CHAPTER XXIV
WONOTA'S SURPRISE
Ruth Fielding might have cried out. But at that moment the attention ofeveryone was so given to the taking of the important scene that perhapsnobody would have understood her cry--what it meant.
Behind her Dakota Joe stretched forward, pushing the stick into thesmall of her back and urging her closer to the brink. The spot on whichshe stood was so narrow that it was impossible for her to escape withoutturning her body, and the bad man knew very well that the pressure ofthe stick kept her from doing that very thing!
The cameras were being cranked steadily, and Mr. Hooley shouted hisorders as needed. Fortunately for the success of the scene, Onehorse didnot need the admonitions of Ruth to "keep in the picture." The pointcame where he made his leap for the shoulders of the white man, and itwas timed exactly. The two came to the brink of the rock in perfectaccord with the appearance of Wonota on the ground below.
The Indian girl came, gun in hand, as though just from the chase. As sheran into the field of the camera Hooley shouted his advice and sheobeyed his words to the letter. Until----
She raised her eyes, quite as she was told. But she looked beyond Grandand Onehorse struggling on the rock. It was to another figure shelooked--that of Ruth being forced over the verge of the narrow path.
The girl of the Red Mill was half crouched, striving to push backagainst the thrust of the stick in Dakota Joe's hands. The upper part ofFenbrook's body was plainly visible from Wonota's station at the foot ofthe cliff, and his wicked face could be mistaken for no other.
"Now! The gun!" shouted Mr. Hooley. "Wonota! Come alive!"
The Indian girl obeyed--as far as springing into action went. The gunshe held went to her shoulder, but its muzzle did not point at theactors above her. Instead, the threatening weapon pointed directly atthe head of the villain who was forcing Ruth off her insecure footing onthe narrow path.
"What are you doing, Wonota? Wonota!" shouted Mr. Hooley, who could notsee Ruth at all.
The Indian girl made no reply. She drew bead upon the head of DakotaJoe, and his glaring eyes were transfixed by the appearance of thegaping muzzle of Wonota's gun.
He dropped the stick with which he had forced Ruth to the edge of thepath. She fell sideways, dizzy and faint, clinging to the rough rockwith both hands. As it was, she came near rolling over the declivityafter all.
But it was Dakota Joe, in his sudden panic, who came to disaster. He hadalways been afraid of Wonota. She was a dead shot, and he believed thatshe would not shrink from killing him.
Now it appeared that the Indian girl held his life in her hands. Themuzzle of her weapon looked to Dakota Joe at that moment as big as themouth of a cannon!
He could see her brown finger curled upon the trigger. Each split secondthreatened the discharge of the gun.
With a stifled cry he tried to leap out of the crack and along the pathdown which he had come so secretly. But he stumbled. His riding bootswere not fit for climbing on such a rugged shelf. Stumbling again, hethrew out one hand to find nothing more stable to clutch than the emptyair!
"Wonota!" shouted Hooley again. "Stop!" He raised his hand, stopping thecameras.
And at that moment there hurtled over the edge of the path a figurethat, whirling and screaming, fell all the distance to the bottom of thecanyon. Helen and Jennie, for a breathless instant, thought it must beRuth, for they knew where she had been hidden. But the voice that roaredfear and imprecations was not at all like Ruth Fielding's!
"Who's that?" shouted Mr. Hammond, likewise excited. "He's spoiled thatshot, I am sure."
Ruth sat up on the shelf and looked over.
"Oh!" she cried. "Is he killed?"
"He ought to be, if he isn't," growled Mr. Hooley. "What did you do thatfor, Wonota?"
The Indian girl advanced upon the man writhing on the ground. Dakota Joesaw her coming and set up another frightened yell.
"Don't let her shoot me! Don't let her!" he begged.
"Shut up!" commanded Mr. Hammond. "The gun only has blanks in it. Wedon't use loaded cartridges in this business. Why! hanged if it isn'tFenbrook."
"Now you have busted me up!" groaned the ex-showman. "I got a brokenleg. And I believe my arm's broken too. And that gal done it."
As Jennie said later, however, he could scarcely "get away with that."Ruth came down and told what the rascal had tried to do to her. For alittle while it looked as though some of the rougher fellows might dothe dastardly Joe bodily harm other than that caused by his fall. ButMr. Hammond hurried him in a motor-car to Clearwater, and there, beforethe moving picture company returned, he was tried and sent to the Statepenitentiary.
The great scene had to be taken over again--a costly and nerve-rackingexperience. Like Ruth herself, Helen and Jennie were glad now when thework was finished and they could head for the railroad.
"Guess you were right, Ruthie," agreed Jennie. "Something did happen. AsAunt Alvirah would have said, you must have felt it in your bones."
"I feel it in my body, anyway," admitted Ruth. "I got dreadfully bruisedwhen I fell on that path. My side is all black and blue."
The misadventures of the occasion were soon forgotten however,especially when the girls reached Clearwater and found a box waiting forthem at the express office. Unsuspicious Wonota was called into thestateroom in the special car, and there her white friends displayed toher delighted gaze the "trousseau," as Jennie insisted upon calling thepretty frock and other articles sent on by Madame Jone.
"For _me_?" asked Wonota, for once showing every indication of delightwithout being ordered to do so by the director. "All for me? Oh, it istoo much! How my father, Chief Totantora, would stare could he see mein those beautiful things. Wonota's white sisters are doing too much forher. There is no way by which she can repay their kindness."
"Say!" said Jennie bluntly, "if you want to pay Ruth Fielding, you justgo ahead and become a real movie star--a real Indian star, Wonota. I cansee well enough that then she will get big returns on her investment.And in any case, we are all delighted that you are pleased with ourpresent."