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Page 51
CHAPTER XX
GOOD NEWS
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 d�bris--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! Nobody 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 butted 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."
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