Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures by Alice Emerson

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Ruth Fielding
In Moving Pictures

OR

HELPING THE DORMITORY FUND

BY
ALICE B. EMERSON

AUTHOR OF "RUTH FIELDING OF THE RED MILL," "RUTH
FIELDING ON CLIFF ISLAND," ETC.

_ILLUSTRATED_

NEW YORK

CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY

PUBLISHERS

Books for Girls

BY ALICE B. EMERSON

RUTH FIELDING SERIES

12mo. Cloth. Illustrated.

RUTH FIELDING OF THE RED MILL
Or, Jasper Parloe's Secret.

RUTH FIELDING AT BRIARWOOD HALL
Or, Solving the Campus Mystery.

RUTH FIELDING AT SNOW CAMP
Or, Lost in the Backwoods.

RUTH FIELDING AT LIGHTHOUSE POINT
Or, Nita, the Girl Castaway.

RUTH FIELDING AT SILVER RANCH
Or, Schoolgirls Among the Cowboys.

RUTH FIELDING ON CLIFF ISLAND
Or, The Old Hunter's Treasure Box.

RUTH FIELDING AT SUNRISE FARM
Or, What Became of the Baby Orphans.

RUTH FIELDING AND THE GYPSIES
Or, The Missing Pearl Necklace.

RUTH FIELDING IN MOVING PICTURES
Or, Helping the Dormitory Fund

RUTH FIELDING DOWN IN DIXIE
Or, Great Times in the Land of Cotton.

* * * * *

CUPPLES & LEON CO., PUBLISHERS. NEW YORK.

COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY

* * * * *

RUTH FIELDING IN MOVING PICTURES

Printed in U.S.A.

* * * * *

[Illustration: IN THE ITALIAN GARDEN SCENES, THE SENIORS AND JUNIORS WERE
USED Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures]

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. NOT IN THE SCENARIO 1
II. THE FILM HEROINE 9
III. AT THE RED MILL 18
IV. A TIME OF CHANGE 28
V. "THAT'S A PROMISE" 36
VI. WHAT IS AHEAD? 46
VII. "SWEETBRIARS ALL" 52
VIII. A NEW STAR 60
IX. THE DEVOURING ELEMENT 67
X. GAUNT RUINS 76
XI. ONE THING THE OLD DOCTOR DID 84
XII. "GREAT OAKS FROM LITTLE ACORNS GROW" 90
XIII. THE IDEA IS BORN 100
XIV. AT MRS. SADOC SMITH'S 108
XV. A DAWNING POSSIBILITY 117
XVI. THE CAT OUT OF THE BAG 125
XVII. ANOTHER OF CURLY'S TRICKS 134
XVIII. THE FIVE-REEL DRAMA 141
XIX. GREAT TIMES 153
XX. A CLOUD ARISES 161
XXI. HUNTING FOR AMY 168
XXII. DISASTER THREATENS 176
XXIII. PUTTING ONE'S BEST FOOT FORWARD 183
XXIV. "SEEING OURSELVES AS OTHERS SEE US" 190
XXV. AUNT ALVIRAH AT BRIARWOOD HALL 201

RUTH FIELDING IN MOVING PICTURES

CHAPTER I

NOT IN THE SCENARIO

"What in the world are those people up to?"

Ruth Fielding's clear voice asked the question of her chum, Helen Cameron,
and her chum's twin-brother, Tom. She turned from the barberry bush she
had just cleared of fruit and, standing on the high bank by the roadside,
gazed across the rolling fields to the Lumano River.

"What people?" asked Helen, turning deliberately in the automobile seat to
look in the direction indicated by Ruth.

"Where? People?" joined in Tom, who was tinkering with the mechanism of
the automobile and had a smudge of grease across his face.

"Right over the fields yonder," Ruth explained, carefully balancing the
pail of berries. "Can't you see them, Helen?"

"No-o," confessed her chum, who was not looking at all where Ruth pointed.

"Where are your eyes?" Ruth cried sharply.

"Nell is too lazy to stand up and look," laughed Tom. "I see them. Why!
there's quite a bunch--and they're running."

"Where? Where?" Helen now demanded, rising to look.

"Oh, goosy!" laughed Ruth, in some vexation. "Right ahead. Surely you can
see them now?"

"Oh," drawled Tom, "sis wouldn't see a meteor if it fell into her lap."

"I guess that's right, Tommy," responded his twin, in some scorn. "Neither
would you. Your knowledge of the heavenly bodies is very small indeed, I
fear. What do they teach you at Seven Oaks?"

"Not much about anything celestial, I guarantee," said Ruth, slyly. "Oh!
there those folks go again."

"Goodness me!" gasped Helen. "Where _are_ these wonderful persons? Oh! I
see them now."

"Whom do you suppose they are chasing?" demanded Tom Cameron. "Or, who is
chasing _them_?"

"That's it, Tommy," scoffed his sister. "I understand you have taken up
navigation with the other branches of higher mathematics at Seven Oaks;
and now you want to trouble Ruth and me with conundrums.

"Are we soothsayers, that we should be able to explain, off-hand," pursued
Helen, "the actions of such a crazy crowd of people as those----Do look
there! that woman jumped right down that sandbank. Did you ever?"

"And there goes another!" Ruth exclaimed.

"Likewise a third," came from Tom, who was quite as much puzzled as were
the girls.

"One after the other--just like Brown's cows," giggled Helen. "Isn't that
funny?"

"It's like one of those chases in the moving pictures," suggested Tom.

"Why, of course!" Ruth cried, relieved at once. "That's exactly what it
is," and she scrambled down the bank with the pail of barberries.

"What is _what_?" asked her chum.

"Moving pictures," Ruth said confidently. "That is, it will be a film in
time. They are making a picture over yonder. I can see the camera-man off
at one side, turning the crank."

"Cracky!" exclaimed Tom, grinning, "I thought that was a fellow with a
hand-organ, and I was looking for the monkey."

"Monkey, yourself," cried his sister, gaily.

"Didn't know but that he was playing for those 'crazy creeters'--as your
Aunt Alvirah would call them, Ruthie--to dance by," went on Tom. "Come on!
I've got this thing fixed up so it will hobble along a little farther.
Let's take the lane there and go down by the river road, and see what it's
all about."

"Good idea, Tommy-boy," agreed Ruth, as she got into the tonneau and sat
down beside Helen.

"Fancy! taking moving pictures out in the open in mid-winter," Helen
remarked. "Although this is a warm day."

"And no snow on the ground," chimed in Ruth. "Uncle Jabez was saying last
evening that he doesn't remember another such open winter along the
Lumano."

"Say, Ruthie, how does your Uncle Jabez treat you, now that you are a
bloated capitalist?" asked Helen, pinching her chum's arm.

"Oh, Helen! don't," objected Ruth. "I don't feel puffed up at all--only
vastly satisfied and content."

"Hear her! who wouldn't?" demanded Tom. "Five thousand dollars in
bank--and all you did was to use your wits to get it. We had just as good
a chance as you did to discover that necklace and cause the arrest of the
old Gypsy," and the young fellow laughed, his black eyes twinkling.

"I never shall feel as though the reward should all have been mine," Ruth
said, as Tom prepared to start the car.

"Pooh! I'd never worry over the possession of so much money," said Helen.
"Not I! What does it matter how you got it? But you don't tell us what
your Uncle Jabez thinks about it."

"I can't," responded Ruth, demurely.

"Why not?"

"Because Uncle Jabez has expressed no opinion--beyond his usual grunt. It
doesn't really matter how the dear man feels," pursued Ruth Fielding,
earnestly. "I know how _I_ feel about it. I am no longer a 'charity
child'----"

"Oh, Ruthie! you never were _that_," Helen hastened to say.

"Oh, yes I was. When I first came to the Red Mill you know Uncle Jabez
only took me in because I was a relative and he felt that he _had_ to."

"But you helped save him a lot of money," cried Helen. "And there was that
Tintacker Mine business. If you hadn't chanced to find The Fox's brother
out there in the wilds of Montana, and nursed him back to health, your
uncle would never have made a penny in _that_ investment."

Helen might have gone on with continued vehemence, had not Ruth stopped
her by saying:

"That makes no difference in my feelings, my dear. Each quarter Uncle
Jabez has had to pay out a lot of money to Mrs. Tellingham for my tuition.
And he has clothed me, and let me spend money going about with you 'richer
folks,'" and Ruth laughed rather ruefully. "I feel that I should not have
allowed him to do it. I should have remained at the Red Mill and helped
Aunt Alvirah----"

"Pooh! Nonsense!" ejaculated Tom, as the spark ignited and the engine
began to rumble.

"You shouldn't be so popular, Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill," chanted
Helen, leaning over to kiss her chum's flushed cheek.

"Look out for the barberries!" cried Ruth.

"I reckon you don't want to spill them, after working so hard to get
them," Tom said, as the automobile lurched forward.

"I certainly do not," Ruth admitted. "I scratched my hands all up getting
the bucket full. Just fancy finding barberries still clinging to the
bushes in such quantities this time of the year."

"What good are they?" queried Helen, selecting one gingerly and putting it
into her mouth.

"Oh! Aunt Alvirah makes the loveliest pies of them--with huckleberries,
you know. Half and half."

"Where'll you find huckleberries this time of year?" scoffed Tom. "On the
bushes too?"

"In glass jars down cellar, sir," replied Ruth, smartly. "I did help pick
those and put them up last summer, in spite of all the running around we
did."

"Beg pardon, Miss Fielding," said Tom. "Go on. Tell us some more recipes.
Makes my mouth water."

"O-o-oh! so will these barberries!" exclaimed Helen, making a wry face.
"Just taste one, Tommy."

"Many, many thanks! _Good_-night!" ejaculated her brother, "I know
better. But those barberries properly prepared with sugar make a mighty
nice drink in summer. Our Babette makes barberry syrup, you know."

"Ugh! It doesn't taste like these," complained his sister. "Oh, folks!
there are those foolish actors again."

"_Now_ what are they about?" demanded Ruth.

"Look out that you don't bring the car into the focus of the camera, Tom,"
his sister warned him. "It will make them awfully mad."

"Don't fret. I have no desire to appear in a movie," laughed Tom.

"But I think _I_ would like to," said his sister. "Wouldn't you, Ruth?"

"I--I don't know. It must be awfully interesting----"

"Pooh!" scoffed Tom. "What will you girls get into your heads next? And
they don't let girls like you play in movies, anyway."

"Oh, yes, they do!" cried his sister. "Some of the greatest stars in the
film firmament are nothing more than schoolgirls. They have what they call
'film charm.'"

"Think you've got any of that commodity?" demanded Tom, with cheerful
impudence.

"I don't know----Oh, Ruth, look at that girl! Now, Tommy, see there! That
girl isn't a day older than we."

"Too far away to make sure," said Tom, slowly. Then, the next moment, he
ejaculated: "What under the sun is she doing? Why! she'll fall off that
tree-trunk, the silly thing!"

The slender girl who had attracted their attention had, at the command of
the director of the picture, scrambled up a leaning sycamore tree which
overhung the stream at a sharp angle. The girl swayed upon the bare trunk,
balancing herself prettily, and glanced back over her shoulder.

Tom had brought the car to a stop. When the engine was shut off they could
hear the director's commands:

"That's it, Hazel. Keep that pose. Got your focus, Carroll?" he called to
the camera man. "Now--ready! Register fear, Miss Hazel. Say! act as though
you _meant_ it! Register fear, I say--just as though you expected to fall
into the water the next moment. Oh, piffle! Not at all like it! not at
_all_ like it!"

He was a dreadfully noisy, pugnacious man. Finally the girl said:

"If you think I am not scared, Mr. Grimes, you are very much mistaken. I
_am_. I expect to slip off here any moment----Oh!"

The last was a shriek of alarm. What she was afraid would happen came to
pass like a flash. Her foot slipped, she lost her balance, and the next
instant was precipitated into the river!

CHAPTER II

THE FILM HEROINE

When the motion picture girl fell from the sycamore tree into the water,
some of the members of the company, who sat or stood near by panting after
their hard chase cross-lots, actually laughed at their unfortunate
comrade's predicament.

But that was because they had no idea of the strength and treacherous
nature of the Lumano. At this point the eddies and cross-currents made the
stream more perilous than any similar stretch of water in the State.

"Oh, that silly girl!" shouted Mr. Grimes, the director. "There! she's
spoiled the scene again. I don't know what Hammond was thinking of to send
her up here to work with us.

"Hey, one of you fellows! go and fish her out. And that spoils our chance
of getting the picture to-day. Miss Gray will have to be mollycoddled, and
grandmothered, and what-not. Huh!"

While he scolded, the director scarcely gave a glance to the struggling
girl. The latter had struck out pluckily for the shore when she came up
from her involuntary plunge. After the cry she had uttered as she fell,
she had not made a sound.

To swim with one's clothing all on is not an easy matter at the best of
times. To do this in mid-winter, when the water is icy, is well nigh an
impossibility.

Several of the men of the company, more humane than the director, had
sprung to assist the unfortunate girl; but suddenly the current caught her
and she was swerved from the bank. She was out of reach.

"And not a skiff in sight!" exclaimed Tom.

"Oh, dear! The poor thing!" cried his sister. "She's being carried right
down the river. They'll never get her."

"Oh, Tom!" implored Ruth. "Hurry and start. _We must get that girl_!"

"Sure we will!" cried Tom Cameron.

He was already out of the car and madly turning the crank. In a moment the
engine was throbbing. Tom leaped back behind the wheel and the automobile
darted ahead.

The rough road led directly along the verge of the river bank. The
picture-play actors scattered as he bore down upon them. It gave Tom, as
well as the girls, considerable satisfaction to see the director, Grimes,
jump out of the way of the rapidly moving car.

The friends in the car saw the actress, whom Grimes had called both
"Hazel" and "Miss Gray," swirled far out from the shore; but they knew the
current or an eddy would bring her back. She sank once; but she came up
again and fought the current like the plucky girl she was.

"Oh, Helen! she's wonderful!" gasped Ruth, with clasped hands, as she
watched this fight for life which was more thrilling than anything she had
ever seen reproduced on the screen.

Helen was too frightened to reply; but Ruth Fielding often before had
shown remarkable courage and self-possession in times of emergency. No
more than the excited Tom did she lose her head on this occasion.

As has been previously told, Ruth had come to the banks of the Lumano
River and to her Uncle Jabez Potter's Red Mill some years before, when she
was a small girl. She was an orphan, and the crabbed and miserly miller
was her single living relative.

The first volume of the series, entitled "Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill,"
tells of the incidents which follow Ruth's coming to reside with her
uncle, and with Aunt Alvirah Boggs, who was "everybody's aunt" but
nobody's relative.

The first and closest friends of her own age that Ruth made in her new
home were Helen and Tom Cameron, twin children of a wealthy merchant
whose all-year home was not far from the Red Mill. With Helen and Mercy
Curtis, a lame girl, Ruth is sent to Briarwood Hall, a delightfully
situated boarding school at some distance from the girls' homes, and
there, in the second volume of the series, Ruth is introduced to new
scenes, some new friends and a few enemies; but altogether has a
delightful time.

Ensuing volumes tell of Ruth and her chums' adventures at Snow Camp; at
Lighthouse Point; on Silver Ranch, in Montana; on Cliff Island, where
occur a number of remarkable winter incidents; at Sunset Farm during the
previous summer; and finally, in the eighth volume, the one immediately
preceding this present story, Ruth achieves something that she has long,
long desired.

This last volume, called "Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies; Or, The Missing
Pearl Necklace," tells of an automobile trip which Ruth and her present
companions, Helen and Tom Cameron, took through the hills some distance
beyond the Red Mill and Cheslow, their home town.

They fall into the hands of Gypsies and the two girls are actually held
captive by the old and vindictive Gypsy Queen. Through Ruth's bravery
Helen escapes and takes the news of the capture back to Tom. Later the
grandson of the old Gypsy Queen releases Ruth.

While at the camp Ruth sees a wonderful pearl necklace in the hands of
the covetous old Queen Zelaya. Later, when the girls return to Briarwood,
they learn that an aunt of one of their friends, Nettie Parsons, has been
robbed of just such a necklace.

Ruth, through Mr. Cameron, puts the police on the trail of the Gypsies.
The Gypsy boy, Roberto, is rescued and in time becomes a protege of Mr.
Cameron, while the stolen necklace is recovered from the Gypsy Queen, who
is deported by the Washington authorities.

In the end, the five thousand dollars reward offered by Nettie's aunt
comes to Ruth. She is enriched beyond her wildest dreams, and above all,
is made independent of the niggardly charity of her Uncle Jabez who seems
to love his money more than he does his niece.

Unselfishness was Ruth's chief virtue, though she had many. She could
never refuse a helping hand to the needy; nor did she fear to risk her own
convenience, sometimes even her own safety, to relieve or rescue another.

In the present case, none knew better than Ruth the treacherous currents
of the Lumano. It had not been so many months since she and her uncle,
Jabez Potter, out upon the Lumano in a boat, had nearly lost their lives.
This present accident, that to the young moving-picture actress, was at a
point some distance above the Red Mill.

"If she is carried down two hundred yards farther, Tom, she will be swept
out into mid-stream," declared Ruth, still master of herself, though her
voice was shaking.

"And then--good-night!" answered Tom. "I know what you mean, Ruth."

"She will sink for the last time before the current sweeps her in near the
shore again," Ruth added.

"Oh, don't!" groaned Helen. "The poor girl."

Tom had driven the automobile until it was ahead of the struggling Hazel
Gray. An eddy clutched her and drew her swiftly in toward the bank.
Immediately Tom shut off the power and he and Ruth both leaped out of the
car.

A long branch from an adjacent tree had been torn off by the wind and lay
beside the road. Tom seized this and ran with Ruth to the edge of the
water; but he knew the branch was a poor substitute for a rope.

"If she can cling to this, I'll get something better in a moment, Ruth!"
he exclaimed.

Swinging the small and bushy end of the branch outward, Tom dropped it
into the water just ahead of the imperiled girl. Ruth seized the butt with
her strong and capable hands.

"Cut off a length of that fence wire, Tommy," she ordered. "You have
wire-cutters in your auto kit, haven't you?"

"Sure!" cried Tom. "Never travel without 'em since we were at Silver
Ranch, you know. There! She's got it."

Hazel Gray had seized upon the branch. She was too exhausted to reach the
bank of the river without help, and just here the eddy began to swing her
around again, away from the shore.

The men of the company came running now, giving lusty shouts of
encouragement, but--that was all! The director had allowed the girl to get
into a perilous position on the leaning tree without having a boat and
crew in readiness to pick her up if she fell into the river. It was an
unpardonable piece of neglect, and there might still serious consequences
arise from it.

For the girl in the water was so exhausted that she could not long cling
to the limb. It was but a frail support between her and drowning.

When the men arrived Ruth feared to have them even touch the branch she
held, and she motioned them back. She knew that the girl in the stream was
almost exhausted and that a very little would cause her to lose her hold
upon the branch altogether.

"Don't touch it! I beg of you, don't touch it!" cried Ruth, as one excited
man undertook to take the butt of the branch.

"You can't hold it, Miss! you'll be pulled into the water."

"Never fear for me," the girl from the Red Mill returned. "I know what I
am about----Oh, goody! here comes Tom!"

She depended on Tom--she knew that he would do something if anybody could.
She gazed upon the wet, white face of the girl in the water and knew that
whatever Tom did must be done at once. Hazel Gray was loosing her hold.

"Oh! oh! oh!" screamed Helen, standing in the automobile with clasped
hands. "Don't let her drown, Tommy! Don't let her go down again--_don't_!"

Tom came, with grimly set lips, dragging about twenty feet of fence wire
behind him. Luckily it was smooth wire--not barbed. He quickly made a loop
in one end of it and wriggled the other end toward Ruth and the excited
men.

"Catch hold here!" he ordered. "Make a loop as I have, and don't let it
slip through your hands."

"Oh, Tom! you're never going into that cold water?" Ruth gasped, suddenly
stricken with fear for her friend's safety.

But that was exactly what Tom intended to do. There was no other way. He
had seen, too, the exhaustion of the girl in the water and knew that if
her hands slipped from the tree branch, she could never get a grip on the
wire.

Without removing an article of clothing the boy leaped into the stream.
It was over his head right here below the bank, and the chill of the water
was tremendous. As Tom said afterward, he felt it "clear to the marrow of
his bones!"

But he came up and struck out strongly for the face of the girl, which was
all that could be seen above the surface.

Hazel Gray's hold was slipping from the branch. She was blue about the
lips and her eyes were almost closed. The current was tugging at her
strongly; she was losing consciousness. If she was carried away by the
suction of the stream, now dragging so strongly at her limbs, Tom Cameron
would be obliged to loose his own hold upon the wire and swim after her.
And the young fellow was not at all sure that he could save either her or
himself if this occurred.

Yet, perilous as his own situation was, Tom thought only of that of the
actress.

CHAPTER III

AT THE RED MILL

Helen, greatly excited, stood on the seat of the tonneau and cheered her
brother on at the top of her voice. That, in her excitement, she thought
she was "rooting" at a basket-ball game at Briarwood, was not to be
wondered at. Ruth heard her chum screaming:

"S.B.--Ah-h-h!
S.B.--Ah-h-h
Sound our battle-cry
Near and far!
S.B.--All!
Briarwood Hall!
Sweetbriars, do or die----
This be our battle-cry----
Briarwood Hall!
_That's All!_"

At the very moment the excited Helen brought out the "snapper" of the
rallying cry of their own particular Briarwood sorority, Ruth let the limb
go, for Tom had seized the sinking actress by the shoulder.

"He's got her!" the men shouted in chorus.

"And that's all those fellows were," Ruth said afterwards, in some
contempt. "Just a _chorus_! They were a lot of tabby-cats--afraid to wet
their precious feet. If it hadn't been for Tom, Miss Gray would have been
drowned before the eyes of that mean director and those other imitation
men. Ugh! I de-_test_ a coward!"

This was said later, however. Until they drew Tom and his fainting burden
ashore, neither Ruth nor Helen had time for criticism. Then they bundled
Hazel Gray in the automobile rugs, while Tom struggled into an overcoat
and cranked up the machine. The director came to inquire:

"What are you going to do with that girl?"

"Take her to the Red Mill," snapped Ruth. "That's down the river, opposite
the road to Cheslow. And don't try to see her before to-morrow. No thanks
to _you_ that she isn't drowned."

"You are a very impudent young lady," growled the director.

"I may be a plain spoken one," said Ruth, not at all alarmed by the man's
manner. "I don't know how you would have felt had Miss Gray been drowned.
I should think you would think of _that_!"

But the man seemed more disturbed about the delay to the picture that was
being taken.

"I shall expect you to be ready bright and early in the morning, Miss
Gray!" he shouted as the automobile moved off. The young actress, half
fainting in the tonneau between the Briarwood Hall girls, did not hear
him.

It was several miles to the Red Mill, and Ruth, worried, said: "I'm afraid
Tom will catch cold, Helen."

"And--and this po--poor girl, too," stammered Tom's sister, as the car
jounced over a particularly rough piece of road.

Hazel Gray opened her eyes languidly, murmuring: "I shall be all right,
thank you! Just drive to the hotel----"

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