"I--I guess It was only in fun," said Helen rather shakingly, as the Indian girl wheeled her mount again and rode away from Dakota Joe.

"I wouldn't want her to be that funny with me," gasped Jennie Stone.

"She must be a regular wild Indian, after all."

"I am sure, at least, that this Dakota Joe person would have deserved little sympathy if she had shot him," declared Mercy, with confidence.

"Dear me," admitted Ruth herself, "I want to meet that girl more than ever now. There must be some mystery regarding her connection with the owner of the show. They certainly are not in accord."

"You've said something!" agreed Jennie, likewise with conviction.

If Wonota had been at all flurried because of her treatment by her employer, she no longer showed it. Having ridden to the proper spot, she wheeled the white pony again and faced the place where there was a steel shield against which the objects she was to shoot at were thrown.

Dakota Joe rode forward as though to affix the first clay ball to the string. Then he pulled in his horse, scowled across the ring at Wonota, and beckoned one of the cowboys to approach. This man took up the duty of affixing the targets for the Indian girl.

"Do you see that?" chuckled Jennie Stone. "He's afraid she might change her mind and shoot him after all."

"Sh!" cautioned Ruth. "Somebody might hear you. Now look."

The swinging targets were shattered by Wonota as fast as the man could hook them to the string and set the string to swinging. Then he threw gla.s.s b.a.l.l.s filled with feathers into the air for the Indian girl to explode.

It was evident that she was not doing as well as usual, for she missed several shots. But this was not because of her own nervousness. Since the pony had been cut with Dakota Joe's whip it would not stand still, and its nervousness was plainly the cause of Wonota's misses.

The owner of the show was, however, the last person to admit this. He showed more than annoyance as the act progressed.

Perhaps it was the strained relations so evident between the owner of the show and Wonota that affected the man attending to the targets, for he became rather wild. He threw a gla.s.s ball so far to one side that to have shot at it would have endangered the spectators, and the Indian girl dropped the muzzle of her rifle and shook her head. The curving ball came within Dakota Joe's reach.

"Some baseball player, I'll say!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Jennie Stone slangily.

For the owner of the show caught the flying ball. He wheeled his spirited horse, and, holding the ball at arm's length, he spurred down the field toward the Indian girl.

"Oh!" cried Ruth under her breath. "He is going to throw it at her!"

"The villain!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mercy Curtis, her eyes flashing.

But if that was his intention, Dakota Joe did not fulfill it. The Indian girl whipped up the muzzle of her rifle and seemed to take deliberate aim at the angry man. Evidently this act was not on the bill!

CHAPTER IV

SMOKING THE PEACE PIPE

Ruth Fielding almost screamed aloud. She rose in her seat, clinging to Helen Cameron's arm.

"Oh! what will she do?" gasped the girl of the Red Mill, just as the rifle in the Indian sharp-shooter's hands spat its brief tongue of flame.

The gla.s.s ball in Dakota Joe's fingers was shattered and he went through a cloud of feathers as he turned his horse at a tangent and rode away from the Indian girl. It was a good shot, but one that the proprietor of the Wild West Show did not approve of!

"Oh!" exclaimed Mercy Curtis, bitterly, "why didn't she shoot him instead of the ball? He deserves it, I know."

"Dear me, Mercy," drawled Jennie Stone, "you most certainly are a blood-thirsty person!"

"I just know that man is a villain, and the Indian girl is in his power."

"Next reel!" giggled Helen. "It is a regular Western cinema drama, isn't it?"

"I certainly want to become better acquainted with that Wonota,"

declared Ruth, not at all sure but that Mercy Curtis was right in her opinion. "There! Wonota is going off."

The applause the Indian girl received was vociferous. Most of the spectators believed that the shooting of the gla.s.s ball out of the man's hand had been rehea.r.s.ed and was one of Wonota's chief feats. Ruth and her friends had watched what had gone before too closely to make that mistake. There was plainly a serious schism between Dakota Joe and the girl whom he had called the Indian princess.

The girls settled back in their seats after Wonota had replied to the applause with a stiff little bow from the entrance to the dressing-tent.

The usual representation of "Pioneer Days" was then put on, and while the "stage" was being set for the attack on the emigrant train and Indian ma.s.sacre, the fellow who had stood at the pasture fence and talked to the girls when the black bull had done his turn, suddenly appeared in the aisle between the plank seats and gestured to Ruth.

"What?" asked the girl of the Red Mill "You want me?"

"You're the lady," he said, grinning. "Won't keep you a minute. You can git back and see the rest of the show all right."

"It must be that Wonota has sent him for me," explained Ruth, seeing no other possible reason for this call. Refusing to let even Helen go with her, she followed the man up the aisle and down a narrow flight of steps to the ground.

"What is the matter with her? What does she want me for?" Ruth asked him when she could get within earshot and away from the audience.

"Her?"

"Yes. You come from Wonota, don't you?"

The man chuckled, but still kept on. "You'll see her in a minute. Right this way, Miss," he said.

They came to a canvas-enclosed place with a flap pinned back as though it were the entrance to a tent. The guide flourished a hamlike hand, holding back the canvas flap.

"Just step in and you'll find her," he said, again chuckling.

Ruth was one not easily alarmed. But the fellow seemed impudent. She gave him a reproving look and marched into what appeared to be an office, for there was a desk and a chair in view.

There, to her surprise, was Dakota Joe, the long-haired proprietor of the Wild West Show! He stood leaning against a post, his arms folded and smoking a very long and very black cigar. He did not remove his hat as Ruth entered, but rolled his cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other and demanded harshly:

"You know this Injun girl I got with the show?"

"Certainly I know her!" Ruth exclaimed without hesitation, "She saved my life."

"Huh! I heard about that, ma'am. And I don't mean it just that way. I'm talking about her--drat her! She says she has got a date with you and your friends between the afternoon and night shows."

"Yes," Ruth said wonderingly. "We are to meet--and talk."

"That's just it, ma'am," said the man, rolling the cigar again in an offensive way. "That's just it. When you come to talk with that Injun girl, I want you to steer her proper on one p'int. We're white, you an'

me, and I reckon white folks will stick together when it comes to a game against reds. Get me?"