Tragedy was very dose indeed at that moment to the girl of the Red Mill.
Many adventures had touched Ruth nearly; but nothing more perilous had threatened her than this.
She balanced herself on the rushing log with the help of the peavey. She was more than ordinarily sure-footed. But if the log she rode chanced to be hit by one of the falling timbers loosened from their station on top of the bluff--that would be the end of the incident, and the end of the girl as well!
Perhaps it was well that Helen and Jennie could no longer see their chum. The curtain of spray thrown up by the plunging logs from above hid the whole scene for several minutes.
Then out of the turmoil on the river shot the log on which Ruth stood, appearing marvelously to her friends on the other bank.
"Ruth! Ruth Fielding!" shrieked Helen, so shrilly that her voice really could be heard. "Are you alive?"
Ruth waved one hand. She held her balance better now. She shot a glance behind and saw Wonota in the canoe coming down the rapids amid the snags and drifting debris--a wonderful picture!
Jim Hooley, almost overcome by the shock and fright, suddenly beheld his two camera men cranking steadily--as unruffled as though all this uproar and excitement was only the usual turmoil of the studio!
"Bully, boys!" the director shouted. "Keep at it!" Then through the megaphone: "Eyes on the camera, Wonota! Your lover is in the water--you must save him! n.o.body else can reach him There! He"s going down again!
Bend forward--look at him--at the camera! That"s it! When he appears again that log is going to hit him if you do not swerve the canoe in between the log and him--There! With your paddle! Shoot the canoe in now!"
He swerved the megaphone to the men waiting on the bank: "Look out for Miss Fielding, some of you fellows. The rest of you stand ready to grab Wonota when that canoe goes over."
Again to the Indian girl: "Now, Wonota! Pitch the paddle away. Lean over--grab at his head. There it is!"
The Indian girl did as instructed, leaning so far that the canoe tipped.
Mr. Hooley raised his hand. He snapped his fingers. "There! Enough!" he shouted, and the cameras stopped as the canoe canted the Indian girl headfirst into the stream. The rest of that scene would be taken in quiet water.
While the man waded in to help Wonota, Ruth reached the bank and sprang off her log before she was b.u.t.ted off. Helen and Jennie ran to her, and such a hullabaloo as there was for a few minutes!
Jim Hooley came striding down to the three Eastern girls, flushed and with scowling brow.
"I want to know who did that?" he shouted. "No thanks to anybody but my camera men that the whole scene wasn"t a fizzle. And what would Mr.
Hammond have said? Who were those men, Miss Fielding?"
"What men?" asked Ruth in wonder.
"Up there on the other bank? Those that knocked the chocks out from under that heap of logs? You don"t suppose that avalanche of timber started all by itself?"
"I don"t know what you are talking about, Mr. Hooley," declared Ruth Fielding.
"And surely," Helen added quickly, "you do not suppose that it was her fault? She might have been killed."
"I got a glimpse of a man dodging out of the way just as that pile of logs started. I saw the flash of the sun on his ax," and the director was very much in earnest.
It was Jennie who put into words the thought that had come both to Ruth and Helen as well:
"Where is that awful Dakota Joe? He was here last night. He has tried to harm our Ruthie before. I do believe he did it!"
"Who"s that?" demanded the director. "The man who had Wonota in his show?"
"Yes, Mr. Hooley. He was here last night. I spoke with him up in the bunk-house while you were telling the boys about this scene," Ruth said gravely.
"The unhung villain!" exclaimed the director. "He tried to ruin our shot."
Jennie stared at him with open mouth as well as eyes.
"Well!" she gasped after a minute. "That is what you might call being wrapped up in one"s business, sure enough! Ruined your shot, indeed! How about ruining a perfectly good girl named Ruth Fielding?"
"Oh, I beg Miss Fielding"s pardon," stammered the director. "You must remember that taking such a scene as this costs the corporation a good deal of money. Miss Fielding"s danger, I must say, threw me quite off my balance. If I didn"t have two of the keenest camera men in the business all this," and he gestured toward the turbulent river, "would have gone for nothing."
"I can thank Mr. Hooley for what he tried to do for me," smiled Ruth. "I saw his gestures if I could not hear his voice. That was my salvation.
But I believe it must have been Dakota Joe who started that avalanche of logs down upon me."
"I"ll have the scoundrel looked for," promised Hooley, turning to go upstream again.
"But don"t tell these rough men why you want Dakota Joe," advised the girl of the Red Mill.
"No?"
"You know how they are--even some of the fellows working for the picture company. They are pretty rough themselves. I do not want murder done because of my narrow escape."
The other girls cried out at this, but Mr. Hooley nodded understandingly.
"I get you, Miss Fielding. But I"ll make it so he can"t try any capers around here again. No, sir!"
The girls were left to discuss the awful peril that had threatened, and come so near to over-coming, Ruth. Helen was particularly excited about it.
"I do think, Ruth, that we should start right for home. This is altogether too savage a country. To think of that rascal _daring_ to do such a thing! For of course it was Dakota Joe who started those logs to rolling."
"I can imagine n.o.body else doing it," confessed her chum.
"Then I think you should start East at once," repeated Helen. "Don"t you think so, Jennie?"
"I"d hire a guard," said the plump girl. "This country certainly is not safe for our Ruth."
"Neither was New York, it seemed," rejoined Ruth, with a whimsical smile. "Of course we are not sure--"
"We are sure you came near losing your life," interrupted Helen.
"Quite so. I was in danger. But if it was Joe, he has run away, of course. He will not be likely to linger about here after making the attempt."
And to this opinion everybody else who knew about it agreed. A search was made by some of the men for Dakota Joe. It was said he had left for another logging camp far to the north before daybreak that very morning.
n.o.body had seen him since that early hour.
"Just the same, he hung around long enough to start those logs to rolling. And I am not sure but that he had help," Jim Hooley said, talking the matter over later, after Mr. Hammond had arrived from the railroad and had been told about the incident, "He is a dangerous fellow, that Fenbrook."
"He has made himself a nuisance," agreed Mr. Hammond. "Tell William and the other boys to keep their eyes open for him. The moment he appears again--if he does appear--let them grab him. I will get a warrant sworn out at Clearwater for his arrest. We will put him in jail until our picture is finished, at least."
They did not believe at the time that Ruth was in any further peril from Dakota Joe. As for the girls, they were particularly excited just then by some news Mr. Hammond had brought with him from the post-office.