GOOD NEWS
Tragedy was very dose indeed at that moment to the girl of the Red Mill.
Many adventures had touched Ruth nearly; but nothing more perilous had
threatened her than this.
She balanced herself on the rushing log with the help of the peavey. She
was more than ordinarily sure-footed. But if the log she rode chanced to
be hit by one of the falling timbers loosened from their station on top
of the bluff--that would be the end of the incident, and the end of the
girl as well!
Perhaps it was well that Helen and Jennie could no longer see their
chum. The curtain of spray thrown up by the plunging logs from above hid
the whole scene for several minutes.
Then out of the turmoil on the river shot the log on which Ruth stood,
appearing marvelously to her friends on the other bank.
"Ruth! Ruth Fielding!" shrieked Helen, so shrilly that her voice really
could be heard. "Are you alive?"
Ruth waved one hand. She held her balance better now. She shot a glance
behind and saw Wonota in the canoe coming down the rapids amid the snags
and drifting débris--a wonderful picture!
Jim Hooley, almost overcome by the shock and fright, suddenly beheld his
two camera men cranking steadily--as unruffled as though all this uproar
and excitement was only the usual turmoil of the studio!
"Bully, boys!" the director shouted. "Keep at it!" Then through the
megaphone: "Eyes on the camera, Wonota! Your lover is in the water--you
must save him! Nobody else can reach him There! He's going down again!
Bend forward--look at him--at the camera! That's it! When he appears
again that log is going to hit him if you do not swerve the canoe in
between the log and him--There! With your paddle! Shoot the canoe in
now!"
He swerved the megaphone to the men waiting on the bank: "Look out for
Miss Fielding, some of you fellows. The rest of you stand ready to grab
Wonota when that canoe goes over."
Again to the Indian girl: "Now, Wonota! Pitch the paddle away. Lean
over--grab at his head. There it is!"
The Indian girl did as instructed, leaning so far that the canoe tipped.
Mr. Hooley raised his hand. He snapped his fingers. "There! Enough!" he
shouted, and the cameras stopped as the canoe canted the Indian girl
headfirst into the stream. The rest of that scene would be taken in
quiet water.
While the man waded in to help Wonota, Ruth reached the bank and sprang
off her log before she was butted off. Helen and Jennie ran to her, and
such a hullabaloo as there was for a few minutes!
Jim Hooley came striding down to the three Eastern girls, flushed and
with scowling brow.
"I want to know who did that?" he shouted. "No thanks to anybody but my
camera men that the whole scene wasn't a fizzle. And what would Mr.
Hammond have said? Who were those men, Miss Fielding?"
"What men?" asked Ruth in wonder.
"Up there on the other bank? Those that knocked the chocks out from
under that heap of logs? You don't suppose that avalanche of timber
started all by itself?"
"I don't know what you are talking about, Mr. Hooley," declared Ruth
Fielding.
"And surely," Helen added quickly, "you do not suppose that it was her
fault? She might have been killed."
"I got a glimpse of a man dodging out of the way just as that pile of
logs started. I saw the flash of the sun on his ax," and the director
was very much in earnest.
It was Jennie who put into words the thought that had come both to Ruth
and Helen as well:
"Where is that awful Dakota Joe? He was here last night. He has tried to
harm our Ruthie before. I do believe he did it!"
"Who's that?" demanded the director. "The man who had Wonota in his
show?"
"Yes, Mr. Hooley. He was here last night. I spoke with him up in the
bunk-house while you were telling the boys about this scene," Ruth said
gravely.
"The unhung villain!" exclaimed the director. "He tried to ruin our
shot."
Jennie stared at him with open mouth as well as eyes.
"Well!" she gasped after a minute. "That is what you might call being
wrapped up in one's business, sure enough! Ruined your shot, indeed! How
about ruining a perfectly good girl named Ruth Fielding?"
"Oh, I beg Miss Fielding's pardon," stammered the director. "You must
remember that taking such a scene as this costs the corporation a good
deal of money. Miss Fielding's danger, I must say, threw me quite off my
balance. If I didn't have two of the keenest camera men in the business
all this," and he gestured toward the turbulent river, "would have gone
for nothing."
"I can thank Mr. Hooley for what he tried to do for me," smiled Ruth. "I
saw his gestures if I could not hear his voice. That was my salvation.
But I believe it must have been Dakota Joe who started that avalanche of
logs down upon me."
"I'll have the scoundrel looked for," promised Hooley, turning to go
upstream again.
"But don't tell these rough men why you want Dakota Joe," advised the
girl of the Red Mill.
"No?"
"You know how they are--even some of the fellows working for the picture
company. They are pretty rough themselves. I do not want murder done
because of my narrow escape."
The other girls cried out at this, but Mr. Hooley nodded
understandingly.
"I get you, Miss Fielding. But I'll make it so he can't try any capers
around here again. No, sir!"
The girls were left to discuss the awful peril that had threatened, and
come so near to over-coming, Ruth. Helen was particularly excited about
it.
"I do think, Ruth, that we should start right for home. This is
altogether too savage a country. To think of that rascal _daring_ to do
such a thing! For of course it was Dakota Joe who started those logs to
rolling."
"I can imagine nobody else doing it," confessed her chum.
"Then I think you should start East at once," repeated Helen. "Don't you
think so, Jennie?"
"I'd hire a guard," said the plump girl. "This country certainly is not
safe for our Ruth."
"Neither was New York, it seemed," rejoined Ruth, with a whimsical
smile. "Of course we are not sure--"
"We are sure you came near losing your life," interrupted Helen.
"Quite so. I was in danger. But if it was Joe, he has run away, of
course. He will not be likely to linger about here after making the
attempt."
And to this opinion everybody else who knew about it agreed. A search
was made by some of the men for Dakota Joe. It was said he had left for
another logging camp far to the north before daybreak that very morning.
Nobody had seen him since that early hour.
"Just the same, he hung around long enough to start those logs to
rolling. And I am not sure but that he had help," Jim Hooley said,
talking the matter over later, after Mr. Hammond had arrived from the
railroad and had been told about the incident, "He is a dangerous
fellow, that Fenbrook."
"He has made himself a nuisance," agreed Mr. Hammond. "Tell William and
the other boys to keep their eyes open for him. The moment he appears
again--if he does appear--let them grab him. I will get a warrant sworn
out at Clearwater for his arrest. We will put him in jail until our
picture is finished, at least."
They did not believe at the time that Ruth was in any further peril from
Dakota Joe. As for the girls, they were particularly excited just then
by some news Mr. Hammond had brought with him from the post-office.
Letters from Tom Cameron! He was coming home! Indeed, he would have
started before Ruth and Helen received the messages he wrote. And in
Ruth's letter he promised a great surprise. What that surprise was the
girl of the Red Mill could not imagine.
"Doesn't he say anything about a surprise for me?" demanded Jennie
Stone.
"He doesn't say a word about you in my letter, Heavy," said Helen
wickedly.
"Why, Jennie, he doesn't know you are with us here in the West," Ruth
said soothingly.
"I don't care," sputtered the fat girl. "He must know about my Henri.
And not a word have I heard from or about him in a month. If the war is
over, surely Henri must be as free as Tom Cameron."
"I suppose some of the soldiers have to stay along the Rhine, Jennie,
dear," replied Ruth. "Maybe Henri is one of those guarding the
frontier."
"He is holding the German hordes back, single-handed, from _la belle_
France," put in Helen, smiling.
"Oh, cat's foot!" snapped Jennie. "The Germans are just as glad to stop
fighting as we are. They certainly don't need Henri in the army any
longer. I am going to write to his mother!"