TOM TO THE RESCUE
As the panic-stricken cries were rising terrifyingly in the over-crowded
theater pandemonium was intensified by the sudden blinking out of all
the lights.
To be frightened when one can see what danger threatens is one thing. To
be frightened in the dark is quite another!
Confusion became panic. Voices already raised in protest or entreaty
became shrill or hoarse with fear. Mothers called to their children,
children cried for their mothers. The shouts of men rose, entreating
those in their charge to “sit tight and not get scared”--as though they
were not pretty well scared themselves, if they would but admit it!
At the sound of the explosion Ruth had gone as calmly as she could from
the stage to the little bare room that was all there was “behind the
scenes” of the theater.
In the darkness she was forced to feel her way. Suddenly a cloud of
smoke descended upon her, engulfed her, wrapped her about, almost
smothering her. She raised her head instinctively to draw in a breath of
fresh air and found there was no fresh air in that stifling place.
Really frightened now, gasping and sputtering, she floundered about in
the dark, stumbling over things, aware that others were desperately
seeking escape.
“If Tom would only come!” she cried to herself. “I can’t find the
door--there isn’t any door--this awful smoke--oh, if Tom would come!”
She thought of her friends back there in the well of the
theater--thought of Aunt Alvirah and groaned.
She had not the slightest doubt but what Tom was trying to find her. He
would get to her if such a thing were possible. But that
smoke--impossible to breathe----
Tom was doing his best. Out in the dark well of orchestra seats was a
living, surging nightmare. Some had succeeded in making their way to the
exits, had escaped from the smoke-filled exterior to the blessed fresh
air.
But there were those who sought, desperately, friends or members of
their families who had become separated from them in the darkness and
panic.
Ruth’s own party was among these. The boys gripped the girls to prevent
their being carried into the aisles by the maddened crowds that swept
past them. Chess had found Helen and was urging her to sit quietly.
“The only danger is being caught in the mob,” he shouted. “Let these
people get out first.”
“But Ruth!” Helen gasped. “She may be trapped there behind the stage!”
“Tom will take care of her,” Chess prophesied confidently. “Tom--where
is Tom?”
He felt in the seat beside him where just a few moments before Helen’s
brother had been sitting and found, not Tom, but some alien person who
growled at him and pushed past in the general rush to the exits.
At that moment a feeble form brushed against him, a bony old hand
clutched at his arm.
“Ruth!” gasped the harsh voice of Uncle Jabez Potter. “Somebody’s got to
get ahold o’ that girl!”
Chess put an arm about the old man’s shoulders to steady him.
“It’s all right,” he managed to gasp through the thick cloud of smoke
that rolled down upon them. “Tom will see to her.”
“Where’s Aunt Alvirah?” It was Jennie Marchand’s voice shouting through
the dark. “You’ve got to find her, you boys!”
“I’m here!” quavered an old voice, reassuringly close by. “But it don’t
matter about me. Somebody go find my pretty.”
At that very moment Tom was battling his way to the stage. He called
Ruth’s name wildly over and over while he fought the smoke and acrid
fumes to the space behind the scenes.
As for Ruth, though she had faced many and varied dangers before, just
now all of them seemed trifling to the one she was passing through.
Her adventurous career had dated from that time when, as an orphan of
twelve, she had come to live with Great-uncle Jabez Potter and his
sweet, eccentric housekeeper, Aunt Alvirah Boggs.
The Red Mill was just outside the town of Cheslow. In the first volume
of the series, entitled “Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill,” Ruth had become
acquainted with Tom Cameron. The boy had been fortunate enough to do the
orphan a service and it was through Tom that she had met his twin sister
Helen. Mr. Cameron was a rich widower and business man and lived with
his two children in a rather imposing mansion about a mile from the Red
Mill.
A short time after her arrival at her new home Ruth was able to save
Uncle Jabez a considerable amount of money. In return for this she was
allowed by the old man to enter the boarding school, Briarwood Hall, in
company with Helen Cameron. It was at this time that Ruth’s adventures
really began.
At school and college she made many friends, among them Jennie Stone,
who had later married Henri Marchand, a distinguished Frenchman.
While still at school, Ruth became interested in the work of scenario
writing, and in that work achieved a fair success from the start.
The group of her friends who had planned the surprise party on this
particular occasion in order to see the first showing of “Snowblind” had
all taken part in Ruth’s early scenario, entitled “The Heart of a
Schoolgirl,” in which Ruth herself had played the part of chum to the
heroine, a part taken by a woman already known on the screen. From that
time on all Ruth’s friends had been interested in her work for the
“pictures” and had kept as closely in touch with her as possible.
It was only when her pictures became generally known and talked about,
not only for their absorbing plots but for the powerful bits of drama
that made interpretation of the plots unusual, that Ruth felt an
irresistible urge to break away from her former affiliations and to
undertake the directing of her own pictures, as well as writing the
scenarios for them.
The picture “Snowblind” had been the second filmed under her own
direction and the amazing and exciting adventures Ruth and her company
encountered in the filming of it have been related in the story directly
preceding this, entitled “Ruth Fielding in the Far North.”
During all Ruth’s startling and very successful career, Tom Cameron had
been the talented girl’s close companion. He had always admired the girl
from the Red Mill, even when they were youngsters together; but when
Ruth’s extraordinary ability developed this admiration changed to
worship that had a little of awe in it. Ruth was well aware of Tom’s
feeling for her and, though she was fond of the young fellow, strove to
keep Tom and his emotions as much in the background as possible. Ruth
had no intention of marrying and “settling down” until she had proved to
her own complete satisfaction just how far she could go in her chosen
line of work. While Tom accepted this attitude he was, naturally, a
trifle at odds with it.
However, during the preceding year Tom had become Ruth’s business
partner, taking over the tiresome and innumerable details that must
always cling to an enterprise as flourishing and ambitious as the
Fielding Film Corporation, thus leaving the creative genius of his
partner full liberty to soar, as it were, untrammeled.
While this arrangement did not entirely satisfy Tom, it was at least a
business partnership and kept him in close touch with Ruth. Then, too,
he had become sincerely and absorbedly interested in the motion picture
industry on his own account.
Helen’s romance was a more satisfactory one from the general viewpoint.
She had allowed Chess Copley’s ardor to persuade her into an engagement
and the two--who often appeared more like amiable enemies than
lovers--were merely waiting for Chess to “make his fortune” in order to
celebrate the fulfillment of their romance.
So it was that matters stood between these four young folks on this
opening night of “Snowblind” and Ruth’s brief address to an admiring
public.
Now, as Tom fought his way through the smoke-filled theater, he could
think of nothing but how fine Ruth had looked on the stage that night
and of how proud he had been just to know her.
Now she was in danger. Suppose he could not reach her? Suppose she
should be overcome by smoke?
He paused, staggered, brushed a hand across his eyes in an instinctive
effort to clear them of the burning, stinging smoke. No flame--only
smoke? Where did it all come from? What unheard-of, mysterious thing had
happened, anyway?
He flung himself forward, caught at some one who staggered against him.
“Ruth!”
“Oh, Tom!”
Tom half-carried, half-led her toward a door he had stumbled against in
his frantic plungings. He yanked at it, pulled it open, felt a swirling
rush of fresh air.
“Safe, Ruth, safe!”