Ruth Fielding in Alaska

Mary and Ellen Chase were as startled and surprised to see Layton Boardman as Lieberstein himself, though his interference meant something quite different to them.

For a moment the eyes of Boardman and Mary met, and that one look told more than a great many words could have done. He moved a little closer to the girl and then turned his attention again to the cowering Lieberstein.

It was characteristic of Ruth that, even in that moment of strain and tense expectancy, the uppermost thought in her mind was professional.

“Our leading man was never in better form in his life,” was her unspoken comment upon the scene. “What a picture this would make! Almost,” with a whimsical smile, “true to life!”

As Boardman advanced into the cabin, driving Lieberstein before him, they saw that he was not alone. Helen followed him, breathless and disheveled, but triumphant. After her came several young miners whom Ruth recognized as having been much in Boardman’s company recently.

These gathered about the now cringing Lieberstein, muttering threats and scowling at him. One, more eager than the rest, reached out a hand as though to seize the fellow by his collar, but Boardman pushed him aside.

“Not yet, Nick!” he said. “We’ll give the cur just one more chance. Now listen, you!” He placed himself directly before Lieberstein and forced the cowering, sullen fellow to meet his eyes. “We’re telling you something to-day, and a lapse of memory on the subject will cost you your dog’s life. That’s as sure as that the sun will come up to-morrow. Am I right, boys?”

There was an eager, growling assent from the miners as they pressed a little closer.

“We’re givin’ you just one more chance to beat it! You savvy?” As he often did when excited or greatly moved, Boardman dropped back into the cowboy dialect—a hangover from those wild days on the ranch when his name was still unknown to picturedom. “We’ve got a lot o’ patience, but where you’re concerned, it’s wearin’ thin, brother. We don’t like you and we don’t like your way of doin’ things. If we find you’ve cleared out for good before sundown to-morrow, you’ll have saved your yellow skin. But if you don’t take our advice, why— You tell him, fellows!” turning to his companions.

“The nearest tree!” said one.

“And a good stout rope!” added another.

Still a third made a significant gesture with both hands, a gesture strongly reminiscent of the twisted neck of a barnyard fowl.

While Ruth felt sure that these threats were made simply for the purpose of frightening the cowardly Lieberstein from the neighborhood of Knockout Point, the gestures of the young miners were vivid enough to make her feel uncomfortable. And she was conscious all of a sudden that she was very tired and that her ankle was paining her.

Lieberstein’s face was a study of conflicting emotions.

“I’ll get out!” he muttered, with an ugly look. “You bunch of——”

Boardman took a menacing step forward and there was a deep grumble from the others.

“You might,” suggested the actor gently, his eyes again narrowed to a steely glitter, “try beatin’ it now. Brother, I’m goin’ to start countin’ five——”

He started counting, still in that gentle drawl, marking off the counts on his fingers.

Lieberstein, crouching now like a cornered animal, seemed about to spring upon his tormentor. But the odds were too heavy against him. As Boardman’s soft voice drawled out the number “four,” he turned and bolted from the place.

The others followed him to the door of the cabin, Mary still clinging to Boardman, and heard him crash off through the bushes. Like hunting dogs balked of their quarry, the miners started after him.

“No funny business, boys!” Boardman warned them. “Just see where he goes and that he goes. If he is still in the settlement to-morrow, bring him to me!”

Then Layton Boardman turned to Mary Chase and drew her to him.

“Your worries are all over, girl,” Ruth and Helen heard him murmur softly. “You can put away your dad’s old shotgun in the darkest corner you’ve got. For you’re never going to need it any more!”

“The close-up,” murmured Ruth to Helen, as they turned away.

“And for us,” Helen finished whimsically, “the fade-out!”

So it was that the problem of Mary Chase and her sister Ellen was a problem no longer, even though the affairs of “the girl miners of Snow Mountain,” as Eddie Jones called them, still needed adjusting.

Max Lieberstein left Knockout Point on the very night of the trouble at the cabin. Evidently he realized that Boardman and his friends meant very serious business.

In a day or so Boardman met Mr. Knowles again. The old gentleman had accomplished something for his young friends—and a very important something it turned out to be.

He had brought a man from Dawson City to look over the Chase mine and ascertain whether it was as valuable as its owner had thought it to be before his death.

The report of this man was such as to raise the girls to the seventh heaven of delight. According to this expert the Chase mine was a rich one.

“It’s all your doing, Ruth Fielding!” said Mary, on one occasion when Ruth again visited the cabin and heard the great news. “Our dear old friends up at the mine are crazy with delight over our good fortune.”

“It’s theirs, too, now,” said Ellen. “Or part of it.” And she went on to tell that she and Mary had decided to turn over a part interest in the mine to the three old men who had been so loyal to them in the time of their trouble.

“Uncle Eddie can have that famous doctor up from Seattle to see him now,” she finished. “When we told him, he—he cried!”

“We all did,” confessed Mary, with a smile. “I guess you would have thought we were all crazy if you could have seen us when we got the good news.”

“We all joined hands and danced around like mad, even Uncle Eddie,” said Ellen, adding with a chuckle: “Then we all sat down and cried.”

“I’m not so sure but what I’m going to weep, too,” cried Ruth, with eyes suspiciously bright. “Just to be in the swim, you know.”

But in her solitary moments Ruth was not at all gay. The problem of the Chase girls was definitely removed from her mind, but she was still living through one of the most trying times of her life.

Although Chess and Tom had thoroughly searched the settlement and its vicinity, had faithfully followed up the slightest clew, there was still no trace of the missing film magazines.

Without them the picture as a whole was ruined. They contained the best, the most powerful scenes of the play. Edith Lang’s big scene, reënacted after the first failure, was one of them. Several scenes with Carlton Brewer, the man who had taken the place of the dwarf, Joe Rumph, were also among those missing.

Brewer had been fine in those scenes, too. Neither Ruth’s confidence in the cleverness of her make-up man, Abe Levy, nor in the ability of the actor had been misplaced.

Brewer had acted the part of the cripple powerfully and well. Where Joe Rumph had over-emphasized the part, he emphasized it just enough. In fact, he fitted in so admirably with her conception of the part as it should be played that Ruth was delighted and more than ever confident of the wisdom of her choice.

Now these scenes were gone! The thief with wicked and unerring cunning had taken the very heart of the play. And the worst of it was that there was no time for a retake, even if it were possible to do the scene as well a second time.

The Yukon’s open season was wearing on. Only in summer, when the ice in the river disappears for a few short weeks, is the river navigable. Winter comes suddenly and soon in Alaska, and those who linger too long are apt to wake up some morning to find the river blocked with ice and themselves marooned for no one knows how long.

None of the actors cared to remain in Alaska over the severe winter. And besides, Alice Lytelly was wanted in Hollywood.

No, there would be no time for the refilming of those important scenes. That, Ruth knew, was definitely out of the question. Her one chance lay in finding the lost films—and that chance, even Tom and the optimistic Chess, began to think was exceedingly slim.

And to fail here meant only one thing, that for the first time in her film career Ruth must face defeat!

Knowing this, Ruth wondered how she found the courage to go on at all. But on she did go, just the same, automatically directing the last few scenes on Snow Mountain until all were at last complete.

The picture was finished and, more than that, in every way it lived up to Ruth’s own high standards. And—the heart of it was gone!

Tom felt that Bloomberg might have another reason for the theft of Ruth’s films, besides the obvious one of attempting to ruin her picture.

“He may think it’s a good chance to make some easy money,” he said. “Bloomberg may simply have hidden the films and then, when he gets ready, will demand money for the return of them.”

One day when Tom and Chess were off on their indefatigable search and Ruth had started off alone to walk and indulge her gloomy thoughts, she saw a rider dashing toward her through a cloud of dust.

The man drew rein close to her and held out a torn and dirty scrap of paper.

“I found this wrapped around a stone and thrown into the middle of the road,” he told her, panting. “I guess, ma’am, it’s meant for you.”

Ruth opened the crumpled scrap of paper addressed to her with trembling fingers.

On it were scrawled a few words in writing she recognized as Tom’s.

The signature, scarcely legible, was, “Tom.”