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Page 9
"I am sure, at least, that this Dakota Joe person would have deserved
little sympathy if she had shot him," declared Mercy, with confidence.
"Dear me," admitted Ruth herself, "I want to meet that girl more than
ever now. There must be some mystery regarding her connection with the
owner of the show. They certainly are not in accord."
"You've said something!" agreed Jennie, likewise with conviction.
If Wonota had been at all flurried because of her treatment by her
employer, she no longer showed it. Having ridden to the proper spot, she
wheeled the white pony again and faced the place where there was a steel
shield against which the objects she was to shoot at were thrown.
Dakota Joe rode forward as though to affix the first clay ball to the
string. Then he pulled in his horse, scowled across the ring at Wonota,
and beckoned one of the cowboys to approach. This man took up the duty
of affixing the targets for the Indian girl.
"Do you see that?" chuckled Jennie Stone. "He's afraid she might change
her mind and shoot him after all."
"Sh!" cautioned Ruth. "Somebody might hear you. Now look."
The swinging targets were shattered by Wonota as fast as the man could
hook them to the string and set the string to swinging. Then he threw
glass balls filled with feathers into the air for the Indian girl to
explode.
It was evident that she was not doing as well as usual, for she missed
several shots. But this was not because of her own nervousness. Since
the pony had been cut with Dakota Joe's whip it would not stand still,
and its nervousness was plainly the cause of Wonota's misses.
The owner of the show was, however, the last person to admit this. He
showed more than annoyance as the act progressed.
Perhaps it was the strained relations so evident between the owner of
the show and Wonota that affected the man attending to the targets, for
he became rather wild. He threw a glass ball so far to one side that to
have shot at it would have endangered the spectators, and the Indian
girl dropped the muzzle of her rifle and shook her head. The curving
ball came within Dakota Joe's reach.
"Some baseball player, I'll say!" ejaculated Jennie Stone slangily.
For the owner of the show caught the flying ball. He wheeled his
spirited horse, and, holding the ball at arm's length, he spurred down
the field toward the Indian girl.
"Oh!" cried Ruth under her breath. "He is going to throw it at her!"
"The villain!" ejaculated Mercy Curtis, her eyes flashing.
But if that was his intention, Dakota Joe did not fulfill it. The Indian
girl whipped up the muzzle of her rifle and seemed to take deliberate
aim at the angry man. Evidently this act was not on the bill!
CHAPTER IV
SMOKING THE PEACE PIPE
Ruth Fielding almost screamed aloud. She rose in her seat, clinging to
Helen Cameron's arm.
"Oh! what will she do?" gasped the girl of the Red Mill, just as the
rifle in the Indian sharp-shooter's hands spat its brief tongue of
flame.
The glass ball in Dakota Joe's fingers was shattered and he went through
a cloud of feathers as he turned his horse at a tangent and rode away
from the Indian girl. It was a good shot, but one that the proprietor of
the Wild West Show did not approve of!
"Oh!" exclaimed Mercy Curtis, bitterly, "why didn't she shoot him
instead of the ball? He deserves it, I know."
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