CHAPTER XV

STARTLING NEWS

Together, Ruth and Tom rushed over to the prone figure on the ground. They seemed to be the only ones of all that company to see the accident to Helen.

The cowboys, engrossed in the swift action and the excitement of the scene, all lesser sounds drowned by their wild cries and shouts, saw nothing. The cameramen continued to grind out length after length of film, oblivious to everything save the drama of the scene before them.

“Is she dead?” gasped Ruth to Tom, as they bent over the girl.

It was here that Ruth’s training in the Red Cross stood her in good stead. She knelt beside Helen, took her wrist in expert fingers. Though her face was white and drawn, her voice was calm and controlled as she spoke to Tom.

“She’s breathing, but her pulse is weak. We must get her into the house at once, Tom!”

“Some fool forgot to put blank cartridges in his gun,” muttered Tom, hands clenched.

Together they got the unconscious girl to the house. Ma Gowdy met them at the door and led them, with no waste of words, into the living room where they laid Helen on the couch.

Blood was flowing from a wound on her forehead. Ruth spoke to the capable old woman and Ma Gowdy disappeared kitchenward.

Meanwhile Ruth had been loosening Helen’s clothes, tearing the tie and collar of her blouse away from her throat, chafing her hands. Ruth’s face was almost as white as that of her chum.

“Tom, if anything has happened to her--through me----”

Just then Ma Gowdy came back with clean strips of linen and a basin of water.

With a brief word of thanks, Ruth seized the basin of water and the strips of linen. Ma Gowdy watched with approval while Ruth set to work carefully bathing and cleansing the wound on Helen’s forehead.

“Only a scalp wound,” she murmured, after a moment. “Oh, I feared it might be much, much worse!”

“How’d it happen?” asked Ma Gowdy.

“Spent bullet,” Tom responded briefly. He had taken one of his sister’s hands in his and was rubbing it gently. “Some fool had real bullets instead of the blank cartridges I ordered. I intend,” he added grimly, “to find out who that fool was, and without delay.”

The scalp wound thoroughly cleansed, Ruth took one of the clean strips of linen, dipped it in the icy cold water, and bathed Helen’s face with it. The girl opened her eyes, looked up languidly.

Then she shivered and put a hand to her bandaged forehead.

“I feel like a wreck,” she said with a faint smile, and closed her eyes again.

Suddenly and for no apparent reason, Ruth burst into tears. She turned away, fumbled for a handkerchief, and the next moment felt Tom’s big one thrust into her hand. She accepted it gratefully, wiped her eyes, and smiled at him.

“I’m such an awful goose!” she said. “But I thought she was going to die!”

The next moment she was beside Helen again, stroking her hair back from her poor throbbing forehead and telling her not to talk but just to rest until she felt stronger.

For a few moments the new patient lay quiet, seemingly content beneath Ruth’s gentle ministrations. But suddenly she stirred restlessly and half sat up.

Ruth pushed her back gently and Helen’s eyes flew open. She regarded her chum resentfully.

“If you think I’m going to lie here, Ruth Fielding,” she announced with something of her old vigor, “you are very much mistaken!”

“Behave yourself, sis.” Tom’s voice was gentle, but there was an underlying firmness that Helen generally obeyed. “Right where you are is where you’re going to stay--for the rest of this day, at least.”

Helen stared at them both for a moment, looked at Ma Gowdy hovering in the background, hesitated as though contemplating rebellion, then, with a sigh, gave in.

“What hit me?” she asked, moving her aching head restlessly. “I felt as though somebody had touched me with a red hot poker. Then I didn’t feel anything.”

Ruth explained and Tom declared his intention of sallying forth immediately for the purpose of finding out what idiot carried real cartridges in his revolver.

“You take charge of everything, Tom,” Ruth called after him. “Tell the boys we won’t want them any more to-day. We were nearly through anyway, and if we have to retake the last event to-morrow it won’t matter, although I don’t think it will be necessary. I’ll stay here with Helen.”

“I don’t see why you have to stop everything on my account,” said Helen. “You make me feel guilty, Ruthie.”

“Of course you were responsible for getting hit,” Ruth gibed. “If you only knew,” she knelt down beside Helen and took her hand gently, “what a relief it was to find you were not seriously hurt! For a minute I thought--But there, we’re not going to talk about it--either of us. You just turn over like a good girl, with your face to the wall, and get some sleep.”

“Suppose I can’t sleep?”

“Then I’ll read to you till you do.”

Although nothing very serious came of Helen’s accident, Ruth was careful to keep her chum in the background after that whenever there was a shooting scene to be taken. Luckily, the cameramen, having been too engrossed in their work to notice the accident to Helen, had kept on grinding and the great final scene of the rodeo had not been lost.

Tom made careful inquiries and found that, as he expected, one of the boys had forgotten to exchange real cartridges for blank ones in his weapon. When told what his carelessness had done the young fellow was so overwhelmed with genuine remorse that Tom considered he had received punishment enough. That one cowboy, at least, would be very careful in the future!

Ruth received a letter from Mr. Hammond a day or two after the accident, announcing his intention of stopping at Golden Pass for a brief visit on his way farther west.

Ruth was delighted at the prospect, for aside from the fact that she was always glad to see her old friend and business associate she set a high value on his criticism. It always gave her a feeling of content and certainty when Mr. Hammond’s judgment backed up hers.

In the meantime, Layton Boardman had made good his promise of rapid convalescence. He was up and around the day after the pictures of the rodeo, hobbling a bit painfully, but otherwise appearing up to his usual form. He had recovered, at any rate, to such an extent that he was able to “fake” some close-up scenes before the camera. Ruth had hopes that before long her leading man would be able to take part in two of the important events of the rodeo that had been delayed for his benefit.

Meanwhile Ruth kept her company busy rehearsing for the small scenes. She was anxious to finish the filming of her picture, for expenses were mounting and salaries ate into the business bank roll alarmingly.

Came the time when everything was in readiness for the taking of the first small scene. Ruth, flushed and weary, had rehearsed, directed, cajoled and bullied until she felt that at last she had pulled the company into perfect shape.

“I haven’t a bit of pep left in me,” she confessed to Tom and Helen that night after dinner. “I feel like a wet dishrag. All I want is to get to bed and sleep forever.”

“You’ll feel differently in the morning,” Helen assured her, while she studied her friend with laughing, quizzical eyes. “I never saw any one like you, Ruth Fielding. No matter how exhausted you may seem at night, morning finds you as fresh and as hungry for new worlds to conquer as ever. I don’t see how you manage it.”

“It’s fun--all of it,” Ruth responded, her eyes sparkling in spite of fatigue. “Those scenes ought to go splendidly. If only,” a shadow crossed her face, “Viola will behave herself and not try to hog all the scenes.”

Tom, who had been lounging at the open window, turned and faced the two girls.

“How about Boardman?” he asked. “Do you think he will be able to disguise his limp well enough to fool the camera?”

Ruth nodded confidently.

“I’m not worrying a bit about Layton.”

“I wish,” said Tom, grim and enigmatic but sufficiently clear to both Helen and Ruth, “I could say the same!”

Morning came, and with it, as Helen had prophesied, a return of Ruth’s enthusiasm and vitality. She went about the preparations for the day’s work eagerly, gathering her company about her, reminding, instructing, abjuring.

When everything was in readiness Ruth looked about her, searching for a familiar black-eyed face that certainly should be there.

“Where’s Viola?” she asked impatiently. “She must know we are ready to start!”

“I’ll go and hunt her up,” Tom volunteered, but Ruth shook her head.

“I’ll go,” she said and there was a glint of something more than determination in her eyes. “If she thinks,” she added to herself as she went hurriedly toward the house, “that she can keep every one waiting like this she’ll soon find her mistake. If only,” she mused half humorously, “we directors were spared the problem of dealing with the whims and fancies of our temperamental stars, how simple everything would be. Anyway,” she smiled whimsically, “I’ll show this one that if I haven’t much temperament I’ve plenty of temper!”

She reached Viola’s door, knocked on it gently. When there was no response she knocked again. After the third attempt she tried the knob of the door and, finding that it turned easily, opened the door and entered the room.

What she saw there made her gasp with a swift premonition of disaster.

Dresser drawers stood open as though the result of a hasty packing. Viola’s trunk that had stood in one corner of the room had been dragged to the center. On the top of the trunk was a sheet of paper, scrawled across with Viola’s windy writing.

Ruth picked up the paper and as through a blur read the words:

“Sorry, but Tony and I are going over to Bloomberg. Bloomberg’s making it worth my while and I’d be a fool if I didn’t take my chance while it’s offered. You will have to get some one in my place.”