Transcriber’s Note
Italic text displayed as: _italic_
[Illustration: “READY? GO!” AND THE CAMERAS CLICKED.
“_Ruth Fielding in Alaska._” _Page 147_
]
Ruth Fielding
in Alaska
OR
THE GIRL MINERS OF SNOW
MOUNTAIN
BY
ALICE B. EMERSON
AUTHOR OF “RUTH FIELDING OF THE RED MILL,” “RUTH
FIELDING AT GOLDEN PASS,” “BETTY GORDON
SERIES,” ETC.
_ILLUSTRATED_
[Illustration: Decoration]
NEW YORK
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
Books for Girls
BY ALICE B. EMERSON
12mo. Cloth. Illustrated.
RUTH FIELDING SERIES
RUTH FIELDING OF THE RED MILL
RUTH FIELDING AT BRIARWOOD HALL
RUTH FIELDING AT SNOW CAMP
RUTH FIELDING AT LIGHTHOUSE POINT
RUTH FIELDING AT SILVER RANCH
RUTH FIELDING ON CLIFF ISLAND
RUTH FIELDING AT SUNRISE FARM
RUTH FIELDING AMONG THE GYPSIES
RUTH FIELDING IN MOVING PICTURES
RUTH FIELDING DOWN IN DIXIE
RUTH FIELDING AT COLLEGE
RUTH FIELDING IN THE SADDLE
RUTH FIELDING IN THE RED CROSS
RUTH FIELDING AT THE WAR FRONT
RUTH FIELDING HOMEWARD BOUND
RUTH FIELDING DOWN EAST
RUTH FIELDING IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST
RUTH FIELDING ON THE ST. LAWRENCE
RUTH FIELDING TREASURE HUNTING
RUTH FIELDING IN THE FAR NORTH
RUTH FIELDING AT GOLDEN PASS
RUTH FIELDING IN ALASKA
BETTY GORDON SERIES
BETTY GORDON AT BRAMBLE FARM
BETTY GORDON IN WASHINGTON
BETTY GORDON IN THE LAND OF OIL
BETTY GORDON AT BOARDING SCHOOL
BETTY GORDON AT MOUNTAIN CAMP
BETTY GORDON AT OCEAN PARK
BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS
BETTY GORDON AT RAINBOW RANCH
BETTY GORDON IN MEXICAN WILDS
CUPPLES & LEON CO., PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
Copyright, 1926, by
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
RUTH FIELDING IN ALASKA
Printed in U. S. A.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE THREAT 1
II. ALL BUSINESS 9
III. BREAKERS AHEAD 16
IV. THE SPY 24
V. AN OLD ENEMY 32
VI. PREMONITIONS 40
VII. CHESS GOES ALONG 49
VIII. A MAGIC TRIP 56
IX. CHARLIE AGAIN? 62
X. A TANTALIZING GLIMPSE 70
XI. A CHANCE REVELATION 78
XII. DISHEARTENING NEWS 87
XIII. MAN OVERBOARD 94
XIV. KNOCKOUT INN 101
XV. A BOTTOMLESS PIT 110
XVI. TRAPPED 118
XVII. A NIGHTMARE JOURNEY 124
XVIII. COINCIDENCE 130
XIX. THE DWARF 135
XX. A VICIOUS ENEMY 144
XXI. DRAMA 158
XXII. BLOOMBERG STRIKES 172
XXIII. RUTH GOES TO THE RESCUE 181
XXIV. BOARDMAN WAKES UP 188
XXV. THE RECKONING 197
RUTH FIELDING IN ALASKA
CHAPTER I
THE THREAT
“The contents of the missive appear to worry you, Ruth, my love. If
that scowl should freeze on your face, your beauty would be marred
forever.”
Stretched full length on the grass beneath a tree whose branches
spread a grateful shade, Helen Cameron regarded her friend with an
amused and interested smile. As the latter appeared not to notice her
sally, she tried again.
“Can’t you tell me what dreadful news the letter contains?”
Ruth Fielding thus questioned, looked up slowly and sighed. She
gestured with the hand that held her letter.
“It’s from that horrid Bloomberg, Helen,” she said.
“Sol Bloomberg!” Immediately interested, Helen sat up with a jerk and
hugged her knees, gazing expectantly at her chum. “Don’t tell me he,
too, has fallen a victim to your charms, Ruthie Fielding!”
“Don’t be silly.” Ruth spoke in a vague, preoccupied voice. “As a
matter of fact,” she added ruefully, “I imagine whatever feeling Sol
Bloomberg has for me is far from a tender one.”
“Then, what on earth is he writing to you about?” Helen was genuinely
curious. “You aren’t thinking of entering into a business deal with
him, are you?”
Ruth chuckled.
“That deduction is even more absurd than the first one, Helen
Cameron. The mere idea of doing business with——”
“That hard-boiled cheat?” suggested Helen amiably.
“Such language! Nevertheless, Sol Bloomberg is all of that——”
“And then some!” murmured Helen irrepressibly.
“Do you know what he says in this letter?”
“I’ve been trying for some time to find out.”
“He threatens me!” Ruth, sitting cross-legged on the ground, waved
the offending letter for further emphasis. “He actually has the nerve
to threaten me!”
“So you said before.”
“Well, if you are going to be tiresome——”
“I’m not, Ruthie darling. Honest, I’m not. I’m only furiously
interested. What is our old friend Sol threatening you for?”
“Spite mostly, I suppose,” returned Ruth, relapsing once more into
her thoughtful mood. “He wants to frighten me and spoil my pleasure
in the new picture that we filmed at Golden Pass.”
“I hear he has been practically run out of the pictures,” observed
Helen, absently chewing on a bit of grass.
Ruth nodded.
“And of course he blames that all on me.”
“But how can he?” Helen swept back her pretty hair in a puzzled
gesture. “Surely all his troubles have been caused by his own
cheating and double-dealing.”
“Of course they have,” Ruth agreed. “It was Bloomberg, you remember,
who lured Viola Callahan away from the lead in my picture when he
knew to do such a thing at that time would almost certainly ruin the
whole thing——”
“And you fooled him by taking the lead yourself and making a better
leading lady than Viola Callahan ever could,” chuckled Helen.
Ruth tried to bow, which in her cross-legged position was rather a
hard thing to do. Then she frowned and fell silent while she reviewed
the details of her quarrel with Bloomberg.
It all began when she engaged Layton Boardman, an ex-star of
Bloomberg’s, to play the lead in her new Western picture. Though
Bloomberg and Boardman had quarreled, Bloomberg really wanted to
renew the actor’s contract, though at a salary that no actor of
Boardman’s reputation would care to accept.
When the Fielding Film Company signed up Bloomberg’s ex-star at
a good salary, the producer was furious. In retaliation he later
tempted Viola Callahan, Ruth’s leading lady, to come over to him at
a time when Miss Callahan’s desertion would almost certainly ruin
Ruth’s picture.
The fact that Ruth’s picture was not ruined and to avert the
catastrophe she had taken the lead herself—and successfully—had only
served to increase Bloomberg’s dislike of her.
Bloomberg’s own picture, featuring Viola Callahan, was a failure.
This, coupled with the unsavory story of his treachery to the
Fielding Film Company, Ruth’s producing company, served to ruin what
shreds of fortune and reputation he had and practically forced him
out of the producing end of the business.
Ruth supposed, ruefully, that Bloomberg blamed all his misfortunes
upon her because she had dared to sign up Layton Boardman when the
latter was not under contract to Bloomberg or any one else and was
absolutely free to accept any offer that was made him.
“I observed,” drawled Helen, after a considerable silence, “that you
made a love of a leading lady, Ruthie.”
“Thanks, whether I deserve the compliment or not!” was Ruth’s
laughing reply to Helen’s remark. “Anyway, the fact remains that
despite all Bloomberg’s crooked schemes and double-crossing we
managed to triumph in the end, while he——”
“Broke his professional neck,” finished Helen. “I wish it had been
his real one!” she added, with a fierce look that brought a laugh
from Ruth.
“You are getting quite bloodthirsty, Helen Cameron,” she said. “But
at the risk of appearing bloodthirsty myself, I don’t mind saying
that I wish that something not too dreadful would befall our rascally
friend; enough, at any rate, to remove him gently from my life at
present. I have quite enough problems to face without worrying about
Sol Bloomberg!”
“Don’t let it bother you, honey,” said Helen, stretching out lazily
again upon the soft grass. “Just how does he threaten you?” she
added, with a gesture toward the crumpled letter in Ruth’s hand.
“He says he may bring suit against me,” Ruth replied.
“Humph! For what?” Helen retorted. “If anybody ought to bring suit,
it’s you, Ruthie. The man must be crazy.”
“I believe he is—with fury,” said Ruth thoughtfully. “It’s natural
for a man down and out, as Bloomberg is, to rail at the successful,
and in this case he chooses me to vent his spite on.”
“Well, I certainly wouldn’t lie awake nights worrying about him,”
counseled Helen. “What could a failure like Bloomberg do to you whose
reputation is so well established?”
“I don’t know,” said Ruth, playing absently with the letter. “But
this much I can see. I have made a bitter, vindictive enemy of this
man, and I feel that he will leave no stone unturned to do me an
injury. Anyway,” she added, in a lighter tone, “I don’t intend to
worry until I have something more substantial to go on than this
letter. It would be a shame to spoil a day like this—and our ride.”
“Looks as if we weren’t going to get a ride,” grumbled Helen. She
propped herself up on one elbow and scanned the dusty road that wound
along near the Red Mill. “We appear to be forgotten, Ruth Fielding.
Jilted!”
“Not as bad as that, I guess,” laughed Ruth. “It really is barely
time for the boys, you know.”
Tom Cameron, Helen’s twin brother, and Chess Copley, Helen’s fiancé,
had suggested an auto ride to the two girls. Since the day was sultry
and hot, the girls had readily accepted the invitation.
Helen had lunched with Ruth, and now the chums had repaired to the
shaded grounds about the old house to await the arrival of the boys.
Ruth had decided to peruse her morning mail, and among the letters
had found the annoying one from Sol Bloomberg.
The letter reminded the girls forcibly of Ruth’s last venture in
motion picture-making in which the latter had forced her way to
success despite the machinations of this same Bloomberg, and in so
doing had made of the unsuccessful producer a bitter and revengeful
enemy.
Now she tore the paper into tiny bits and with a challenging little
flirt of her fingers scattered the pieces to the four winds. This
accomplished, Ruth felt better, as though, in the act of tearing up
the letter, she had destroyed the potency of Bloomberg’s threat as
well.
But Sol Bloomberg was not a scrap of paper to be so easily disposed
of. His enmity was something to be reckoned with, as Ruth was to
learn full well and to her cost in the days to follow.
But now, as Helen called out that the boys were coming, Ruth put all
premonition of trouble from her mind. For that afternoon at least,
she was determined to leave “shop” behind her.
Tom Cameron had no sooner stepped from the car than she saw there was
some news of an important nature for her. He came to her directly
and held out a yellow envelope.
“Telegram,” he said laconically. “They were just sending it out from
the office when I came along and thought I’d save them the trouble.”
“Thanks, Tom,” and then with a whimsical glance at Helen: “I wonder
if this is another message from Bloomberg!”
The others stood by with interest while Ruth tore open the yellow
envelope. There were so many changes and surprises in the life of
this talented girl, who combined in one person director, author and
screen actress, that her friends were kept continually agog with
interest.
Ruth’s eyes ran hastily through the message. She gave a little cry of
amazement and thrust the telegram toward Tom.
“It’s from Mr. Hammond,” she said in explanation to Chess Copley and
Helen. “He is in business difficulties of some sort——”
“And he wants you to come to New York at once!” ejaculated Tom,
looking up from the telegram. “Now, Ruth Fielding, what do you intend
to do about that?”