CHAPTER II
THE FILM HEROINE
When the motion picture girl fell from the sycamore tree into the water,some of the members of the company, who sat or stood near by panting aftertheir hard chase cross-lots, actually laughed at their unfortunatecomrade's predicament.
But that was because they had no idea of the strength and treacherousnature of the Lumano. At this point the eddies and cross-currents made thestream more perilous than any similar stretch of water in the State.
"Oh, that silly girl!" shouted Mr. Grimes, the director. "There! she'sspoiled the scene again. I don't know what Hammond was thinking of to sendher up here to work with us.
"Hey, one of you fellows! go and fish her out. And that spoils our chanceof getting the picture to-day. Miss Gray will have to be mollycoddled, andgrandmothered, and what-not. Huh!"
While he scolded, the director scarcely gave a glance to the strugglinggirl. The latter had struck out pluckily for the shore when she came upfrom her involuntary plunge. After the cry she had uttered as she fell,she had not made a sound.
To swim with one's clothing all on is not an easy matter at the best oftimes. To do this in mid-winter, when the water is icy, is well nigh animpossibility.
Several of the men of the company, more humane than the director, hadsprung to assist the unfortunate girl; but suddenly the current caught herand she was swerved from the bank. She was out of reach.
"And not a skiff in sight!" exclaimed Tom.
"Oh, dear! The poor thing!" cried his sister. "She's being carried rightdown the river. They'll never get her."
"Oh, Tom!" implored Ruth. "Hurry and start. _We must get that girl_!"
"Sure we will!" cried Tom Cameron.
He was already out of the car and madly turning the crank. In a moment theengine was throbbing. Tom leaped back behind the wheel and the automobiledarted ahead.
The rough road led directly along the verge of the river bank. Thepicture-play actors scattered as he bore down upon them. It gave Tom, aswell as the girls, considerable satisfaction to see the director, Grimes,jump out of the way of the rapidly moving car.
The friends in the car saw the actress, whom Grimes had called both"Hazel" and "Miss Gray," swirled far out from the shore; but they knew thecurrent or an eddy would bring her back. She sank once; but she came upagain and fought the current like the plucky girl she was.
"Oh, Helen! she's wonderful!" gasped Ruth, with clasped hands, as shewatched this fight for life which was more thrilling than anything she hadever seen reproduced on the screen.
Helen was too frightened to reply; but Ruth Fielding often before hadshown remarkable courage and self-possession in times of emergency. Nomore than the excited Tom did she lose her head on this occasion.
As has been previously told, Ruth had come to the banks of the LumanoRiver and to her Uncle Jabez Potter's Red Mill some years before, when shewas a small girl. She was an orphan, and the crabbed and miserly millerwas her single living relative.
The first volume of the series, entitled "Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill,"tells of the incidents which follow Ruth's coming to reside with heruncle, and with Aunt Alvirah Boggs, who was "everybody's aunt" butnobody's relative.
The first and closest friends of her own age that Ruth made in her newhome were Helen and Tom Cameron, twin children of a wealthy merchantwhose all-year home was not far from the Red Mill. With Helen and MercyCurtis, a lame girl, Ruth is sent to Briarwood Hall, a delightfullysituated boarding school at some distance from the girls' homes, andthere, in the second volume of the series, Ruth is introduced to newscenes, some new friends and a few enemies; but altogether has adelightful time.
Ensuing volumes tell of Ruth and her chums' adventures at Snow Camp; atLighthouse Point; on Silver Ranch, in Montana; on Cliff Island, whereoccur a number of remarkable winter incidents; at Sunset Farm during theprevious summer; and finally, in the eighth volume, the one immediatelypreceding this present story, Ruth achieves something that she has long,long desired.
This last volume, called "Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies; Or, The MissingPearl Necklace," tells of an automobile trip which Ruth and her presentcompanions, Helen and Tom Cameron, took through the hills some distancebeyond the Red Mill and Cheslow, their home town.
They fall into the hands of Gypsies and the two girls are actually heldcaptive by the old and vindictive Gypsy Queen. Through Ruth's braveryHelen escapes and takes the news of the capture back to Tom. Later thegrandson of the old Gypsy Queen releases Ruth.
While at the camp Ruth sees a wonderful pearl necklace in the hands ofthe covetous old Queen Zelaya. Later, when the girls return to Briarwood,they learn that an aunt of one of their friends, Nettie Parsons, has beenrobbed of just such a necklace.
Ruth, through Mr. Cameron, puts the police on the trail of the Gypsies.The Gypsy boy, Roberto, is rescued and in time becomes a protege of Mr.Cameron, while the stolen necklace is recovered from the Gypsy Queen, whois deported by the Washington authorities.
In the end, the five thousand dollars reward offered by Nettie's auntcomes to Ruth. She is enriched beyond her wildest dreams, and above all,is made independent of the niggardly charity of her Uncle Jabez who seemsto love his money more than he does his niece.
Unselfishness was Ruth's chief virtue, though she had many. She couldnever refuse a helping hand to the needy; nor did she fear to risk her ownconvenience, sometimes even her own safety, to relieve or rescue another.
In the present case, none knew better than Ruth the treacherous currentsof the Lumano. It had not been so many months since she and her uncle,Jabez Potter, out upon the Lumano in a boat, had nearly lost their lives.This present accident, that to the young moving-picture actress, was at apoint some distance above the Red Mill.
"If she is carried down two hundred yards farther, Tom, she will be sweptout into mid-stream," declared Ruth, still master of herself, though hervoice was shaking.
"And then--good-night!" answered Tom. "I know what you mean, Ruth."
"She will sink for the last time before the current sweeps her in near theshore again," Ruth added.
"Oh, don't!" groaned Helen. "The poor girl."
Tom had driven the automobile until it was ahead of the struggling HazelGray. An eddy clutched her and drew her swiftly in toward the bank.Immediately Tom shut off the power and he and Ruth both leaped out of thecar.
A long branch from an adjacent tree had been torn off by the wind and laybeside the road. Tom seized this and ran with Ruth to the edge of thewater; but he knew the branch was a poor substitute for a rope.
"If she can cling to this, I'll get something better in a moment, Ruth!"he exclaimed.
Swinging the small and bushy end of the branch outward, Tom dropped itinto the water just ahead of the imperiled girl. Ruth seized the butt withher strong and capable hands.
"Cut off a length of that fence wire, Tommy," she ordered. "You havewire-cutters in your auto kit, haven't you?"
"Sure!" cried Tom. "Never travel without 'em since we were at SilverRanch, you know. There! She's got it."
Hazel Gray had seized upon the branch. She was too exhausted to reach thebank of the river without help, and just here the eddy began to swing heraround again, away from the shore.
The men of the company came running now, giving lusty shouts ofencouragement, but--that was all! The director had allowed the girl to getinto a perilous position on the leaning tree without having a boat andcrew in readiness to pick her up if she fell into the river. It was anunpardonable piece of neglect, and there might still serious consequencesarise from it.
For the girl in the water was so exhausted that she could not long clingto the limb. It was but a frail support between her and drowning.
When the men arrived Ruth feared to have them even touch the branch sheheld, and she motioned them back. She knew that the girl in the stream wasalmost exhausted and that a very little would cause her to lose her holdupon the branch altogether.
"Don't touch it! I beg of y
ou, don't touch it!" cried Ruth, as one excitedman undertook to take the butt of the branch.
"You can't hold it, Miss! you'll be pulled into the water."
"Never fear for me," the girl from the Red Mill returned. "I know what Iam about----Oh, goody! here comes Tom!"
She depended on Tom--she knew that he would do something if anybody could.She gazed upon the wet, white face of the girl in the water and knew thatwhatever Tom did must be done at once. Hazel Gray was loosing her hold.
"Oh! oh! oh!" screamed Helen, standing in the automobile with claspedhands. "Don't let her drown, Tommy! Don't let her go down again--_don't_!"
Tom came, with grimly set lips, dragging about twenty feet of fence wirebehind him. Luckily it was smooth wire--not barbed. He quickly made a loopin one end of it and wriggled the other end toward Ruth and the excitedmen.
"Catch hold here!" he ordered. "Make a loop as I have, and don't let itslip through your hands."
"Oh, Tom! you're never going into that cold water?" Ruth gasped, suddenlystricken with fear for her friend's safety.
But that was exactly what Tom intended to do. There was no other way. Hehad seen, too, the exhaustion of the girl in the water and knew that ifher hands slipped from the tree branch, she could never get a grip on thewire.
Without removing an article of clothing the boy leaped into the stream.It was over his head right here below the bank, and the chill of the waterwas tremendous. As Tom said afterward, he felt it "clear to the marrow ofhis bones!"
But he came up and struck out strongly for the face of the girl, which wasall that could be seen above the surface.
Hazel Gray's hold was slipping from the branch. She was blue about thelips and her eyes were almost closed. The current was tugging at herstrongly; she was losing consciousness. If she was carried away by thesuction of the stream, now dragging so strongly at her limbs, Tom Cameronwould be obliged to loose his own hold upon the wire and swim after her.And the young fellow was not at all sure that he could save either her orhimself if this occurred.
Yet, perilous as his own situation was, Tom thought only of that of theactress.