However, the throng of guests who were invited to the reception began coming in, and for the next two hours the parlors were crowded with the many friends of the plump girl, who, as Helen had said, found this the greatest day of her life, and there was little time for much individual chat, though, it seemed to Tom, Chess Copley kept as close as possible to Ruth's side.

It was after Jennie had gone to put on her traveling dress, and the immediate wedding party, who were to accompany the bridal couple to the dock to see them embark, were hurrying out of the room to put on street clothes that Tom, in a low voice, demanded of Chess:

"What are you trying to do--put a label on Ruth? Don't forget she belongs to all of us."

Chess Copley had not won his commission in the war and wore only a sergeant's chevrons. But the war was over and he could tell his captain just what he thought of him. And he did.

"Do you know what you are, Tom Cameron?" he drawled, smiling a hard little smile. "You are a regular dog in the manger, and I'm frank to tell you so!"

CHAPTER III

RICE AND OLD SHOES

"It is the greatest day in a girl's life," declared Helen Cameron, sitting on the edge of one of the twin beds in the room she and Ruth occupied while they were at the Stone house. She buckled her fingers around her knee to hold one limb crossed over the other--a very mannish and independent position. "I don't know that I ever envied Heavy before in my life. But she has got something now that we haven't, Ruth."

"Cat's foot!" exclaimed Ann Hicks from her chair. "Who'd want a Frenchman for a husband?"

Ruth laughed. "Not to say that Major Marchand is not a fine fellow, I agree with Ann that I don't want a husband. Not--right--now!"

"Oh! Very well," said Helen complacently. "But if you thought you'd never be able to get one----"

"Shucks!" exclaimed Ann. "As though our Ruth couldn't have all she wants if she wants them."

"I really wish you would not speak plurally of them, Ann," cried Ruth, laughing. "You will make me feel like the Queen of the Amazons. They say she keeps a masculine harem--like a bey, or a sultan, or something of that kind."

"Be serious," rejoined Helen. "I mean what I say. Jennie's great day has arrived. And she is the first of all our old bunch that went to Briarwood--and surely of those who went to Ardmore College--to fetter herself to a man for life."

"Well, I shall never be fettered, even if I am married," observed Ann.

"I'd like to see myself!"

"If the right man comes riding by, Ann, even you will change your mind,"

Ruth said softly.

"Then I suppose the right man has never ridden up to the Red Mill and asked for you?" demanded Helen, with a glance at her chum that was rather piercing.

"Perhaps he has," said Ruth composedly, "but I wasn't at home. Aunt Alvirah thinks I am almost never at home. And, girls, as I told you yesterday, I am going soon on another journey."

"Oh, Ruth, I've been thinking of that!" Helen rejoined, with a sudden access of interest and excitement. "To the Thousand Islands! And at the loveliest time of all the year up there."

"And that is only the truth," said one of the other bridesmaids. "We spent last summer there."

"The Copleys always go," Helen remarked quietly.

"No! Do you mean it?" cried Ruth, showing some surprise. "Well, indeed."

"So you will see a lot more of 'La.s.ses Copley," remarked Ann.

"I shall be glad if Chess Copley is there when and where we make this picture, for I think he is very nice," was Ruth's composed reply.

"Oh, he's nice enough," agreed Helen, rather grumblingly however. "I've got nothing to say against Chess--as a general thing."

"And you don't seem to say much for him," put in the Western girl curiously.

But Helen said nothing further on that topic. Ruth broke in, answering one of the other girls who spoke of the forthcoming picture Ruth was going to make for the Alectrion Corporation.

"Of course our famous Wonota is going to be in the picture. For she is famous already. 'Brighteyes' appeared for two successive weeks in one of the big Broadway picture houses and we are making a lot of money out of its distribution.

"But we know Wonota is a find for another very unmistakable reason," she added.

"What is that?" asked Helen.

"Other producers have begun to make Wonota and her father offers. For Chief Totantora has become interested in the movie business too. Mr.

Hammond used Totantora in a picture he made in Oklahoma in the spring; one in which Wonota did not appear. She was off at school at the time. We are going to make of the princess a cultivated and cultured young lady before we get through with her," and Ruth laughed.

"A Red Indian!" cried somebody.

"That makes no difference," said Ruth placidly. "She is amenable to white customs, and is really a very smart girl. And she has a lovely disposition."

"Especially," put in Helen, who remembered the occasion clearly, "when she wanted to shoot Dakota Joe Fenbrook when he treated her so unkindly in his Wild West show. But, I wanted to shoot him myself," she added, frankly. "Especially after he tried to hurt Ruth."

"Never mind him," said her chum at that. "Joe Fenbrook is in the penitentiary now, and he is not bothering us. But other people are bothering Mr. Hammond about Wonota."

"How?" asked Helen.

"Why, as I said, there are other picture producers who have seen 'Brighteyes' and would like to get the chief and his daughter under contract. They have told Totantora that, as the contract with his daughter was made while she was not of age, it can be broken. Of course, the Indian agent agreed to the contract; but after Totantora returned from Europe, where he had been held a prisoner in Germany during the war, the guardianship of Wonota reverted to her father once more.

"It is rather a complicated matter," went on Ruth, "and it is giving Mr.

Hammond and his lawyers some trouble. There is a man named Bilby, who has been a picture producer in a small way, who seems to have some influence with the head of the Government Bureau of Indian Affairs. He seems to have financial backing, too, and claims to have secured a series of stories in which Wonota might be featured to advantage. And he certainly has offered Totantora and the girl much more money than Mr. Hammond would be willing to risk in a star who may, after all, prove merely a flash in the pan."

"What do you mean by that?" asked Ann. "I thought she was a sure-fire hit."

"No amateur screen actress--and that is all Wonota is as yet--is ever a 'sure-fire hit', as you call it," said the practical Ruth. "Many a producer has been badly bitten by tying up a new actor or actress to a long-time contract. Because a girl films well and is successful in one part, is not an a.s.surance that she can learn to be a really great actress before the camera.

"In 'Brighteyes' Wonota merely played herself. I was successful in fitting my story to her individuality. But she cannot always play the same part. In this story we are about to do on the St. Lawrence, she will be called upon to delineate a character quite different from that of the heroine of 'Brighteyes.'"

"Dear me, Ruth," sighed Helen, "what a business woman you are getting to be. Your career has really begun--and so promisingly. While I can't do a thing but play the fiddle a little, daub a little at batik, and crochet!"

"And make most delightful fudge!" cried Jennie Stone, just then coming into the room in her traveling dress, fresh from the hands of her maid and Aunt Kate. "How do I look, girls?"

The bride's appearance drove everything else out of her friends' minds for the time being. It was two o'clock and the automobiles were at the door. The bridal couple, attended by bridesmaids, the best man, the ushers, and other close friends, departed for the dock amid showers of rice and a bombardment of old shoes which littered Madison Avenue for half a block and kept even the policemen on special duty for the occasion, dodging!

They all trooped aboard the steamship where arrangements had been made to have the pa.s.sports of the bride and groom examined.

Mr. Stone had done everything well, as he always did. The bridal suite was banked with flowers. Even the orchestra belonging to the ship had been engaged specially to play. A second, though brief, reception was held here.