PURSUING DANGER
When a mule is once going, it is just as stubborn about stopping as it
is about being started if it feels balky. The leading span attached to
the covered wagon in which Ruth and her two chums, Helen Cameron and
Jennie Stone, rode had now communicated their own fright to the four
other animals. All six were utterly unmanageable.
"Do tell him to stop, Ruth!" shrieked Jennie Stone from the rear of the
wagon.
The next moment she shot into the air as the wheels on one side bounced
over an outcropping boulder. She came down clawing at Helen to save
herself from flying out of the end of the wagon.
"Oh! This is too much!" shouted Helen, quite as frightened as her
companion. "I mean to get out! Don't a-a-ask me to--to act in moving
pictures again. I never will!"
"Talk about rough stuff!" groaned Jennie. "This is the limit."
Neither of them realized the danger that threatened. Of the three girls
only Ruth knew what was just ahead. The maddened mules were dragging the
emigrant wagon for a pitch into the ravine that boded nothing less than
disaster for all.
In the band of Indians riding for the string of covered wagons Wonota
had been numbered. She could ride a barebacked pony as well as any buck
in the party. She had removed her skirt and rode in the guise of a young
brave. The pinto pony she bestrode was speedy, and the Osage maid
managed him perfectly.
Long before the train of wagons and the pursuing band of Indians got
into the focus of the cameras, Wonota, as well as her companions, saw
that the six mules drawing the head wagon were out of control. The dash
of the frightened animals added considerable to the realism of the
picture, as they swept past Jim Hooley and his camera men; but the
director was quite aware that disaster threatened William's outfit.
"Crank it up! Crank it!" he commanded the camera men. "It looks as if we
were going to get something bigger than we expected."
Mr. Hammond stood behind him. He saw the three white girls in the rear of
the wagon. It was he who shouted:
"That runaway must be stopped! It's Miss Fielding and her friends in
that wagon. Stop them!"
"Great Scott, Boss! how you going to stop those mules?" Jim Hooley
demanded.
But Wonota did not ask anybody as to the method of stopping the runaway.
She was perfectly fearless--of either horses or mules. She lashed her
pinto ahead of the rest of the Indian band, cut across a curve of the
trail, and bore down on the runaway wagon.
"That confounded girl is spoiling the shot!" yelled Hooley.
"Never mind! Never mind!" returned Mr. Hammond. "She is going to do
something. There!"
And Wonota certainly did do something. Aiming her pinto across the noses
of the lead-mules, she swerved them off the trail before they reached
that sharp turn at the break of the rough hill. The broken rein made it
impossible for the driver to swerve the leaders that way; but Wonota
turned the trick.
William stood up, despite the bounding wagon, his foot on the brake,
yanking with all his might at the jaws of the other four mules. All six
swung in a wide circle. But William admitted that it was the Indian girl
who started the crazed mules into this path.
The wheels dipped and bounced, threatening each moment to capsize the
wagon. But the catastrophe did not occur. The other Indians rode down
upon the head of the string of wagons madly, with excited whoops. For
once the whole crowd forgot that they were making a picture.
And that very forgetfulness on the part of the actors made the picture a
great success The finish was not quite as Ruth had written the story, or
as Hooley had planned to take it. But it was better!
"It's a peach! It's a peach! The shot was perfect!" the director cried,
smiting Mr. Hammond on the back in his excitement. "What do you know
about that, Boss? Can't we let her stand as the camera has it?"
"I believe it is a good shot," agreed Mr. Hammond. "We'll try it out
to-night in the car." One end of the special car was arranged as a
projection room. "If the Indians did not hide the wagon too much, that
dash of the girl was certainly spectacular."
"It was a peach," again declared the director. "And nobody will ever see
that she is a girl instead of a man. We got one good shot, here, Mr.
Hammond, whether anything else comes out right or not."
The girls who had taken the parts of emigrant women in the runaway wagon
were not quite so enthusiastic over the success of the event, not even
when the director sent his congratulations to them. All three were
determined that if a "repeat" was demanded, they would refuse to play
the parts again.
"I don't want to ride in anything like that wagon again," declared Ruth.
"It was awful."
"Enough is enough," agreed Helen. "Another moment, and we would have
been out on our heads."
"I'm black and blue--or will be--from collar to shoes. _What_ a jouncing
we did get! Girls, do you suppose that fellow with the shaggy ears did
it on purpose?"
"Whom do you mean--William or one of the mules?" asked Helen.
"I am sure William was helpless," said Ruth. "He was just as much scared
as we were. But Wonota was just splendid!"
"I am willing to pass her a vote of thanks," groaned Jennie. "But we
can't expect her to be always on hand to save us from disaster. You
don't catch me in any such jam again."
"Oh, nothing like this is likely to happen to us again," Ruth said.
"We're just as safe taking this picture as we would be at home--at the
Red Mill, for instance."
"I don't know about that," grumbled Helen. "I feel that more trouble is
hanging over us. I feel it in my bones."
"You'd better get a new set of bones," said Ruth cheerfully. "Yours seem
to be worse, even, than poor Aunt Alvira's."
"Nell believes that life is just one thing after another," chuckled
Jennie Stone. "Having struck a streak of bad luck, it _must_ keep up."
"You wait and see," proclaimed Helen Cameron, decisively nodding her
head.
"That's the easiest thing in the world to do--_wait_," gibed Ruth.
"No, it isn't, either. It's the hardest thing to do," declared Jennie,
and Ruth thought she could detect a shade of sadness in the light tone
the plump girl adopted. "And especially when--as Nell predicts--we are
waiting for some awful disaster. Huh--" and the girl shuddered as
realistically as perfect health and unshaken nerves and good nature
would permit--"are we to pass our lives under the shadow of impending
peril?"
It did seem, however, as though Helen had come under the mantle of some
seeress of old. Jennie flatly declared that "Nell must be a descendant
of the Witch of Endor."
The company managed to make several scenes that day without further
disaster. Although in taking a close-up of the charging Indian chief
one of the camera men was knocked down by the rearing pony the chief
rode, and a perfectly good two hundred dollar camera was smashed beyond
hope of repair.
"It's begun," said Helen, ruefully. "You see!"
"If you have brought a hoodoo into this outfit, woe be it to you!" cried
Ruth.
"It is not me," proclaimed her chum. "But I tell you _something_ is
going to happen."
They worked so late that it was night before the company took the trail
for Clearwater Station. There was no moon, and the stars were veiled by
a haze that perhaps foreboded a storm.
This coming storm probably was what caused the excitement in a horse
herd that they passed when half way to the railroad line. Or it might
have been because the motor-cars, of which there were four, were strange
to the half-wild horses that the bunch became frightened.
"There's something doing with them critters, boys!" William, who was
riding ahead, called back to the other pony riders, who were rear guard
to the automobiles. "Keep yer eyes peeled!"
His advice was scarcely necessary. The thunder of horse-hoofs on the
turf was not to be mistaken. Through the darkness the stampeding animals
swept down upon the party.
"Git, you fellers!" yelled another rider. "And keep a-goin'! Jest split
the wind for the station!"
The horsemen swept past the jouncing motor-cars. Some of the women in
the cars screamed. Helen cried:
"What did I tell you!"
"Don't--_dare_--tell us anything more!" jerked out Jennie.
Through the murk the girls saw the heads and flaunted manes of the
coming horses. Just what harm they might do to the motor-cars, which
could not be driven rapidly on this rough trail, Ruth and her two chums
did not know. But the threat of the wild ponies' approach was not to be
ignored.