CHAPTER XXV
OTHER SURPRISES
It was not merely a matter of packing up and starting for the East. Itwould be a week still before the party would separate--some of theWesterners starting for California and the great moving picture studiosthere, while Ruth and her friends with Mr. Hammond and his personalstaff would go eastward.
It had been arranged that Wonota should return to the Osage Agency for ashort time. Meanwhile Ruth had promised to try to do another scenario inwhich the young Indian girl would have an important part.
Mr. Hammond was enthusiastic, having seen some of the principal scenesof "Brighteyes" projected. He declared to Ruth:
"She is going to be what our friend the camera man calls 'a knock-out.'There is a charm about Wonota--a wistfulness and naturalness--that Ibelieve will catch the movie fans. Maybe, Miss Fielding, we are on theverge of making one of the few really big hits in the game."
"I think she is quite worthy of training, Mr. Hammond," agreed the girlof the Red Mill. "When I get to work on the new picture I shall wantWonota with me. Can it be arranged?"
"Surely. Her contract takes that into consideration. Unless her fatherappears on the scene, for the next two years Wonota is to be as muchunder your instruction as though she were an apprentice," and helaughed.
Mention of Chief Totantora did not warn Ruth of any pending event. Thething which happened was quite unexpected as far as she was concerned.
The westbound train halted at Clearwater one afternoon, while the threewhite girls were sitting on the rear platform of their car busy withcertain necessary needlework--for there were no maids in the party. Ruthidly raised her eyes to see who got off the train, for the station wasin plain view.
"There are two soldiers," she said. "Look! Boys coming home from 'overthere,' I do believe. See! They have their trench helmets slung behindthem with their other duffle. Why----"
She halted. Helen had looked up lazily, but it was Jennie who firstexclaimed in rejoinder to Ruth's observation:
"Dear me, it surely isn't my Henri!"
"No," said Ruth slowly, but still staring, "there is no horizon blueuniform in sight."
"Don't remind us of such possibilities," complained Helen Cameron with adeep sigh. "If Tom--"
"It _is_!" gasped Ruth, under her breath, and suddenly the other girlslooked at her to observe an almost beatific expression spread over thefeatures of the girl of the Red Mill.
"Ruthie!" cried Helen, and jumped up from her seat.
"My aunt!" murmured Jennie, and stared as hard as she could along thebeaten path toward the station.
The two figures in uniform strode toward the special car. One straightand youthful figure came ahead, while the other soldier, as though in asubservient position, followed in the first one's footsteps.
Wonota was coming across the street toward the railroad. She, too, sawthe pair of uniformed men. For an instant the Indian girl halted. Thenshe bounded toward the pair, her light feet fairly spurning the ground.
"My father! Chief Totantora!" the white girls heard her cry.
The leading soldier halted, swung about to look at her, and saidsomething to his companion. Not until this order was given him did thesecond man even look in the direction of the flying Indian maid.
Ruth and her friends then saw that he was a man past middle age, thathis face was that of an Indian, and that his expression was quite asstoical as the countenances of Indians are usually presumed to be.
But Wonota had learned of late to give way to her feelings. No whitegirl could have flung herself into the arms of her long-lost parent withmore abandon than did Wonota. And that not-withstanding the costume shewore--the very pretty one sent West from the Fifth Avenue modiste'sshop!
Perhaps the change in his lovely daughter shocked Totantora at first, Heseemed not at all sure that this was really his Wonota. Nor did he puthis arms about her as a white father would have done. But he patted hershoulder, and then her cheek, and in earnest gutturals he conversed along time with the Indian maid.
Meanwhile the three white girls had their own special surprise. Thewhite soldier, who was plainly an officer, advanced toward the specialcar. His bronzed and smiling face was not to be mistaken even at thatdistance. Helen suddenly cried:
"Hold me, somebody! I know I'm going to faint! That's Tommy-boy."
Ruth, however, gave no sign of fainting. She dashed off the steps of thecar and ran several yards to meet the handsome soldier. Then she halted,blushing to think of the appearance she made. Suppose members of thecompany should see her?
"Well, Ruth," cried the broadly smiling Tom, "is that the way you greetyour best chum's brother? Say! You girls ought to be kinder than this tous. Why! when we paraded in New York an old lady ran right out into thestreet and kissed me."
"And how many pretty girls did the same, Captain Tom?" Ruth wanted toknow sedately.
"Nobody as pretty as you, Ruth," he whispered, seizing both her handsand kissing her just as his sister and Jennie reached the spot. He letHelen--and even Jennie---kiss him also.
"You know how it is, Tommy," the latter explained. "If I can't kiss myown soldier, why shouldn't I practise on you?"
"No reason at all, Jennie," he declared. "But let me tell the good news.By the time you get back to New York a certain major in the Frenchforces expects to be relieved and to be on his way to the States again.He tells me that you are soon going to become a French citizeness, _macherie."_
It was a very gay party that sat for the remainder of that afternoon onthe observation platform of the special car. There was so much to sayon both sides.
"So the appearance of Wonota's father was the great surprise you had instore for us, Tom?" Ruth said at one point.
"That's it. And some story that old fellow can tell his daughter--if hewarms up enough to do it. These Indians certainly are funny people. Heseems to have taken a shine to me and follows me around a good deal asthough he were my servant. Yet I understand that he belongs to the veryrich Osage tribe, and is really one of the big men of it."
"Quite true," Ruth said.
The story of Totantora's adventures in Germany was a thrilling one. Butonly by hearsay had Tom got the details. The Indians and otherperformers put in confinement by the Germans when the war began, had allsuffered more or less. Twice Chief Totantora had escaped and tried tomake his way out of the country. Each time he had been caught, and moreseverely treated.
The third time he had succeeded in breaking through into neutralterritory. Even there, in a strange land, amid unfamiliar customs andpeople talking an unknown language, he had made his way alone andwithout help till he had reached the American lines. Perhaps one lessstoical, with less endurance, than an Indian, and an Indian, like ChiefTotantora, trained in an earlier, hardier day, could not have done it.But Wonota's father did succeed, and after he reached the American lineshe became attached in some indefinite capacity to Captain Tom Cameron'sregiment.
"When I first saw the poor old chap he was little more than a skeleton.But the life Indians lead certainly makes them tough and enduring. Hestood starvation and confinement better than the white men. Some of theex-show people died in that influenza epidemic the second year of thewar. But old Totantora was pretty husky, in spite of having all theappearance of a professional living skeleton," explained Tom.
Whether Totantora told Wonota the details of his imprisonment or not,the white girls never knew. Wonota, too, was inclined to be verysecretive. But she was supremely happy.
She was to have a recess from work, and when the special car startedEast with Ruth and her chums, Wonota and her father accompanied them toKansas City. Then the Osages went south to the reservation.
Totantora had heard all about his daughter's work in the moving picturebefore the party separated, and he put his mark on Mr. Hammond'scontract binding himself to allow the girl to go on as already agreed.Totantora had possibly some old-fashioned Indian ideas about thetreatment of squaws; but he knew the value of money. The sums Wonota
had already been paid were very satisfactory to the chief of the Osages.
In Ruth's mind, the money part of the contract was the smallest part.She desired greatly to see Wonota develop and grow in her chosenprofession. To see the Indian maid become a popular screen star wasgoing to delight the girl of the Red Mill, and she was frank in sayingso.
"See here," Tom Cameron said when they were alone together. "I can seevery well, Ruthie, that you are even more enamored of your professionthan you were before I left for Europe. How long is this going to last?"
"How long is what going to last?" she asked him, her frank gaze findinghis.
"You know what I mean," said the young man boyishly. "Gee, Ruth! the waris over. You know what I want. And I feel as though I deserved someconsideration after what I have been through."
She smiled, but still looked at him levelly.
"Well, how about it?" he demanded.
"Do you think we know our own minds? Altogether, I mean?" asked thegirl. "You are in a dreadfully unsettled state. I can see that, Tom. AndI have only just begun with Wonota. I could not stop now."
"I don't ask you to stop a single, solitary thing!" he cried withsudden heat. "I expect to get to work myself--at something. I feel a lotof energy boiling up in me," and he laughed.
"But, say, Ruth, I want to know just what I am going to work for? Is itall right with you? Haven't found anybody else you like better than yourold chum, have you?"
Ruth laughed, too. Yet she was serious when she gave him both her hands.
"I am very sure, Tom, dear, that that could never be. You will always bethe best beloved of all boys----"
"Great Scott, Ruth!" he interrupted. "When do you think I am going to bea man?"
THE END
Ruth Fielding in the Great Northwest; Or, The Indian Girl Star of the Movies Page 25
