CHAPTER XV
PURSUING DANGER
When a mule is once going, it is just as stubborn about stopping as itis about being started if it feels balky. The leading span attached tothe covered wagon in which Ruth and her two chums, Helen Cameron andJennie Stone, rode had now communicated their own fright to the fourother animals. All six were utterly unmanageable.
"Do tell him to stop, Ruth!" shrieked Jennie Stone from the rear of thewagon.
The next moment she shot into the air as the wheels on one side bouncedover an outcropping boulder. She came down clawing at Helen to saveherself from flying out of the end of the wagon.
"Oh! This is too much!" shouted Helen, quite as frightened as hercompanion. "I mean to get out! Don't a-a-ask me to--to act in movingpictures again. I never will!"
"Talk about rough stuff!" groaned Jennie. "This is the limit."
Neither of them realized the danger that threatened. Of the three girlsonly Ruth knew what was just ahead. The maddened mules were dragging theemigrant wagon for a pitch into the ravine that boded nothing less thandisaster for all.
In the band of Indians riding for the string of covered wagons Wonotahad been numbered. She could ride a barebacked pony as well as any buckin the party. She had removed her skirt and rode in the guise of a youngbrave. The pinto pony she bestrode was speedy, and the Osage maidmanaged him perfectly.
Long before the train of wagons and the pursuing band of Indians gotinto the focus of the cameras, Wonota, as well as her companions, sawthat the six mules drawing the head wagon were out of control. The dashof the frightened animals added considerable to the realism of thepicture, as they swept past Jim Hooley and his camera men; but thedirector was quite aware that disaster threatened William's outfit.
"Crank it up! Crank it!" he commanded the camera men. "It looks as if wewere going to get something bigger than we expected."
Mr. Hammond stood behind him. He saw the three white girls in the rear ofthe wagon. It was he who shouted:
"That runaway must be stopped! It's Miss Fielding and her friends inthat wagon. Stop them!"
"Great Scott, Boss! how you going to stop those mules?" Jim Hooleydemanded.
But Wonota did not ask anybody as to the method of stopping the runaway.She was perfectly fearless--of either horses or mules. She lashed herpinto ahead of the rest of the Indian band, cut across a curve of thetrail, and bore down on the runaway wagon.
"That confounded girl is spoiling the shot!" yelled Hooley.
"Never mind! Never mind!" returned Mr. Hammond. "She is going to dosomething. There!"
And Wonota certainly did do something. Aiming her pinto across the nosesof the lead-mules, she swerved them off the trail before they reachedthat sharp turn at the break of the rough hill. The broken rein made itimpossible for the driver to swerve the leaders that way; but Wonotaturned the trick.
William stood up, despite the bounding wagon, his foot on the brake,yanking with all his might at the jaws of the other four mules. All sixswung in a wide circle. But William admitted that it was the Indian girlwho started the crazed mules into this path.
The wheels dipped and bounced, threatening each moment to capsize thewagon. But the catastrophe did not occur. The other Indians rode downupon the head of the string of wagons madly, with excited whoops. Foronce the whole crowd forgot that they were making a picture.
And that very forgetfulness on the part of the actors made the picture agreat success The finish was not quite as Ruth had written the story, oras Hooley had planned to take it. But it was better!
"It's a peach! It's a peach! The shot was perfect!" the director cried,smiting Mr. Hammond on the back in his excitement. "What do you knowabout that, Boss? Can't we let her stand as the camera has it?"
"I believe it is a good shot," agreed Mr. Hammond. "We'll try it outto-night in the car." One end of the special car was arranged as aprojection room. "If the Indians did not hide the wagon too much, thatdash of the girl was certainly spectacular."
"It was a peach," again declared the director. "And nobody will ever seethat she is a girl instead of a man. We got one good shot, here, Mr.Hammond, whether anything else comes out right or not."
The girls who had taken the parts of emigrant women in the runaway wagonwere not quite so enthusiastic over the success of the event, not evenwhen the director sent his congratulations to them. All three weredetermined that if a "repeat" was demanded, they would refuse to playthe parts again.
"I don't want to ride in anything like that wagon again," declared Ruth."It was awful."
"Enough is enough," agreed Helen. "Another moment, and we would havebeen out on our heads."
"I'm black and blue--or will be--from collar to shoes. _What_ a jouncingwe did get! Girls, do you suppose that fellow with the shaggy ears didit on purpose?"
"Whom do you mean--William or one of the mules?" asked Helen.
"I am sure William was helpless," said Ruth. "He was just as much scaredas we were. But Wonota was just splendid!"
"I am willing to pass her a vote of thanks," groaned Jennie. "But wecan't expect her to be always on hand to save us from disaster. Youdon't catch me in any such jam again."
"Oh, nothing like this is likely to happen to us again," Ruth said."We're just as safe taking this picture as we would be at home--at theRed Mill, for instance."
"I don't know about that," grumbled Helen. "I feel that more trouble ishanging over us. I feel it in my bones."
"You'd better get a new set of bones," said Ruth cheerfully. "Yours seemto be worse, even, than poor Aunt Alvira's."
"Nell believes that life is just one thing after another," chuckledJennie Stone. "Having struck a streak of bad luck, it _must_ keep up."
"You wait and see," proclaimed Helen Cameron, decisively nodding herhead.
"That's the easiest thing in the world to do--_wait_," gibed Ruth.
"No, it isn't, either. It's the hardest thing to do," declared Jennie,and Ruth thought she could detect a shade of sadness in the light tonethe plump girl adopted. "And especially when--as Nell predicts--we arewaiting for some awful disaster. Huh--" and the girl shuddered asrealistically as perfect health and unshaken nerves and good naturewould permit--"are we to pass our lives under the shadow of impendingperil?"
It did seem, however, as though Helen had come under the mantle of someseeress of old. Jennie flatly declared that "Nell must be a descendantof the Witch of Endor."
The company managed to make several scenes that day without furtherdisaster. Although in taking a close-up of the charging Indian chiefone of the camera men was knocked down by the rearing pony the chiefrode, and a perfectly good two hundred dollar camera was smashed beyondhope of repair.
"It's begun," said Helen, ruefully. "You see!"
"If you have brought a hoodoo into this outfit, woe be it to you!" criedRuth.
"It is not me," proclaimed her chum. "But I tell you _something_ isgoing to happen."
They worked so late that it was night before the company took the trailfor Clearwater Station. There was no moon, and the stars were veiled bya haze that perhaps foreboded a storm.
This coming storm probably was what caused the excitement in a horseherd that they passed when half way to the railroad line. Or it mighthave been because the motor-cars, of which there were four, were strangeto the half-wild horses that the bunch became frightened.
"There's something doing with them critters, boys!" William, who wasriding ahead, called back to the other pony riders, who were rear guardto the automobiles. "Keep yer eyes peeled!"
His advice was scarcely necessary. The thunder of horse-hoofs on theturf was not to be mistaken. Through the darkness the stampeding animalsswept down upon the party.
"Git, you fellers!" yelled another rider. "And keep a-goin'! Jest splitthe wind for the station!"
The horsemen swept past the jouncing motor-cars. Some of the women inthe cars screamed. Helen cried:
"What did I tell you!"
"Don't--_dare_--tell
us anything more!" jerked out Jennie.
Through the murk the girls saw the heads and flaunted manes of thecoming horses. Just what harm they might do to the motor-cars, whichcould not be driven rapidly on this rough trail, Ruth and her two chumsdid not know. But the threat of the wild ponies' approach was not to beignored.