CHAPTER XIV

HELEN IS HURT

Besides the injury to his ankle, which was comparatively light, being only a painful sprain, Layton Boardman had hurt his back in his fall. This, together with painful bruises about the head and body, had prompted the ranch doctor to order him to stay in bed for a few days.

“After that I’ll be fit as a fiddle again,” Boardman told Ruth, trying to reassure her. “If you can shoot some of the pictures that don’t show me, Miss Fielding----”

“Don’t worry, Mr. Boardman,” Ruth cut in to his anxious sentence. “We’ll go right ahead. There will be several days of hard work anyway before we’ll need you. And whatever happens, I want you to take plenty of time and get perfectly well. The scenes where you do come in,” she added with a smile, “are pretty strenuous, you know, and you’ll need all your strength.”

Boardman groaned and moved his aching body impatiently.

“I wanted to take part in the rodeo. I wanted it more than I’ve wanted anything in years. And now--look at me!”

“I’m sorry,” said Ruth reluctantly, “but I’m afraid we will have to shoot that without you.”

Boardman turned suddenly and caught Ruth’s hand in his hard, sinewy one.

“Promise me one thing,” he begged. “Promise me you’ll put off the rodeo as long as you can. I may possibly be in shape!”

Ruth promised and withdrew her hand gently.

“Now rest a little while and I’ll go down and see if Ma Gowdy will let me make you a little chicken broth for your dinner. That ought to help put you in shape for the rodeo.”

“You’re very good to me,” Boardman muttered and closed his eyes.

Ma Gowdy was in the kitchen and readily responded to Ruth’s request for chicken broth for the invalid.

“There’s one fresh-killed,” she told Ruth. “A fat, tough old fowl that will make fine soup. You leave it to me. I can see you have plenty on your mind.”

Ruth thanked her gratefully and went on out.

She had already consulted with Pa Gowdy and found him perfectly willing that she use his ranch and as many of his ranch hands as she could muster in her great scene of the rodeo. She wanted now to find out just how many of these boys she could depend upon.

She found Andy, the gangling lad who helped in the small truck garden at the rear of the house and who also did chores for Ma Gowdy in the house. There were two regular cooks in Ma’s kitchen, swarthy Mexicans, both of them, but Andy was general utility man.

This handy youth took her to the foreman of the ranch who was at that moment watching a spirited exhibition of bronco busting in the corral.

This fellow, a long, lean, blue-eyed man whose face seemed to break up into a million tiny wrinkles when he smiled, received Ruth cordially.

“I think you’ll find, Miss, that the only trouble you’ll have will be in gettin’ too many volunteers,” he assured her when she stated her errand. “The boys is more interested in this here movin’ picture outfit of yours these days than in anything else that goes on about the ranch. They think this here rodeo you’re stagin’ is a regular game. You’ll have no trouble gettin’ them to take part.”

The man proved a true prophet. Ruth’s only difficulty was in rejecting in such a way as to spare their feelings the cowboys she could not use.

“But I can’t take you all!” she protested. “Pa and Ma Gowdy would run me off the ranch if I took you all from your regular work. I must pick and choose.”

It was not long before her list was full. She gave her new extras explicit directions as to where and at what time on the following morning she wanted them, and then she went to find and instruct her cameramen.

Ruth had pretty clearly in mind what she wanted. There had been a rodeo once not far from Cheslow and she had watched the antics of the cowboys with thrilled interest. It was her ambition to have this pictured rodeo as near like the genuine article as she could make it.

There would be bronco busting, of course. This was to be the main event of the affair. Then there would be a race, three or four half-broken colts let loose in a restricted area. Into the ring would dash a mounted cowboy in spectacular fashion. It was the business of this particular participant to chase the half wild horses and, coming close to one of them, to leap to its back, landing there, if the Fates were kind, and hold on grimly until such time as the next horse came within leaping distance, when the process was to be repeated.

In the course of this exciting performance falls and accidents, sometimes serious accidents, were to be expected. Perhaps this, thought Ruth, with a wry grimace, was what supplied the thrill. At any rate, there was bound to be plenty of excitement and action, and this was what she must have in her picture.

There would be other events, too, including the roping of steers.

“I wanted,” she told Helen, a frown of anxiety furrowing her brow, “to have Layton Boardman himself take the lead in the events requiring skill in the use of the lariat. That is one of his strong points.”

Both girls knew how nonchalantly and well Boardman could manage the snakelike, almost magic rope, twisting, turning, etching strange, serpentine figures on the air and always in the end finding the mark it was meant for.

Ruth had pictured Boardman in these scenes of her scenario, knew how his fine personality would dominate them. There were other cowboys no doubt who had his skill with the lariat, but none that could borrow that intangible thing--his personality.

“Well, the best you can do is to shoot most of the scenes to-morrow--those in which Boardman’s not absolutely necessary--and take the others when your leading man is on his feet again,” said Helen, then went to her room to write to Chess.

Ruth had an interview with her cameramen in which location and light effects were discussed at length, then went to consult her scenario as to the exact sequence of scenes.

In the hall she met Viola Callahan and the latter stared at Ruth, a queer expression in her bold black eyes.

“Seems like your hero’s kind of laid down on his job,” she remarked flippantly to Ruth. “I can’t imagine myself in love with a wild-west chap who gets his back wrenched and an ankle hurt right at the beginning of things. Right poor judgment, I call it.”

“You may remember that Mr. Boardman injured himself trying to save my life,” Ruth answered coldly, and went on up to her room wondering why she disliked this girl so much. Disliked her--and distrusted her, too.

Viola had given Ruth no cause for distrust other than that meeting in Chicago with Sol Bloomberg’s agent. Ruth had to admit that. Since her arrival at the ranch Viola’s actions had been normal enough. Yet Ruth still distrusted her with a suspicion that was as inevitable as the drawing of her breath.

Again she thrust uneasy thoughts from her. She would not borrow trouble.

The different events of the rodeo had been practiced for days--bronco busting, racing, bull-throwing. The cowboys had entered into the acting with spirit, even though most of it was not acting to them at all, but merely a part of their everyday experience.

The time had now come when Ruth felt that she could safely set up her cameras and shoot the scenes.

The day of the rodeo dawned gloriously clear and one fear of Ruth’s was dissipated. At least they would not be forced to postpone the rodeo pictures because of bad weather.

“Oh, Ruth!” exclaimed Helen, standing at the open window. “It’s a perfectly grand day. I’m so glad it isn’t raining, or even cloudy.”

Dressed and ready for the exciting events of the day, Ruth stopped for a moment at Boardman’s door. The latter was better. He had insisted on getting out of bed and was now sitting comfortably enough propped up in a big chair by the window. He looked up as Ruth entered and smiled.

She outlined to him her general plans concerning the rodeo, explaining that she had saved several of the most important and daring scenes for him.

“That was mighty good of you!” There was no doubting his gratitude. “I’ll be up and around as good as new in a day or two. Just watch me!”

Ruth said she certainly hoped he would and left him and ran buoyantly down the steps and into the vigorous, sun-dazzled out-of-doors.

She found Tom and Helen waiting for her.

“Oh, here you are!” cried Helen. “Tom and I have been waiting hours!”

“Nothing of the kind,” laughed Ruth happily. “I left you not more than five minutes ago.”

The cameramen and a group of eager extras stood near by.

The cowboys regarded Ruth with dancing eyes and demanded to know when the show was to begin.

“Right away,” said Ruth. “The sooner the better. Is everybody ready?”

It seemed that everybody was, and they repaired straightway to location.

From then on events moved so swiftly that Ruth lost all account of time. Close to the cameramen, ordering, criticizing, directing and sometimes giving voice to spontaneous expressions of approval, Ruth seemed to dominate the whole exciting scene with her own vivid personality.

The cowboys afterward declared that they worked their best because of the director’s enthusiasm and intense vitality.

“With her dancin’ away there on her little toes and shoutin’ herself hoarse when we done somethin’ she liked, we just couldn’t help playin’ up good,” said one of these, thereby expressing the general opinion, for there was a murmured chorus of:

“Now you’ve said something, buddy.”

At any rate, up to the final “shot” Ruth was confident that she had a smashing good picture, the real thing in a real setting, a far more realistic rodeo than even she had ever dreamed of filming.

There was one event left--the steer roping. Since this was to be the climactic event of the rodeo it was to start with a roar and a bang, the boys shooting revolvers into the air not only for the purpose of exciting their already over-nervous mounts but to provoke the steers to a fighting mood which would make even the most skillful lariat throwing and roping a difficult undertaking.

Helen stood a little way from Tom and Ruth, tense with excitement and interest. This was the sort of thing that thrilled Helen to her toes, as she expressed it, and she was eager to miss no slightest detail of the event.

Tom, too, was full of enthusiasm and also of his old wondering admiration of Ruth. He was more like the old Tom than he had been for many a day. Even through the general excitement Ruth was aware of this change in his attitude and was happy because of it.

Then the scene was set, the outdoor stage was ready for its actors. A steer, a great, angry-looking old fellow, was let loose.

With wild whoops and shouts the boys dashed forward, firing their revolvers into the air as they went. The noise was terrific, the excitement tense.

Ruth, exhilarated and excited, turned to look at Helen, saw the girl throw up her hands in a startled gesture, saw her reel and fall limp to the ground!

“Helen! Oh, Helen!” moaned Ruth.