The flag-decorated barge bearing the Frenchmen to the rocky shore moved forward into focus in a stately way, while the Indians gathered in a spectacular group on the sloping shore—tier upon tier of dark faces, wearing nodding feather head-dresses, blankets, deerskin leggings, and other garments of Indian manufacture—all grouped to make a brilliant spectacle.

Totantora, a commanding figure, and his daughter as White Fawn, the demure yet dominant princess of the Hurons, stood forth from the background of the other Indians in a graceful picture. Helen was delighted and could not help shouting to the Osage girl that she was "great"—a remark which elicited a frown from the director and an admonition from Ruth.

Behind the grouped Indians was the greenery of the primeval forest with which this rocky island seemed to be covered. The cameras whirred while the barge containing the actors representing the Frenchmen pushed close into the shore and the whites landed.

A boy carried ashore the great cross, and with him came a soldier bearing the lilies of France, the standard of which he sank into the turf. The detail of costume and armament had been carefully searched out by Ruth herself, and the properties were exact. She was sure that this part of the picture at least could not be criticised but to be praised.

It was three o'clock before the party disembarked and went back to the camp for a delayed lunch. The remainder of the afternoon was devoted to the taking of several "close-ups" and an interior scene that had been built on the island rather than in the city studio of the Alectrion Film Corporation.

The films taken earlier in the day were developed, and that evening after dinner Ruth and Helen joined Mr. Hammond and Mr. Hooley in the projection room to see a "run" of the strip taken at the island where the Frenchmen landed.

"Do you know that that island is the one we landed on ourselves the other evening, Ruth?" Helen remarked, as they took their seats and waited in the darkness for the operator to project the new film.

"Do you mean it? I did not notice. The island where I met that strange old man?"

"The pirate—yes," giggled Helen. "Only we went ashore at the far end of it."

"I never thought of it—or of him," admitted Ruth. "Poor, crazy old fellow—"

The machine began its whirring note and they fell silent. Upon the silver sheet there took shape and actuality the moving barge with its banners and streamers and costumed actors. Then a flash was given of the Indians gathering on the wild shore—wondering, excited, not a little fearful of the strange appearance of the white men. The pageant moved forward to its conclusion—the landing of the strangers and the setting up of the banners and the cross.

But suddenly Ruth shrieked aloud, and Mr. Hammond shouted to the operator to "repeat." The dense underbrush had parted behind the upper tier of Indians and in the aperture thus made appeared a face and part of the figure of a man—a wild face with straggling hair and beard, and the upper part of his body clad in the rags of a shirt.

"What in thunder was that, Hooley?" cried Mr. Hammond. "Somebody butted in. It's spoiled the whole thing. I thought your men warned everybody off that island?"

"I never saw that scarecrow before," declared the director, quite as angrily.

But Ruth squeezed Helen's hand hard.

"The King of the Pipes," she whispered.



CHAPTER X

A SMELL OF SMOKE

The discovery of the face and figure of the old man whom Ruth had once met and spoken with on the island thrust out of the undergrowth and showing through a good part of the length of film that had been made that first day, caused a good deal of disturbance. The King of the Pipes, as he had called himself, was entirely "out of the picture." His representation on the celluloid could not be removed. And he had been in focus for so many feet of the film that it was utterly impossible to cut it, and thus save the picture.

"It is a wretched piece of business," Mr. Hammond said to Ruth, as they came from the projection room after seeing the reel run off again and again. "The entire scene will have to be made over. And, aside from that irremediable fault, I consider the work remarkably good. Mr. Hooley may never again be able to get it so good."

Ruth and Helen had told him about the old crazy man—a hermit, perhaps—and Mr. Hammond had given instructions that before the retaking of the scene was tried the island should be searched for the King of the Pipes.

"Whoever, or whatever, he is," the producer said, "he's got to be looked after while we are making this picture. He is likely to burst most unexpectedly into any of the outdoor scenes, and on any location, and break up the show. This is going to cost money, Miss Ruth."

"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 shifted 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 aptitude 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 butterfly 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 thorny, but they pushed through to an open space 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."

"Well, it looks to me," observed her friend, "that if we cannot find him, they will be unable to find him as well. So I wouldn't worry, Ruth."

But the girl went back to the Gem and sailed again to the headquarters of the moving picture company not at all satisfied as to the result of their undertaking.



CHAPTER XI

BILBY AGAIN

The work of picture making that day went without a hitch. Mr. Hooley sent several men into the woods above the spot on the shore of the "Kingdom of Pipes," as Helen insisted upon calling the island where the prologue of the picture was made, and they remained on watch there during the activities of the company below.

When the film was developed and run off in the projection room that evening it was pronounced by all—even by Mr. Hammond—as good in detail as the spoiled reel.

From that point the work went on briskly, for the weather remained perfect for picture taking. Ruth was busy; but she could give some time to enjoyment, too, especially in the evening; and that next evening when Chess Copley appeared in his own motor-boat, the Lauriette, she was glad to join a moonlight boating party which ventured as far as Alexandria Bay, where they had supper and danced at the pavilion, returning to the picture camp in the early hours of the morning.

Ruth was Chessleigh's particular guest on this occasion, and Tom and Helen Cameron went in another launch.

The moonlight upon the islands and the passages of silvery water between them was most beautiful. And Ruth enjoyed herself immensely. That is, she found the occasion enjoyable until they got back to the bungalow and had bidden the Copleys and their party good night. Then the girl of the Red Mill found her roommate rather irritable. Helen pouted and was frankly cross when she spoke.

"I don't see what you find so interesting in Chess Copley," she observed, brushing her hair before the glass.

"He is nice I think," replied Ruth placidly.

"And you just ignore Tommy-boy."

"I could not very well refuse Chess when he invited me into his launch. I did not know you and Tom were going in the other boat."

"Well, I wasn't going with Chess. And I wouldn't let Tommy tag after you."

"I wish you wouldn't be so foolish, Helen," sighed her chum.

"If you act this way," declared the rather unreasonable Helen, "you'll spoil our whole visit at the Thousand Islands."

"My goodness!" exclaimed Ruth, for once showing exasperation, "you do not talk very sensibly, Helen. I have come here to work, not to play. Please bear that in mind. If you think I spoil your sport I will not join any other evening parties."

The next evening when the Copley party came over to get acquainted with some of the moving picture people and arrange for a big dance on Saturday night, Ruth was as good as her word, and remained in Mr. Hammond's office, recasting certain scenes in her story that Mr. Hooley proposed to make next day.

Helen was sure Ruth was "mad" and kept out of the way intentionally. She told Tom so. But she did not choose to relieve Chess Copley's loneliness when she saw him mooning about.

Whenever Chess tried to speak to Helen in private she ran away from him. Whether it was loyalty to her brother, Tom, or some other reason that made Helen treat Copley so unkindly, the fact remained that Chess was plainly not in Helen's good books, although she made much of the two Copley girls.

The next day Ruth was quite as busy, for the making of the picture was going ahead rapidly while the good weather lasted. This story she had written was more of a pageant than anything she had yet essayed. The scenes were almost all "on location," instead of being filmed under a glass roof.

Helen and Tom did not seem to understand that their friend could not go off fishing or sailing or otherwise junketing whenever they would like to have her. But picture making and directors, and especially sunlight, will not wait, and so Ruth tried to tell them.

It was Chess Copley, after all, who seemed to have the better appreciation of Ruth's situation just at this time. Before a week had passed he was almost always to be found at Ruth's beck and call; for when she could get away from the work of picture making, Chess turned up as faithfully as the proverbial bad penny.

"You are not a bad penny, however, Chess," she told him, smiling. "You are a good scout. Now you may take me out in your motor-boat. If it is too late to fish, we can at least have a run out into the river. How pretty it is to-day!"

"If everybody treated me as nicely as you do, Ruth," he said, rather soberly, "my head would be turned."

"Cheer up, Chess," she said, laughing. "I don't say the worst is yet to come. Perhaps the best will come to you in time."

"You say that only to encourage me I fear."

"I certainly don't say it to discourage you," she confessed. "Going around like a faded lily isn't going to help you a mite—and so I have already told you."

"Huh! How's a fellow going to register joy when he feels anything but?"

"You'd make a poor screen actor," she told him. "See Mr. Grand to-day. He has an ulcerated tooth and is going to the Bay to-night to have it treated. Yet, as the French voyageur, he had to make love to Wonota and Miss Keith, both. Some job!"

"That fellow makes love as easy as falling off a log," grumbled Chess. "I never saw such a fellow."

"But the girls flock to see him in any picture. If he were my brother—or husband—I would never know when he was really making love or just registering love. Still actors live in a world of their own. They are not like other people—if they are really good actors."

Copley's Lauriette shot them half way across the broad St. Lawrence before sunset, and from that point they watched the sun sink in the west and the twilight gather along the Canadian shore and among the islands on the American side.

When Chessleigh was about to start the engine again and head for the camp—and dinner—they suddenly spied a powerful speed boat coming out from the Canadian side. It cleaved the water like the blade of a knife, throwing up a silver wave on either side. And as it passed the Lauriette Ruth and her companion could see several men in her cockpit.

"There are those fellows again," Chess remarked. "Wonder what they are up to? That boat passed our island yesterday evening and the crowd in her then acted to me as though they were drunk."

"I should think——Why!" exclaimed Ruth suddenly breaking off in what she was first going to say, "one of those men is a Chinaman."

"So he is," agreed Chessleigh Copley.

"And that little fat man—see him? Why, Chess! it looks like——"

"Who is it?" asked the young fellow, in surprise at Ruth's excitement.

"It's Bilby!" gasped Ruth. "That horrid man! I I hoped we had seen the last of him. And now he's right here where we are working with Wonota."

She had said so much that she had to explain fully about Bilby, while they sat and watched the speed boat disappear up the river. Ruth was sure she had made no mistake in her identification of the rival picture producer who had made her so much trouble back at the Red Mill.

"I must tell Mr. Hammond at once," she concluded. "If Bilby is here, he is here for no good purpose, I can be sure. And if he has a boat like that at his command, we must keep double watch."

"You think he would try to abduct Wonota again?" queried Chess.

"I would believe that fellow capable of anything," she returned. "I mean anything that did not call for personal courage on his part."

"Humph!" murmured Chess thoughtfully. "I wonder what he was doing with the Chinaman in his party. You know, sometimes Chinamen are smuggled across from Canada against the emigration laws of the States."

He headed the Lauriette for the camp then, and they arrived there in a rather serious mood.



CHAPTER XII

THE DANCE AT ALEXANDRIA BAY

"You might have been mistaken, I suppose, Miss Ruth?" suggested Mr. Hammond, the president of the film corporation, sitting at his desk in the room of the main bungalow which he used as an office. "It was growing dark when that speed boat passed you and your friend, was it not?"

"Not out on the river, Mr. Hammond. It was light enough for us to see the men in that boat plainly. Just as sure as one of them was a Chinaman, the short, fat man was Horatio Bilby."

"It doesn't seem possible that the fellow would chase away up here after us when he so signally failed down below. My lawyer tells me that he had no real authority from the Bureau of Indian Affairs to secure Wonota's services, after all."

"He is a man who would not need much authority to attempt any mean thing," said the girl hotly.

"That may be true," admitted Mr. Hammond. "But it seems quite too sensational." He smiled, adding: "Quite too much like a movie plot, eh?"

"You say yourself that he has obtained the production rights to those 'Running Deer' stories that have appeared in the Gotham Magazine," said Ruth, with earnestness. "They are good stories, Mr. Hammond. I have read them."

"Yes. I believe they are pretty good material for pictures. That is, if they were handled by a practical scenario writer like yourself."

"It is too bad you did not get them."

"Well, Bilby was ahead of us there. Somehow, he got backing and bought the picture and dramatic rights to the tales outright. He can find somebody besides Wonota to play Running Deer."

"He seems to have set his heart on our Wonota."

"Yes. He did make Totantora a whacking good offer. I must admit he did. I could not begin to see such a price for the girl's services. And on a mere speculation. But I pointed out to Totantora that, after all, a promise is only a promise. He and Wonota have already had considerable hard cash from us," and Mr. Hammond ended with a laugh.

He was evidently not so much impressed by the possible danger of Bilby's presence in the Thousand Islands as Ruth could have wished. She determined herself, however, to be sharply on the watch for the reappearance of the coarse little fat man who had so troubled her and the Indians at the Red Mill.

She took Totantora into her confidence, after speaking to Mr. Hammond, although she did not say a word to Wonota. Despite the natural stoicism of the Osage maiden, Ruth did not know but that Wonota might become nervous if she knew the plotting Bilby was near at hand.

The chief listened to Ruth's warning with a certain savage anger in his look that warned Ruth not to push the suggestion of Bilby's determination to obtain possession of Wonota too far. The chief was not a patient man, and the possible threat against the safety of his daughter roused in him the instinct of defence.

"Me watch," he said. "That fat man come here, me chase him away. Yes!"

"Don't do him any harm, Totantora," warned Ruth. "But tell Mr. Hammond or me if you see him."

Nobody saw Bilby immediately, however; and as several days passed Ruth began to wonder if, after all, she had not been mistaken in her identification of the fat man in the boat.

Meanwhile, the making of the picture went on steadily; but something else—and something Helen Cameron at least considered of moment—was planned during this time.

Many other summer residents of the Thousand Islands besides the Copleys had now arrived, and the gaiety of the season was at its height. There was one very large hotel at Alexandria Bay, and it was planned to use its ballroom for a "big war dance," to quote Helen. It was to be a costume dance, and everybody that appeared on the floor must be dressed in Indian costume.

Wonota helped the chums and the actresses with the Alectrion Film Corporation who attended, in the getting up of their costumes and the staining of their faces and arms. The Osage girl herself wore a beautiful beaded robe, feather-trimmed and brilliantly dyed. It was her "coronation robe" in the picture she was helping to film. But Mr. Hammond, who likewise attended the dance, allowed the girl to wear this finery, which really was part of the "props" of the company.

Launches were engaged from Chippewa Bay to take most of those from the camp who attended the dance, either as participants in the costume review or as spectators, but Chess Copley arranged to come for his particular friends in the Lauriette.

Helen was tempted to refuse to go in the Copley launch; but when she saw Jean and Sara Copley beside their brother, she went aboard with Ruth and Tom. There actually was no friction between the two young men, although Tom usually addressed Chess by that opprobrious nickname, 'Lasses, while Chess retorted by scoffing at all the ex-captain's opinions and advice on any and all subjects.

Really, had she not felt that she was partly the cause of this mild strife, Ruth would have laughed at the two. They were, after all, but grown-up boys.

It was a gay party aboard the Lauriette, nevertheless. Even Wonota (whom Ruth was keeping with her) was gay. And she was so pretty in her beautiful costume that when they arrived at the hotel the young men at the dance vied in their attempts to have her for a partner on the floor.

There was a fine band and the dancing floor was smooth. Even Mr. Hammond went on to the floor, having secured a costume, and Mother Paisley, who acted as chaperon for the moving picture girls, was as light as anybody on her feet and the embodiment of grace.

"Actor folk nowadays," the old woman told Ruth once, "are not trained as they once were. I came of circus folk. My people had been circus performers in the old country for generations before my father and mother came over here. My husband was a trapeze performer.

"And working on the bars makes one supple and limber beyond any other form of exercise. Afterward, while still a young girl, I was in the ballet. At least, when one has had my training, one brings to the speaking stage a grace and carriage that can scarcely be secured in any other way.

"As for this moving picture business," she sighed, "I see these poor girls as awkward as heifers—and they are really learning very little. They depend upon the director to tell them how a lady should enter a room, and how to walk. But often the director has never seen a real lady enter a room! Directors of moving pictures are not masters of deportment as our old dancing masters were."

Ruth always listened to strictures upon the moving picture art and gained what she could from such criticism. And the harshest critics the motion pictures have are the people who work in them. But, after all, Ruth had a vision.

She felt that in spite of all the "great," "grand," "magnificent," "enormous" pictures already advertised upon the billboards, the public was still waiting for a really well made and properly written and acted series of pictures that claimed neither more sensationalism than they possessed, nor were hastily and carelessly made.

Ruth liked to work with Mr. Hammond, and he had been very kind and considerate of her. But she felt that, untrammeled, she would be able to make better pictures than she had made with him. She wanted a free hand, and she felt the insistence of the treasurer's office at her elbow. Money could be lavished upon anything spectacular—for instance, like this French-Indian picture they were making. But much had to be "speeded up" to save money in other phases of production.

Mr. Hammond, like most of the other moving picture producers, thought only of the audience coming out of the theater with "ohs!" and "ahs!" upon their lips regarding the spectacular features in the film shown. Ruth wanted to go deeper—wanted to make the impression upon the minds and intelligence of the audiences. She felt that the pictures could be something bigger than mere display.

But this is all aside from the fun they had at the costume dance. Ruth and Helen both danced with Mr. Hammond and Mr. Grand and with several others of the moving picture people, as well as with their own friends. Chess got the second dance with Ruth; and then he had the third; and then got the sixth. He might have gone on all the evening coming back to her and begging the favor had Ruth not insisted upon his devoting himself to some of his sisters' friends.

But, at the same time, Ruth was somewhat piqued because Tom Cameron did not come near her all the first part of the evening. She could not understand what the matter really was with him—why he acted in so offish a manner.

After that sixth dance (and Ruth had danced them all with one partner or another) she sent Chess away from her definitely. She went in search of Tom. The orchestra began playing for the next dance. Ruth looked keenly about the brilliant assembly. She knew Tom's costume—it was distinctive and could not be mistaken. But she could not mark it at all in the throng.

Two or three men asked her to dance, but she pleaded fatigue and continued to walk about the edge of the ballroom. Finally, in an alcove, sitting at an empty table, and with no companion, she spied the recreant Tom.

"Why, Tom!" she cried cheerfully, "are you sitting out this dance too? And the music is so pretty."

"The music is all right," he agreed.

"Don't you want to dance?"

"No. I do not want to dance," he answered sourly.

"Not—not even with me, Tom?" she ventured, smiling rather wistfully at his averted face.

"With nobody. I am waiting for Helen and the rest of you to get enough of this foolishness and go home."

"Why, Tom! You—you are not ill?" she ventured, putting out a hand to touch his shoulder yet not touching it.

"Not at all, Ruth," he said, and now he glanced up at her. His look was cold. "Not at all."

"You are not yourself," she said, more composedly. "What are you thinking of?"

"I am thinking," said Tom, looking away again and with the same moodiness, "that I was a fool to leave the army. That was my job. I should have stuck to it. I should have used my commission and father's influence to stay in the army. But it's too late now. I guess I had my chance and didn't know enough to use it."

He arose abruptly, bowed stiffly, and walked away. If Tom had actually slapped her, Ruth could have felt no more hurt.



CHAPTER XIII

THE KINGDOM OF PIPES

Ruth Fielding at first felt only hurt; then she felt angry. She was no longer the timid, sensitive girl who had faced Jabez Miller when she first came to the Red Mill with a tremulous smile, to be sure, but tears standing thick in her eyes. No, indeed!

The present Ruth Fielding, a young woman of purpose and experience, not only could hide her feelings—especially if they were hurt ones—but possessed a saving sense of humor. And to her mind, just a moment later, Tom Cameron's very military looking shoulders and stride seemed rather funny.

He had hurt her; but then, he had hurt her as a boy might. It was true, perhaps, Tom was not grown up. Ruth considered that she was—very much so!

There he was, daring to complain because his army career had ended so suddenly—wishing that he had remained in uniform. And how would his father and his sister have felt if he had done so!

"He's a great, big booby!" Ruth whispered to herself. Then her smile came back—that wistful, caressing smile—and she shook her head. "But he's Tom, and he always will be. Dear me! isn't he ever going to grow up?"

So she hid her hurt and accepted the first partner thereafter who offered; but it was not Chess. Secretly she knew what the matter with Tom was. And she was too proud to let the ex-captain see that she cared. Nevertheless she was sorry that the party from down the river broke up as they did when the time to go home came.

She found herself in the Copley's launch again, with Chess' sisters and the members of the house party the Copleys were entertaining at their island. This dividing of the clans made it possible for Chess after letting the others out at the Copley dock, to take Ruth to the moving picture island alone.

It was a lovely, soft, moonlight night. The haze over the islands and the passages between could not be called a fog, but it was almost as shrouding as a fog. When Chess ran the launch outside into the main stream, where the current was broad and swift, the haze lay upon the rippling surface like a blanket.

They were going very swiftly here, for it was with the current. Suddenly Chess shut off the engine. The "plop" of the exhaust ceased. They drifted silently on the bosom of the St. Lawrence.

"I don't see why I am treated so, Ruth," Chess suddenly burst out. "Do you know, I'm awfully unhappy?"

"You poor boy!" said Ruth in her warm-hearted way. "I think you are over-sensitive."

"Of course I am sensitive. I shall always be when I am—am—interested in any person and their treatment of me. It is congenital."

"Dear, dear!" laughed Ruth. "They have discovered that even incipient congenital idiocy can be cured by the removal of the adenoids. But I don't suppose such an operation will help you?"

"Oh, don't tease a fellow," complained her friend.

He reached for the throttle, then hesitated. Somewhere in the mist ahead was the throb of another engine.

"Who's this?" muttered Chess.

"Maybe it is Tom—looking for us," said Ruth, chuckling.

"The gall of him," exclaimed the heated Copley. Then he made a gesture for silence. A long, quavering "co-ee! co-ee!" came through the mist and from the south.

"From one of the islands," said Chess quickly.

"What island is that over there?" demanded Ruth, in a whisper. "Isn't it the one we took the first picture on?"

"It sure is," agreed the young fellow, but wonderingly.

"The Kingdom of Pipes," murmured Ruth.

"What's that?" asked Chessleigh.

Ruth repeated Helen's name for the rocky island on which Ruth had met the queer old man. "That call came from the island, didn't it?" she asked.

"I believe it did. What's going on here?"

"Hush!" begged Ruth. "That launch is coming nearer."

As she spoke, a moving object appeared in the mist. There was no light upon this strange craft. Chessleigh shuttered his own cockpit lamp instantly.

"Good boy," acclaimed Ruth. "There is something going on here——"

They heard the call from the island again. There was a low reply from the strange launch—a whistle. Then the launch pushed on and was hidden by the mist again from the curious eyes of Ruth and her companion.

But they knew it had gone close to the island, if it had not really touched there. Its engine was stilled. All they heard for a time was the lapping of the waves.

"I'd like to know what it means," grumbled Chess.

Ruth agreed. "Let's wait a while. We may hear or see something more."

"Won't see much, I guess," replied her companion.

"Never mind. Let the boat drift. We're all right out here in the current, are we not?"

"Guess so. It beats my time," said her friend. "They say there is a lot of smuggling done along the border."

"Do you say so?" gasped Ruth, clasping her hands and almost as excited as Helen might have been. "Smugglers! Think of it!"

"And bad eggs they are."

"Of course there is no danger?"

"Danger of what?" he asked.

"Wouldn't the smugglers hurt us if we caught them?"

"Don't know. I've got a loaded pistol in the cabin. Guess I'll get it out," said Chess.

"I guess you won't!" Ruth exclaimed. "We'll go right away from here before we get into a fight!"

"Humph!" grunted Chess. "You don't suppose they would welcome any spies if they are smugglers, do you?" he asked.

"But what do they smuggle? Diamonds? Precious stones?"

"Don't know. Maybe. There is a heavy internal revenue tax on diamonds," Chess said.

"Goodness! wouldn't Helen like to be here."

"She'd want to go ashore and take a hand in it," grinned Copley. "I know her."

"Yes, Helen is brave," admitted Ruth.

"Humph! She's foolish, you mean," he declared. "Whatever and whoever those fellows are, they would not welcome visitors I fancy."

Their launch had been drifting by the island, the upper ridge and trees of which they could see quite plainly. Suddenly a breath of wind—the forecast of the breeze that often rises toward daybreak—swooped down upon the river. It split the mist and revealed quite clearly the upper end of the island where Ruth had interviewed the queer old man, and which Copley's launch had now drifted past.

A light showed suddenly, and for a few moments, close to the water's edge. It revealed enough for the two in the drifting launch to see several figures outlined in the misty illumination of the light.

There was the bow of the mysterious boat close against the landing place. At least three men were in the boat and on the shore. Ruth could not be sure that either of them was the old man she had spoken with.

But she and Chess Copley saw that they were unloading something from the boat—square, seemingly heavy boxes, yet not so heavy that they could not be passed from hand to hand. One was about all the weight a man might easily lift.

"What do you suppose those boxes are?" whispered Ruth, as the Copley launch drifted into the mist again and the end of the island and the other boat were blotted out of sight.

"Give it up. Provisions—supplies. Maybe they are going to camp there. Lots of people camp out on these smaller islands."

"The King of the Pipes will have something to say about that," laughed Ruth. "One thing sure about it," she added the next moment, as Chess started his engine again. "Those boxes don't contain diamonds."

"I should say not!"

"So if we saw smugglers they are smuggling something besides precious stones," said the girl gaily. "Won't Helen be interested when I tell her!"



CHAPTER XIV

A DEMAND IS MADE

Helen had gone to bed when Ruth went into their bedroom that morning, and either she was asleep or did not want to speak to her chum. Ruth felt that, after what had gone on at the ball at Alexandria Bay, she had better not wake Helen up to tell her about the strange launch that had landed at the Kingdom of the Pipes.

And in the morning the attitude of both Helen and Tom closed Ruth's lips on all subjects. The twins were plainly offended. Why? Because Ruth had shown ordinary interest in other people besides themselves!

At least, that is how Ruth saw it. She thought it very silly for Helen to be jealous. Tom's jealousy was another matter; but he had brought the situation on himself.

For once Ruth was determined not to give in, as she so often did when Helen showed spleen. Fortunately, Ruth was busy with her picture work, so she had good reason to excuse herself from much association with the Cameron twins during the next two days.

Then something happened to give them all an entirely different topic of thought and conversation. That day had been spent in taking close-ups and scenes under the canvas and glass roof of the make-shift studio that had been built at the camp. The great pageant of historical times along the St. Lawrence was moving swiftly on its way. The scenes of a picture are seldom taken in any sequence at all, but Mr. Hooley had gone so far now that the bulk of the scenes had been filmed; and as they had been run off in the little projection room, both Mr. Hammond and Ruth had expressed their approval of almost every finished length of celluloid.

The work was practically over for the day at four o'clock and the actors in their costumes—especially the Indians, including Wonota and her father—made a brilliant picture as they wandered about the lawns and in and out of the several bungalows on the island.

From the direction of Chippewa Bay appeared a chugging motor-launch that came directly to the dock. It was not one of the hired launches used by the picture company, nor were those in the launch men who had anything to do with Mr. Hammond's corporation.

But when Ruth idly looked into the launch from her seat with Helen and Miss Keith and Mrs. Paisley on the porch of their house, the girl of the Red Mill got up suddenly, uttering an astonished exclamation:

"That horrid man again!"

"Hoity-toity!" exclaimed Mrs. Paisley. "What man deserves such a title as that, Miss Fielding?"

"That Bilby!" exclaimed Ruth. "I just felt it in my bones—like Aunt Alvirah—that that creature would annoy us again."

"Then you are not disappointed," said Helen drily. "Is that the fellow—that big gawk in the blue suit?"

"No, no! I don't know him," said Ruth. "The little fat man tagging after the big fellow."

For two men from the launch had now stepped ashore. In accordance with orders from Mr. Hammond, the visitors were stopped at the head of the dock. Nobody was allowed on the island without invitation or a permit.

"Let me tell you," said the man in blue pompously, "that I am a county officer. You'd better have a care, young fellow."

"Say! I don't care if you are the King of the Yaps," said Willie, the boatman. "I have my orders. This is private property. Stay where you are—right where you are, mind!—till I send for the boss."

"You send for them two Injuns—that is who our business is with," put in Bilby. "That Totantora and Wonota. I want to see them—not that Hammond."

Ruth had run to another house to warn those very individuals to get out of the way and to keep out of sight until Bilby's visit was over. She did not know, of course, who the big man in blue was.

The latter was inclined to be pompous and commanding, even when Mr. Hammond came down to the head of the dock to see him. It was evident that Bilby's money felt warm in the deputy sheriff's pocket, and he was determined to give the little fat man full weight for his cash.

"This here business is something that can be settled without any row, Mr. Hammond—if that's your name," said the officer, puffingly.

"It is my name, all right," returned the president of the Alectrion Corporation. "And I don't expect any row. What do you want—and that fellow behind you?"

Horatio Bilby grinned rather sheepishly. "Well, you know, Mr. Hammond, all's fair in love and war."

"This is certainly not love," said the moving picture man. "Now, what do you both want?"

"You are ordered to bring two people into court," said the deputy sheriff, "and show cause why they shouldn't be handed over to Mr. Bilby pending certain proceedings to break their contract with you."

"Blunt enough," admitted Mr. Hammond, but without excitement. "Let's see: You have a paper of some kind, I suppose, to serve on me?"

"I've a summons for you," said the officer, drawing forth some papers, "and I propose to take the two Indians back to the Bay with me."

"You can serve me, and I will arrange for my representative to appear for me in your court," said Hammond. "But Totantora, to whom I suppose you refer, is a citizen of the United States, and you will have to find him to serve him."

"He's nothing but an Injun!" squealed Bilby, in wrath.

"Being an Osage Indian, and owning properly surveyed oil lands in Oklahoma, the Government has acknowledged his citizenship," was the quiet reply. "He certainly is a good American and will doubtless answer to any court demand—if you can serve him legally."

"You got him hid away somewhere?" demanded the deputy sheriff.

"And the girl, too!" cried Bilby. "I want the girl more than I do the crazy old Indian."

"You'll think he's crazy if he ever sets eyes on you again, Mr. Bilby," was Mr. Hammond's warning. "He hasn't forgotten you."

Bilby drew back—and he looked frightened, too. "I—I don't want him right now," he muttered.

Hammond accepted the summons of the local court, glanced at it, and put it in his pocket.

"I see I have five days' grace," he remarked. "All right. I will see that proper representation is made before the court."

"But we want them Indians," said the deputy.

"This island is private property. I have hired its use for a certain term. I will allow you on it only under proper legal motion. Have you a search warrant?" Hammond asked the deputy.

"I ain't got a warrant. I don't need a warrant for a couple of Indians. They ain't got any standing in this community. I know Indians all right. You give 'em over."

"I do not even acknowledge that the two individuals you demand are under my control. At least, I know very well that no United States court can touch the young woman, Wonota, except through her guardian. That guardian is her father. I don't see him here—do you?"

"You'd better produce him," threatened the deputy.

"You can't make me. Go back and get proper authority—if you can," advised Mr. Hammond. "And don't come here again—either of you—without proper authority. Willie!"

"On the job," said the boatman, grinning.

"Don't let these fellows upon the island again—not even on the dock. Not unless they are armed with a proper warrant."

He turned his back on the visitors and started toward the nearest bungalow.

"You'll be sorry for this, Hammond!" shouted Horatio Bilby. "I'll get you yet, and don't you forget it."

"To get me, as you call it, you will have to have both right and might on your side, Bilby. And just now you do not seem to have either," was the Parthian shot the president of the Alectrion Corporation sent over his shoulder.

Willie hustled the deputy and the fat man back into their launch.

"Go on away from here," advised Willie. "I know you, Tom Satchett—known you all my life. All you are fit for is to jump a few fishermen and game hunters that break the law. This job is too big for you. You're up against money and influence, both, this time."

"I won't forget you, Willie," growled the deputy. "You'll want something of me some time——"

"I want something of you right now," put in the boatman. "A good reason for punching you. Go on into your boat before I find it."

So the pair retreated. But Ruth came to Mr. Hammond in some little disturbance.

"What shall we do?" she demanded. "Suppose they take Wonota away before the picture is finished?"

"They won't. At least, I don't believe the court will allow it. I will telegraph to a good lawyer and have him come up here and watch proceedings."

"But, if it should happen, we would be in a bad fix, Mr. Hammond. Mr. Hooley says nobody could double for Wonota."

"Let's not cross bridges until we come to them," returned her friend.

But perhaps Mr. Hammond felt less confidence than he managed to get into his voice and appearance at that moment.



CHAPTER XV

THE YELLOW LADY

There could be no further haste about the making of the picture, "The Long Lane's Turning." Although most of the big scenes were already shot, those that remained to do held in them the more poignant action of the piece and must be rehearsed over and over again.

Much time is sometimes spent upon a single scene—a few feet of a reel. Infinite patience, repetition and experimenting go into the making of a pictured story. Infinite detail and a close attention to that detail make the successful picture.

To stage a "big" scene may seem to be a marvelous feat of the director. But in a big scene, with a large number of actors, the latter are divided into groups, each group has its captain, and each individual actor has to follow the lead of his particular captain. The groups are trained and perfected in every little motion before they come into the real scene before the camera.

Thus the allegorical picture that was a prologue to "The Long Lane's Turning" had been gone over and rehearsed again and again by the principal actors in it, even before the company left New York City.

Now, with all these "big" scenes filmed, the more difficult work of making the individual scenes of action came to the fore. Wonota had to be coached over and over again in her scenes with Mr. Grand and Miss Keith. Both the latter were well-practised screen actors and could register the ordinary gamut of emotions as easily as they ate their breakfast or powdered their noses.

With Wonota, however, it was different. In the first place, she came of a tribe of people in whom it was bred to smother all expression of emotion—even the most poignant. Wonota almost worshiped her father; but did she ever look upon Chief Totantora with a smile of pride or with affection beaming in her eyes?

"Not so you'd notice it," said Helen, on one occasion. "Ordinarily, as far as her looks go, Totantora might be a stranger to her."

"Is there any wonder, then," sighed Ruth, "that we find it so hard to make her register affection for Mr. Grand? And she already should have learned to do that in that first picture we took out West."

"Maybe that's the reason," said Helen wickedly. "If she did not know Mr. Grand's foibles so well, she might the better show interest in him. Goodness knows he's handsome enough."

"Better than that, he can act," said Ruth thoughtfully. "Not many of these handsome screen heroes can do that. But perhaps if Wonota did not disdain him so much (and she does, secretly) she could play up to him better."

"Is there much more for her to do?" Helen asked, with renewed interest.

"Several scenes—and some of them most important. Mr. Hooley can not give all his time to her. I am trying to coach her in them. But there is so much going on here at the island——"

"Why not take her away to some other place and just pound it into her?"

"Not to the Kingdom of Pipes!" laughed Ruth suddenly.

"No. Let the old pirate have that place to his heart's content. But there are other islands."

"True enough. Fourteen hundred of them."

"Come on!" exclaimed the energetic Helen. "Let's get Willie and the Gem and go somewhere with Wonota. You've all day to hammer at her. Get your continuity and try to get it into Wonota's head that she is deeply and desperately in love with Grand."

In spite of Helen's brusk way of speaking, Ruth decided that her idea might be well worth following. Helen took some knitting and a parasol—and a hamper. Ruth gathered her necessary books and script; and likewise got Wonota. Then they boarded the launch and Willie took them up the river to a tiny islet not far from the Kingdom of Pipes, after all.

"I don't see anybody moving over there," Helen remarked, as Willie landed them at the islet selected. She was looking at the island on which Ruth had had her adventure with the King of the Pipes. "It looks deserted enough. We might have gone there just as well as not."

"I feel as well satisfied to keep away from that queer old fellow," her chum said.

"Who's that?" asked Willie, the boatman, overhearing their remarks.

Ruth told him about the strange man, and Willie laughed.

"Oh! That old jigger? Was he the fellow the boss wanted we should shoo off that island? Why didn't he say so? Old Charley-Horse Pond. We all know him about here."

"Oh!" cried Helen. "Is he crazy?"

"Not enough to make any difference. Just got a twist in his brain. Calls himself a king, does he? Mebbe he will be a duke or an emperor next time. Or a doctor. Can't tell. He gets fancies."

"And of course he is not dangerous?" said Ruth.

"Just about as dangerous as a fly," drawled Willie. "And not so much. For flies bite—sometimes, and old Charley-Horse Pond ain't even got teeth to bite with. No, Ma'am!"

"But what are the 'pipes' he talks about? Why 'King of the Pipes'?" demanded the insistent Helen.

"Got me. Never heard of 'em," declared Willie. "Now, you ladies all right here?"

"All right, Willie," said Ruth as the Gem was backed off the island.

"I'll come for you at half past three, eh? That's all right, then," and the boatman was off.

The three girls, really glad to be away from the crowd and the confusion of the moving picture camp, settled down to several hours of companionship. Helen could be silent if she pleased, and with her knitting and a novel proceeded to curl up under a tamarack tree and bury herself for the time being.

Helen had not, however, forgotten the "inner woman," as she pronounced it. When lunch time came she opened the covered basket which she had brought in addition to the book and the knitting, and produced sandwiches and cake, besides the wherewithal for the making of a cup of tea over a can of solidified alcohol. They lunched famously.

It was while they were thus engaged, and chatting, that the staccato exhaust of a motor-boat drew their attention to the Island of Pipes. From the other side, a boat was poking around into the passage leading to the American shore.

"My goodness!" exclaimed Helen, "the King of the Pipes isn't in that boat, is he?"

"Not at all," Ruth assured her. "I see nobody who looks like him among those men—"

"All are not men, Miss Ruth," interrupted Wonota, the keen-eyed.

"What do you mean, Wonota?" gasped Helen, whirling around to gaze again at the passing launch.

But Ruth did not say a word. She had been examining the boat closely. She saw it was the very speedy boat she and Chess Copley had seen out on the wider part of the river several weeks before. The launch was not moving rapidly now, but Ruth was sure that it was a powerful craft.

It was Helen who marked the figure Wonota had spoken of in the boat. It certainly did not appear to be a man.

"Why Ruth! See! That is a woman!"

"A yellow-faced lady," said Wonota calmly. "I saw her first, Miss Ruth."

All three of the girls on the island stared after the moving motor-boat. Ruth saw the woman. She was dressed plainly but in modern garments. She did not seem to be one of the summer visitors to the islands. Indeed, her clothing—such as could be seen—pointed to city breeding, but nothing was chosen, it would seem, for wear in such a place as this. She might have been on a ferryboat going from shore to shore of the Hudson!

"She is a yellow lady," Wonota repeated earnestly.

"I should say she was!" exclaimed Helen. "What do you think of her, Ruth?"

"I am sure I do not know what to say," the girl of the Red Mill answered. "Does she look like a white woman to you, Helen?"

"She is yellow," reiterated Wonota.

"She certainly is not an Indian," observed Helen. "What say, Ruth?"

"She surely is not," agreed her chum.

"A yellow lady," murmured Wonota again, as the boat drew behind another island and there remained out of sight.



CHAPTER XVI

MAROONED

"I wonder if the boat did come from that island over yonder?" Ruth murmured, after a few moments of thought.

"For goodness' sake! what are you worrying about?" asked Helen Cameron.

"I'm not worrying at all," Ruth returned, smiling. "But I am curious."

"About that yellow lady?"

"About what happens on that island the queer old man lives on."

"You don't know that he really lives there," was the prompt rejoinder.

"That is so. He may not be there now. But—"

"But me no buts, unless you mean to go on," said Helen, as Ruth hesitated again.

"It does seem queer," said Ruth thoughtfully. "Other people go there besides the King of the Pipes."

"Indeed! We all went there when that allegory was staged."

"And since then," said Ruth, and proceeded to tell the two girls what she and Chess Copley had seen early one morning.

"Men landing boxes on the island?" cried Helen, while Wonota merely looked puzzled. "There is a camp there, like enough. And those men—and the woman—in the launch might have come from there, of course. When Willie comes back for us, let's sail around the island and see if we can spy where their tent is set up. For of course there is no house there?"

"Tom and I found no habitation when we went to search for the old man," admitted Ruth.

"All right. It must be a tent, then," said her chum with conviction. "We'll see."

But as it turned out, they made no such search that day. Indeed, Willie and the Gem did not return for them. The camp launch was not the first craft that appeared. Ruth was again coaching Wonota after lunch when Helen spied something on the water that caused her to cry out, drawing the other girls' attention.

"Who under the sun is this coming in the canoe?" Helen demanded. "Why! he is making it fairly fly. I never!"

Wonota scarcely glanced in the direction of the distant moving picture camp, and she said composedly:

"It is Chief Totantora. He comes for me."

The Indian in the canoe caused the craft to tear through the water. No such paddling had the two white girls ever seen before. Not a motion was lost on the part of Chief Totantora. Every stroke of his paddle drove the craft on with a speed to make anybody marvel.

"Something has happened!" gasped Ruth, standing up.

"He comes for me," repeated Wonota, still calmly.

"What for?" queried Helen, quite as much disturbed now as her chum.

Before the Indian girl could have answered—had she intended to explain—the canoe came close in to the bank of the island, was swerved dexterously, and Totantora leaped ashore—a feat not at all easy to perform without overturning the canoe. It scarcely rocked.

He stooped and held it from scraping against the rock, and shot up at his daughter several brief sentences in their own tongue. He paid no attention to Ruth, even, although she stepped forward and asked what his errand was.

"I must go, Miss Ruth," said Wonota quickly. "Mr. Hammond has sent him. It was arranged before."

"What was arranged?" demanded Ruth, with some sharpness.

"We are going yonder," she pointed to the hazy shore of Grenadier Island that was in view from where they stood. "It is said by Mr. Hammond that yonder the man with the little green eyes—the fat man—cannot have us taken."

"For goodness' sake!" gasped Helen, "she's talking of that Bilby, isn't she?"

"What does it mean? Has Bilby come again?" cried Ruth, speaking directly to Totantora.

"We go," said the chief. "Hammond, he say so. Now. They come for me and for Wonota with talking papers from the white man's court."

"Then Mr. Hammond's lawyer could not do all Mr. Hammond expected," sighed Ruth. "The picture will be ruined."

"I never heard of such a thing," cried Helen angrily. "I'd like to know what sort of courts and judges they have up here in these woods?"

But Ruth wanted to know more. She held Wonota back as she would have stepped into the canoe.

"Wait," she urged. "Tell me more, Totantora. Where are you taking Wonota?"

It was the Indian girl who answered.

"Over on that shore," said she, pointing again to the Canadian island, "these courts cannot touch us. Mr. Hammond told my father so. We go there to wait until the trouble is over. Mr. Hammond spoke of it before. Totantora is informed."

"But it means delay and expense," cried Ruth.

"How mean!" exploded Helen. "I'd like to do something to that Bilby."

"Have you money—plenty of money?" Ruth demanded of the Indian.

"I have money," said Wonota, touching the bosom of her blouse. "We do not need much. We shall live quietly there until Mr. Hammond sends for us. We will be faithful to you, Miss Ruth."

She turned, with more impulsiveness than she usually showed, and kissed the white girl's cheek.

"You are so good to me!" she cried. "I will not forget all you have taught me. And I will rehearse every day so to be perfect when Mr. Hooley wants me again."

There was no way to stop her. Indeed, as Mr. Hammond had advised this sudden move, Ruth knew she had no right to interfere. It was evident that an emergency had arisen of which she, herself, knew nothing. In some way the enemy had forced Mr. Hammond's hand. Totantora and his daughter were in danger of being brought into court after all, and Mr. Hammond did not wish that to come about.

The Indian girl stepped lightly into the canoe and picked up the extra paddle. Her father leaped in after her, pushed the light craft away from the rock, and seized his own paddle. In another moment the canoe shot away from the island and off toward the broad expanse of the open St. Lawrence.

Helen and Ruth stared after them—then at each other. Naturally it was Helen who first regained her voice and gave expression to her amazement.

"What do you know about that?" she demanded.

"I—I don't know what to say," murmured Ruth.

"Oh! I know what to say, all right," said the disgusted Helen. "It's no joke."

Ruth herself admitted it was nothing to laugh about. She saw difficulties in the way of the completion of "The Long Lane's Turning" of which Helen knew but little—or of which she did not think.

Ruth knew that there were scenes—some of them she had been studying with Wonota this day—that could not be changed nor eliminated. Wonota must be in them. No "double" could be used.

In the first place, the Indian girl's personality was distinct. It could not easily be matched.

Ruth knew that, even at that time, one of the most popular screen actresses, because of her inability longer to look the child, was using a double for all her "close-ups" when she was forced to play those childish parts that a hungry public of "movie fans" demanded.

Nothing like this would save "The Long Lane's Turning." The throne room scene in Paris, which was yet to be photographed, was too delicate a matter to put in the hands of any double. Wonota was herself—even in this picture she was a distinct personality—and she must be shown to the very end of the last reel and the last "fade-out."

The thoughts caused Ruth to feel very, very sober. Helen looked at her with some appreciation of her chum's despair; yet she could not appreciate the situation in full.

Suddenly the lighter-minded Helen leaped to her feet from the bank on which she was sitting, and exclaimed:

"My goodness, Ruth! do you realize that we are marooned?"

"Marooned?" was the wondering rejoiner.

"Yes. Just as though we had been put ashore here by a crew of mutineers and deserted—a pair of Robinson Crusoesses!"

"Your English—"

"Bother my English!"

"It would surely bother Mrs. Tellingham—if she could hear it, poor dear."

"Now, don't sidetrack me," remarked Helen. "Don't you see we are cast away on this desert isle with no means of getting back to the camp unless we swim?"

"Willie will be after us."

"But, will 'e?" asked the roguish Helen, punning on the boatman's name.

"Do be sensible—"

"Even good sense will not rescue us," interrupted Helen. "I'd like to get back to camp and hear all the exciting details. Totantora certainly can say less in a few moments than any person I ever saw. And Wonota is not much better."

"It does not matter how much they said or how little. The fat is all in the fire, I guess," groaned Ruth.

"Chirk up! Something is sure to turn up, I suppose. We won't be left here to starve," and Helen's eyes flashed her fun.

"Oh, you!" began Ruth, half laughing too. Then she stopped and held up her hand. "What's that?" she whispered.

The sound was repeated. A long-drawn "co-ee! co-ee!" which drained away into the depths of the forest-covered islands all about them. They were not where they could see a single isle known to be inhabited.

"Who is calling us?" demanded Helen.

"Hush!" commanded Ruth. "That is not for us. I have heard it before. It comes from the King of the Pipes' island—to be sure it does."

"He's calling for help!" gasped Helen.

"He is doing nothing of the kind. It is a signal." Ruth told Helen swiftly more of that early morning incident she and Chess Copley had observed when they saw the boxes carried ashore from the motor-boat.

"Seems to me," grumbled Helen, "you have a lot of adventures with 'Lasses Copley, Ruth."

"Your own fault that you don't," returned her chum promptly. "You could have been along. But you don't like Mr. Copley."

"What has that to do with it?" rejoined Helen smartly. "I would go adventuring with any boy—even 'Lasses."

"Don't call him that," commanded Ruth.

"Pooh! He likes it. Or he used to."

"He is a nice fellow," Ruth declared, with more earnestness than there really seemed to be necessity for.

"I—de-clare!" murmured Helen. "Really! Does the wind sit in that quarter?"



CHAPTER XVII

A DETERMINATION

However the wind might sit and whatever may have been her secret opinion of Ruth Fielding's interest in Chessleigh Copley, Helen suddenly became mute regarding that young man.

But, after a moment, she was not at all mute upon the subject of the King of the Pipes and what might be going on on the island where they believed the queer old man had his headquarters.

"If it should be smugglers over there—only fancy!" sighed Helen ecstatically. "Diamonds and silks and lots of precious things! My, oh, my!"

"Better than pirates?" laughed Ruth.

"Consider!" cried her chum boldly. "I said that island looked like a pirate's den from the start."

"Your fore-sight-hind-sight is wonderful," declared Ruth, shaking her head and making big eyes at her friend.

"Don't laugh—Oh! What's that?"

From over the water, and unmistakably from the rocky island on the summit of which the blasted beech stood—a prominent landmark—came the strange cry, "co-ee! co-ee!" which they had heard before.

"Do you suppose that poor old man is calling for help?" hesitated Ruth.

"Your grandmother's aunt!" ejaculated Helen, in disgust.

"We-ell that is even a more roundabout relationship than that between Aunt Alvirah Boggs and me. Poor old soul, she is nobody's relation, as she often says, but everybody's aunt."

"There goes the signal again, and here comes that boat!" exclaimed Helen suddenly.

"What boat?" demanded Ruth, looking in the direction of the distant Canadian island, toward which the canoe, with Totantora and Wonota in it, had now disappeared.

"Turn around—do!" exclaimed Helen. "This way. That is the same boat we saw going by some time ago. The boat with the yellow lady in it, as Wonota called her."

"This is very strange," murmured Ruth.

"But the yellow lady is not with those men now," said Helen.

"I do not see any woman aboard," admitted her friend.

The boat—going not so fast now—crossed their line of vision and finally rounded the end of the island on which the two chums believed the queer old man resided. At least, somebody had uttered the strange, shrill cry from that very spot.

"Oh, dear! If we were not marooned here!" grumbled Helen.

"What would you do?"

"If we had a boat—even a canoe—we could follow that motor-launch and see if those pirates make a landing."

"Pirates!" repeated Ruth.

"Smugglers, then. Your own Chess Copley says they may be smugglers, you know."

"I wish you would not speak in that way, Helen," objected Ruth. "He is not my Chess Copley——or anything else."

"Well, he certainly isn't mine," retorted Helen, with more gaiety. "I can't say I approve of him—and I long since told you why."

"I believe you are unfair, Helen," said Ruth seriously.

"Dear me! if you don't care anything about him, why are you so anxious to have me change my opinion of 'Lasses?"

"For your own sake," said her friend shortly.

"I wonder! For my sake?"

"Yes. Because you are not naturally unfair—and Chess feels it."

"Oh, he does, does he?" snapped Helen. "I hope he does. Let him feel!"

This heartless observation closed Ruth's lips on the subject. The two girls watched the other island. They did not see the boat again. Nor did they see anybody on the island or hear any other cry from there.

They both began to grow anxious. No boat appeared from the direction of the camp, and it was past the hour now when Willie was to have called for them with the Gem. Why didn't he come?

"Of course, Mr. Hammond doesn't expect us to swim home," complained Helen.

"Something must have occurred. Totantora's being sent off so suddenly really worries me. Perhaps Mr. Hammond himself was obliged to leave the camp and perhaps he went in the Gem, and Willie cannot return for us until later."

"But where is Tom? Surely he must know all about this sudden trouble."

"What was Tom going to do to-day?" asked Ruth quietly.

"Oh, that's so! I had forgotten," said Tom's sister, in despair. "He was going around to Oak Point with some of the men. That's down the river, beyond Chippewa Point, and they could scarcely get back in the other motor-boat before dark."

"That's the answer, I guess," sighed Ruth.

"Then we are marooned!" ejaculated Helen. "I do think it is too mean—and my goodness! we ate every crumb of lunch."

"The two 'Robinson Crusoesses,' then, may have to go on short rations," but Ruth said it with a smile. "I guess we are not in any real danger of starvation, however."

"Just the same, a joke can easily become serious when one is deserted on a desert island."

"But you were looking for adventure," retorted Ruth.

"Well!"

"Now you have it," said Ruth, but soberly. "And worrying about it will not help us a particle. Might as well be cheerful."

"You are as full of old saws as a carpenter's abandoned tool-chest," said Helen smartly. "Oh! What is this I hear? The smuggler's boat again?"

They did hear a motor, but no boat appeared from the other side of the Kingdom of Pipes. The sound drew nearer. The motor-boat was coming down the river, through a passage between the island where the girls were and the American side.

"Come on! I don't care who it is," cried Helen, starting to run through the bushes. "We'll hail them and ask them for rescue."

But when she came in sight of the craft, to Ruth's surprise Helen did not at once shout. Ruth only saw the bow of the boat coming down stream herself; but suddenly she marked the small name-board with its gilt lettering:

LAURIETTE

"Here's Chess, I do believe!" she cried.

"Humph!" grumbled Helen.

"Now, Helen Cameron!" gasped Ruth, "are you going to be foolish enough to refuse to be taken off this island by Chessleigh Copley?"

"Didn't say I was."

"And don't be unkind to him!" pleaded Ruth.

"You seem so terribly fond of him that I guess he won't mind how I treat him."

"You know better," Ruth told her admonishingly. "Chess thinks a great deal of you, while you treat him too unkindly for utterance."

"He'd better not think of me too much," said Helen scornfully. "His head won't stand it. Tom says 'Lasses never was strong in the deeper strata of college learning."

Ruth was not to be drawn into any controversy. She called to the young man when, dressed in flannels and standing at his wheel and engine, he came into view.

"Hurrah! Here's good luck!" shouted Chess, swerving the bow of the Lauriette in toward the island instantly.

"Hurrah! Glad you think it's good luck," said Helen sulkily. "I guess you never were marooned."

"That's navy blue you've got on—not maroon," said Chess soberly. "Do you suppose I am color-blind?"

"Smarty!"

"Now, children, this is too serious a matter to quarrel over," admonished Ruth, but smiling because her chum showed, after all, interest enough in the young man to be "scrappy." "What do you suppose we have seen, Chess?"

"I'd like to know first of all how you came here without a boat?"

"My goodness, yes!" gasped Helen. "I'd almost forgotten about Wonota and Totantora."

Ruth shook her head. "I am not likely to forget that," she said.

She explained to the young man as they got into the launch and he pushed out from the shore about the difficulty that had arisen over the Indians. He was naturally deeply interested in Ruth's trouble and in the fate of the Indians. But on top of that Helen eagerly told about the speedy launch, the yellow lady, and their suspicions regarding what was going on at the island that they had nicknamed the Kingdom of Pipes.

"I tell you what," Chess said, quite as eagerly as Helen, "I was coming over to take you all for a sail on the river to-night. Let's get Tom and just us four keep watch on that island. I believe there is something going on there that ought to be looked into."

"I—I don't know that it is our business to look into it," suggested Ruth, doubtfully.

But for once Helen agreed with Chess, and against Ruth's better judgment it was determined to come back to this locality after dinner and lurk about the mysterious island in the Copley launch.



CHAPTER XVIII

BILBY'S TRUMP CARD

Naturally, Ruth went in search of Mr. Hammond the moment she landed on the island where the moving picture company was established. But, as she saw that the Gem was not at the dock, she scarcely expected to find the president of the company at hand—and in that expectation she was not mistaken.

Mr. Hooley, the director, however, told her what he knew about the occurrence that had started Totantora so madly from the island in the canoe. Bilby and whoever it was that backed him in his enterprise were evidently determined to obtain the services of Wonota, the Osage princess, if it could be brought about.

"Looks to me," said the director, "as though we were going to have some trouble finishing this picture, Miss Fielding."

"We can't finish it without Wonota!" cried the girl.

"You don't think you could rewrite the remaining scenes so that we can keep on to the conclusion?" he asked thoughtfully.

"Why, Mr. Hooley! How about the throne-room scene? Wonota must appear in that. You say yourself that we cannot use anybody in her place."

"How about cutting out that scene? Finish the play on this side of the water. Don't go to France at all."

"Then the picture is spoiled!"

"No picture is spoiled until it goes out of our hands, you know," and Mr. Hooley smiled satirically. "You know how it is in the picture business, Miss Fielding. Some unfortunate producer buys a script or a story. The scenario writer 'saves' the story by his work on the script. Then the continuity man 'saves' it a second time. Then the director 'saves' it after he gets it into his hands. We know that the star performer always 'saves' it again. And then the film cutter and the title writer each 'save' it.

"Most pictures are 'saved' in this way by the omniscience of all who work on it so that, when it is finally produced, the writer seldom recognizes more than a glimmer of his original idea in the final product.

"You are much better treated than most picture writers, you know very well. And here you have a chance to 'save' your own work," and Mr. Hooley finished with a laugh.

"It is no laughing matter," she told him. "I wanted this to be a really big picture. And I do not want to cut out Wonota. Without that throne-room scene it will fall flat."

"We should have taken it in New York," grumbled Mr. Hooley. "I felt it at the time. But Mr. Hammond contracted for so many weeks' use of this island and the time is running out already."

"And Wonota and Totantora are gone!"

"Exactly."

"Do you know where they have gone?"

"Haven't the least idea. But Mr. Hammond knows."

"He went to town?" asked Ruth thoughtfully.

"He has gone to confer with the lawyers and see if they can get the court to vacate the injunction issued against our use of Wonota. Bilby and the sheriff came again. They had a warrant this time. It called for the production of Wonota. Luckily you had her off the island at the time. They searched every nook and cranny, and meanwhile Totantora got away. They wanted him too."

"I think that Bilby is too mean for words!"

"Well, I take it that it was his trump card. He must have some powerful influence behind him. But—"

"But what, Mr. Hooley?" asked Ruth eagerly.

"I can see how we might get over the difficulty if the courts will not listen to reason."

"Oh! Do tell me!"

"We can move the whole company over the Canadian border, and before Bilby can do anything over there we'll have finished 'The Long Lane's Turning.' That's the only way I see out of the mess."

"But think of the expense!"

"Sure! I'm thinking of that all the time," grumbled Hooley. "And don't you forget that the boss never allows me to lose sight of it. Your interest in this picture is greater than mine, Miss Fielding; but my job is sort of tangled up in it, too. Mr. Hammond is a good man; but he is a good business man first of all. I am afraid that you will be obliged to make some changes in the remaining scenes so as to overcome the difficulty of losing Wonota."

"I will not do it!" cried the girl, this time in anger.

"Better read your contract. If you won't do it, somebody else will have to. You know, we've got a man at the studio who could change Hamlet into a slap-stick comedy over night, if the emergency arose."

"I will not agree to have my picture ruined," said Ruth, almost in tears.

"That isn't the way to look at it," Hooley observed more kindly. "Just see that you save your story yourself instead of letting some other person do it for you. That's the answer, I fear."

Ruth had no appetite for dinner that evening, but she was obliged to meet her friends and the actors and actresses who ate at her table with at least an appearance of cheerfulness.

It was impressed upon her mind more deeply than ever before, however, that her arrangement with the Alectrion Film Corporation was not wholly satisfactory. She had learned so much now about the making of a screen picture that often her advice in the directing of the action was accepted with admiration by Mr. Hooley. Mr. Hammond was not afraid to go away and leave the two to film the most important scenes in a script.

And why should she be tied to certain agreements that cramped her? Especially in a case of this kind. For the sake of saving expense Mr. Hammond was likely to insist that the artistic part of "The Long Lane's Turning" should be sacrificed.

Ruth felt that on her part she would spend twenty-five thousand dollars more (if she had it to spend) in shipping the whole company over the border and making the remainder of the picture in Canada.

"I am going to be in a position some time where I shall have the say as to every detail of the picture," she told herself. "I want to be my own manager and my own producer. Otherwise I shall never be happy—nor will I ever be sure of making worth-while pictures."

For Ruth took this career of hers very seriously indeed. Because she did so, perhaps, the fact that Tom Cameron seemed to consider his work so lightly caused Ruth to criticise the young man harshly. That could only be expected.

Tom did not return for dinner. Nor did Mr. Hammond come back to headquarters. Chess Copley was eager to get the girls out in his Lauriette again.

"Pooh! it's nothing much, I guess," said Helen, seemingly having lost her first interest in the smugglers and the King of the Pipes. "And, anyway, I shall not go unless Tom is with us."

"Why, Helen!" cried Ruth, "I thought you were so eager."

"Well, perhaps. If Tom went."

"But we promised Chess."

"You promised him. He wants to do it because you are going."

"Now, Helen, you know—"

"I know just what I am saying. I have no interest in 'Lasses Copley. You have."

"You are the most exasperating girl!" exclaimed Ruth, in some warmth.

They were in their room freshening their toilets for the evening.

"I don't seem to suit you any more than Tom does," said her chum coolly.

"I declare, Helen! you go too far."

"I shan't go too far this time—without Tom." Helen laughed in a provoking way. "You can run along with your Chessleigh if you like. Not me!"

"That is just what I will do," said Ruth quietly, but with flashing eyes. "I would not insult him by refusing—now. I will tell him you have a headache and cannot come."

"Do as you like," was the ungracious reply. "You are crazy about Chess, I guess."

"I believe you are jealous, Helen Cameron!" cried Ruth, in wonder.

"I don't know why I should be," returned Helen lightly. "I've no interest in Chess Copley. And I haven't had since—"

"Since when, I'd like to know?"

"Since I found him out. So now! That's enough. I am not going. Unless, of course, Tom returns and wants me to go along with you and Chess."

What more was there to say? Ruth did not wish to disappoint Chessleigh. She felt that Helen Cameron had no reason for treating the young man as she did.

So, as she had done before, and without much interest in the evening sailing party, Ruth left the bungalow to join the waiting Chessleigh at the dock.



CHAPTER XIX

SUSPENSE

Tom and his party in the other motor-boat had not appeared, nor had the Gem come back from the town of Chippewa Bay with Mr. Hammond. Why should not Ruth and Chessleigh spy about among the islands for a time?

It was not now moonlight; and there was some haze which gave a smouldering effect to the stars peering through it. But these soft, hazy nights had their own charm and Ruth had come to love them.

Especially on the water. Amid the tamarack-clothed islets the motor-boats crept in and out in a delightful way. To lie on the cushions in the cockpit of the Lauriette and bask in the pearly starlight was an experience the girl from Cheslow was not likely to forget.

To-night, when the Lauriette got away from the moving picture camp, there were no other boats in sight. Chess dimmed his lights and the craft crept through the narrow passages between the islands, heading up stream.

"My idea," he said, "is to land at the back of that island—"

"The Kingdom of Pipes?" interrupted Ruth in surprise.

"Yes. Where you say you landed before—twice."

"Oh!"

"That is, if we see nothing or nobody about."

"I don't think we'd better take any great risk—only two of us," observed Ruth, with her usual caution.

"Of course, we won't walk right into danger."

"I should hope not! And just what are we going for, anyway?" and she suddenly laughed.

"Why, I'm curious about those fellows," said the young man. "And I thought you were."

"I'm curious about the King of the Pipes. Charley-Horse Pond, Willie calls him."

"Queer old boy, I guess," admitted Chess. "But I want to know more about those chaps who unloaded the boxes."

"What could have been in the boxes? Surely there is no camping party on that island. At least, no pleasure party."

"I fancy not. If you ask me about the boxes, I am puzzled. Yet, I've a glimmer of an idea—Are you sure that was a woman with them to-day in their boat?"

"Wonota called her the yellow lady. And Wonota has good eyes."

"With a yellow face, yes? And we saw a Chinaman in the boat that other time on the river," said Chess quickly.

"Surely she wasn't a Chinese woman? Yet, she might have been."

"Chinese women aren't usually smuggled over the border, I guess," muttered the young fellow. "But Chinese men are."

"Perhaps we should have reported it to the authorities," Ruth suggested.

"Not until we are sure there is really something wrong. I don't want to be laughed at, you know."

But Ruth just then had considered another phase of the matter.

"Oh!" she cried. "There's Bilby! He was in it!"

"In what?"

"In that boat when we first saw it. When we saw the Chinaman, you know, out on the Canadian side of the river. If there is anything wrong about these men—and the King of the Pipes—Bilby is mixed up with them."

"I guess you are right, Ruth. Maybe that fellow is into more queer games than just trying to grab your Osage princess."

"But more than that," said Ruth much worried now, "he may have so many friends on the Canadian side that he can trace Wonota and her father over there on Grenadier Island."

"Better warn Mr. Hammond when he comes back from town," suggested her friend. "That Bilby seems to be universally troublesome. I'll say he is!"

They kept quiet after that, for the outline of the rocky island, with the blasted beech visible at its summit, came into view. Nothing stirred upon the island, nor was there any other boat in sight.

"Had we better venture ashore?" breathed Ruth, again in doubt.

"Come on. Let's try it. I've got an electric torch in my pocket. We can find our way all over the island with that."

It was true that the girl of the Red Mill felt some trepidation, but she had confidence in her companion's muscle and courage if not in his caution. Besides, she was very curious about the queer old man and the doings on his island.

Chess shut off the engine of the Lauriette some distance from the island; but first he had gone above the rocky landing, so that the sluggish current between the islands drifted the motor-boat back upon that strand.

He went forward and, with a line in his hand, leaped ashore the moment he could do so, and drew the Lauriette in to the rock. Then he passed the line around the very sapling to which Ruth had once fastened the canoe.

"Come on!" he whispered, offering his hand to the girl.

She leaped ashore. They were both wearing canvas, rubber-soled, low shoes which made no noise on the stones. Chess drew forth the electric torch and tried it, turning the spot of light on the ground at their feet. It worked perfectly.

In his right-hand jacket pocket he carried an entirely different article, but he did not mention that fact to Ruth. She would not have gone with him had she known of the presence of the pistol. The possession of firearms would have, to her mind, at once taken the matter out of the realm of mere adventure into that of peril, and Ruth was not seeking such an experience.

She only half believed in the smugglers. She had seen some men in a boat at the island, but she doubted if it meant anything more than a fishing party. Those boxes taken ashore meant nothing much to her, if they did suggest some particularly interesting situation to Chess.

In fact, Copley had not fully taken Ruth into his confidence. He had reason to suspect that whoever might be on this island were law-breakers, and he really had no right to bring Ruth here. Tom Cameron would not have done it.

Copley was serious, however, in his intention of finding out if possible who was on the island; and when they had passed up the rough path to the round table-stone, Ruth had got over her little shivery feeling and was as eager as Chess himself.

They passed carefully through the fringe of brush and reached the open space where the blasted beech tree stood. The faint starlight illumined the space, so that Chess did not need to use the torch in his left hand. There was no tent set up here nor any other mark of human habitation.

Ruth knew that there was scarcely any other place on the island where a camp could be established. Had the people they had seen landing from the speedy launch gone away for good and taken their camp equipment with them?

Suddenly Copley seized her wrist. His touch was cold and betrayed the fact that he was nervous himself.

"Listen!" he whispered, his lips close to Ruth's ear.

Helen would have immediately been "in a fidget," and said so. But Ruth could restrain herself pretty well. She nodded so that Copley saw she heard him and was listening. They waited several moments.

"There!" breathed the young fellow again.

"What is it?" Ruth ventured.

"Somebody talking. Listen!"

There was a human voice near by. It sounded close to them, and yet its direction Ruth could not decide upon. There was a hollow, reverberating quality to the sounds that baffled determination as to their origin. But it was a human voice without doubt.

Ruth could not, however, understand a word that was spoken. The tones were first high, then low, never guttural, and possessed a certain sibilant quality. Whether the words spoken were English or not, was likewise a mystery.

Ruth and Chessleigh stood first in one place, then in another, in that circle about the big beech tree. The young man had gone all around the tattered trunk and found no opening. If it was hollow, there was no way of getting into it near the ground, nor was there any ladder by which one might scale the huge trunk to the top.

"That's no hide-away," mouthed Chess, his lips close at Ruth's ear again. "And it seems to me the sound doesn't come from overhead."

"More as though it came up from the ground," returned Ruth, in the same low voice. "Do you suppose we are standing on the roof of a cavern, Chess Copley?"

"It might be," agreed the young fellow. "But if it is a cavern, where under the sun is the mouth of it? How do they get in or out? It beats my time!"

Ruth quickly acknowledged that the mystery was beyond her comprehension. The sing-song sounds—for such they seemed to be—went on and on, meaningless for the two listeners, who could not distinguish a single word.

"Think that's your King of the Pipes?" asked Chessleigh finally.

"I don't know. If it is, there must be something more the matter with him than Willie says there is. He sounds crazy—that is the way it sounds to me."



CHAPTER XX

A FAILURE IN CALCULATION

"What shall we do now?" asked Ruth finally, and in a whisper.

"Let's go down to that place where we saw the boat land the other morning," returned her companion. "I'd like to look about there a bit."

"Do you think it is wise?"

"I don't know about the wisdom of it," chuckled Chessleigh. "But I do know that I'm not at all satisfied. Some people are here on the island, and I'd like to know where they are."

"I am afraid we will get into trouble."

"If it is only that old man——"

"We don't know that it is. He must be talking to somebody—if that is his voice we hear."

"Maybe he is only talking to himself. I don't hear anybody else," replied the young fellow. "Come on. Let's see the thing through, now we have started."

Indeed Ruth wanted to see it through. She was quite as curious as her companion. So she made no further objection.

Pushing through the brush, they climbed carefully down the slope on the outer side of the island. The landing where they had fastened their own boat was on the inner side of the island, while this side fronted the broad expanse of the river.

They could see the hurrying current, glinted here and there by the soft starlight. Everything looked ghostly about them. The dim silvery light made it possible for them to pick their way without stumbling. They made little noise in reaching the shore.

There was a little indention here—a tiny cove. The shore was shelving, and of sand and gravel. Chess pointed silently to the unmistakable marks of a boat's bow in several places.

"That boat has been here more than once," he whispered.

Ruth breathed "Yes," but said no more.

Up-stream of the cove was a great mass of rock—not one rock, but several huddled together and the cracks between overgrown with brush and vines. Chess brought into use the electric torch again.

He shot the spotlight into the crannies. Was there a path there between two of the big boulders? He drew Ruth's attention to it with a touch on her arm. She saw that some of the bushes were broken—the vines torn away and dead.

"Somebody has been here," she murmured.

"Of course. That is what we came to find," said the young man. "We are on the verge of a discovery, Ruth."

"I hope we are not on the verge of trouble," she returned, in the same low tone.

"Don't have a bit of fear," he told her, in a louder voice.

He was about to mention the loaded pistol in his pocket; then thought better of it. But he went ahead, venturing into the narrow passage between the two boulders.

The ray of the torch showed the way. It played on the ground at their feet and upon the rocky sides of the passage. Was that an abrupt end to the passage ahead of them, or a sharp turn in it? Chess pressed on, Ruth trying to peer over his shoulder, although to do this she had to stand on tiptoe.

"By jove!" uttered the young man in surprise, "I believe it is a cavern. It's the entrance to a cave."

"Then those voices did come from a cavern. Be careful, Chess—do!"

He had reached the turn in the passage. A jutting shelf of rock roofed them over. The young man shut off the lamp and they were in darkness. He thrust forward his head to peer around the corner.

As he did so, without the least warning, something swished through the air and Ruth heard the sound of a dull blow. Chess pitched forward, with a groan of pain, falling to his knees.

Ruth uttered a scream. She did not try to retreat, but seized the young man by the shoulders and dragged him back.

Her brave act saved the young fellow from receiving a second and heavier blow. A club was being wielded in the hands of a powerful man who had met them in the passage!

Chess was speechless and apparently in a confused state of mind. The electric torch had fallen from his hand. He seemed struggling to get something out of his jacket pocket, but before he could accomplish this a light flashed up in the tunnel ahead.

The same sing-song, chattering voice they had heard so faintly on the summit of the island broke out close at hand. In the red, flickering light of a burning pine torch the frightened girl saw a man in a broad-brimmed hat and loose, flapping upper garment bending over Chess with a club again raised to strike.

"Don't hurt him! Don't hit him again!" she cried.

Other voices—all speaking in that strange, sing-song tongue—broke out, and Ruth suddenly realized that these enemies that confronted them were Chinese.

In the red light she saw clearly now, under the round, broad-brimmed hat, the yellow face and slanting eyes of the man. Ruth did not understand it—she could not imagine why these Orientals should be here on the island. But she realized fully that the calculations of Copley and herself had gone astray. They were in peril—serious peril.

The leading Chinaman glared into Ruth's frightened face and his thin lips curled back from his yellow teeth in a snarl like that of a rabid dog. His very look was enough to turn the girl cold. She trembled, still striving to drag the half-senseless Chessleigh back.

The Chinaman uttered a long, jabbering howl, turning his face over his shoulder as though speaking to those who crowded behind him in the passage. Ruth might still have escaped, but she would not desert her injured companion.

Suddenly there was a stir in the passage and the big Chinaman was thrust aside. Another figure pushed forward—a ragged, bushy-haired figure. It was the King of the Pipes!

"Hush!" he commanded in his old way.

He waved the Chinaman back. He seemed to have some authority, for the burly Chinaman obeyed. The old man thrust his face forward and peered with his wild eyes into Ruth's countenance.

"Hush!" he whispered. "What did I tell you? I know you, of course. I told you that I could not divide my kingdom with any one. It was quite useless for you to come here again.

"And see what has come of it," he added. "The Pipes have seen you. They know your intentions. They will never in this world stand for a divided kingdom. I shall have to cut off your head. Too bad! Too bad!"

He seized Ruth's wrist. She tried to draw away from him, but he was much more powerful than she had supposed. One quick jerk and she was fairly dragged over the crouching figure of Copley and around the corner of the narrow passage.

The head Chinaman darted forward and seized Chess. He likewise was dragged into the place. Amid the chattering of several high, sing-song voices, and only half seeing what was being done because of the flickering torchlight, Ruth knew that she was being hurried into a tunnel of some size that ran back into the island.