Ruth Fielding in the Great Northwest by Alice B. Emerson

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RUTH FIELDING IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST

OR

THE INDIAN GIRL STAR OF THE MOVIES

BY

ALICE B. EMERSON

AUTHOR OF "RUTH FIELDING OF THE RED MILL," "RUTH FIELDING IN THE
SADDLE," "RUTH FIELDING DOWN EAST," ETC.

_ILLUSTRATED_

NEW YORK CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY PUBLISHERS

[Illustration: BEHIND HER THE TIMBERS POURED DOWN THE BLUFF.
"Ruth Fielding in the Great Northwest." Page 159]

BOOKS FOR GIRLS

BY ALICE B. EMERSON

RUTH FIELDING SERIES

12mo. Cloth. Illustrated.

* * * * *

RUTH FIELDING OF THE RED MILL

RUTH FIELDING AT BRIARWOOD HALL

RUTH FIELDING AT SNOW CAMP

RUTH FIELDING AT LIGHTHOUSE POINT

RUTH FIELDING AT SILVER RANCH

RUTH FIELDING ON CLIFF ISLAND

RUTH FIELDING AT SUNRISE FARM

RUTH FIELDING AND THE GYPSIES

RUTH FIELDING IN MOVING PICTURES

RUTH FIELDING DOWN IN DIXIE

RUTH FIELDING AT COLLEGE

RUTH FIELDING IN THE SADDLE

RUTH FIELDING IN THE RED CROSS

RUTH FIELDING AT THE WAR FRONT

RUTH FIELDING HOMEWARD BOUND

RUTH FIELDING DOWN EAST

RUTH FIELDING IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST

* * * * *

BETTY GORDON SERIES

BETTY GORDON AT BRAMBLE FARM

BETTY GORDON IN WASHINGTON

BETTY GORDON IN THE LAND OF OIL

BETTY GORDON AT BOARDING SCHOOL

CUPPLES & LEON CO., PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK.

COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY

* * * * *

RUTH FIELDING IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST

Printed in U.S.A.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. RUTH IN PERIL 1
II. A PERFECT SHOT 10
III. IN THE RING 18
IV. SMOKING THE PEACE PIPE 26
V. INSPIRATION 34
VI. EVERYBODY AGREES BUT DAKOTA JOE 43
VII. DAKOTA JOE'S WRATH 50
VIII. A WONDERFUL EVENT 59
IX. THE PLOT DEVELOPS 65
X. ONE NEW YORK DAY 75
XI. EVADING THE TRAFFIC POLICE 89
XII. BOUND FOR THE NORTHWEST 96
XIII. DAKOTA JOE MAKES A DEMAND 104
XIV. THE HUBBELL RANCH 112
XV. PURSUING DANGER 122
XVI. NEWS AND A THREAT 130
XVII. THE PROLOGUE IS FINISHED 138
XVIII. AN ACCIDENT THREATENING 146
XIX. IN DEADLY PERIL 154
XX. GOOD NEWS 160
XXI. A BULL AND A BEAR 168
XXII. IN THE CANYON 175
XXIII. REALITY 183
XXIV. WONOTA'S SURPRISE 192
XXV. OTHER SURPRISES 198

RUTH FIELDING IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST

CHAPTER I

RUTH IN PERIL

The gray dust, spurting from beneath the treads of the rapidly turning
wheels, drifted across the country road to settle on the wayside hedges.
The purring of the engine of Helen Cameron's car betrayed the fact that
it was tuned to perfection. If there were any rough spots in the road
being traveled, the shock absorbers took care of them.

"Dear me! I always do love to ride in Nell's car," said the plump and
pretty girl who occupied more than her share of the rear seat. "Even if
Tom isn't here to take care of it, it always is so comfy."

"Only one thing would suit you better, Heavy," declared the
sharp-featured and sharp-tongued girl sitting next to Jennie Stone. "If
only a motor could be connected to a rocking-chair--"

"Right-o!" agreed the cheerful plump girl. "And have it on a nice shady
porch. I'd like to travel that way just as well. After our experience
in France we ought to be allowed to travel in comfort for the rest of
our lives. Isn't that so, Nell? And you agree, Ruthie?"

The girl at the wheel of the flying automobile nodded only, for she
needed to keep her gaze fixed ahead. But the brown-haired, brown-eyed
girl, whose quiet face seemed rather wistful, turned to smile upon the
volatile--and voluble--Heavy Stone, so nicknamed during their early
school days at Briarwood Hall.

"Don't let's talk about it, honey," she said. "I try not to think of
what we all went through."

"And the soup I tasted!" groaned the plump one. "That diet kitchen in
Paris! I'll never get over it--never!"

"I guess _that's_ right," agreed Mercy Curtis, the sharp-featured girl.
"How that really nice Frenchman can stand for such a fat girl--"

"Why," explained Heavy calmly, "the more there is of me the more there
is for him to like." Then she giggled. "There were so few fat people
left in Europe after four years of war that everybody liked to look at
me."

"You certainly are a sight for sore eyes," Helen Cameron shot over her
shoulder, but without losing sight of the road ahead. She was a careful,
if rapid, driver. "And for any other eyes! One couldn't very well miss
you, Heavy."

"Let's not talk any more about France--or the war--or anything like
that," proposed Ruth Fielding, the shadow on her face deepening. "Both
your Henri and Helen's Tom have had to go back--"

"Helen's Tom?" repeated Mercy Curtis softly. But Jennie Stone pinched
her. She would not allow anybody to tease Ruth, although they all knew
well enough that the absence of Helen's twin brother meant as much to
Ruth Fielding as it did to his sister.

This was strictly a girl's party, this ride in Helen Cameron's
automobile. Aside from Mercy, who was the daughter of the Cheslow
railroad station agent, and therefore lived in Cheslow all the year
around, the girls were not native to the place. They had just left that
pretty town behind them. It appeared that Ruth, Helen, and surely Jennie
Stone, knew very few of the young men of Cheslow. So this jaunt was, as
Jennie saucily said, entirely "_poulette_".

"Which she thinks is French for 'old hen,'" scoffed the tart Mercy.

"I do not know which is worse," Ruth Fielding said with a sigh, as Helen
slowed down for a railroad crossing at which stood a flagman. "Heavy's
French or her slang."

"Slang! Never!" cried the plump girl, tossing her head "Far be it from
me and et cetera. I never use slang. I am quite as much of a purist as
that professor at Ardmore--what was his name?--that they tell the story
about. The dear dean told him that some of the undergrads complained
that his language was 'too pedantic and unintelligible.'"

"'Never, Madam! Impossible! Why,' said the prof, 'to employ a vulgarism,
perspicuity is my penultimate appellative.'"

"Ow! Ow!" groaned Helen at the wheel "I bet that hurt your vocal cords,
Heavy."

She let in the clutch again as the party broke into laughter, and they
darted across the tracks behind the passing train.

"Just the same," added Helen, "I wish some of the boys we used to play
around with were with us. Those fellows Tom went to Seven Oaks with were
all nice boys. Dear me!"

"Most of them went into the war," Ruth reminded her. "Nothing is as it
used to be. Oh, dear!"

"I must say you are all very cheerful--not!" exclaimed Jennie. "Ruth is
a regular Grandmother Grimalkin, and the rest of you are little better.
I for one just won't think of my dear Henri as being food for cannon. I
just won't! Why! before he and Tom can get into the nasty business again
the war may be over. Just see the reports in the papers of what our boys
are doing. They really have the Heinies on the run."

"Ye-as," murmured Mercy. "Running which way?"

"Treason!" cried Jennie. "The only way the Germans have ever run forward
is by crawling."

"Oh! Oh! Listen to the Irish bull!" cried Helen.

"Oh, is it?" exclaimed Jennie. "Maybe there is a bit of Irish in the
McStones, or O'Stones. I don't know."

She certainly was the life of the party. Helen and Ruth had too recently
bidden Tom Cameron good-bye to feel like joining with Jennie in
repartee. Though it might have been that even the fat girl's repartee
was more a matter of repertoire. She was expected to be funny, and so
forced herself to make good her reputation.

This trip by automobile in fact was a forced attempt to cheer each other
up on the part of the chums. At the Outlook, the Cameron's handsome
country home, matters had become quite too awful to contemplate with
calm, now that Tom had gone back to France. At least, so Helen stated.
At the Red Mill Ruth had been (she admitted it) ready to "fly to
pieces." For naturally poor Aunt Alvirah and Jabez Potter, the miller,
were pot cheerful companions. And the two chums had Jennie Stone as
their guest, for she had returned from New York with them, where they
had all gone to bid Tom and Henri Marchand farewell.

The three college friends had picked Mercy Curtis up (she had been with
them at boarding-school "years and years before," to quote Jennie) and
started on this trip from Cheslow to Longhaven. On the outskirts of
Longhaven a Wild West Show was advertised as having pitched its tents.

"And, of course, if there is anything about the Wild West close at hand
our movie writer must see it," said Jennie. "Give you local color, Ruth,
for another western screen masterpiece."

"I suppose it is one of these little fly-by-night shows!" scoffed Mercy.
"Let's see that bill. Dakota Joe's Wild West and Frontier Round-Up' Mm!
Sounds big. But the bigger they sound the smaller they are, as a rule."

"I am glad I am not a pessimist," sighed Jennie Stone. "It must be an
awfully uncomfortable feeling inside one to wear such a cloak."

"Ow! Ow!" cried Helen again. "Another Hibernianism, without a doubt."

She turned the car into a much-traveled road just then. Not a mile ahead
loomed the "big top." A band was playing, and what it lacked in
sweetness it certainly made up in noise.

"Look at the cars!" exclaimed Ruth, becoming interested. "We shall have
to park before long, Helen, and walk to the show lot."

"Right here!" returned Helen, with vigor, and turned her car into a field
where already a dozen automobiles were parked. A man with a whisp of
whisker on his chin, and actually chewing a straw, motioned the young
girl where to run her car. He was evidently the farmer who owned the
field, and he was surely "making hay while the sun shone," for he was
collecting a quarter from every automobile owner who wished to get his
car off the public road.

"Your car'll be all right here, young ladies," he said, reaching for the
quarter Ruth offered him. "I'm going to stay here myself and watch 'em
until the show's over. Cal'late to stay here anyway till them wild
Injuns and wilder cowboys air off Peleg Swift's land yonder. No knowing
what they'll do if they ain't watched."

"Listen to the opinion our friend has of your old Wild West Show,"
hissed Jennie, as Ruth hopped out of the seat beside Helen.

Ruth laughed. The other girls, getting out of the car on the other side,
were startled by hearing her laugh change to a sudden ejaculation.

"Dear me! has that thing broken loose from the show?"

Jennie was the first to speak, and she stepped behind the high car in
order to catch sight of what had caused Ruth's exclamation. Instantly
the plump girl emitted a most unseemly shout:

"Oh! Oh! Look at the bull!"

"What is the matter with you, Heavy?" demanded Mercy snappishly.

But when she and Helen followed the plump girl behind the automobile,
they were stricken dumb with amazement, if not with fear. Tearing down
the field toward the row of automobiles was a big black bull--head down,
strings of foam flying from his mouth, and with every other indication
of extreme wrath.

"Run!" shrieked Jennie, and turned to do so.

She bumped into Mercy and Helen, who clung to her and really retarded
the plump girl's escape. But plowing right on to the shelter of the
automobile, Jennie actually swept her two friends with her.

Their cries and evident fright attracted the notice of the farmer before
he really knew what was happening. Then he saw the bull and gave tongue
to his own immediate excitement:

"Look at that critter! He's broke out of the barnyard--drat him! Don't
let him see you, gals, for he's as vicious as sin!"

He started forward with a stick in his hand to attack the enraged bull.
But the animal paid no attention to him. It had set its eyes upon
something which excited its rage--Ruth Fielding's red sweater!

"Oh, Ruth! Ruth!" shrieked Helen, suddenly seeing her chum cornered on
the other side of the car.

Ruth tried to open the car door again. But it stuck. Nor was there time
for the girl of the Red Mill to vault the door and so escape the charge
of the maddened bull. The brute was upon her.

CHAPTER II

A PERFECT SHOT

One may endure dangers of divers kinds (and Ruth Fielding had done so by
land and sea) and be struck down unhappily by an apparently ordinary
peril. The threat of that black bull's charge was as poignant as
anything that had heretofore happened to the girl of the Red Mill.

After that first outcry, Ruth did not raise her voice at all. She tugged
at the fouled handle of the automobile door, looking back over her
shoulder at the forefront of the bull. He bellowed, and the very sound
seemed to weaken her knees. Had she not been clinging to that handle she
must have dropped to the earth.

And then, Crack! It was unmistakably a rifle shot.

The bull plowed up several yards of sod, swerved, shook his great head,
bellowing again, and then started off at a tangent across the field with
the farmer, brandishing a stick, close on his heels.

Saved, Ruth Fielding did sink to the earth now, and when the other girls
ran clamorously around the motor-car she was scarcely possessed of her
senses. Truly, however, she had been through too many exciting events to
be long overcome by this one.

Many queer experiences and perilous adventures had come into Ruth
Fielding's life since the time when, as an orphan of twelve years, she
had come to the Red Mill, just outside the town of Cheslow, to live with
her Great Uncle Jabez and his queer little old housekeeper, Aunt
Alvirah.

The miller was not the man generously to offer Ruth the advantages she
craved. Had it not been for her dearest friend, Helen Cameron, at first
Ruth would not have been dressed well enough to enter the local school.
But if Jabez Potter was a miser, he was a just man after his fashion.
Ruth saved him a considerable sum of money during the first few months
of her sojourn at the Red Mill, and in payment for this Uncle Jabez
allowed her to accompany Helen Cameron to that famous boarding school,
Briarwood Hall.

While at school at Briarwood, and during the vacations between
semesters, Ruth Fielding's career actually began, as the volumes
following "Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill" show. The girl had numerous
adventures at Briarwood Hall, at Snow Camp, at Lighthouse Point, at
Silver Ranch, on Cliff Island, at Sunrise Farm, among the gypsies, in
moving pictures, down in Dixie, at college, in the saddle, in the Red
Cross in France, at the war front, and when homeward bound. The volume
just previous to this present story related Ruth's adventures "Down
East," where she went with Helen and Tom Cameron, as well as Jennie
Stone, Jennie's fiance, Henri Marchand, and her Aunt Kate, who was their
chaperon.

The girl of the Red Mill had long before the time of the present
narrative proved her talent as a scenario writer, and working for Mr.
Hammond, president of the Alectrion Film Corporation, had already made
several very successful pictures. It seemed that her work in life was to
be connected with the silver sheet.

Even Uncle Jabez had acknowledged Ruth's ability as a scenario writer,
and was immensely proud of her work when he learned how much money she
was making out of the pictures. For the old miller judged everything by
a monetary standard.

Aunt Alvirah was, of course, very proud of her "pretty" as she called
Ruth Fielding. Indeed, all Ruth's friends considered her success in
picture-making as only going to show just how smart Ruth Fielding was.
But the girl of the Red Mill was far too sensible to have her head
turned by such praise. Even Tom Cameron's pride in her pictures only
made the girl glad that she succeeded in delighting him.

For Ruth and Tom were closer friends now than ever before--and for years
they had been "chummy." The adventures which had thrown them so much
together in France while Tom was a captain in the American Expeditionary
Forces and Ruth was working with the American Red Cross, had welded
their confidence in and liking for each other until it seemed that
nothing but their youth and Tom's duties in the army kept them from
announcing their engagement.

"Do finish the war quickly, Tom," she had said to him whimsically, not
long before Tom had gone back to France. "I do not feel as though I
could return to college, or write another scenario, or do another single
solitary thing until peace is declared."

"And _then_?" Tom had asked significantly, and Ruth had given him an
understanding smile.

The uncertainty of that time--the whole nation waited and listened
breathlessly for news from abroad--seemed to Ruth more than she could
bear. She had entered upon this pleasure jaunt to the Wild West Show
with the other girls because she knew that anything to take their minds
off the more serious thoughts of the war was a good thing.

Now, as she felt herself in peril of being gored by that black bull a
tiny thought flashed into her mind:

"What terrible peril may be facing Tom Cameron at this identical
moment?"

When the bull was gone, wounded by that unexpected rifle shot, and her
three chums gathered about her, this thought of Tom's danger was still
uppermost in Ruth's mind.

"Dear me, how silly of me!" she murmured. "There are lots worse things
happening every moment over there than being gored by a bull."

"What an idea!" ejaculated Helen. "Are you crazy? What has that to do
with you being pitched over that fence, for instance?"

She glanced at the fence which divided the field in which the
automobiles stood from that where the two great tents of the Wild West
Show were pitched. A broad-hatted man was standing at the bars. He
drawled:

"Gal ain't hurt none, is she? That was a close shave--closer, a pile,
than I'd want to have myself. Some savage critter, that bull. And if
Dakota Joe's gal wasn't a crack shot that young lady would sure been
throwed higher than Haman."

Ruth had now struggled to her feet with the aid of Jenny and Mercy.

"Do find out who it was shot the bull!" she cried.

Jennie, although still white-faced, grinned broadly again. "_Now_ who is
guilty of the most atrocious slang? 'Shot the bull,' indeed!"

"Thar she is," answered the broad-hatted man, pointing to a figure
approaching the fence. Helen fairly gasped at sight of her.

"Right out of a Remington black-and-white," she shrilled in Ruth
Fielding's ear.

The sight actually jolted Ruth's mind away from the fright which had
overwhelmed it. She stared at the person indicated with growing interest
as well as appreciation of the picturesque figure she made. She was an
Indian girl in the gala costume of her tribe, feather head-dress and
all. Or, perhaps, one would better say she was dressed as the white man
expects an Indian to dress when on exhibition.

But aside from her dress, which was most attractive, the girl herself
held Ruth's keen interest. Despite her high cheekbones and the dusky
copper color of her skin, this strange girl's features were handsome.
There was pride expressed in them--pride and firmness and, withal, a
certain sadness that added not a little to the charm of the Indian
girl's visage.

"What a strange person!" murmured Helen Cameron.

"She is pretty," announced the assured Mercy Curtis, who always held her
own opinion to be right on any subject. "One brunette never does like
another," and she made a little face at Helen.

"Listen!" commanded Jennie Stone. "What does she say?"

The Indian girl spoke again, and this time they all heard her.

"Is the white lady injured, Conlon?"

"No, ma'am!" declared the broad-hatted man. "She'll be as chipper as a
blue-jay in a minute. That was a near shot, Wonota. For an Injun you're
some shot, I'll tell the world."

An expression of disdain passed over the Indian girl's face. She looked
away from the man and Ruth's glance caught her attention.

"I thank you very much, Miss--Miss--"

"I am called Wonota in the Osage tongue," interposed the Indian maiden
composedly enough.

"She's Dakota Joe's Injun sharpshooter," put in the man at the fence.
"And she ain't no business out here in her play-actin' costume--or with
her gun loaded that-a-way. Aginst the law. That gun she uses is for
shootin' glass balls and clay pigeons in the show."

"Well, Miss Wonota," said Ruth, trying to ignore the officious man who
evidently annoyed the Indian maiden, "I am very thankful you did have
your rifle with you at this particular juncture." She approached the
fence and reached over it to clasp the Indian girl's hand warmly.

"We are going in to see you shoot at the glass balls, for I see the show
is about to start. But afterward, Wonota, can't we see you again?"

The Indian girl's expression betrayed some faint surprise. But she bowed
gravely.

"If the white ladies desire," she said. "I must appear now in the tent.
The boss is strict."

"You bet he is," added the broad-hatted man, who seemed offensively
determined to push himself forward.

"After the show, then," said Ruth promptly to the girl. "I will tell you
then just how much obliged to you I am," and she smiled in a most
friendly fashion.

Wonota's smile was faint, but her black eyes seemed suddenly to sparkle.
The man at the fence looked suspiciously from the white girls to the
Indian maid, but he made no further comment as Wonota hastened away.

CHAPTER III

IN THE RING

"What do you know about that Indian girl?" demanded Jennie Stone
excitedly. "She was just as cool as a cucumber. Think of her shooting
that bull just in the nick of time and saving our Ruth!"

"It does seem," remarked Mercy Curtis in her sharp way, "that Ruthie
Fielding cannot venture abroad without getting into trouble."

"And getting out of it, I thank you," rejoined Helen, somewhat offended
by Mercy's remark.

"Certainly I have not been killed yet," was Ruth's mild observation,
pinching Helen's arm to warn her that she was not to quarrel with the
rather caustic lame girl. Mercy's affliction, which still somewhat
troubled her, had never improved her naturally crabbed disposition, and
few of her girl friends had Ruth's patience with her.

"I don't know that I feel much like seeing cowboys rope steers and all
that after seeing that horrid black bull charge our Ruthie," complained
Helen. "Shall we really go to the show?"

"Why! Ruth just told that girl we would," said Jennie.

"I wouldn't miss seeing that Wonota shoot for anything," Ruth declared.

"But there is nobody here to watch the automobile now," went on Helen,
who was more nervous than her chum.

"Yes," Jennie remarked. "Here comes 'Silas Simpkins, the straw-chewing
rube,'" and she giggled.

The farmer was at hand, puffing and blowing. He assured them that "that
critter" was tightly housed and would do no more harm.

"Hope none o' you warn't hurt," he added. "By jinks! that bull is jest
as much excited by this here Wild West Show as I be. Did you pay me for
your ortymobile, young ladies?"

"I most certainly did," said Ruth. "Your bull did not drive all memory
away."

"All right. All right," said the farmer hastily. "I thought you did, but
I wasn't positive you'd remember it."

With which frank confession he turned away to meet another motor-car
party that was attempting to park their machine on his land.

The four girls got out into the dusty road and marched to the ticket
wagon that was gaily painted with the sign of "Dakota Joe's Wild West
and Frontier Round-Up."

"This is my treat," declared Ruth, going ahead to the ticket window with
the crowd. "I certainly should pay for all this excitement I have got
you girls into."

"Go as far as you like," said Jennie. "But to tell the truth, I think
the owner of the black bull should be taxed for this treat."

Dakota Joe's show was apparently very popular, for people were coming to
it not only from Longhaven and Cheslow, but from many other towns and
hamlets. This afternoon performance attracted many women and children,
and when the four young women from Cheslow got into their reserved seats
they found that they were right in the midst of a lot of little folks.

The big ring, separated from the plank seats by a board fence put up in
sections, offered a large enough tanbark-covered course to enable steers
to be roped, bucking broncos exhibited, Indian riding races, and various
other events dear to the heart of the Wild West Show fans. And the
program of Dakota Joe's show was much like that of similar exhibitions.
He had some "real cowboys" and "sure-enough Indians," as well as
employees who were not thus advertised. The steers turned loose for the
cowboys to "bulldog" were rather tame animals, for they were used to the
employment. The "bronco busters" rode trick horses so well trained that
they really acted better than their masters. Some of the roping and
riding--especially by the Indians--was really good.

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