CHAPTER II

TOM TO THE RESCUE

As the panic-stricken cries were rising terrifyingly in the over-crowded theater pandemonium was intensified by the sudden blinking out of all the lights.

To be frightened when one can see what danger threatens is one thing. To be frightened in the dark is quite another!

Confusion became panic. Voices already raised in protest or entreaty became shrill or hoarse with fear. Mothers called to their children, children cried for their mothers. The shouts of men rose, entreating those in their charge to “sit tight and not get scared”--as though they were not pretty well scared themselves, if they would but admit it!

At the sound of the explosion Ruth had gone as calmly as she could from the stage to the little bare room that was all there was “behind the scenes” of the theater.

In the darkness she was forced to feel her way. Suddenly a cloud of smoke descended upon her, engulfed her, wrapped her about, almost smothering her. She raised her head instinctively to draw in a breath of fresh air and found there was no fresh air in that stifling place.

Really frightened now, gasping and sputtering, she floundered about in the dark, stumbling over things, aware that others were desperately seeking escape.

“If Tom would only come!” she cried to herself. “I can’t find the door--there isn’t any door--this awful smoke--oh, if Tom would come!”

She thought of her friends back there in the well of the theater--thought of Aunt Alvirah and groaned.

She had not the slightest doubt but what Tom was trying to find her. He would get to her if such a thing were possible. But that smoke--impossible to breathe----

Tom was doing his best. Out in the dark well of orchestra seats was a living, surging nightmare. Some had succeeded in making their way to the exits, had escaped from the smoke-filled exterior to the blessed fresh air.

But there were those who sought, desperately, friends or members of their families who had become separated from them in the darkness and panic.

Ruth’s own party was among these. The boys gripped the girls to prevent their being carried into the aisles by the maddened crowds that swept past them. Chess had found Helen and was urging her to sit quietly.

“The only danger is being caught in the mob,” he shouted. “Let these people get out first.”

“But Ruth!” Helen gasped. “She may be trapped there behind the stage!”

“Tom will take care of her,” Chess prophesied confidently. “Tom--where is Tom?”

He felt in the seat beside him where just a few moments before Helen’s brother had been sitting and found, not Tom, but some alien person who growled at him and pushed past in the general rush to the exits.

At that moment a feeble form brushed against him, a bony old hand clutched at his arm.

“Ruth!” gasped the harsh voice of Uncle Jabez Potter. “Somebody’s got to get ahold o’ that girl!”

Chess put an arm about the old man’s shoulders to steady him.

“It’s all right,” he managed to gasp through the thick cloud of smoke that rolled down upon them. “Tom will see to her.”

“Where’s Aunt Alvirah?” It was Jennie Marchand’s voice shouting through the dark. “You’ve got to find her, you boys!”

“I’m here!” quavered an old voice, reassuringly close by. “But it don’t matter about me. Somebody go find my pretty.”

At that very moment Tom was battling his way to the stage. He called Ruth’s name wildly over and over while he fought the smoke and acrid fumes to the space behind the scenes.

As for Ruth, though she had faced many and varied dangers before, just now all of them seemed trifling to the one she was passing through.

Her adventurous career had dated from that time when, as an orphan of twelve, she had come to live with Great-uncle Jabez Potter and his sweet, eccentric housekeeper, Aunt Alvirah Boggs.

The Red Mill was just outside the town of Cheslow. In the first volume of the series, entitled “Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill,” Ruth had become acquainted with Tom Cameron. The boy had been fortunate enough to do the orphan a service and it was through Tom that she had met his twin sister Helen. Mr. Cameron was a rich widower and business man and lived with his two children in a rather imposing mansion about a mile from the Red Mill.

A short time after her arrival at her new home Ruth was able to save Uncle Jabez a considerable amount of money. In return for this she was allowed by the old man to enter the boarding school, Briarwood Hall, in company with Helen Cameron. It was at this time that Ruth’s adventures really began.

At school and college she made many friends, among them Jennie Stone, who had later married Henri Marchand, a distinguished Frenchman.

While still at school, Ruth became interested in the work of scenario writing, and in that work achieved a fair success from the start.

The group of her friends who had planned the surprise party on this particular occasion in order to see the first showing of “Snowblind” had all taken part in Ruth’s early scenario, entitled “The Heart of a Schoolgirl,” in which Ruth herself had played the part of chum to the heroine, a part taken by a woman already known on the screen. From that time on all Ruth’s friends had been interested in her work for the “pictures” and had kept as closely in touch with her as possible.

It was only when her pictures became generally known and talked about, not only for their absorbing plots but for the powerful bits of drama that made interpretation of the plots unusual, that Ruth felt an irresistible urge to break away from her former affiliations and to undertake the directing of her own pictures, as well as writing the scenarios for them.

The picture “Snowblind” had been the second filmed under her own direction and the amazing and exciting adventures Ruth and her company encountered in the filming of it have been related in the story directly preceding this, entitled “Ruth Fielding in the Far North.”

During all Ruth’s startling and very successful career, Tom Cameron had been the talented girl’s close companion. He had always admired the girl from the Red Mill, even when they were youngsters together; but when Ruth’s extraordinary ability developed this admiration changed to worship that had a little of awe in it. Ruth was well aware of Tom’s feeling for her and, though she was fond of the young fellow, strove to keep Tom and his emotions as much in the background as possible. Ruth had no intention of marrying and “settling down” until she had proved to her own complete satisfaction just how far she could go in her chosen line of work. While Tom accepted this attitude he was, naturally, a trifle at odds with it.

However, during the preceding year Tom had become Ruth’s business partner, taking over the tiresome and innumerable details that must always cling to an enterprise as flourishing and ambitious as the Fielding Film Corporation, thus leaving the creative genius of his partner full liberty to soar, as it were, untrammeled.

While this arrangement did not entirely satisfy Tom, it was at least a business partnership and kept him in close touch with Ruth. Then, too, he had become sincerely and absorbedly interested in the motion picture industry on his own account.

Helen’s romance was a more satisfactory one from the general viewpoint. She had allowed Chess Copley’s ardor to persuade her into an engagement and the two--who often appeared more like amiable enemies than lovers--were merely waiting for Chess to “make his fortune” in order to celebrate the fulfillment of their romance.

So it was that matters stood between these four young folks on this opening night of “Snowblind” and Ruth’s brief address to an admiring public.

Now, as Tom fought his way through the smoke-filled theater, he could think of nothing but how fine Ruth had looked on the stage that night and of how proud he had been just to know her.

Now she was in danger. Suppose he could not reach her? Suppose she should be overcome by smoke?

He paused, staggered, brushed a hand across his eyes in an instinctive effort to clear them of the burning, stinging smoke. No flame--only smoke? Where did it all come from? What unheard-of, mysterious thing had happened, anyway?

He flung himself forward, caught at some one who staggered against him.

“Ruth!”

“Oh, Tom!”

Tom half-carried, half-led her toward a door he had stumbled against in his frantic plungings. He yanked at it, pulled it open, felt a swirling rush of fresh air.

“Safe, Ruth, safe!”