THE PROLOGUE IS FINISHED
"We must do something very nice for Wonota," Helen Cameron said
seriously. "She has twice within a few hours come to our succor. I feel
that we might all three have been seriously injured had she not turned
the mules yesterday, and frightened off those mad horses on the trail
last evening."
"'Seriously injured,' forsooth!" grumbled Jennie Stone. "What do you
mean? Didn't I show you my bruises? I was seriously injured as it was!
But I admit I feel grateful--heartily grateful--to our Indian princess.
I might have suffered broken bones in addition to bruised flesh."
"We could not reward her," Ruth Fielding said decidedly. "I would not
hurt her feelings for the world."
"We can do something nice for her, without labeling it a reward, I
should hope," Helen Cameron replied. "I know what I would like to do."
"What is that?" asked Jennie, quickly.
"You remember when they dressed Wonota up in that evening frock there in
New York? To take the ballroom picture, I mean?"
"Indeed, yes!" cried Jennie Stone. And she looked too sweet for
anything."
"She is a pretty girl," agreed Ruth.
"I saw her preening before the mirror," said Helen, smiling. "That she
is an Indian girl doesn't make her different from the other daughters of
Eve."
"Somebody has said that the fashion-chasing women must be daughters of
Lilith," put in Jennie.
"Never mind. Wonota likes pretty frocks. You could see that easily
enough. And although some of the Osage girls may follow the fashions in
the mail order catalogs, I believe Wonota has been brought up very
simply. 'Old-fashioned,' you may say."
"Fancy!" responded Jennie. "An old-fashioned' Indian."
"I think Helen is right," said Ruth, quietly. "Wonota would like to have
pretty clothes, I am sure."
"Then," said Helen, with more animation, "let us chip in--all three of
us--and purchase the very nicest kind of an outfit for Wonota--a real
party dress and 'all the fixin's,' girls! What say?"
"I vote 'Aye!'" agreed Jennie.
"The thought is worthy of you, Helen," said Ruth proudly. "You always
do have the nicest ideas. And I am sure it will please Wonota to be
dressed as were some of the girls we saw in the audiences at the
theatres we took her to."
"But!" ejaculated Jennie Stone, "we can't possibly get that sort of
clothes out of a mail-order catalog."
"I know just what we can do, Jennie. There is your very own
dressmaker--that Madame Joné you took me to."
"Oh! Sure! Mame Jones, you mean!" cried the fleshy girl with enthusiasm.
"Aunt Kate has known Mame since she worked as an apprentice with some
Fifth Avenue firm. Now Madame Joné goes to Paris--when there is no war
on--twice a year. She will do anything I ask her to."
"That is exactly what I mean," Helen said. "It must be somebody who will
take an interest in Wonota. Send your Madame Joné a photograph of
Wonota--"
"Several of them," exclaimed Ruth, interested as well, although
personally she did not care so much for style as her chums. "Let the
dressmaker get a complete idea of what Wonota looks like."
"And the necessary measurements," Helen said. "Give her _carte blanche_
as to goods and cost--"
"Would that be wise?" interposed the more cautious Ruth.
"Leave it to me!" exclaimed Jennie Stone with confidence. "We shall
have a dandy outfit, but Mame Jones will not either overcharge us or
make Wonota's frock and lingerie too _outré_."
"It win be fine!" declared Helen.
"I believe it will," agreed the girl of the Red Mill.
"It will be nothing less than a knock-out," crowed Jennie, slangily.
The three friends had plenty of topics of conversation besides new
frocks for Ruth's Indian star. The work of making the scenes of the
prologue of "Brighteyes" went on apace, and although they all escaped
acting in any of the scenes, they watched most of them from the
sidelines.
Mr. Hooley had found a bright little girl (although she had no Indian
blood in her veins) to play the part of the sick child in the Indian
wigwam. These shots were taken in a big hay barn near the special car
standing at Clearwater, and with the aid of the electric plant that had
been set up here the "interiors" were very promising.
Several other "sets" were built in this make-shift studio, for all the
scenes were not out-of-door pictures. The prologue scenes, however,
aside from the interior of the chief's lodge, were made upon the open
plain on the Hubbell Ranch not more than ten miles from the Clearwater
station. Two weeks were occupied in this part of the work, for outside
scenes are not shot as rapidly as those in a well equipped studio. When
these were done the company moved much farther into the hills. They were
to make the remaining scenes of "Brighteyes" in the wilderness, far from
any human habitation more civilized than a timber camp.
Benbow Camp lay well up behind Hubbell Ranch, yet in a well sheltered
valley where scarcely a threat of winter had yet appeared. A big crew of
lumbermen was at work on the site, and many of these men Mr. Hammond
used as extras in the scenes indicated in Ruth's script.
Ruth had now gained so much experience in the shooting of outdoor scenes
that her descriptions in this story of "Brighteyes," the Indian maid,
were easily visualized by the director. Besides, she stood practically
at Jim Hooley's elbow when the story was being filmed. So, with the
author working with the director, the picture was almost sure to be a
success. At least, the hopes of all--including those of Mr. Hammond, who
had already put much money into the venture--began to rise like the
quicksilver in a thermometer on a hot day.
The small river on which locations had been arranged for was both a
boisterous and a picturesque stream. There were swift rapids ("white
water" the woodsmen called it) with outthrust boulders and many snags
and shallows where a canoe had to be very carefully handled. Several
scenes as Ruth had written them were of the Indian girl in a canoe.
Wonota handled a paddle with the best of the rivermen at Benbow Camp.
There was no failure to be feared as to the picture's requirements
regarding the Indian star, at least.
Having seen the scenes of the prologue shot and got the company on
location at Benbow Camp, Mr. Hammond went back to the railroad to get
into communication with the East. He had other business to attend to
besides the activities of this one company.
Scenes along the bank and at an Indian camp set up in a very beautiful
spot were shot while preparations for one of the big scenes on the
stream itself were being made.
The text called for a freshet on the river, in which the Indian maid is
caught in her canoe. The disturbed water and the trash being borne down
by the current was an effect arranged by Jim Hooley's workmen. The
timbermen working for the Benbow Company helped.
A boom of logs was chained across the river at a narrow gorge. This held
back for two nights and a day the heavy cultch floating down stream, and
piled up a good deal of water, too, for the boom soon became a regular
dam. Below the dam thus made the level of the stream dropped
perceptibly.
"I am going to put Wonota in her canoe into the stream above the boom,"
Hooley explained. "When the boom is cut the whole mass will shoot down
ahead of the girl. But the effect, as it comes past the spot where the
cameras are being cranked, will be as though Wonota was in the very
midst of the freshet. She handles her paddle so well that I do not think
she will be in any danger."
"But you will safeguard her, won't you, Mr. Hooley?" asked Ruth, who was
always more or less nervous when these "stunt pictures" were being
taken.
"There will be two canoes--and two good paddlers in each--on either side
of Wonota's craft, but out of the camera focus of course. Then, we will
line up a lot of the boys along the shore on either side. If she gets a
ducking she won't mind. She understands. That Indian girl has some
pluck, all right," concluded the director with much satisfaction.
"Yes, Wonota's courageous," agreed Ruth quietly.
Arrangements were made for the next morning. Ruth went with Mr. Hooley
to the bunkhouse to hear him instruct the timbermen hired from the
Benbow Company and who were much interested in this "movie stuff."
The girl of the Red Mill had already made some acquaintances among the
rough but kindly fellows. She stepped into the long, shed-like
bunkhouse to speak to one of her acquaintances, and there, at the end of
the plank table, partaking of a late supper that the cook had just
served him, was no other than Dakota Joe Fenbrook, the erstwhile
proprietor of the Wild West and Frontier Round-Up.