CHAPTER VI
AN ABDUCTION
The ride in Helen's car was enjoyable, especially for Aunt Alvirah. Howthat old lady did smile and (as she herself laughingly said) "gabble" herdelight! Being shut inside the house so much, the broader sight of thesurrounding country and the now peacefully flowing Lumano River wasindeed a treat.
Helen drove up the river and over the Long Bridge, where she halted thecar for a time that they might look both up and down the stream. And itwas from this point that Ruth again caught a glimpse of the motor-boatshe had before spied near the roadside inn.
There was but one man in it now, and the boat was moored to the root of abig tree that overhung the little cove. Not that there was anythingastonishing or suspicious in the appearance of the boat. Merely, it wasthere and seemed to have no particular business there. And the girl ofthe Red Mill recalled that Mr. Horatio Bilby's motor-car was backed intothe bushes near that spot.
Had Mr. Bilby, who had announced that his business in this vicinity wasto obtain possession of Wonota, anything to do with the men in the boat?The thought may have been but an idle suggestion in Ruth's mind.
Intuition was strong in Ruth Fielding, however. Somehow, the abandonedcar being there near the inn where Totantora was staying and to whichWonota had gone to see her father, and the unidentified motor-boatlurking at the river's edge in the same vicinity, continued to rap aninsistent warning at the door of the girl's mind.
"Helen, let's go back," she said suddenly, as her chum was about to letin the clutch again. "Turn around--do."
"What for?" asked Helen wonderingly, yet seeing something in theexpression of Ruth's face that made her more than curious.
"I--I feel that everything isn't right with Wonota."
"Wonota!"
Ruth, in low tones, told her chum her fears--told of Bilby's call at themill--mentioned the fact that the Indian girl was probably at this timeat the roadside inn and that the rival moving picture producer wasperhaps there likewise.
"What do you know about that!" gasped Helen. "Is there going to be a realfight for the possession of Wonota, do you think?"
"And for Totantora too, perhaps. For he figures importantly in thispicture we are about to make up on the St. Lawrence."
"Fine!" exclaimed Helen Cameron. "There is going to be something doingbesides picture making. Why, Ruth! you couldn't keep me from going withyou to-morrow. And I know Tommy-boy will be crazy to be in it, too."
Ruth made an appealing gesture as Helen began to back and turn the car.
"Don't frighten Aunt Alvirah," she whispered.
Helen was delighted with any prospect for action. It must be confessedthat she did not think much about disappointment or trouble accruing toother people in any set of circumstances; she never had been particularlythoughtful for others. But she was brave to the point of recklessness,and she was at once excited regarding the suggested danger to her chum'splans.
Bilby had already, Ruth understood, offered more money to Wonota andTotantora for their services than Mr. Hammond thought it wise to risk inthe venture. And, after all, the temptation of money was great in theminds of the Indians. It might be that Bilby could get them away fromRuth's care. And then what would the Alectrion Film Corporation do aboutthis next picture that had been planned?
Aunt Alvirah made no complaint as to how or where the car went--as longas it went somewhere. She admitted she liked to travel fast. Having beenfor so many years crippled by that enemy, rheumatism, she seemed to findsome compensation in the speed of Helen's car.
The inn was several miles away from the Long Bridge; but the road wasfairly straight, and as the car went over the ridges they could now andthen catch glimpses of the hotel. On the right were cornfields, the darkgreen blades only six or eight inches high; and scattered over them theomnipresent scarecrows which, in the spring, add at least picturesquenessto the New England landscape.
Above the purring of the motor Aunt Alvirah raised her voice to remark tothe chums on the front seat:
"I don't see it now--did it fall down?"
"Did what fall down, Aunty?" asked Ruth, who, though troubled as she wasby her suspicions, could not ignore the little old woman.
"That scarecrow I see coming up. I thought 'twas a gal picking up stonesin that field--the one this side of the hotel. It had a sunbonnet on, andit was just as natural! But it's gone."
"I don't see any scarecrow there," admitted Ruth, turning to look.
At that moment, however, the car she had seen parked in the busheswheeled out into the highway ahead of them. It started on past the hotel.There was another figure beside that of the tubby Horatio Bilby on theseat. Ruth recognized Bilby at once.
"Who's that?" asked Helen, slowing down involuntarily.
"That's the man I spoke of," explained Ruth, "I--I wonder who it isthat's with him?"
"A girl!" exclaimed Helen. "Do you suppose he has got Wonota?"
"Wonota--with a sunbonnet on?" cried her chum.
"I bet he's running away with Wonota!" cried Helen, and started to speedup after the other car.
Ruth laid a quick hand on her chum's arm.
"Wait! Stop!" she cried. "See what a curiously acting thing that is hehas got beside him? Is--It can't be a girl, Helen!"
"It certainly isn't a boy," declared her friend, with exasperation."He'll get away from us. That is a fast car he is driving."
"Wait!" exclaimed Ruth again, and as Helen brought her machine to anabrupt stop Aunt Alvirah was heard saying:
"Now, ain't that reediculous? Ain't it reediculous?"
"What is ridiculous?" asked Helen, looking back with a smile at thelittle old woman while Ruth opened the door and leaped out to the side ofthe road nearest the river.
"Why, where are your eyes, Helen Cameron?" demanded Aunt Alvirah."There's that scarecrow now. That feller is a-running away with it!"
Helen flashed another look along the road. The figure beside Bilby on theseat had been set upright again. Now the girl saw that it was nothing buta figure. It was no girl at all!
"What under the sun, Ruth--"
But Ruth was not in hearing. She had dashed into the bushes and to thespot where she had previously seen the roadster belonging to HoratioBilby parked. The bushes were trampled all about. Here and there werebits of torn cloth hanging to the thorns. Yonder was a slipper withrather a high heel. She recognized it as one belonging to Wonota, theOsage girl, and picked it up. The Indian maid was really attempting thefads, as well as the fancies, in apparel of her white sisters!
But what had become of the girl herself? She certainly would not haveremoved one of her pumps and thrown it away. Like Aunt Alvirah and Helen,Ruth knew that the figure beside Bilby in the car was not the missingIndian girl. He had attempted to use the scarecrow he had stolen from thecornfield across the road to bewilder anybody who might pursue him.
And this very attempt of the rival picture producer to foul his trailimpressed Ruth that something serious regarding Wonota and her father wasafoot. If the Indian girl had not gone with Bilby, where had she gone?And where was Totantora?
Ruth could not believe that either Wonota or her father would provefaithless to their contract with Mr. Hammond--not intentionally, atleast. She hesitated there in the trampled bushes for a moment, wonderingif she ought not first to go on to the hotel and make inquiries.
Then she heard something thrashing in the bushes not far away. Shestarted, peering all about, listening. The noise led her to the head of agully that sloped down toward the river's edge. It was bush-bestrewn andthe way was rough. Ruth plunged down the slant of it, and behind thefirst clump of brush she came upon a man struggling on the ground.
His ankles and his wrists were lashed, and when the girl turned him overshe was amazed to see that he was most cruelly gagged with a piece ofstick and a handkerchief.
"Totantora!" she screamed. "What is the matter? Where is Wonota?"
His glaring eyes seemed almost popping from their sockets. Hiscopper-colored
face was a mask of demoniacal rage. His dignity as anIndian and his feelings as a father had been outraged. Yet, Ruth waspositive that the figure in the roadster beside Horatio Bilby was notWonota, the chief's daughter.
Her strong and nimble fingers had gone to work almost at once upon thecord that held the Indians wrists. She loosened them in a few moments.
Totantora leaped to his feet, drew a clasp-knife from the pocket of histrousers, snapped it open, and slashed through the cords about hisankles.
"Where is Wonota? What has happened?" Ruth cried.
The Indian slashed the handkerchief that held the gag in place, draggedit out, and cast it away. He made no reply to Ruth's question, butlifting up his head sent a long and quavering cry through the grove--acry that might have been the war-whoop of his tribe generations before.
However, Ruth knew it was a signal to his daughter that he was free andwas in pursuit. If Wonota was where she could hear!
Speaking not at all to the anxious Ruth, Totantora started down the gullyto the riverside. The girl followed him, running almost as wildly as didthe Indian chief.
Bounding out into the more open grove at the edge of the stream,Totantora uttered another savage yell. Ruth heard, too, the _put, put,put_, of a motor-boat. When she reached the water the boat she hadpreviously observed was some few yards from the bank. There were two menin it now, and Ruth saw at first glance that Wonota, likewise bound andgagged, lay propped up against the small over-decked part of the launch.
The Indian chief halted not even to kick off his moccasins. He ran to theedge of the bank and, the water being deep, dived on a long slant intothe river. He rose almost instantly to the surface, and with a long,swift side-stroke followed after the motor craft, which was now gainingspeed.