CHAPTER I

FIRE

Main Street was jammed with an unprecedented crowd of people and traffic. Automobiles discharged a continual stream of humanity before the doors of the new motion picture house in Cheslow.

Laughing girls and their escorts, older men and women, paused before the rather flamboyant poster in the lobby of the picture house advertising Miss Ruth Fielding’s personal appearance with the introduction of this, her new and greatest picture, “Snowblind.”

Nearly all Cheslow had turned out in honor of this star in picturedom, Ruth Fielding. As Ruth had been a resident of Cheslow since her childhood, it is not strange that the town took a proprietary interest in her.

At that particular moment poor Ruth was feeling extremely unlike the Miss Fielding of the flamboyant poster. She was excited and nervous, and the prospect of facing such an audience as would in all probability pack the Palace that night filled her with an emotion akin to panic.

Also, though she was sure in her own mind that “Snowblind” was a good picture, felt that she had put the best of her art into the making of it, there was always the doubt as to just how it would be received by that fickle thing, an American audience.

The latter, besides being fickle, was pitiless. Where it condemned, it condemned so heartily that the object of its displeasure might just as well be sent at once to the darkest corner of the director’s room of discarded plays. It was done for--a complete failure. This, unless there was the possibility of practically remaking the whole thing. And in the case of Ruth Fielding’s “Snowblind,” where the scenes had actually been filmed amid the snow and ice of the far North, retakes would be an impossibility.

Some of this Ruth had been saying to her chum, Helen Cameron, as she restlessly paced the length of the living room at the Red Mill. The two girls were dressed and ready to start for the theater, but were awaiting the arrival of Tom, Helen’s twin brother, and Helen’s fiancé, Chess Copley, who were to take them to their destination in Tom’s car.

“Helen, if my picture doesn’t go and go big,” said Ruth, pausing in her restless pacing to stare at her chum, “I think I shall die of disappointment.”

Helen laughed. There was a light in her eye as though she enjoyed a secret all her own. She seated herself, unnoticed by her chum, in a chair by the window from which she could command a view of the approach to the Red Mill.

“Cheer up, Ruthie,” she said. “Disappointment seldom kills.” Then, as she drew forth a pocket mirror and carefully examined her nose for a hint of shine, she added: “Anyway, your ‘Snowblind’ hasn’t a chance in the world to fail, Ruth Fielding. It is a tremendous picture, and you know it.”

“If only the public will think so, too!” said Ruth, half to herself. She went over to the window and looked out impatiently. “Isn’t it time for the boys to come?”

“Gracious me, so it is!” cried Helen, with a glance of mock surprise at her wrist watch. “These laggards shall suffer for such neglect. Wait till I get hold of Chess----”

“Don’t rave. Here comes some one now,” Ruth interrupted.

Still enjoying her secret, Helen attempted to get Ruth away from the window. But the latter had seen something which roused her curiosity and she would not be moved.

“What do you suppose that means?” she asked herself, puzzled. “There’s more than one car. Why, it’s a regular procession--one, two, three! Helen, you know, you bad child!” She turned to her chum, caught the mischievous gleam in her eyes, and shook her a little impatiently. “Tell me! What is it?”

For answer, Helen held up a warning hand.

“Listen!” she said.

Across the still night air, there came a sound of singing.

“Sweetbriars come here, one by one, But one wide river to cross! There’s lots of work, but plenty of fun, With one wide river to cross! Sweetbriars all-l! One wide river of Knowledge! Sweetbriars all-l! One wide river to cross!”

There was an instant’s hush. Then before Ruth could move from where she stood spellbound, the old yell crashed through the silence.

“S.B.—Ah-h-h! S.B.—Ah-h-h! Sound our battle-cry Near and far! S.B.—All! Briarwood Hall! Sweetbriars, do or die— This be our battle-cry— Briarwood Hall! That’s all!”

It was a full second after the magic of that yell had died away into the silence of the evening before Ruth could command herself to action.

Then with a stifled cry she darted out to the porch.

A whirlwind met her, a whirlwind of bear-like hugs and joyful greetings.

“Ruthie, don’t say we actually surprised you!”

“Here, get away, Ann Hicks! I haven’t had my chance at her yet.”

“Let go of her, Heavy! There won’t be enough left to speak its piece to-night!”

These and other gay and jumbled greetings half-deafened Ruth. She pushed the surprise party away from her in an effort to identify more clearly the members of it. Happy tears sprang to her eyes as she recognized them all.

“Nettie Parsons, you old dear. Give me another hug, that’s the girl. Bless me! There’s The Fox, as large as life and twice as natural. And Mercy Curtis! How well you look, honey! All the dear old crowd. Heavy,” she turned accusingly to the rather large young woman who hovered in the background of the group, “are you responsible for this?”

“Not guilty! Ask Ann--she knows!”

There were young men in the party, too, friends of Tom and Chess, whom the latter had asked to play escort to Ruth’s old school chums who had come on to Cheslow at the instigation of Mrs. Jennie Marchand, nee Stone, and Ann Hicks.

Ruth knew these boys and nodded to them pleasantly enough. But she was still too taken up with the delightful and unexpected arrival of these old friends of hers to accord the male members of the party much attention.

The latter followed the girls back into the house, grinning indulgently at the clatter of tongues and the happy exclamations of the reunited chums.

“I must sit down! The surprise has been too much for me!” Ruth laughed as she sank down on the couch and the girls clustered on every side of her. “Now tell me, Jennie Marchand or Ann Hicks, or whoever is responsible, just how it happened.”

“Ann started the ball rolling,” responded Jennie Marchand, she of the round face and jolly smile. “Conceived the bright idea of getting some of the Briarwood Hall girls together--some of the old crowd, who had helped make ‘Heart of a School Girl’ famous--justly famous, I may say----”

“So,” Ann Hicks continued eagerly, “we gathered together as many of the old guard as we could at such short notice and--here we are.”

“Yes, here you are!” cried Ruth, looking about at them affectionately. “And now, if no one objects, I think I shall start at the beginning and hug you all over again!”

This pleasing ceremony being satisfactorily accomplished, Tom stepped forward with the suggestion that they start for the theater at once.

“Oh, is every one going?” asked Ruth, innocently enough. For the moment she had actually forgotten her picture.

“Is every one going? Just hear the child!” Jennie Marchand--affectionately known in the old days as “Heavy”--stood with arms akimbo regarding Ruth amusedly. “May I ask, Ruth Fielding, what you think we came all the way to Cheslow for?”

“Besides seeing you!” said Mercy Curtis in Ruth’s ear. Mercy did not live far away.

“More than that,” declaimed Mary Cox, more popularly known in schooldays as “The Fox,” “we have prepared a delectable spread for you after the show, Ruth Fielding, to celebrate the success of ‘Snowblind’.”

Uncle Jabez Potter and Aunt Alvirah appeared at the moment and attention was instantly turned to them. Most of the girls had met Aunt Alvirah, who greeted them with a fluttering cordiality.

Uncle Jabez acknowledged the introductions in his usual crabbed fashion and declared that if they did not start at once they would be late for the show.

“The picture’ll be over before we get there,” he grumbled. “And us with a chance to stay home and make ourselves comfortable.”

“Cheerful old boy,” whispered Jennie Marchand in Helen’s ear. “Face like a nut cracker.”

Helen looked toward Uncle Jabez and grimaced ruefully.

“He never approved of Ruth’s interest in the pictures,” she said. “If he had had his way Ruth would never have gone much farther than the Red Mill.”

“And look at her now!” said Nettie Parsons.

“Yes, look at her now,” laughed Helen. “Our old schoolmate, Ruth Fielding, is on the way to becoming quite a personage, I’ll have you know!”

There were a great many others who, either publicly or privately, echoed that view on this particular evening. For the showing of “Snowblind” was a sweeping triumph from the preliminary scenes taken in New York to those final tremendous and climatic scenes taken in the snow-blanketed and wind-swept spaces of the frozen North.

The story held together from start to finish, a proof of Ruth’s ability both as scenario writer and director. Anita Townsend and Grand, the co-stars of the picture, were almost equally fine in their portrayal of the parts assigned them, while the introduction of the old trappers gave just the necessary added touch of local color.

The audience wept--and this included most emphatically Ruth’s school chums--when author and actors demanded it, laughed at their will, and applauded thunderously the dramatic scenes. In the inspiration of their enthusiasm Ruth forgot her reluctance to speak in public. Instead, she was eager to meet this friendly and appreciative audience.

At the close of the picture she stepped upon the stage and into the spotlight. Her young voice came to them clearly, holding them tense and interested as she related the adventures of her party in the frozen country, described how the various “locations” were found and the pictures filmed.

“Doesn’t our Ruthie look too sweet for words, Heavy? Aren’t you proud of her?” whispered Helen.

“Yes, surely. But listen to her!”

“And now,” Ruth finished, “I want to thank you all in behalf of my company and myself for your appreciation and your generous applause. We all----”

A sharp explosion caught up her words, drowning them in a fierce detonation. From here and there in the audience rose frightened cries.

“The theater is on fire!”

“Fire! fire! The theater is on fire!”

“Let me get out of this!”

“I’ll be burnt to death! Oh!”