hammond, I hope that she will
develop into an Indian star of the very first magnitude."