CHAPTER XVIII
AN ACCIDENT THREATENING
Probably the ex-showman was not as surprised to see Ruth Fielding as shewas to see him. But he was the first, nevertheless, to speak.
"Ho! so it's you, is it?" he growled, scowling at the girl of the RedMill. "Reckon you didn't expect to see me."
"I certainly did not," returned Ruth tartly. "What are you doing atBenbow Camp, Mr. Fenbrook?"
"I reckon you'd be glad to hear that I walked here," sneered theshowman, and filled his cheek with a mighty mouthful. He wolfed thisdown in an instant, and added, with a wide grin: "But I didn't. I savedmy horse an' outfit from the smash, and enough loose change to bring meWest--no thanks to you."
"I am sorry to hear you have failed in business, Mr. Fenbrook," Ruthsaid composedly. "But I am sorrier to see that you consider me in ameasure to blame for your misfortune."
"Oh, don't I, though!" snarled Dakota Joe. "I know who to thank for mybust-up--you and that Hammond man. Yes, sir-ree!"
"You are quite wrong," Ruth said, calmly. "But nothing I can say willconvince you, I presume."
"You can't soft-sawder me, if that's what you mean," and Dakota Joeabsorbed another mighty mouthful.
Ruth could not fail to wonder if he ever chewed his food. He seemed toswallow it as though he were a boa-constrictor.
"I know," said Dakota Joe, having swallowed the mouthful and washed itdown with half a pannikin of coffee, "that you two takin' that Injun galaway from me was the beginning of my finish. Yes, sir-ree! I could ha'pulled through and made money in Chicago and St. Louis, and all along asI worked West this winter. But no, you fixed me for fair."
"Wonota had a perfect right to break with you, Mr. Fenbrook," Ruth saiddecidedly, and with some warmth. "You did not treat her kindly, and youpaid her very little money."
"She got more money than she'd ever saw before. Them Injuns ain't usedto much money. It's jest as bad for 'em as hootch. Yes, sir-ree!"
"She was worth more than you gave her. And she certainly was worthy ofbetter treatment. But that is all over. Mr. Hammond has her tied upwith a hard and fast contract. Let her alone, Mr. Fenbrook."
"Aw, don't you fret," growled the man. "I ain't come out here to troubleWonota none. The little spitfire! She'd shoot me just as like's not ifshe took the notion. Them redskins ain't to be trusted--none of 'em. Iknow 'em only too well."
Ruth went out of the shack almost before the man had ceased speaking.She did not want anything further to do with him. She was exceedinglysorry that Dakota Joe had appeared at Benbow Camp just when the movingpicture company was getting to work on the important scenes of"Brighteyes." Besides, she felt a trifle anxious because Mr. Hammondhimself did not chance to be here under the present circumstances. Hemight be better able to handle Dakota Joe if the ruffian made trouble.
She said nothing to Jim Hooley about Dakota Joe. She did not wish tobother the director in any case. She had come to appreciate Hooley as,in a sense, a creative genius who should have his mind perfectly free ofall other subjects--especially of annoying topics of thought--if he wasto turn out a thoroughly good picture. Hooley fairly lived in thepicture while the scenes were being shot. He must not be troubled by theknowledge of the possibility of Dakota Joe's being at Benbow Camp forsome ulterior purpose.
Ruth told the girls about the man's appearance when she returned to theshacks where the members of the moving picture company were spending thenight. And she warned Wonota in particular, and in private.
"He is as angry with us as he can be," the girl of the Red Mill told theOsage maiden. "I think, if I were you, Wonota, I would beware of him."
"Beware of Dakota Joe?" repeated Wonota.
"Yes."
"I would beware of him? I would shoot him?" said the Osage girl withsuddenly flashing eyes. "That is what you mean?"
Ruth laughed in spite of her anxiety. "Beware" was plainly a wordoutside the Indian girl's vocabulary.
"Don't talk like a little savage," she admonished Wonota, more severelythan usual. "Of course you are not to shoot the man. You are just to seethat he does you no harm--watch out for him when he is in yourvicinity."
"Oh! I'll watch Dakota Joe all right," promised Wonota with emphasis."Don't you worry about that, Miss Fielding. I'll watch him."
To Ruth's mind it seemed that the ex-showman, in his anger, was likelyto try to punish the Indian girl for leaving his show, or to do someharm to the picture-making so as to injure Mr. Hammond. He had already(or so Ruth believed) endeavored to hurt Ruth herself when she was allbut run over in New York. Ruth did not expect a second attack uponherself.
The next morning--the really "great day" of the picture taking--all atthe camp were aroused by daybreak. There was not a soul--to the verycook of the timber-camp outfit--who was not interested in the matter.The freshet Jim Hooley had planned had to be handled in just the rightway and everything connected with it must be done in the nick of time.
Wonota in her Indian canoe--a carefully selected one and decorated inIndian fashion--was embarked on the sullen stream above the timber-boom.The holding back of the water and the driftwood had formed an angrystretch of river which under ordinary circumstances Ruth and the othergirls who had accompanied her West thought they would have feared toventure upon. The Indian girl, however, seemed to consider thecircumstances not at all threatening.
With her on the river, but instructed to keep on either side and wellout of the focus of the cameras, were two expert rivermen, each in acanoe. These men were on the alert to assist Wonota if, when the dam wasbroken, she should get into any difficulty.
Below the dam the men were arranged at important points, so that if thelogs and drift threatened to pile up after the boom was cut, they couldjump in with their pike-poles and keep the drift moving. On one shorethe cameras were placed, and Jim Hooley, with his megaphone, stood on aprominent rock.
Across from the director's station Ruth found a spot at the foot of asheer bank to the brow of which a great pile of logs had been rolled,ready for the real freshet in the spring when the log-drives wouldstart. She had a good view of all that went on across the river, and upthe stream.
Jennie suggested that she and Helen accompany Ruth and watch the takingof the picture from that vantage point, a proposal to which Helenreadily agreed. But Ruth evaded this suggestion of her two friends, forshe wanted to keep her whole mind on her work, and when Helen and Jenniewere with her she found it impossible to keep from listening to theirmerry chatter, nor could she keep herself from being drawn into it. Theupshot was that, after some discussion by the three girls, Ruth set offalone for her station under the brow of the steep river bank.
About ten o'clock, in mid-forenoon, Hooley was satisfied that everythingwas ready to shoot the picture. One of the foremen of Benbow Camp--thebest ax wielder of the crew--ran out on the boom to a point near themiddle of the frothing stream and began cutting the key-log. It was aticklish piece of work; but these timbermen were used to such jobs.
The gash in the log showed wider and wider. Where Ruth stood she cockedher head to listen to the strokes of the axman. It seemed to her thatthere was a particularly strange echo, flattened but keen, as thoughreverberating from the bank of the river high above her head.
"Now, what can that be?" she thought, and once looked up the slope tothe heap of logs which were held in place by chocks on the very verge ofthe steep descent.
If those logs should break away, Ruth realized that she was right in thepath of their descent. It would not be easy for her to escape,dry-footed, In either direction, for the bank of the river, both up, anddown stream, was rough.
But, of course, that chopping sound was made by the man cutting theboom. Surely nobody was using an ax up there on the pile of logs. Sheglanced back to the man teetering on the boom log. The gap in it waswide and white. He had cut on the down-river side. Already the pressurefrom up stream was forcing the gash open, wider and wider----
There came a yell from across the river. Somebody there h
ad seen whatwas threatening over Ruth's head. Then Jim Hooley cast his glance thatway and yelled through his megaphone:
"Jump, Miss Fielding! Quick! Jump into the river!"
But at that moment the man on the boom started for the shore, runningfrantically for safety. The key log split with a raucous sound. Thewater and drift-stuff, in a mounting wave, poured through the gap, andthe noise of it deafened Ruth Fielding to all other sounds.
She did not even glance back and above again at the peril which menacedher from the top of the steep bank.