BILBY AGAIN
The work of picture making that day went without a hitch. Mr. Hooley sent
several men into the woods above the spot on the shore of the "Kingdom of
Pipes," as Helen insisted upon calling the island where the prologue of
the picture was made, and they remained on watch there during the
activities of the company below.
When the film was developed and run off in the projection room that
evening it was pronounced by all--even by Mr. Hammond--as good in detail
as the spoiled reel.
From that point the work went on briskly, for the weather remained
perfect for picture taking. Ruth was busy; but she could give some time
to enjoyment, too, especially in the evening; and that next evening when
Chess Copley appeared in his own motor-boat, the _Lauriette_, she was
glad to join a moonlight boating party which ventured as far as
Alexandria Bay, where they had supper and danced at the pavilion,
returning to the picture camp in the early hours of the morning.
Ruth was Chessleigh's particular guest on this occasion, and Tom and
Helen Cameron went in another launch.
The moonlight upon the islands and the passages of silvery water between
them was most beautiful. And Ruth enjoyed herself immensely. That is, she
found the occasion enjoyable until they got back to the bungalow and had
bidden the Copleys and their party good night. Then the girl of the Red
Mill found her roommate rather irritable. Helen pouted and was frankly
cross when she spoke.
"I don't see what you find so interesting in Chess Copley," she observed,
brushing her hair before the glass.
"He is nice I think," replied Ruth placidly.
"And you just ignore Tommy-boy."
"I could not very well refuse Chess when he invited me into his launch. I
did not know you and Tom were going in the other boat."
"Well, I wasn't going with Chess. And I wouldn't let Tommy tag after
you."
"I wish you wouldn't be so foolish, Helen," sighed her chum.
"If you act this way," declared the rather unreasonable Helen, "you'll
spoil our whole visit at the Thousand Islands."
"My goodness!" exclaimed Ruth, for once showing exasperation, "you do not
talk very sensibly, Helen. I have come here to work, not to play. Please
bear that in mind. If you think I spoil your sport I will not join any
other evening parties."
The next evening when the Copley party came over to get acquainted with
some of the moving picture people and arrange for a big dance on Saturday
night, Ruth was as good as her word, and remained in Mr. Hammond's
office, recasting certain scenes in her story that Mr. Hooley proposed to
make next day.
Helen was sure Ruth was "mad" and kept out of the way intentionally. She
told Tom so. But she did not choose to relieve Chess Copley's loneliness
when she saw him mooning about.
Whenever Chess tried to speak to Helen in private she ran away from him.
Whether it was loyalty to her brother, Tom, or some other reason that
made Helen treat Copley so unkindly, the fact remained that Chess was
plainly not in Helen's good books, although she made much of the two
Copley girls.
The next day Ruth was quite as busy, for the making of the picture was
going ahead rapidly while the good weather lasted. This story she had
written was more of a pageant than anything she had yet essayed. The
scenes were almost all "on location," instead of being filmed under a
glass roof.
Helen and Tom did not seem to understand that their friend could not go
off fishing or sailing or otherwise junketing whenever they would like to
have her. But picture making and directors, and especially sunlight, will
not wait, and so Ruth tried to tell them.
It was Chess Copley, after all, who seemed to have the better
appreciation of Ruth's situation just at this time. Before a week had
passed he was almost always to be found at Ruth's beck and call; for when
she could get away from the work of picture making, Chess turned up as
faithfully as the proverbial bad penny.
"You are not a bad penny, however, Chess," she told him, smiling. "You
are a good scout. Now you may take me out in your motor-boat. If it is
too late to fish, we can at least have a run out into the river. How
pretty it is to-day!"
"If everybody treated me as nicely as you do, Ruth," he said, rather
soberly, "my head would be turned."
"Cheer up, Chess," she said, laughing. "I don't say the worst is yet to
come. Perhaps the best will come to you in time."
"You say that only to encourage me I fear."
"I certainly don't say it to discourage you," she confessed. "Going
around like a faded lily isn't going to help you a mite--and so I have
already told you."
"Huh! How's a fellow going to register joy when he feels anything but?"
"You'd make a poor screen actor," she told him. "See Mr. Grand to-day. He
has an ulcerated tooth and is going to the Bay to-night to have it
treated. Yet, as the French voyageur, he had to make love to Wonota and
Miss Keith, both. Some job!"
"That fellow makes love as easy as falling off a log," grumbled Chess. "I
never saw such a fellow."
"But the girls flock to see him in any picture. If he were my brother--or
husband--I would never know when he was really making love or just
registering love. Still actors live in a world of their own. They are not
like other people--if they are really good actors."
Copley's _Lauriette_ shot them half way across the broad St. Lawrence
before sunset, and from that point they watched the sun sink in the west
and the twilight gather along the Canadian shore and among the islands on
the American side.
When Chessleigh was about to start the engine again and head for the
camp--and dinner--they suddenly spied a powerful speed boat coming out
from the Canadian side. It cleaved the water like the blade of a knife,
throwing up a silver wave on either side. And as it passed the
_Lauriette_ Ruth and her companion could see several men in her cockpit.
"There are those fellows again," Chess remarked. "Wonder what they are up
to? That boat passed our island yesterday evening and the crowd in her
then acted to me as though they were drunk."
"I should think----Why!" exclaimed Ruth suddenly breaking off in what she
was first going to say, "one of those men is a Chinaman."
"So he is," agreed Chessleigh Copley.
"And that little fat man--see him? Why, Chess! it looks like----"
"Who is it?" asked the young fellow, in surprise at Ruth's excitement.
"It's Bilby!" gasped Ruth. "That horrid man! I I hoped we had seen the
last of him. And now he's right here where we are working with Wonota."
She had said so much that she had to explain fully about Bilby, while
they sat and watched the speed boat disappear up the river. Ruth was sure
she had made no mistake in her identification of the rival picture
producer who had made her so much trouble back at the Red Mill.
"I must tell Mr. Hammond at once," she concluded. "If Bilby is here, he
is here for no good purpose, I can be sure. And if he has a boat like
that at his command, we must keep double watch."
"You think he would try to abduct Wonota again?" queried Chess.
"I would believe that fellow capable of anything," she returned. "I mean
anything that did not call for personal courage on his part."
"Humph!" murmured Chess thoughtfully. "I wonder what he was doing with
the Chinaman in his party. You know, sometimes Chinamen are smuggled
across from Canada against the emigration laws of the States."
He headed the _Lauriette_ for the camp then, and they arrived there in a
rather serious mood.