CHAPTER XIXTHE DWARF
For the second time within an hour the Chase girls looked alarmed at Ruth’s vehemence. Seeing their bewilderment, Ruth strove to collect herself and to dissemble her dismay at this new and startling bit of information.
Slowly she picked up the overturned chair and reseated herself. Her hands shook as she clasped them tight in her lap and her face was white.
“Sol Bloomberg running The Big Chance! I might have guessed it before. I should have inquired——”
“But why do you care that Sol Bloomberg is running The Big Chance?” Mary Chase inquired, puzzled. “I wish Ellen had not told you!”
“Oh, no, no! It’s all right,” said Ruth hastily, forcing her stiff lips to smile. “I happen to be acquainted with Bloomberg, that’s all; and if this is the same man, I certainly know little good of him.”
“He is a bad man!” Ellen burst out with almostchildish fury. “I have heard that he cheats at cards, but he does it so cleverly that nobody can catch him in the act. He is a bad man, and I think he wants our claim as much as Lieberstein—and maybe more!”
“Hush, Ellen! You should not say such things unless you know,” cautioned Mary, but the younger sister persisted stubbornly.
“I can’t see any harm in saying what one believes,” she protested. “Bloomberg is a bad man and I hate him as much as I do Lieberstein.”
Ruth had been watching the girl with an intent interest. Now she rose quickly from her chair.
“You may be right, my dear,” she said. “Anyway, I thank you for what you have told me, and for what you, Mary, have done for me, and I will try to help you both as much as I possibly can.”
“Oh, but you are not going so soon?” cried Ellen. “I thought perhaps you might stay and keep us company for a little.”
“No, I must go back now!” Ruth spoke quickly, almost feverishly. With Bloomberg in the neighborhood she had the instinct to return to her company as quickly as possible. “I will come to see you again as often as I can and speak to friends about you, and you must come and watch us sometimes at our work.”
“Work!” they cried.
“What kind of work do you do?” added Mary.
Ruth saw that she would not be able to get away without some sort of explanation, so she wisely compromised.
“Show me to the road and point out my way back to Knockout Point,” she said, “and I will explain to you about my work as we go.”
As the road was near and nothing could possibly happen in the little time they would be away from the cabin, both the Chase girls accompanied Ruth.
“Oh, will you let us come and watch you some time if we can find some one to stay at the cabin while we are away?” asked Ellen, the words stumbling over each other in her eagerness, after the tale was told.
“Of course,” said Ruth, putting her arm about the younger girl. “As soon as we start to take the first picture you may sit on the fence—provided there is one!—and watch to your heart’s content.”
Ellen sighed with complete happiness at the prospect, and even Mary’s troubled eyes brightened.
“If I could only act in the moving pictures just once I think I should die happy,” said Ellen. “I would even—forgive Lieberstein!”
Ruth laughed at that extravagance, and then they found that they had reached the road.
The girls were sorry over the prospect of parting with their new-found friend. But Ruth was on fire to get back to Knockout Point, to tell Tom what she had heard about Bloomberg.
“It’s a long way back to the river front,” said Mary. “It would be a long tramp, even for some one who is used to walking——”
“Well, I’m that some one—” Ruth was beginning when Ellen interrupted.
“Look there!” she cried, pointing to a cloud of dust that appeared in the distance. “Dust means horsemen. Some one is coming this way——”
“And coming fast!” finished Ruth hopefully.
Horsemen meant the possibility of a lift back to Knockout Point, or at least the conveying of a message there to her friends. Ruth was still weak from her terrible experience in the tunnel and the prospect of a long walk along an unknown road had not appealed to her as much as she had been pleased to pretend.
“If it’s Lieberstein—” Mary was beginning when an exclamation of sheer joy from Ruth clipped the sentence short.
Ruth started running down the middle of the road toward the horsemen at the imminent peril of being run down by them.
“Tom! Chess!” she shrieked. “Oh, I never was so glad to see any one in my life!”
Tom and Chess reined in their horses sharplyand swung to the ground. It was then that Ruth saw the identity of the third rider.
“Mr. Boardman!” she cried. “It was good of you to come! I suppose,” looking at Tom’s white, drawn face, “that this is a sort of rescue party?”
“Thank goodness it was successful,” said Tom, and took Ruth’s outstretched hand in a grip that hurt. “We’ve just about had heart failure!”
“Been standing on our heads for the last two hours,” Chess corroborated. “Thought you were gone for good this time, Ruth.”
“What happened?” asked Tom, regarding the girl closely. “Have you been running into danger again, Ruth?”
“I’ve been falling into holes—or rather a hole!” retorted Ruth, making light of her adventure. “But by good luck I managed to stumble out again. I’m all right now, thanks to that same good luck—and Mary Chase!”
Ruth turned to the two girls. They had retreated to the side of the road and were looking on, Mary gravely, Ellen with a shy interest at this meeting between Ruth and her friends.
Ruth made the introductions in a laughing manner that helped to put the two girls at their ease, and before she rode away with Tom and Chess and Layton Boardman, Ruth made the two sisters promise that they would get one of thefriendly old miners to take charge of the mine and the cabin long enough for them to run down once or twice and watch motion pictures in the making.
As the two girls turned to go Ruth was surprised and amused to catch a look of admiration in the eyes of Layton Boardman as they rested upon the elder of the Chase girls.
She spoke of this to Tom as she rode before him in the saddle.
“Did you see Layton Boardman look at Mary?”
“Which was Mary?” asked Tom indifferently. At the moment he was so glad to get Ruth back safe that all the Marys in the world held small interest for him.
“The older girl—the tall one, you know, with the grave face,” Ruth explained. “Our actor looked at her as if he really saw her. And since he is such a woman hater, you must admit that’s unusual.”
“I admit nothing of the sort,” Tom laughed. “Even a cat can look at a king!”
“Only this time it happened to be a queen,” said Ruth, with a chuckle.
She fell silent after that, trying to recall all that Mary Chase and her sister Ellen had told her about Max Lieberstein and Sol Bloomberg.
Was it true, as the two girls seemed to think,that these rascals were working together to get the Chase claim for themselves? If so, Ruth vowed that she would defeat Sol Bloomberg, and Lieberstein, too.
Busy days followed for Ruth, days of rush and strain that sometimes found her tired out and depressed, sometimes jubilant and confident of the success of her great undertaking.
They found suitable locations in plenty in and about Knockout Point. In fact, their chief embarrassment seemed to be in the matter of selecting the best. It was an embarrassment of riches.
Setting about her work with her usual vim and enthusiasm, Ruth gradually won the confidence of her company. It needed only the filming of the first big outdoor scene, with Ruth here and there and everywhere at once, commanding, directing, coaching, to prove to them her unusual directing ability.
Even Gerard Bolton, the skeptical, was convinced, and from that time on became one of Ruth’s most loyal and enthusiastic supporters.
There were only two flies in Ruth’s ointment of content. But they were enough to keep her constantly on the anxious seat.
The first and perhaps the most annoying, was Sol Bloomberg of The Big Chance, whom shehad found to be in truth her old enemy and the author of those threatening letters.
The fact that he had as yet made no move to hinder her in the work of picture-making reassured Ruth not at all. She knew Bloomberg and his talent for disguising his true purpose until the moment came to strike.
Ruth felt that sooner or later he would aim a deadly blow at her. She had no defense, since she could not possibly tell from what angle he would strike.
The second fly, also an annoying one, was Joe Rumph, the dwarf.
His original unfriendly feeling toward Ruth had been fanned into a flame of enmity by her decision to tone down the part he had to play in several different scenes of the picture.
Mr. Hammond had told her to use her judgment in all such matters. So when Ruth thought that the story would be stronger and more interesting without too much display of the dwarf’s atrocious ugliness, she said so—always, of course, in a mild and tactful way.
Then one day on the lot when they were getting ready to shoot the last of a series of several scenes, matters came to a climax between Ruth and the actor.
For some time past Rumph had been “hogging” some of Boardman’s best scenes, insisting on retainingthe limelight when he should long since have been a victim to the “fade-out.”
Ruth had spoken to him several times about this, and the last time her voice was sharp with annoyance. The scene had been going excellently, and if Rumph had kept to his place would undoubtedly have been one of the best in the series.
As it was he bid fair to spoil all her work and possibly a good many feet of expensive film.
Ruth was more patient and long-suffering than most directors, who often “go up in the air” at the slightest provocation. But when Rumph insolently ignored her instructions again, even her patience gave way beneath the strain.
“Mr. Rumph,” she said, going close to the actor and speaking very quietly, “I would like you to understand that as long as I am director here, you are to do exactly as I say.”
“And if you are to remain director here,” said Joe Rumph with calm insolence, “then I don’t care to act any longer under your direction.”
“Then go!” cried Ruth. “Your resignation is accepted. If you care to, you may leave to-day. Mr. Cameron will settle with you,” and Ruth turned at once to the script she held in her hand.