The holding back of the water and the driftwood had formed an angry stretch of river which under ordinary circ.u.mstances Ruth and the other girls who had accompanied her West thought they would have feared to venture upon. The Indian girl, however, seemed to consider the circ.u.mstances not at all threatening.
With her on the river, but instructed to keep on either side and well out of the focus of the cameras, were two expert rivermen, each in a canoe. These men were on the alert to a.s.sist Wonota if, when the dam was broken, she should get into any difficulty.
Below the dam the men were arranged at important points, so that if the logs and drift threatened to pile up after the boom was cut, they could jump in with their pike-poles and keep the drift moving. On one sh.o.r.e the cameras were placed, and Jim Hooley, with his megaphone, stood on a prominent rock.
Across from the director"s station Ruth found a spot at the foot of a sheer 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 would start. She had a good view of all that went on across the river, and up the stream.
Jennie suggested that she and Helen accompany Ruth and watch the taking of the picture from that vantage point, a proposal to which Helen readily agreed. But Ruth evaded this suggestion of her two friends, for she wanted to keep her whole mind on her work, and when Helen and Jennie were with her she found it impossible to keep from listening to their merry chatter, nor could she keep herself from being drawn into it. The upshot was that, after some discussion by the three girls, Ruth set off alone for her station under the brow of the steep river bank.
About ten o"clock, in mid-forenoon, Hooley was satisfied that everything was ready to shoot the picture. One of the foremen of Benbow Camp--the best ax wielder of the crew--ran out on the boom to a point near the middle of the frothing stream and began cutting the key-log. It was a ticklish piece of work; but these timbermen were used to such jobs.
The gash in the log showed wider and wider. Where Ruth stood she c.o.c.ked her head to listen to the strokes of the axman. It seemed to her that there was a particularly strange echo, flattened but keen, as though reverberating from the bank of the river high above her head.
"Now, what can that be?" she thought, and once looked up the slope to the heap of logs which were held in place by chocks on the very verge of the steep descent.
If those logs should break away, Ruth realized that she was right in the path 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, and down stream, was rough.
But, of course, that chopping sound was made by the man cutting the boom. Surely n.o.body was using an ax up there on the pile of logs. She glanced back to the man teetering on the boom log. The gap in it was wide and white. He had cut on the down-river side. Already the pressure from up stream was forcing the gash open, wider and wider----
There came a yell from across the river. Somebody there had seen what was threatening over Ruth"s head. Then Jim Hooley cast his glance that way 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 sh.o.r.e, running frantically for safety. The key log split with a raucous sound. The water and drift-stuff, in a mounting wave, poured through the gap, and the noise of it deafened Ruth Fielding to all other sounds.
She did not even glance back and above again at the peril which menaced her from the top of the steep bank.
CHAPTER XIX
IN DEADLY PERIL
"This stunt business," as Director Hooley called the taking of such pictures as this, is always admittedly a gamble. After much time and hundreds of dollars have been spent in getting ready to shoot a scene, some little thing may go wrong and spoil the whole thing.
There was nothing the matter with the director"s plans on this occasion; every detail of the "freshet" had been made ready for with exactness and with prodigious regard to detail.
The foreman had cut the key log almost through and the force of the water and debris behind the boom had broken it. The man barely escaped disaster by reason of agile legs and sharp caulks on his boots.
The backed-up waters burst through. Up stream, amid the turmoil and murk of the agitated flood, rode Wonota in her canoe, directly into the focus of the great cameras. To keep her canoe head-on with the flood, and to keep it from being overturned, was no small matter. It required all the Indian girl"s skill to steer clear of snags and floating logs. Besides, she must remember to register as she shot down the stream a certain emotion which would reveal to the audience her condition of mind, as told in the story.
Wonota did her part. She was rods above the breaking dam and she could not see, because of an overhanging tree on Ruth"s side of the stream, any of that peril which suddenly threatened the white girl. Wonota was as unconscious of what imperiled Ruth as the latter was at first unknowing of the coming catastrophe.
It was Jim Hooley whom the incident startled and alarmed more than anybody else. He committed an unpardonable sin--unpardonable for a director! He forgot, when everything was ready, to order the starting of the camera. Instead he put his megaphone to his lips and shouted across to Ruth Fielding--who was not supposed to be in the picture at all:
"Jump, Miss Fielding! Quick! Jump into the river!"
And Ruth did not hear him, loudly as his voice boomed across the flood!
She was deafened by the thunder of the waters and the crashing of the logs in mid-flood. Her eyes, now that she was sure the foreman was safe on the other bank, were fixed upon the bow of Wonota"s canoe, just coming into sight behind the ware of foaming water and upreared, charging timbers.
It was a great sight--a wonderful sight. No real freshet could have been more awful to behold. Mr. Hooley"s feat was a masterstroke!
But behind and above Ruth was a scene of disaster that held those on the opposite bank speechless--after Hooley"s first mighty shout of warning.
At least, all but the camera men were so transfixed by the thing that was happening above the unconscious Ruth.
Trained to their work, the camera men had been ready to crank their machines when Hooley grabbed up his megaphone. The boom had burst, the flood poured down, and the Indian maid"s canoe came into the range of their lenses.
It was the most natural thing in the world that they should begin cranking--and this they did! Alone among all those on the far bank of the stream, the camera men were blind to Ruth"s danger.
"She"ll be killed!" shrieked Jennie Stone, while Helen Cameron ran to the water"s edge, stretching forth her arms to Ruth as though she would seize her from across the stream.
The next moment the water flooded up around Helen"s ankles. The stream was rising, and had Jennie not dragged her back, Helen would have been knee-deep in the water--perhaps have been injured herself by one of the flying logs.
Ruth was out of reach of the logs in the stream, although they charged down with mighty clamor, their ends at times shooting a dozen feet into the air, the bark stripping in ragged lengths, displaying angry gashes along their flanks. It was from that great heap of logs above, on the brink of the steep bank, that Ruth was in danger.
A fringe of low brush had hidden the foot of the logpile up there. This hedge had also hidden from the observation of the party across the stream the villains who must have deliberately knocked out the chocks which held the high pile of timbers from skidding down the slope.
Mr. Hooley had seen the logs start. Squeezed out by the weight of the pile, the lower logs, stripped of bark and squealing like living creatures started over the brink. They rolled, faster and faster, down upon the unwarned Ruth Fielding. And behind the leaders poured the whole pile, gathering speed as the avalanche made headway!
The turmoil of the river and the crashing logs would have smothered the sound of the avalanche until it was upon the girl of the Red Mill. No doubt of that. But providentially Ruth flashed a glance across the stream. She saw the party there all screaming at her and waving their arms madly. Jennie was just dragging Helen back from the rising flood of the turbulent river. Ruth saw by their actions that they were trying to draw her attention to something behind her.
She swung about and looked up the almost sheer bluff.
Ruth Fielding was not lacking in quick comprehension. A single glance at the descending avalanche of logs was sufficient to make her understand the peril. She knew that she could not clear the hurtling timbers by running either up stream or down. The way was too rough. As well as Jim Hooley, she knew that escape was only possible by leaping into the river. And that chance was rather uncertain.
Ruth was dressed for the rough outdoor life she was living. She wore high, laced boots, a short skirt, knickerbockers, a blouse, and a broad-brimmed hat.
When she turned to face the turbulent stream the rocking timbers coming down with the released water almost filled the pool before the endangered girl.
Had she worn caulks on the soles of her boots, as did the foreman who had cut the boom, and been practised as he was in "running the logs,"
Ruth would have stood a better chance of escaping the plunging avalanche. As it was, she was not wholly helpless.
She had picked up a peavey one of the timbermen had left on this bank and was using is as a staff as she watched the "freshet" start. Warned now of the danger she was in, the girl of the Red Mill seized this staff firmly in both hands and poised herself to leap from the boulder to which she had stepped.
Only a moment did she delay--just long enough to select the most promising log in the smother of foam and water before her. Then she leaped outward, striking down with the pike-staff and sinking its sharp point in the log to which she jumped.
Behind her the timbers poured down the bluff, landed on their splintering ends on the rocks, and then--many of them--pitched their long lengths into the angry river.
The spray flew yards high. It curtained, indeed, all that occurred for the next few moments upon this side of the stream. However much the scene, arranged by Jim Hooley might need the attention of the moving picture makers, here was a greater and more dangerous happening, in which Ruth Fielding was the leading partic.i.p.ant!
CHAPTER XX
GOOD NEWS