NEWS AND A THREAT
A stampede of mad cattle is like the charge of a blind and insane
monster. River, nor ravine, nor any other obstruction can halt the mad
rush of the horned beasts. They pile right into it, and only if it is
too steep or too high do they split and go around.
A stampede of horses is different in that the equine brain appreciates
danger more clearly than that of the sullen steer. Behind a cattle
stampede is often left an aftermath of dead and crippled beasts. But
horses are more canny. A wild horse seldom breaks a leg or suffers other
injury. It is not often that the picked skeleton of a horse is found in
the hills.
This herd belonging to the Hubbell ranch charged through the night
directly across the trail along which the moving picture company was
riding. Those on horseback could probably escape; but the motor-cars
could not be driven very rapidly over the rough road.
The girls screamed as the cars bumped and jounced. Out of the darkness
appeared the up-reared heads and tossing manes of the ponies. There were
possibly three hundred in the herd, and they ran _en masse,_ snorting
and neighing, mad with that fear of the unknown which is always at the
root of every stampede.
The automobile in which Ruth Fielding and her two friends, Helen and
Jennie, were seated was the last of the string. It seemed as though it
could not possibly escape the stampede of half-wild ponies, even if the
other cars did.
"Get down in the car, girls!" shouted Ruth, suiting her action to her
word. "Don't try to jump or stand up. Stoop!"
There was good reason for her command. The plunging horses seemed almost
upon the car. Indeed one leader--a big black stallion,--snorting and
blowing, jumped over the rear of the car, clearing it completely, and
bounded away upon the other side of the trail.
He was ahead of the main stampede, however. All that found the motor-car
in the path could not perform his feat. Some would be sure to plunge
into the car where Ruth and Helen and Jennie crouched.
Suddenly there rode into view, coming from the head of the string of
cars, a wild rider, plying whip and heel to maddened pinto pony.
"Wonota! Go back! You'll be killed!" shrieked Ruth. And then she added:
"The picture will be ruined if you are hurt."
Even had the Indian girl heard Ruth's cry she would have given it small
attention. Wonota was less fearful of the charging ponies than were the
punchers and professional riders working for Mr. Hammond.
At least, she was the first to visualize the danger threatening the
girls in the motor-car, and she did not wait to be told what to do. Up
ahead the men were shouting and telling each other that Miss Fielding
was in danger. But Wonota went at the charging horses without question.
She forced her snorting pinto directly between the motor-car and the
stampede. She lashed the foremost horses across their faces with her
quirt. She wheeled her mount and kept on beside the motor-car as its
driver tried to speed up along the trail.
The mad herd seemed intent on keeping with the motor-train. Wonota gave
the pinto his head and lent her entire attention to striking at the
first horses in the stampede. Her quirt brought squeals of pain from
more than one of the charging animals.
She fell in behind the car at last, and the scattering members of the
stampede swept by. Back charged several of the pony riders, but too
late to give any aid. The chauffeur of Ruth's car slackened his
dangerous pace and yelled:
"It's all over, you fellers! We might have been trod into the ground for
all of you. It takes this Injun gal to turn the trick. I take off my hat
to Wonota."
"I guess we all take off our hats to her!" cried Helen, sitting up
again. "She saved us--that is what she did!"
"Good girl, Wonota!" Ruth exclaimed, as the snorting pinto brought its
rider up beside the motor-car again.
"It was little to do," the Indian girl responded modestly. "After all
you have done for me, Miss Fielding. And I am not afraid of horses."
"Them horses was something to be afraid of--believe me!" ejaculated one
of the men. "The gal's a peach of a rider at that."
Here Helen suddenly demanded to know where Jennie was.
"I do believe she's burrowed right through the bottom of this tonneau!"
"Haven't either!" came in the muffled voice of the fleshy girl, and she
began to rise up from under enveloping robes. "Take your foot off my
arm, Nell. You're trampling me awfully. I thought it was one of those
dreadful horses!"
"Well--I--like--that!" gasped Helen.
"I didn't," Jennie groaned, finally coming to the surface--like a
porpoise, Ruth gigglingly suggested, to breathe! "I was sure one of
those awful creatures was stamping on me. If I haven't suffered _this_
day! Such spots as were not already black and blue, are now properly
bruised. I shall be a sight."
"Poor Heavy!" said Ruth. "You always have the hard part. But, thank
goodness, we escaped in safety!"
"Do let's go to a hotel somewhere and stay a week to recuperate," begged
the fleshy girl, as they rode on toward the railroad town. "One day of
movie making calls for a week of rest--believe me!"
"You and Helen can remain at the car--"
"Not me!" cried Helen Cameron. "I do not wish to be in the picture
again, but I want to see it made."
After they arrived at the special car, where a piping hot supper was
ready for them, the girls forgot the shock of their adventure. Jennie,
however, groaned whenever she moved.
"'Tis too bad that fat girl got so bunged up," observed one of the
punchers to Helen Cameron. "I see she's a-sufferin'."
"Miss Stone's avoirdupois is forever making her trouble," laughed Helen,
rather wickedly.
"Huh?" demanded the man. "Alfy Dupoy? Who's that? Her feller?"
"Oh, dear me, no!" gasped Helen. "_His_ name is Henri Marchand. I shall
have to tell her that."
"Needn't mind," returned the man. "I can't be blamed for
misunderstanding half what you Easterners say. You got me locoed right
from the start."
The joke had to be told when the three friends retired that night, and
it was perhaps fortunate that Jennie Stone possessed an equable
disposition.
"I am the butt of everybody's joke," she said, complacently. "That is
what makes me so popular. You see, you skinny girls are scarcely
noticed. It is me the men-folk give their attention to."
"Isn't it nice to be so perfectly satisfied with one's self?" observed
Helen, scornfully. "Come on, Ruthie! Let's sleep on that."
There were other topics to excite the friends in the morning, even
before the company got away for the "location." Mail which had followed
them across the continent was brought up from the post-office to the
special car. Helen and Ruth were both delighted to receive letters from
Captain Tom.
In the one to Ruth the young man acknowledged the receipt of her letter
bearing on the matter of Chief Totantora. He said that news of the
captured Wild West performers had drifted through the lines long before
the armistice, and that he had now set in motion an inquiry which might
yield some important news of the missing Osage chieftain--if he was yet
alive--before many weeks. As for his own return, Tom could not then
state anything with certainty.
* * * * *
"Nobody seems to know," he wrote. "It is all on the knees of the
gods--and a badgered War Department. But perhaps I shall be with you,
dear Ruth, before long."
* * * * *
Ruth did not show her letter to her girl friends. Jennie had received no
news from Henri, and this disaster troubled her more than her bruised
flesh. She went around with a sober face for at least an hour--which was
a long time for Jennie Stone to be morose.
William, the driver who had handled the emigrant wagon the day before,
came along as the men were saddling the ponies for the ride out to the
ranch. He had an open letter in his hand that he had evidently just
received.
"Say!" he drawled, "didn't I hear something about you taking this Injun
gal away from Dakota Joe's show? Ain't that so, Miss Fielding?"
"Her contract with that man ran out and Mr. Hammond hired her," Ruth
explained.
"And that left the show flat in Chicago?" pursued William.
"It was in Chicago the last we saw of it," agreed Ruth. "But Wonota had
left Dakota Joe's employ long before that--while the show was in New
England."
"Wal, I don't know how that is," said William. "I got a letter from a
friend of mine that's been ridin' with Dakota Joe. He says the show's
done busted and Joe lays it to his losing this Injun gal. Joe's a mighty
mean man. He threatens to come out here and bust up this whole company,"
and William grinned.
"You want to tell Mr. Hammond that," said Ruth, shortly.
"I did," chuckled William. "But he don't seem impressed none. However,
Miss Fielding, I want to say that Dakota Joe has done some mighty mean
tricks in his day. Everybody knows him around here--yes, ma'am! If he
comes here, better keep your eyes open."