He turned and climbed into the roadster. But he did not drive back toward Cheslow; instead he went up the river road, and Ruth Fielding remembered that Wonota"s father was stopping at the country inn which was only three or four miles up that road.
"But nothing can happen because of that, of course," the girl thought, as she entered the pa.s.sage that led to the farmhouse from the mill. "Wonota is perfectly safe here, and surely Totantora can take care of himself with that little fat man, or with anybody else!"
She entered the kitchen expecting to find the Indian girl at work with Aunt Alvirah in the old woman"s sunny corner of the great room. The old woman was alone, however.
"Where is Wonota?" Ruth asked.
Before Aunt Alvirah could reply an automobile siren echoed outside of the house. Aunt Alvirah was smiling and waving at somebody and Ruth hurried to the window to look out.
"Here"s Helen come for you, my pretty, in that beautiful big car of hers," said Aunt Alvirah. "Isn"t it fine to be rich?"
"Wait till I make a few more pictures, Aunty, and we"ll have a car too.
If Uncle Jabez won"t buy one, I"ve made up my mind to get a car if it"s only to take you to drive once in a while."
"It wouldn"t hurt Jabez Potter to buy a car," declared the old woman.
"She"s coming in Ruthie. Oh, my back! and oh, my bones!" she murmured, as she got up to receive the visitor.
Helen swept into the house gaily. She always had a kiss for the little old woman who thought her, next to Ruth, the finest girl who ever lived.
"You"re always a sight for anyone to look on with pleasure, Helen Cameron," said Aunt Alvirah. "And you"re mighty smart in that long coat and cap."
"And do you put on your coat and bonnet, Aunty," cried Helen, patting her wrinkled cheek. "I"ve come to take you for a spin. And Ruth, too."
"There"s Wonota," suggested Ruth.
"Of course. The princess shall join us," Helen cried merrily. "Where is she? Tell her to leave her everlasting beadwork long enough to ride in the white man"s motor-car."
"I suppose," said Ruth, starting for the stairway, "Wonota must be up in her own room."
"No, no!" Aunt Alvirah called from her bedroom, to which she had hobbled for her cloak and bonnet. "I was just about to tell you, my pretty.
Wonota has gone out."
"Where did she go?" and Ruth suddenly turned back, and with surprise if not exactly with a feeling of alarm.
"She said she would walk up the road to see her father. She is quite fond of her father, I believe," added Aunt Alvirah, coming back with her wrap and bonnet. "Of course, Indians have family feelings, if they do seem to hide "em so well."
"I am sorry she went out alone," murmured Ruth.
"Pooh! she isn"t a child. And she"ll not lose her way, that"s sure,"
laughed Helen. "Anyway, we"ll overtake her and give her a ride. Chief Totantora, too, if he will deign to step into the white man"s car."
Ruth said no more. But after the visit of Bilby to the mill she could not help but feel some little anxiety. She remembered that Dakota Joe, in whose show Wonota had once worked, had tried his best to make trouble for her and Mr. Hammond because of the Osage maiden; and this Bilby was plainly a much shrewder person than the Westerner had been.
She and Helen aided Aunt Alvirah out to the car. It was a heavy, seven pa.s.senger machine; but Helen could drive it as well as Tom himself.
"And Tommy-boy," she explained as she tucked the robe about Aunt Alvirah before following Ruth into the front seat, "went to town to-day with father."
"I hope he will really get down to work now," said Ruth softly, as Helen began to manipulate the levers.
"Pooh!" exclaimed Helen carelessly. "Work was made for slaves. And Tom had a hard time over in France. I tell dad he ought not to expect Tommy-boy to really work for a long, long time to come."
"Do you think that is right, Helen?" admonished her chum. "Idleness was never good for anybody."
"It isn"t as though Tom was poor. He hasn"t got to toil and delve in an old office--"
"You know it isn"t that," cried Ruth warmly. "But he should make good use of his time. And your father needs him. He ought to be idle now, not Tom."
"Grandmother Grunt!" laughed Helen. "You"re twice as old as Aunt Alvirah right now."
"After what we have been through--after what the world has been through for five years--we all ought to be at work," said Ruth rather severely.
"And Tom is no exception."
"Why, I never knew you to be hard on Tommy-boy before!" pouted Tom"s sister.
"Perhaps I never had occasion to be hard on him before," Ruth answered.
"He is only one of many. Especially many of those who were over there in France. They seem to be so unsettled and--and so careless for the future."
"Regular female Simon Legree, you are, Ruthie Fielding."
"But when Tom first came back he was as eager as he could be to get to business and to begin a business career. And lately, it seems to me, he"s had an awful slump in his ambition. I never saw the like."
"Oh, bother!" muttered Helen, and started the car.
The car shot ahead, and in five minutes they pa.s.sed the country inn, but saw nothing of either Wonota or the Indian chief. In a cove below the river bank, however, Ruth caught a glimpse of a small motor-boat with two men in it. And backed into a wood"s path near the highway was a small motor-car.
Was it the smart roadster Mr. Horatio Bilby had driven to the Red Mill?
Ruth could not be sure. But she did not enjoy the ride with Helen and Aunt Alvirah very much for thinking of the possibility of its being Mr.
Bilby"s car so close to the inn where Chief Totantora was stopping.
CHAPTER VI
AN ABDUCTION
The ride in Helen"s car was enjoyable, especially for Aunt Alvirah. How that old lady did smile and (as she herself laughingly said) "gabble" her delight! Being shut inside the house so much, the broader sight of the surrounding country and the now peacefully flowing Lumano River was indeed a treat.
Helen drove up the river and over the Long Bridge, where she halted the car for a time that they might look both up and down the stream. And it was from this point that Ruth again caught a glimpse of the motor-boat she had before spied near the roadside inn.
There was but one man in it now, and the boat was moored to the root of a big tree that overhung the little cove. Not that there was anything astonishing or suspicious in the appearance of the boat. Merely, it was there and seemed to have no particular business there. And the girl of the Red Mill recalled that Mr. Horatio Bilby"s motor-car was backed into the bushes near that spot.
Had Mr. Bilby, who had announced that his business in this vicinity was to 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 abandoned car being there near the inn where Totantora was staying and to which Wonota had gone to see her father, and the unidentified motor-boat lurking at the river"s edge in the same vicinity, continued to rap an insistent warning at the door of the girl"s mind.