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Page 30
For the time the taking of the picture was called off. The traffic
officer allowed the stalled cars to pass on. A crowd began to assemble
about Ruth.
"Do take me into the hotel--somewhere!" she gasped. "I--I can't walk--"
One of the camera men and the director, Mr. Hooley, made a seat with
their hands, and sitting in this and with Wonota to steady her, the girl
of the Red Mill was hurried under cover, leaving the throng of
spectators on the street quite sure that the accident had been a planned
incident of the moving picture people. They evidently considered Ruth a
"stunt actress."
It was not until Ruth was alone with Wonota in a hotel room, lying on a
couch, the Indian girl stripping the shoe and stocking from the injured
limb, that Ruth asked what Wonota had meant when she first bounded
toward her, shrieking her warning of the motor-car's approach.
"What did you mean, Wonota?" asked the girl of the Red Mill. "Who was it
ran over me? I know Mr. Hooley will try to find him, but--"
"That bad, _bad_ Dakota Joe!" interrupted the Indian girl with
vehemence, her eyes flashing and the color deeping in her bronze cheeks.
"When your friend told us he was in this city, I feared."
"Why, Wonota!" cried Ruth, sitting up in surprise, "do you mean to say
that Dakota Joe Fenbrook was driving that car?"
"No. He cannot drive a car. But it was one of his men--Yes."
"I can scarcely believe it. He deliberately ran me down?"
"I saw Dakota Joe in the back of the car just as it shot down toward
you, Miss Fielding. He is a bad, bad man! He was leaning forward urging
that driver on. I know he was."
"Why, it seems terrible!" Ruth sighed. "Yes, that feels good on my
ankle, Wonota. I do not believe it is really sprained. Oh, but it hurt
at first! Wrenched, I suppose."
Jim Hooley, the director, had telephoned for Mr. Hammond, and the
producer hurried to the hotel. He insisted on bringing a surgeon with
him. But by the time of their arrival Ruth felt much easier, and after
the medical man had pronounced no real harm done to the ankle, Ruth
dressed again, insisting that a second attempt be made to shoot the
scene while the sun remained high enough.
The police had endeavored to trace the motor-car that had caused the
accident. But it seemed that nobody had noted the numbers on the
machine, or even the kind of car it was. Ruth had forbidden Wonota to
tell what she revealed to her. If it was Dakota Joe who had run her down
there was no use attempting to fasten the guilt of the incident upon him
unless they were positive and could prove his guilt.
"And you know, Wonota, you cannot be _sure_--"
"I saw him. It was for but a moment, but I _saw_ him," said the Indian
girl positively.
"Even at that, it would take corroborative testimony to convince the
court," mused Ruth.
"I do not understand paleface laws," said Wonota, shaking her head. "If
an Indian does something like that to another Indian, the injured one
can punish his enemy. And he almost always does."
"But we cannot take the law into our own hands that way."
"Why not?" asked Wonota. "Is a redman so much superior to a white man?
If the redman can punish an enemy why cannot a white man?"
"Our law does not leave it in our hands to punish," said Ruth, quietly,
though rather staggered by the Indian girl's question. "We have courts,
and judges, and methods of criminal procedure. A person who has been
injured by another cannot be the best judge of the punishment to be
meted out to the one who has harmed him."
"Why not?" demanded Wonota, promptly. "He is the one hurt. Who other
than he should deal out punishment?"
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