Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence Part 11

"I know it, Mr. Hammond. But it never crossed my mind that it was on that very island I had my meeting with the man."

"When Hooley tries to shoot the picture again we must send somebody up into that island to watch for the old fellow. He'd better be under confinement, anyway, if he's crazy."

"The poor old thing." Ruth sighed. "I don't think he means any harm--"

"He's harmed us all right," grumbled the president of the Alectrion Film Corporation. "I tell you, a day's work like this--with such salaries as we pay, and supplies and all--mounts into real money."

"Oh," said Ruth, "some of the film can be saved. All that until the Frenchmen land--"

"We won't dare risk it. In a costume story like this somebody is sure to get his dress, or armor, or something, different next time from what it was to-day. And if we try to save any part of this piece of film the change will show up in the finished picture. Every critical spectator will see the break and will comment upon it. Might as well make up our minds to take the loss; but we must be sure that a similar accident does not occur again."

"Will Mr. Hooley risk taking the scene over on that island?" asked Ruth thoughtfully.

"Why not? It is a fine location--couldn't be beat. We've got to shoo that old man out of it, that's all."

The girl had an idea that if she could meet the queer old man again she might be able to convince him that some other island would serve quite as well for his "kingdom" as that particular isle. At any rate, she hated the thought of his being abused or roughly treated.

Soon after the fiasco in the projection room, Tom Cameron arrived by motor-boat from the town across the bay. Now, Ruth was secretly very glad to see Tom. She always would be glad to see his sunny face, no matter how or when. But she could not approve of his being here at the Thousand Islands at this particular time.

Tom had grown up to be one of those young men who do not know what they want to do in life, and the reaction from the strain of his military life had, as was natural, intensified this tendency to drift. After the time that he had determined to be a soldier, then to go West and hunt Indians and grizzly bears, and then s.h.i.+fted to the desire to be a pirate or a policeman, Tom Cameron had really expressed very little taste for any commercial pursuit.

He had made his mark in his preparatory school and college in several lines of athletics. But a boy in his position would scarcely become a professional baseball player or pull an oar for a living. To tell the truth, Tom had never shown much apt.i.tude for his father's business. Dry goods did not interest him.

Yet when he had come home after the armistice Ruth thought he was going to buckle right down to business with Mr. Cameron's firm. There seemed to be a super-abundant supply of energy in Tom that had to be worked off.

And Ruth thought it would be worked off properly under the yoke of business. Besides, Mr. Cameron was getting no younger, and he ought to have the support of his only son in business affairs.

But the last winter, since Ruth and the Cameron twins had returned from the Northwest, things had not gone with Tom quite as the girl of the Red Mill would have chosen.

Yet she felt that it was not really her business to interfere. Indeed, she did not purpose to interfere. If she undertook to advise Tom it would please him only too well--that she knew, of course.

For Tom considered Ruth quite as much his property as Helen--only in a slightly different way. And if Ruth showed in any manner that she considered Tom her property--well, it would be all off, to use one of Helen's favorite expressions.

There was no engagement between Ruth and Tom--not even a tacitly recognized one. In times of stress and need Tom had proved himself to be a very good friend indeed, and Ruth fully appreciated this. But during this past winter he had been somewhat spoiled--or so the girl thought.

In the first place, Helen was determined to make a hero of her handsome brother. Captain Cameron was pushed to the fore by his sister in every possible way and manner. Helen had many gay friends in New York--she had met them through the Stones, for Helen had often been with Jennie when Ruth was elsewhere and more seriously engaged.

Naturally Tom had been one with his sister in gay parties, dances, theater groups, supper crowds, and all the rest. Business had gone by the board with Tom; and before Ruth realized it the young returned soldier had lapsed into a b.u.t.terfly existence that busy Ruth did not approve.

Especially, did she believe, was such an aimless life bad for Tom Cameron.

She met him in the living room of the bungalow, however, with her usual warmth; perhaps "lack of warmth" would be the better expression. For although Ruth was always quietly cordial with most people, she was never "hail fellow, well met" with anybody, unless it was her own, dear, old girl friends of Briarwood Hall.

She resisted, however, making any criticism upon Tom's presence in the moving picture camp. Everybody in the house--and there were several members of the company there besides Mr. Hammond and the director--greeted Tom Cameron cordially. He was a favorite with them all.

And the minute Totantora heard of Tom's arrival, the Osage chief appeared at the door, standing with glittering eyes fixed on the ex-captain and unmoved expression of countenance while he waited to catch Tom's attention.

"Bless my heart!" cried the rollicking Tom, "here's my old buddy!

Totantora, how are you?"

They shook hands, the Indian gravely but with an expression in his eyes that revealed a more than ordinary affection for the young white man. In France and along the Rhine Totantora, the Osage chief, had become the sworn follower of the drygoods merchant's son--a situation to cause remark, if not wonder.

Tom had learned a few words of the Osage tongue and could understand some of Totantora's gutturals. What the chief said seemed at one point to refer to Ruth, who, quite unconscious, was talking with Mr. Hammond across the room. Tom glanced at Ruth's back and shook his head slightly.

But he made no audible comment upon what the Indian said.

He did not, indeed, see much of Ruth that night; but in one moment of privacy she said to Tom:

"Do you want to make an early morning excursion--before Lazybones Helen is roused from her rosy slumbers?"

"Bet you!" was Tom's boyish reply.

"Six o'clock, then, at the dock. If you are there first rouse out Willie, the boatman, and offer him a five dollar bill from me to take us through the islands in the _Gem_. That's his boat."

"I'll find him to-night and make sure," said Tom promptly.

"You are a faithful servitor," laughed Ruth, and left him before Tom could take any advantage of her kindness.

The appointment was kept to the letter and minute in the morning. Helen was still asleep when Ruth dressed and stole out of the bungalow. Not many of the people on the island, save the cooks and dining-room employees, were astir. But Tom and the boatman--and the _Gem_--were at the dock in readiness.

Ruth gave Willie his instructions. He was to make a landing at the far end of the island on which the picture had been taken the day before. It was too early for any of Mr. Hooley's men to be over there looking for the old man whose face had spoiled several hundred feet of good film.

Ruth wished, if possible, to first interview the strange man.

She took Tom into her confidence at once about the King of the Pipes. She did not believe the man was so crazy that he ought to be shut up in an asylum. He was merely "queer." And if they could get him off the island and out of the way while the picture was being shot, he might then go back to his hermit life and play at being king all he wished to.

"What a lark!" exclaimed Tom, looking at the matter a good deal as his twin sister did. "And you are constantly falling in with queer characters, Ruth."

"You might better say they are falling in with me, for I am sure I do not intentionally hunt them up," complained Ruth. "And this poor old man has cost us money enough."

"It is too bad," was Tom's comment.

"Worse than that, perhaps Mr. Hooley will never again get as fine an allegorical picture as he did yesterday. They were all in the spirit of the piece when the shot was made."

They arrived at the sloping stone beach and landed as Ruth and the girls had before disembarked. Ruth led Tom up the rough path into the woods beyond the table-rock. The trees stood thick, and the bushes were th.o.r.n.y, but they pushed through to an open s.p.a.ce surrounding an old, gnarled, lightning-riven beech. The top of this monarch of the ancient forest had been broken off and the line of its rotted trunk and branches could be marked amid the undergrowth. But the staff of it stood at least thirty feet in height.

"What a spread of shade it must have given in its day," said Tom. "All these other tall trees have grown up since the top broke off."

"Quite so," agreed Ruth. "But where do you suppose that queer old man has his camp?"

They looked all about the island, coming back at last to the riven beech.

But they found no mark of human occupancy on the island.

"I smell wood smoke, just the same," Tom declared, sniffing the air.

"There is a fire somewhere near."

They saw no smoke, however, nor did they find any cavity in the rocks that seemed to have been occupied by man or used as the rudest kind of camp.

"Maybe he doesn't live on this island after all," said Tom. "He could get to half a dozen other islands from here in a light canoe. Or even on a raft."

"He spoke as though he considered this particular island his kingdom,"

rejoined Ruth. "This was the only place he warned me away from--not from the islands in general. I don't understand it at all, Tom. And I don't want the men to be unkind to him."