Ruth Fielding in Alaska

It is probable that the other actors of Ruth’s company were as much startled by this ultimatum as Joe Rumph himself. The dwarf had become so accustomed to thinking of himself as being invaluable to Ruth in the making of her picture that her easy acceptance of his threat to leave came as an unpleasant surprise to him.

He stared at Ruth as if doubtful whether or not to believe his ears. He started to speak, thought better of it, and with a horrible frown on his heavy-featured face, turned and stalked off the “lot.”

Tom, who had been watching the scene with clenched fists, ready to chastise Rumph if his manner became too offensive, hurried up to Ruth.

“It’s all right, Tommy-boy,” she said quickly and so softly that no one else could hear. “I’ve been just waiting for this chance. I’m so happy that he gave me the opportunity. Now you just watch me!”

She called to Carlton Brewer, the actor who had played the chum of the hero and who, in Ruth’s estimation, possessed unusual acting ability.

With a wave of her hand she summoned Abe Levy, the make-up man, and the three drew a little aside from the others, talking eagerly and earnestly.

“Can you do it?” Ruth asked at last of Levy. “Can you make him into the kind of cripple who will arouse a sort of reluctant sympathy from the audience even in his villainies but that will not shock their sensibilities by a too-hideous deformity?”

“Can I!” retorted Levy, with all the enthusiasm of a genuine artist. “You watch me, Miss Fielding! You just keep your eye on me! If I don’t turn out the finest hunchback you ever saw inside of half an hour, then my name ain’t Abe Levy and I’m here to tell the world about it!”

Carlton Brewer stepped close to Ruth. It was evident that he was deeply moved and was finding it difficult to express what he felt.

“I can’t tell you what it means to me, Miss Fielding,” he said gruffly. “This chance to prove that I’m something besides a glorified extra. I’ll make good if it’s in me—and that’s a promise!”

Ruth’s smile was radiant.

“I know it’s in you!” she cried. “That’s part of my business—to judge men—and I’ve been watching you very closely, Mr. Brewer. I’ve an idea that you know Joe Rumph’s part better than he knows it himself!”

Brewer grinned, a boyish disarming grin that made him very attractive.

“Of course I think I could play it much better!”

Ruth’s eyes gleamed and she laughed exuberantly.

“Prove it!” and with a wave of her hand consigned him to the care of the make-up man.

“Attention, everybody!” she cried, returning to the scene. “We’ll rehearse that scene again, leaving out temporarily the part of the villain. Mr. Boardman, please! Miss Lytelly, you have just stumbled upon your lover in the clearing. He is unconscious. You think he is dead. You are forgetful of your own danger. You forget everything as you turn his face so that you may see it! Can you cry? Good! Everybody ready?”

The scene was enacted not once but several times, and each time Ruth criticized one point or another and changed this or that, until she had it exactly as she desired.

“Now then, do it just like that,” she cried at last. She looked at the two cameramen who were doing the shooting. “Ready?” And as they nodded, she threw up her hand. “Ready? Go!” And then the cameras clicked and the much-rehearsed scene was recorded on the strips of film.

At the end Ruth felt a light touch on her arm and found Edith Lang beside her. Tears were streaming down the face of the temperamental actress, but her face was wreathed in smiles.

“Fine! Excellent!” she cried. “It takes a clever actress to make me weep. But you, my dear Miss Fielding, you bring out the best that is in us. You stir the imagination, the emotions, like skilled fingers on the sensitive strings of a harp. You are wonderful, wonderful, my dear Ruth Fielding. I have never worked under a director just like you.”

Athrill with a fine elation, Ruth turned and grasped the actress’ hands in both her own.

“And to-morrow comes your own big act!” she cried. “The most dramatic, the climactic scene of the play. I am looking forward to that!”

“And I!” said Edith Lang softly.

It was only after the day’s work was done that Ruth’s mood became a little less exuberant.

She and Tom were walking slowly toward the inn, both thoughtful and unusually quiet.

“That was a bold move of yours,” Tom said gravely—“sending Joe Rumph away.”

“He resigned,” Ruth countered. Then as Tom made no remark: “Just the same, I am sure I did the right thing, Tom.”

“So am I, as far as the filming of the play is concerned,” Tom replied loyally. “I ought to know enough to trust your judgment by this time, Ruth. It isn’t that. I was just thinking that Joe Rumph might make an unpleasant enemy.”

“Oh, Tommy,” Ruth was suddenly weary and plaintive, “haven’t we enough enemies, already? Please, please, don’t borrow trouble—or a new enemy!”

Still, had Ruth known that at that very moment Joe Rumph was in converse with a deadly enemy of hers she might have thought a little more concerning Tom’s warning.

There were three of them in the private back room of The Big Chance—Sol Bloomberg, characteristically chewing on a great black cigar, a man named Max Lieberstein and Joe Rumph.

“We ought to be able to pull it off, the three of us together,” the latter was saying, heavy brows drawn down over smoldering eyes.

“Yeah! Kill two birds with one stone!” Bloomberg spoke with relish. “We’ll spoil Ruth Fielding’s picture for her and oust those Chase girls at the same time. Real gold in that mine, eh, Max?”

Lieberstein grinned evilly.

“So much gold there is there, Sol, you an’ me ain’t got no call to worry the rest of our lives yet. Easy, Sol, easy! Like taking candy from a baby!”

Which was exactly what it was!

Everybody was present to see Edith Lang in her big scene. Mary and Ellen Chase had left their cabin with Eddie Jones as guard long enough to come down and watch the work of picture taking.

There was another little romance in progress, too, that had nothing to do with the making of motion pictures, and both Ruth and Helen were watching it from one side with truly feminine pleasure and interest.

To-day Helen pressed her chum’s arm as Ruth was passing and said softly:

“Look over there, Ruth,” pointing to where Layton Boardman, a handsome and romantic-looking figure, was talking earnestly to Mary Chase. There was a look in his eyes that was plain for all to read. “Our cowboy friend has fallen head over ears at last!”

Ruth laughed and her eyes softened as she saw the trusting look in Mary’s pretty, upturned face.

“Layton Boardman will wake up now, if he never has before,” she said softly. “And, Helen dear, I am so glad. Poor Mary Chase needs a protector if ever girl did in this world!”

This was the day of Edith Lang’s big scene, and all were agog with interest. The company were all fond of the actress personally, and even the stars of the play never thought to be jealous of her ability.

Miss Lang herself was strung up to acting pitch and feverishly eager for her big moment.

There was some preliminary work to be done before Miss Lang appeared on the scene, but having rehearsed this thoroughly the day before, Ruth gave orders to start work at once.

Everything went beautifully up to the entrance of Edith Lang.

“Now, Miss Lang!” cried Ruth excitedly. “You come on the scene just as the villain—Carlton Brewer in the rôle this time and a perfect example of the marvelous deception of which Levy and a cameraman are capable—just as the villain is in the act of jumping the claim staked off by your daughter the day before. Because she is ill, you have come in her place to protect your property. Panting, exhausted, almost fainting, you still defy the thief— Right! Fine!— He starts to run—you get in his way— Good! Good!— He grapples with you—his fingers are about your throat— You feel yourself choking— Desperate, fainting, your groping fingers rest upon something hard— Good!— His gun— You draw it forth— You——”

Her voice trailed off and with incredulity and anger she stared at the cameramen.

“Go on!” she cried frantically. “Don’t stop here! Can’t you see you are ruining the film?”

Bert Traymore shook his head despairingly and his face puckered up as though he were about to cry.

“No use, Miss Fielding. Some one has been tampering with the magazines and cut off several hundred feet of film!”

Ruth experienced a moment of physical sickness. Edith Lang’s big scene had been ruined, the morale of her company seriously threatened, and all for the loss of a few hundred feet of film!

Of course the scene could be shot again, Miss Lang could undoubtedly work herself up to “acting pitch” again, but for that day at least no more could be expected of her.

Meanwhile her company had gathered about her in consternation. Edith Lang was almost in tears with vexation and the sudden shift of her emotions. Bert Traymore was standing staring at his camera with a bewildered, hang-dog expression that at any other time would have appealed to Ruth’s sense of humor. For a cameraman to come off for a day’s work with an insufficient amount of film in his magazines is an offense that ordinarily costs him his position. Atwater, who had been grinding his machine from another angle, was in a like situation.

In this case Ruth was not inclined to be too hard on the jovial Traymore and his comrade. She was not forced to hunt very far or very long for the origin of this tampering. Bloomberg, with his allies, had evidently started on the campaign of obstruction. This, Ruth felt, was only the first of a long series of annoyances.

She carried off the situation as well as she could. Traymore and Atwater were let off with a warning to examine their magazine boxes more carefully in the future and to be sure hereafter that they had the required length of film before starting out on a day’s work.

Of course there was a good deal of gossip among the actors, but Ruth told them nothing concerning her suspicions.

With her own intimate friends she was hardly more communicative. Though Helen and Tom were wrathful over the episode and Chess sympathetic, Ruth made scarcely any comment.

“I’ve been expecting something of the sort,” was all she would say. “From now on I can see that this thing is going to be a fight between me and Bloomberg, and I’ve got to conserve my forces to win.”

After a period of concentrated thought Helen looked at Ruth oddly.

“Do you know, Ruth Fielding,” she said, “I have been thinking a lot lately about our old friend, Charlie Reid.”

Ruth’s glance tacitly requested her to go on.

“I have a feeling that we were right when we suspected Charlie of following us. Or perhaps he wasn’t really following us, but was coming out here to join Bloomberg at The Big Chance. He probably found out all he wanted to know in New York about you and your new agreement with Mr. Hammond.”

“But we haven’t even caught a glimpse of him here,” protested Ruth. “Aren’t you rather jumping at conclusions, Helen?”

“Perhaps,” replied Helen, with a shrug of her shoulders. “But you mark my words, Ruth. I’ll wager about anything I own that Charlie Reid will flash into the picture sometime before we leave Knockout Point for good.”

“Maybe you’re right,” said Ruth, with a troubled frown. “Bloomberg would almost certainly stay at a safe distance and make use of a tool, and Charlie Reid certainly seems to have the bad-penny habit of always turning up just when you want him least!”

Ruth worked hard in the days that followed, and in her haste there was a suggestion of panic. Every scene that was shot without the interference of Bloomberg she counted that much gained. Every morning when she awoke her heart sank with the thought that perhaps this was the day Bloomberg had chosen to strike. For that he intended to strike she had not the slightest doubt.

Several unexplained accidents occurred, slight in themselves but serving to annoy and irritate actors and directors alike and to cause considerable delay and money loss.

There was the time, for instance, when the make-up man found his pet jar of yellow grease paint missing just as he was making up the extras for a big outdoor scene.

The boy actor, Eben Howe, came to Ruth in a state of great excitement.

“Say, Miss Fielding, I bet I know who run off with that grease paint,” he said, his eyes fairly starting out of his freckled face. “I saw Joe Rumph sneakin’ around the place just yesterday. I’d know that crooked back anywhere. But when I called out to him, just friendly like, he give me a dirty look and beat it. I bet it was him,” came with all the gravity of the youthful detective, “was after that yellow paint!”

“Probably he thought it would improve his beauty, Eben,” Tom laughed.

But when the boy had gone, Tom and Ruth exchanged glances.

“So Rumph is in this, too,” she said slowly. “They’re pressing us pretty hard, Tom!”

“Now don’t worry,” Tom tried to reassure her. “If they don’t do anything worse, we’ll be lucky.”

“Yes!” said Ruth. “If they don’t!” and Tom did not miss the emphasis on the “if.”

But despite the worries and setbacks, they came to a time when all the big exterior scenes had been shot. At a few of the locations Mary and Ellen Chase had been present, though it was not often that they could leave their work at the mine nor dared to relax their guard of the cabin, even when they left one of the three miners in charge.

In those days Ruth came upon unexpected proof that she had not been wrong in her conviction that Layton Boardman really admired the elder of the Chase girls.

The actor talked to her whenever he had a chance, and once Ruth came upon them at an unsuspected rendezvous in the woods. Mary was talking earnestly and Boardman was listening with the greatest attention, watching the girl all the time with that strange new look in his eyes.

Ruth stole away so quietly that neither one of them knew they had been observed. Safely out of earshot, she chuckled softly.

“I knew it,” she said to the empty woods. “It looks as if Layton Boardman were beginning to wake up at last!”

When Ruth was faced with the problem of where to make her interior cabin scene her mind went naturally to the Chase cabin.

When she suggested this to the girls they were happy to find that anything they owned could be of use to Ruth. The cabin was hers, they told her, for as long as she desired it.

So for the greater part of a day Ruth, Tom, and their electricians spent their time at the cabin, arranging the proper lighting for the important interior scene.

When the work was finished and they were on their way home, Ruth decided that she wanted to look over the lighting arrangements once more.

Tom proposed that he return with her, but Ruth begged him to go on to the settlement. She might want to roam about the cabin and its environs for some time and she knew that Tom was very tired that day, having worked over his books the night before until dawn.

Ruth became so absorbed in the work that the lateness of the hour escaped her attention. Now, as she once more came in sight of the Chase house, she saw to her surprise that twilight was stealing over the woods.

Was it this fact, she wondered, that made her feel suddenly nervous and apprehensive? Certainly she had been out on the edge of evening many times before and had never experienced this sensation.

She glanced about her uneasily, and as she did so thought she saw a shadowy figure slip about the corner of the cabin. Her breath coming quickly, she hastened her steps and passed softly around to the rear of the house, and crept to the window.

What she saw there was enough to bring her heart into her throat. There was a moment of hesitation; then, swift as light, Ruth darted to the kitchen door.

At the slight sound she made the stooped figure of the man at the hearth straightened quickly. With a venomous look at Ruth and a muttered word he darted straight for her as she still stood in the doorway.

Hardly knowing what she did, conscious only of her necessity of stopping the rascal, Ruth stepped back, and as he passed her with a snarl of rage, put out her foot to trip him.

He came down heavily, for he was a large man, and lay inert, stretched out on his face.