AT CHIPPEWA BAY
Helen pronounced that exodus from the Red Mill “some hustle;” and really it was but a brief time that Ruth allowed for packing, dressing, and getting to Cheslow for the eight-forty-five train, bound north. This was a through train with sleeping cars, and stopped at Cheslow only on special occasions. Ruth determined that this was one of those occasions.
She hustled Ben, the hired man, off to town ahead, and by the good offices of Mercy Curtis a compartment and berth were obtained on that especial train. Mercy kept the wires hot arranging this for her friend.
Meanwhile, Helen rushed home in her car, packed her trunk and bag, had them loaded into the front of the car, and drove up the road again to the Red Mill where she picked up the two Indians and Ruth. Uncle Jabez and Aunt Alvirah were sorry enough to see Ruth go; but this trip promised not to be a long one, for the picture should be made in five or six weeks.
The Cameron’s chauffeur had been instructed by Helen to “burn up the road,” for there was none too much time before the train was due, and he did as he was ordered. Indeed, there were ten minutes to spare when they reached the station platform, and the girls spent that time chatting with Mercy Curtis leaning out of her window of the telegraph office.
“So, you are off on your travels again,” said the lame girl. “I wish I was a butterfly of fashion, too.”
“‘Butterfly,’!” scoffed Helen. “Ruth, at least, is no butterfly. She might be called a busy bee with more truth.”
“Ah-ha, Miss Helen!” returned Mercy, shaking her finger, “you are the improvident grasshopper—no less.”
Helen giggled. “Tom says that that old proverb, ‘Go to the ant, thou sluggard;’ should read: ‘Go to the ant and slug her.’ He does not love work any more than I do.”
Again Ruth’s expression of countenance was one of disapproval, but she made no comment on Tom. The train thundered toward the station, slowing down as though resenting being stopped in its swift career for even a few moments.
Mr. Curtis, the station master, made a point himself of seeing that the baggage of the party was put into the baggage car. The conductor and porter helped the girls aboard, and they found their sections.
Ruth was determined that Wonota should not get out of her sight again, and the Indian girl was to occupy a berth in the stateroom. Totantora was to have had the berth; but when he saw it made up and noted the cramped and narrow quarters offered him, he shook his head decidedly. He spent the night in the porter’s little room at the end of the car, and the porter, when he found out Totantora was an Indian chief, did not dare object for fear of being scalped!
The party reached Hammond the following afternoon. Here they alighted instead of at Redwood, the more popular station of those wishing to reach the Thousand Islands by way of the electric road to Alexandria Bay. Ruth and her party were going direct to Chippewa Bay, for it was upon some of the more northern of the fourteen hundred or more isles that constitute the “Thousand Islands” that Mr. Hammond had arranged for the film company’s activities at this time.
A big touring car was waiting for the party, for one of the telegrams Ruth had caused to be sent the evening before was to Mr. Hammond, and they were glad to leave the Pullman and get into the open air. Totantora, even, desired to walk to Chippewa Bay, for he was tired of the white man’s means of locomotion. Ruth and Wonota would not hear to this.
“I guess we have eluded Bilby,” said the girl of the Red Mill; “but I shall not feel that Wonota is safe, Totantora, unless you are near her at all times. You must keep watch of your daughter. She is a valuable possession.”
For once Totantora smiled—although it was grimly.
“A squaw did not use to be counted for much in my nation,” he said. “But Wonota is not like the old squaws.”
“Wonota is quite an up-to-date young woman, let me tell you, Mr Totantora,” Helen told him briskly.
The party remained over night at a small hotel at Chippewa Bay; but in the morning Ruth and her companions entered a motor launch and were transported to an island where the film producing company had been established in several bungalows which Mr. Hammond had rented for the time of their stay.
The water between the small islands was as calm as a mill pond; but the party caught glimpses from the launch of the breadth of the St. Lawrence, its Canadian shore being merely a misty blue line that morning. The rocky and wooded islands were extremely beautiful and as romantic in appearance as the wilderness always is. Now and then a privately owned island, improved by landscape gardening into a modern summer estate, offered contrast to the wilder isles.
The girls spent most of the day in getting settled. No work on the new picture could be done for a couple of days, and Helen, naturally, looked for amusement. There were canoes as well as motor boats, and both the chums were fond of canoeing. Wonota, of course, was mistress of the paddle; and with her the two white girls selected a roomy canoe and set out toward evening on a journey of exploration among the closer islands.
One of the largest islands in the group was in sight—Grenadier Island; but that they learned was beyond the American line. They saw it only from a distance, keeping close to the New York shore as they did on this brief voyage. The tall tamaracks and the other trees crowded some of the islands until they seemed veritable jungles.
Some few, however, were bold and precipitous in the extreme. “Just the sort of place for pirate dens and robber caves,” Helen declared, shivering gleefully.
“What a romantic puss you are,” laughed Ruth.
“Well, those cracks in the rock yonder look so dark and dismal. And there might be dark-skinned men with red bandanas bound around their heads, and knives in their belts, along with the rest of the scenery, Ruthie,” complained Helen.
Wonota stared at her. “Do you mean, Miss Helen, that there are cholos—are greasers—in these woods? My geography book that I study shows this country to be far, far from Mexico.”
“Oh, my aunt!” chuckled Helen. “She thinks nobody but Mexicans can wear gay handkerchiefs bound about their noble brows. Wait till you see sure-enough pirates—”
“That is perfect nonsense, Wonota,” said Ruth, warningly. “Helen is only in fun.”
“Ah,” said the practical Indian maid, “I understand English—and American; only I do not always grasp the—er—humor, do you call it?”
“Good!” applauded Ruth. “Serves you right, Helen, for your silly nonsense.”
“The Indians’ fun is different,” explained Wonota, not wishing to offend the white girl.
“You are a pair of old sober-sides, that is what is the matter,” declared Helen gaily. “Oh, Ruth! drive the canoe ashore yonder—on that rocky beach. Did you ever see such ferns?”
They brought the canoe carefully in to the shore, landing on a sloping rock which was moss-grown above the mark of the last flood. Ruth fastened the tow-rope to the staff of a slender sapling. Wonota got out to help Helen gather some of the more delicately fronded ferns. Ruth turned her back upon them and began climbing what seemed to be a path among the boulders and trees.
This was not a very large island, and it was well out from the American shore, but inside the line between the States and Canada. Although the path Ruth followed seemed well defined, she scarcely thought the island was inhabited.
As they had paddled past it in the canoe there had been no sign of man’s presence. It had been left in the state of nature, and nothing, it seemed, had been done to change its appearance from the time that the first white man had seen it.
Some rods up the ascent Ruth came to an open place—a table of rock that might really have been a giant’s dining-table, so flat and perfectly shaped it was. She could look down upon Helen and Wonota, and they looked up and called to her.
“Look out for the pirates!” shouted Helen, with laughter.
Ruth waved her hand, smiling, and, crossing the rock, parted the brush and stepped out of sight of her friends. Two steps she took through the clinging bushes when a most surprising figure started up before her.
There was plenty of light, even if the sun had gone down. She was not uncertain at all as to the nature of the figure that confronted her—that of a man.
She saw almost instantly that the old man’s brown eyes were more like a child’s in expression than like an angry man’s. He grinned at her, but the grimace was involuntary or meaningless.
“Hush!” he whispered. “Hush!”
Ruth remained both quiet and speechless, looking into his wrinkled old face calmly. She thought he must be a beggar from his clothing, but she could not imagine him a robber, nor even one of Helen’s “pirates.” As she said nothing the old man repeated his sibilant warning:
“Hush!”
“I am ‘hushing’ just as hard as I can,” whispered the girl in return, and smiling a little now. “Why must I ‘hush’?”
“Hush!” he said again, quite as earnestly. “You are in danger of your life, young woman.”
“Not from you, I am sure,” she returned. “You would not try to hurt me.”
“Hush!” he repeated, looking back over his shoulder into the thicker wood. “They may come at any moment now. And although I am their king, they would kill you. You see, kings aren’t as powerful now as they used to be before the war.”
“So I understand,” agreed Ruth soberly. “But who are you king of—or what?”
“I am King of the Pipes,” whispered the old man. “You don’t know what that means,” he added, scanning her puzzled face. “No. And that’s the secret. You cannot be told.”
“Oh,” murmured Ruth, somewhat amused, yet pitying his evident mental state.
“Hush!” he said again. “You are in danger. Go away from this place at once, and don’t come here again. If my courtiers see you—Ha! Off with her head! I shall have to follow the kingly custom. It is not my fault,” he added, in the same low tone, shaking his head mournfully. “We kings have to lead our lives, you know.”
“It must be a dreadful life, if you have to order people’s heads cut off when they have done you no harm,” Ruth ventured.
“But my people would not believe that you would do no harm,” he explained. “I can see that you are quite harmless. But they have not the intelligence I possess. You understand?”
“Quite,” said Ruth. “And I will go right away. Thank you for your kindness.”
“That is right, young woman. Go away. And do not return. It is not safe here.”
“Can’t—can’t I do anything for you?”
“Hush!” warned the old man. “No, I do not think you can. I do not care to divide my power with any consort. And, unless you are of noble blood I could not make you Queen of the Pipes. That would never do. Such a mésalliance would never do. My people would never stand for it—oh, never!”
“I quite understand that,” said Ruth, having difficulty to keep from smiling.
“Now go, young woman,” the man said pompously. “And do not return.”
“I will obey you,” said Ruth soberly. “If you are sure I cannot help you.”
“Hush!” he warned her again, waving his hand. “They are likely to come at any moment. And then—”
The girl backed through the bushes and stepped upon the table-like rock. She would have bade him good-bye, but he hissed after her another sibilant “hush!” and disappeared as mysteriously as he had come.
Ruth descended to the canoe and waited until they were well away from the island before she said a word to the other girls about the queer old man.