|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 48
"Yes."
"I would beware of him? I would shoot him?" said the Osage girl with
suddenly flashing eyes. "That is what you mean?"
Ruth laughed in spite of her anxiety. "Beware" was plainly a word
outside the Indian girl's vocabulary.
"Don't talk like a little savage," she admonished Wonota, more severely
than usual. "Of course you are not to shoot the man. You are just to see
that he does you no harm--watch out for him when he is in your
vicinity."
"Oh! I'll watch Dakota Joe all right," promised Wonota with emphasis.
"Don't you worry about that, Miss Fielding. I'll watch him."
To Ruth's mind it seemed that the ex-showman, in his anger, was likely
to try to punish the Indian girl for leaving his show, or to do some
harm to the picture-making so as to injure Mr. Hammond. He had already
(or so Ruth believed) endeavored to hurt Ruth herself when she was all
but run over in New York. Ruth did not expect a second attack upon
herself.
The next morning--the really "great day" of the picture taking--all at
the camp were aroused by daybreak. There was not a soul--to the very
cook of the timber-camp outfit--who was not interested in the matter.
The freshet Jim Hooley had planned had to be handled in just the right
way and everything connected with it must be done in the nick of time.
Wonota in her Indian canoe--a carefully selected one and decorated in
Indian fashion--was embarked on the sullen stream above the timber-boom.
The holding back of the water and the driftwood had formed an angry
stretch of river which under ordinary circumstances 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
circumstances 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 assist 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 shore
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 cocked
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.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|