CHAPTER I
FIRE

Main Street was jammed with an unprecedented crowd of people and traffic. Automobiles discharged a continual stream of humanity before the doors of the new motion picture house in Cheslow.

Laughing girls and their escorts, older men and women, paused before the rather flamboyant poster in the lobby of the picture house advertising Miss Ruth Fielding’s personal appearance with the introduction of this, her new and greatest picture, “Snowblind.”

Nearly all Cheslow had turned out in honor of this star in picturedom, Ruth Fielding. As Ruth had been a resident of Cheslow since her childhood, it is not strange that the town took a proprietary interest in her.

At that particular moment poor Ruth was feeling extremely unlike the Miss Fielding of the flamboyant poster. She was excited and nervous, and the prospect of facing such an audience as would in all probability pack the Palace that night filled her with an emotion akin to panic.

Also, though she was sure in her own mind that “Snowblind” was a good picture, felt that she had put the best of her art into the making of it, there was always the doubt as to just how it would be received by that fickle thing, an American audience.

The latter, besides being fickle, was pitiless. Where it condemned, it condemned so heartily that the object of its displeasure might just as well be sent at once to the darkest corner of the director’s room of discarded plays. It was done for—a complete failure. This, unless there was the possibility of practically remaking the whole thing. And in the case of Ruth Fielding’s “Snowblind,” where the scenes had actually been filmed amid the snow and ice of the far North, retakes would be an impossibility.

Some of this Ruth had been saying to her chum, Helen Cameron, as she restlessly paced the length of the living room at the Red Mill. The two girls were dressed and ready to start for the theater, but were awaiting the arrival of Tom, Helen’s twin brother, and Helen’s fiancé, Chess Copley, who were to take them to their destination in Tom’s car.

“Helen, if my picture doesn’t go and go big,” said Ruth, pausing in her restless pacing to stare at her chum, “I think I shall die of disappointment.”

Helen laughed. There was a light in her eye as though she enjoyed a secret all her own. She seated herself, unnoticed by her chum, in a chair by the window from which she could command a view of the approach to the Red Mill.

“Cheer up, Ruthie,” she said. “Disappointment seldom kills.” Then, as she drew forth a pocket mirror and carefully examined her nose for a hint of shine, she added: “Anyway, your ‘Snowblind’ hasn’t a chance in the world to fail, Ruth Fielding. It is a tremendous picture, and you know it.”

“If only the public will think so, too!” said Ruth, half to herself. She went over to the window and looked out impatiently. “Isn’t it time for the boys to come?”

“Gracious me, so it is!” cried Helen, with a glance of mock surprise at her wrist watch. “These laggards shall suffer for such neglect. Wait till I get hold of Chess——”

“Don’t rave. Here comes some one now,” Ruth interrupted.

Still enjoying her secret, Helen attempted to get Ruth away from the window. But the latter had seen something which roused her curiosity and she would not be moved.

“What do you suppose that means?” she asked herself, puzzled. “There’s more than one car. Why, it’s a regular procession—one, two, three! Helen, you know, you bad child!” She turned to her chum, caught the mischievous gleam in her eyes, and shook her a little impatiently. “Tell me! What is it?”

For answer, Helen held up a warning hand.

“Listen!” she said.

Across the still night air, there came a sound of singing.

There was an instant’s hush. Then before Ruth could move from where she stood spellbound, the old yell crashed through the silence.

It was a full second after the magic of that yell had died away into the silence of the evening before Ruth could command herself to action.

Then with a stifled cry she darted out to the porch.

A whirlwind met her, a whirlwind of bear-like hugs and joyful greetings.

“Ruthie, don’t say we actually surprised you!”

“Here, get away, Ann Hicks! I haven’t had my chance at her yet.”

“Let go of her, Heavy! There won’t be enough left to speak its piece to-night!”

These and other gay and jumbled greetings half-deafened Ruth. She pushed the surprise party away from her in an effort to identify more clearly the members of it. Happy tears sprang to her eyes as she recognized them all.

“Nettie Parsons, you old dear. Give me another hug, that’s the girl. Bless me! There’s The Fox, as large as life and twice as natural. And Mercy Curtis! How well you look, honey! All the dear old crowd. Heavy,” she turned accusingly to the rather large young woman who hovered in the background of the group, “are you responsible for this?”

“Not guilty! Ask Ann—she knows!”

There were young men in the party, too, friends of Tom and Chess, whom the latter had asked to play escort to Ruth’s old school chums who had come on to Cheslow at the instigation of Mrs. Jennie Marchand, nee Stone, and Ann Hicks.

Ruth knew these boys and nodded to them pleasantly enough. But she was still too taken up with the delightful and unexpected arrival of these old friends of hers to accord the male members of the party much attention.

The latter followed the girls back into the house, grinning indulgently at the clatter of tongues and the happy exclamations of the reunited chums.

“I must sit down! The surprise has been too much for me!” Ruth laughed as she sank down on the couch and the girls clustered on every side of her. “Now tell me, Jennie Marchand or Ann Hicks, or whoever is responsible, just how it happened.”

“Ann started the ball rolling,” responded Jennie Marchand, she of the round face and jolly smile. “Conceived the bright idea of getting some of the Briarwood Hall girls together—some of the old crowd, who had helped make ‘Heart of a School Girl’ famous—justly famous, I may say——”

“So,” Ann Hicks continued eagerly, “we gathered together as many of the old guard as we could at such short notice and—here we are.”

“Yes, here you are!” cried Ruth, looking about at them affectionately. “And now, if no one objects, I think I shall start at the beginning and hug you all over again!”

This pleasing ceremony being satisfactorily accomplished, Tom stepped forward with the suggestion that they start for the theater at once.

“Oh, is every one going?” asked Ruth, innocently enough. For the moment she had actually forgotten her picture.

“Is every one going? Just hear the child!” Jennie Marchand—affectionately known in the old days as “Heavy”—stood with arms akimbo regarding Ruth amusedly. “May I ask, Ruth Fielding, what you think we came all the way to Cheslow for?”

“Besides seeing you!” said Mercy Curtis in Ruth’s ear. Mercy did not live far away.

“More than that,” declaimed Mary Cox, more popularly known in schooldays as “The Fox,” “we have prepared a delectable spread for you after the show, Ruth Fielding, to celebrate the success of ‘Snowblind’.”

Uncle Jabez Potter and Aunt Alvirah appeared at the moment and attention was instantly turned to them. Most of the girls had met Aunt Alvirah, who greeted them with a fluttering cordiality.

Uncle Jabez acknowledged the introductions in his usual crabbed fashion and declared that if they did not start at once they would be late for the show.

“The picture’ll be over before we get there,” he grumbled. “And us with a chance to stay home and make ourselves comfortable.”

“Cheerful old boy,” whispered Jennie Marchand in Helen’s ear. “Face like a nut cracker.”

Helen looked toward Uncle Jabez and grimaced ruefully.

“He never approved of Ruth’s interest in the pictures,” she said. “If he had had his way Ruth would never have gone much farther than the Red Mill.”

“And look at her now!” said Nettie Parsons.

“Yes, look at her now,” laughed Helen. “Our old schoolmate, Ruth Fielding, is on the way to becoming quite a personage, I’ll have you know!”

There were a great many others who, either publicly or privately, echoed that view on this particular evening. For the showing of “Snowblind” was a sweeping triumph from the preliminary scenes taken in New York to those final tremendous and climatic scenes taken in the snow-blanketed and wind-swept spaces of the frozen North.

The story held together from start to finish, a proof of Ruth’s ability both as scenario writer and director. Anita Townsend and Grand, the co-stars of the picture, were almost equally fine in their portrayal of the parts assigned them, while the introduction of the old trappers gave just the necessary added touch of local color.

The audience wept—and this included most emphatically Ruth’s school chums—when author and actors demanded it, laughed at their will, and applauded thunderously the dramatic scenes. In the inspiration of their enthusiasm Ruth forgot her reluctance to speak in public. Instead, she was eager to meet this friendly and appreciative audience.

At the close of the picture she stepped upon the stage and into the spotlight. Her young voice came to them clearly, holding them tense and interested as she related the adventures of her party in the frozen country, described how the various “locations” were found and the pictures filmed.

“Doesn’t our Ruthie look too sweet for words, Heavy? Aren’t you proud of her?” whispered Helen.

“Yes, surely. But listen to her!”

“And now,” Ruth finished, “I want to thank you all in behalf of my company and myself for your appreciation and your generous applause. We all——”

A sharp explosion caught up her words, drowning them in a fierce detonation. From here and there in the audience rose frightened cries.

“The theater is on fire!”

“Fire! fire! The theater is on fire!”

“Let me get out of this!”

“I’ll be burnt to death! Oh!”

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!”

CHAPTER III
GOOD OLD TIMES

Ruth drew in great lungfuls of the fresh air. Her next thought was for Aunt Alvirah and her school friends. She gave Tom’s arm a tug and started around toward the front of the theater.

“If any of them are hurt!” Tom heard her murmur, as he followed.

“Take it easy,” warned the young fellow, seeing that the girl was dizzy and weak from her terrible experience. “We will go round to the front of the theater. Probably all our crowd have found their way to the street by this time.”

As a matter of fact, when Tom and Ruth reached the street they found that the theater had been practically emptied. Crowds had already gathered curiously about the smoke-ridden place. Cheslow’s limited police force was trying noisily and rather ineffectually to keep people back. The local fire engines had also arrived and firemen were taking their lines of hose and chemical fire extinguishers into the theater. Smoke, there seemed to be in plenty but scarcely any flames.

Those who had constituted the audience were breaking up into small, shaken groups, some wending their way homeward, intent upon reaching shelter and safety as soon as possible.

Small children were wailing heart-brokenly, women were half hysterical, the men were white and nervous.

But when Ruth’s eager eyes, searching, descried her own party, all together and unharmed, as far as she could see, her relief knew no bounds.

She saw them before they discovered her.

Aunt Alvirah and Uncle Jabez were the center of the crowd of excited and gesticulating young folks. The latter seemed trying to soothe and comfort the little old woman, but Aunt Alvirah’s quick, dark eyes darted unceasingly in all directions.

When she discovered Ruth and Tom pushing eagerly through the crowd a loud and tremulous cry broke from her old lips.

“My pretty!” she cried. “My pretty!”

The next moment Ruth’s arms were about the little old woman in a hug hard enough and wild enough to break every bone in the frail old body. However, it is doubtful if Aunt Alvirah would have cared at the moment how many bones she lost as long as Ruth had been returned to her.

“I must say this is a fine show you staged, Ruth Fielding!” remarked Jennie Marchand, regarding Ruth reproachfully. “Trying to exterminate us all as soon as we arrive in Cheslow!”

Ruth laughed unsteadily.

“It wasn’t the most cordial reception in the world,” she admitted dryly. “But I didn’t have a hand in it, girls, honest!”

“Didn’t you, now?” It was Mary Cox who spoke with scathing sarcasm.

“Compared to some of those scenes in your picture, Ruth Fielding,” laughed Nettie Parsons, “this fire scene held no thrills at all.”

“It held enough for me,” sighed Mercy Curtis. “It tore a rent in my dress that will never come right again.”

“As long as it didn’t tear a rent in you,” said Helen gayly, “you needn’t complain, my dear.”

The young folks watched the firemen come and go. Only one stream was turned on and several chemical extinguishers were brought into play, and that was all.

“More smoke than anything,” remarked one of the boys.

“Gee, but what an explosion!” remarked another. “I thought the roof was going off!”

Gradually the excitement died down and the crowd was considerably thinned out.

“And now,” suggested Chess, who had been silent much longer than usual—probably due to shock—“what do you all say to some eats? I myself am possessed of a hollow void that will require considerable attention on my part to fill.”

“How vulgar!” sniffed Helen. “Girls, don’t you envy me?”

“It begins to look,” said Jennie Marchand, “as though my wedding present to you would be a large, fat and freshly-edited cook book.”

“Jennie,” sighed Chess ecstatically, “you certainly are a friend of mine!”

Ruth cut short the interchange of nonsense by suggesting that Aunt Alvirah should be taken somewhere out of the chill of the damp night air. Uncle Jabez, having had enough excitement for one night, announced that he was going home. But Helen would not hear of his returning so soon, knowing that Aunt Alvirah would think it her duty to go back to the Red Mill with him.

Then Ruth was given her second big surprise of the evening.

“We’ve arranged a real party for you, Ruth Fielding, at the hotel,” Mercy Curtis announced gleefully, laughing eyes on Ruth’s astonished face. “You are to be the guest of honor. Aunt Alvirah is to sit on your right hand and no one is allowed to go home.”

“Until the feast is nothing but a sweet memory,” finished Jennie with a sigh.

Every one laughed and in the general merriment no one noticed Uncle Jabez’ muttered complaints. They hustled him with Aunt Alvirah into Tom’s car.

Ruth lingered before the theater with Nettie Parsons and Barclay Clayton, who was acting as her escort for the evening.

“Some films in the storeroom exploded,” said Barclay—popularly known as “Bark”—as he followed the direction of Ruth’s gaze to the now almost deserted theater. “Some men were talking about it before you and Tom showed up. Not much fire—mostly smoke.”

Ruth nodded. Firemen had easily conquered the small blaze resulting from the explosion and were now leaving the deserted building.

“I hope no one was seriously hurt,” Nettie said, as the three, responding to urgent calls from the rest of the party, crossed the pavement. “It was certainly a panic for a while.”

“It is lucky,” said Ruth soberly, “that some one wasn’t killed.”

When the party reached the Cheslow hotel and were ushered into the private dining room that Ruth’s chums had engaged for the evening in honor of the grand occasion, the excitement and the distressing events of the evening were almost forgotten.

Aunt Alvirah forgot all about the ache in her back and bones of which she had complained monotonously for many years. Even Uncle Jabez brightened perceptibly at sight of the good and plentiful food and set to upon the tempting viands with a will.

“Your picture was a wonder, Ruth,” Mercy Curtis called across from her side of the table. “From now on it will be my one ambition to take a trip to your north country.”

“It must be wonderful to have all those thrilling adventures,” sighed The Fox. “For goodness’ sake, don’t give me any more nuts, Charles,” she said to the attentive young man on her right hand. “Before you know it, I shall turn into one!”

“Turn?” queried Jennie, with an insulting emphasis not missed by Miss Cox, who merely made a face at her in reply.

Ruth said suddenly from her place of honor at the head of the long table:

“Girls, this is so exactly like old times that I feel I must be dreaming. You can’t any of you be real!”

“Gaze upon the fast-disappearing food, Ruth, and behold the refutation of your dream,” chuckled Jennie Marchand. “Phantoms never ate like these. Pass me a pickle some one, ere I starve!”

“Anyway,” Ruth persisted, “now that I have you all here in Cheslow, you shan’t get away easily! Isn’t that so, Aunt Alvirah?”

The latter nodded cordially, though Uncle Jabez was seen to glance up sharply at his niece.

“There isn’t anything you want, my pretty, that I don’t want, too,” said the little old woman simply.

Ruth squeezed her hand beneath the table and said so softly that no one else could hear:

“We will have some one in from the village to help. You shan’t have any more work, Auntie.”

Helen was speaking, and with an emphasis that caught Ruth’s attention.

“If you think you are going to have the girls all to yourself, Ruth Fielding, you never were more mistaken in all the course of your eventful career. I intend to do some entertaining, too!”

Ruth was about to make some laughing reply when the door opened suddenly. Every one turned toward the sound. Ruth gave a little gasp of surprise and delight. She rose quickly and went forward with outstretched hands.

“Mr. Hammond! Well, this is my night of surprises!”

Mr. Hammond was immediately dragged to the table and a waiter was directed to bring another plate for him at once.

“I hoped to reach Cheslow in time for the run-off of your picture,” the president of the Alectrion Film Corporation said, his face ruddier and pleasanter than ever. “I wanted particularly to hear your address. But I was detained by business that would not be put off.”

“It was good of you to come at all,” said Ruth, hospitably making sure that his plate was well filled with good things.

CHAPTER IV
GOLDEN PASS

Mr. Hammond needed no introduction to Aunt Alvirah or Uncle Jabez, since he had known the old couple as long as he had known Ruth herself.

Neither did Ruth’s chums need any special introduction since they considered themselves—and with reason—long-standing acquaintances of the head of the Alectrion Film Corporation.

For it was Mr. Hammond who had accepted Ruth’s early scenario which she had called “The Heart of a School Girl” and filmed it with the aid of the two hundred odd girls at Briarwood Hall.

Some of the young men he had not met before and these introductions were made hastily and informally. Then Mr. Hammond turned to Ruth.

“I have already heard flattering criticisms of your picture. It will play to full houses for a long time, my dear. I can safely prophesy that.”

“Well, I trust they have no more explosions when they show it,” answered Ruth with a serious shake of her head.

“That explosion was not so bad as it seemed. Mr. Farstein told me so himself. Merely a lot of discarded films left in the storeroom by one of the distributing firms. More smoke than fire. He is already arranging to clean up the muss so he can open as usual to-morrow. And he said that nobody seemed to be seriously hurt, which is best of all.”

“I am awfully glad of that, Mr. Hammond.”

“It’s the Ruth Fielding luck,” and Mr. Hammond smiled. “And now that this picture is a success I suppose you are already figuring on doing something else as big or bigger,” he went on.

“I am,” Ruth answered quietly.

“Ah, I thought so! The old spirit. More worlds to conquer, aren’t there? Where is the new drama of the silver screen to be laid?” the motion picture magnate went on curiously.

“In the most beautiful spot in the world—or so we’re told on very good authority, you yourself! Golden Pass, Montana.”

As Ruth spoke there was a sudden cessation of careless chatter. The young folks looked at her eagerly, Aunt Alvirah looked anxiously expectant while Uncle Jabez scowled faintly.

“Montana! Whoop—ee!” cried Helen irrepressibly. “A wild-west picture full of thrilling scenes and good looking cowboys. Ain’t I glad I came!”

“You seem to be very sure of your welcome in the party,” said Chess severely. “How do you know Ruth will want you to go with her?”

“Oh, Ruth always wants me,” replied Helen with a flippancy that belied the gravity of her expression. “As a matter of fact, she couldn’t get along without me. She told me so herself!”

Chess grinned.

“Far be it from me——”

But at this point Helen put an end to the sentence by severely pinching the arm of its author.

“Oh, do hush! Don’t you see I’m trying to hear what Ruth’s saying?”

What Ruth was saying appeared to be of intense interest to the others of the party. They listened eagerly as she described the spot where most of the new picture she had in mind would be filmed.

“Golden Pass will be the ideal spot for the filming of my sort of picture. A land of fertile valleys and picturesque mountains——”

“It is pretty,” Mr. Hammond agreed. “As you say, I know the place you speak of, Miss Ruth, for I had to pass through Montana not long ago and I stopped off at Golden Pass. I had heard there was to be a big cattle round-up and I wanted to get pictures of it.”

Ruth leaned toward him eagerly.

“Is it so rugged and beautiful?”

“It is. It is a land of plains and hills and steep ravines, of sparkling dawns and gorgeous sunsets. The very finest location possible for an outdoor, western picture.”

“Dear me, Ruth Fielding,” spoke up Ann Hicks wistfully, “you make me homesick for those wide, open ranges. Can’t you take me with you? I can bust bronchos with the best of ’em. Don’t you need a really talented extra?”

Ruth laughed.

“I wish I could take you all. Oh, girls, wouldn’t that be fun?”

Mr. Hammond shortly took his departure, saying that he would like to see Ruth soon and hear something about her new picture.

His desertion seemed to be the signal for the general breaking up of the party. Aunt Alvirah was looking white and tired and Uncle Jabez was beginning to complain of the lateness of the hour.

It was hard to put an end to the fun. Ruth felt she had never before enjoyed herself so much. It was arranged, despite Ruth’s protests, that the visitors to Cheslow were to put up at the Cameron’s for the remainder of their stay.

“Don’t be a goose, Ruthie,” Helen whispered when Ruth was about to insist that she must have at least one of the girls with her at the Red Mill. “You will be rushed to death finishing your scenario and arranging all the details of the trip. We have plenty of room and nothing to do but entertain the girls while they stay. Besides, we shall probably be over at the Red Mill almost every day.”

“Well, then, I’ll have them all at the Red Mill for a night before we start,” Ruth declared. “Even you can’t stop me doing that much, Helen Cameron!”

All except Mercy Curtis, who lived in Cheslow, escorted Uncle Jabez, Aunt Alvirah and Ruth home first. Standing at the door with the two old people, Ruth answered the farewells of her friends.

“Good-by, all of you! It was a lovely party! Good-by!”

From down the road, as the little fleet of cars moved off, came softly to Ruth!