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Page 22
"I wish Tom were here," Ruth Fielding repeated.
And in less than forty-eight hours this wish of the girl of the Red Mill
seemed to her almost prophetical. Tom Cameron was coming home!
The whole land rejoiced over that fact. The whole world, indeed, gave
thanks that it was possible for a young captain in the American
Expeditionary Forces to look forward to his release and return to his
home.
The armistice had been declared. Cheslow, like every town and city in
the Union, celebrated the great occasion. It was not merely a day's
celebration. The war was over (or so it seemed) and the boys who were so
much missed would be coming home again. It took some time for Ruth and
her friends to realize that this return must be, because of the nature
of things, postponed for many tiresome months.
Before Tom Cameron was likely to be freed from the army, the matter of
the Indian girl's engagement with the moving picture corporation must be
completely settled--at least, as far as Dakota Joe's claim upon Wonota's
services went.
CHAPTER IX
THE PLOT DEVELOPS
Ruth had insisted upon Wonota's remaining at the Red Mill from the hour
she had ridden there for protection. Not that they believed Fenbrook
would actually harm the Indian girl after he had cooled down. But it was
better that she should be in Ruth's care as long as she was to work
somewhat under the latter's tutelage.
Besides, it gave the picture writer a chance to study her subject. It
would be too much to expect that Wonota could play a difficult part. She
had had no experience in acting. Ruth knew that she must fit a part to
Wonota, not the girl to a part. In other words, the Indian girl was
merely a type for screen exploitation, and the picture Ruth wrote must
be fitted to her capabilities.
Grasping, like any talented writer does, at any straw of novelty, Ruth
had seen possibilities in the little incident Aunt Alvirah had told
about her ancestor who had crossed the Western plains in the early
emigrant days. She meant to open her story with a similar incident, as
a prologue to the actual play.
Ruth made her heroine (the part she wished to fit to Wonota, the Osage
Indian girl) repay in part the debt her family owed the white physician
by saving a descendant of the physician from peril in the Indian
country. This young man, the hero, is attracted by the Indian maid who
has saved his life; but he is under the influence of a New York girl,
one of the tourist party, to whom he is tentatively engaged.
But the New York girl deserts the hero when he gets into difficulty in
New York. He is accused of a crime that may send him to the penitentiary
for a long term and there seems no way to disprove the crime. Word of
his peril comes to the Indian maid in her Western home. She knows and
suspects the honesty of the timber men with whom the hero is connected
in business. She discovers these villains are the guilty ones, and she
travels to New York to testify for him and to clear him of the charge.
The end of the story, as well as the beginning, was to be filmed in the
wilds.
With the incidents of her plot gradually taking form in her mind and
being jotted down on paper, Ruth's hours began to be very full. She was
with Wonota as much as possible, and the Indian girl began to show an
almost doglike devotion to the girl of the Red Mill.
"That is not to be wondered at, of course," Jennie Stone said, as she
was about to return to her New York home. "Everybody falls for our Ruth.
It's a wonder to me that she has not been elected to the presidency."
"Wait till we women get the vote," declared Helen. "Then we'll send Ruth
to the chair."
"Goodness!" ejaculated Jennie. "That sounds terrible, Nell! One might
think you mean the electric chair."
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