CHAPTER XI
BILBY AGAIN
The work of picture making that day went without a hitch. Mr. Hooley sentseveral men into the woods above the spot on the shore of the "Kingdom ofPipes," as Helen insisted upon calling the island where the prologue ofthe picture was made, and they remained on watch there during theactivities of the company below.
When the film was developed and run off in the projection room thatevening it was pronounced by all--even by Mr. Hammond--as good in detailas the spoiled reel.
From that point the work went on briskly, for the weather remainedperfect for picture taking. Ruth was busy; but she could give some timeto enjoyment, too, especially in the evening; and that next evening whenChess Copley appeared in his own motor-boat, the _Lauriette_, she wasglad to join a moonlight boating party which ventured as far asAlexandria Bay, where they had supper and danced at the pavilion,returning to the picture camp in the early hours of the morning.
Ruth was Chessleigh's particular guest on this occasion, and Tom andHelen Cameron went in another launch.
The moonlight upon the islands and the passages of silvery water betweenthem was most beautiful. And Ruth enjoyed herself immensely. That is, shefound the occasion enjoyable until they got back to the bungalow and hadbidden the Copleys and their party good night. Then the girl of the RedMill found her roommate rather irritable. Helen pouted and was franklycross when she spoke.
"I don't see what you find so interesting in Chess Copley," she observed,brushing her hair before the glass.
"He is nice I think," replied Ruth placidly.
"And you just ignore Tommy-boy."
"I could not very well refuse Chess when he invited me into his launch. Idid not know you and Tom were going in the other boat."
"Well, I wasn't going with Chess. And I wouldn't let Tommy tag afteryou."
"I wish you wouldn't be so foolish, Helen," sighed her chum.
"If you act this way," declared the rather unreasonable Helen, "you'llspoil our whole visit at the Thousand Islands."
"My goodness!" exclaimed Ruth, for once showing exasperation, "you do nottalk very sensibly, Helen. I have come here to work, not to play. Pleasebear that in mind. If you think I spoil your sport I will not join anyother evening parties."
The next evening when the Copley party came over to get acquainted withsome of the moving picture people and arrange for a big dance on Saturdaynight, Ruth was as good as her word, and remained in Mr. Hammond'soffice, recasting certain scenes in her story that Mr. Hooley proposed tomake next day.
Helen was sure Ruth was "mad" and kept out of the way intentionally. Shetold Tom so. But she did not choose to relieve Chess Copley's lonelinesswhen she saw him mooning about.
Whenever Chess tried to speak to Helen in private she ran away from him.Whether it was loyalty to her brother, Tom, or some other reason thatmade Helen treat Copley so unkindly, the fact remained that Chess wasplainly not in Helen's good books, although she made much of the twoCopley girls.
The next day Ruth was quite as busy, for the making of the picture wasgoing ahead rapidly while the good weather lasted. This story she hadwritten was more of a pageant than anything she had yet essayed. Thescenes were almost all "on location," instead of being filmed under aglass roof.
Helen and Tom did not seem to understand that their friend could not gooff fishing or sailing or otherwise junketing whenever they would like tohave her. But picture making and directors, and especially sunlight, willnot wait, and so Ruth tried to tell them.
It was Chess Copley, after all, who seemed to have the betterappreciation of Ruth's situation just at this time. Before a week hadpassed he was almost always to be found at Ruth's beck and call; for whenshe could get away from the work of picture making, Chess turned up asfaithfully as the proverbial bad penny.
"You are not a bad penny, however, Chess," she told him, smiling. "Youare a good scout. Now you may take me out in your motor-boat. If it istoo late to fish, we can at least have a run out into the river. Howpretty it is to-day!"
"If everybody treated me as nicely as you do, Ruth," he said, rathersoberly, "my head would be turned."
"Cheer up, Chess," she said, laughing. "I don't say the worst is yet tocome. Perhaps the best will come to you in time."
"You say that only to encourage me I fear."
"I certainly don't say it to discourage you," she confessed. "Goingaround like a faded lily isn't going to help you a mite--and so I havealready told you."
"Huh! How's a fellow going to register joy when he feels anything but?"
"You'd make a poor screen actor," she told him. "See Mr. Grand to-day. Hehas an ulcerated tooth and is going to the Bay to-night to have ittreated. Yet, as the French voyageur, he had to make love to Wonota andMiss Keith, both. Some job!"
"That fellow makes love as easy as falling off a log," grumbled Chess. "Inever saw such a fellow."
"But the girls flock to see him in any picture. If he were my brother--orhusband--I would never know when he was really making love or justregistering love. Still actors live in a world of their own. They are notlike other people--if they are really good actors."
Copley's _Lauriette_ shot them half way across the broad St. Lawrencebefore sunset, and from that point they watched the sun sink in the westand the twilight gather along the Canadian shore and among the islands onthe American side.
When Chessleigh was about to start the engine again and head for thecamp--and dinner--they suddenly spied a powerful speed boat coming outfrom the Canadian side. It cleaved the water like the blade of a knife,throwing up a silver wave on either side. And as it passed the_Lauriette_ Ruth and her companion could see several men in her cockpit.
"There are those fellows again," Chess remarked. "Wonder what they are upto? That boat passed our island yesterday evening and the crowd in herthen acted to me as though they were drunk."
"I should think----Why!" exclaimed Ruth suddenly breaking off in what shewas first going to say, "one of those men is a Chinaman."
"So he is," agreed Chessleigh Copley.
"And that little fat man--see him? Why, Chess! it looks like----"
"Who is it?" asked the young fellow, in surprise at Ruth's excitement.
"It's Bilby!" gasped Ruth. "That horrid man! I I hoped we had seen thelast of him. And now he's right here where we are working with Wonota."
She had said so much that she had to explain fully about Bilby, whilethey sat and watched the speed boat disappear up the river. Ruth was sureshe had made no mistake in her identification of the rival pictureproducer who had made her so much trouble back at the Red Mill.
"I must tell Mr. Hammond at once," she concluded. "If Bilby is here, heis here for no good purpose, I can be sure. And if he has a boat likethat at his command, we must keep double watch."
"You think he would try to abduct Wonota again?" queried Chess.
"I would believe that fellow capable of anything," she returned. "I meananything that did not call for personal courage on his part."
"Humph!" murmured Chess thoughtfully. "I wonder what he was doing withthe Chinaman in his party. You know, sometimes Chinamen are smuggledacross from Canada against the emigration laws of the States."
He headed the _Lauriette_ for the camp then, and they arrived there in arather serious mood.