Meanwhile Ruth was working steadily on her picture.
Despite the setbacks and nerve-racking delays, several of the finishing outdoor scenes of minor importance were filmed about the cabin and on Snow Mountain. Ruth was beginning to hope that all might yet be well.
Then, one day when she was out alone searching for a new location on Snow Mountain, Ruth stepped on something hard and the next moment two sets of sharp, inexorable steel teeth clamped upon her walking boot.
Feeling sick with shock and apprehension Ruth looked down and found that her foot was tightly caught in the jaws of a trap.
Lucky for her that her boots were made of heavy, tough leather, or those cruel steel teeth would have cut through to the bone.
As it was, the pressure was sickeningly painful.
With a little moan Ruth sank to the ground, wrenching the trapped foot as she did so.
“This is too much,” she said aloud in her anxiety. Looking up at the snow-crested top of Snow Mountain she smiled a crooked twisted little smile. “Snow Mountain! They say you bring good luck. And I have had nothing but the worst of luck ever since I saw you! I wish,” she cried, with a sudden burst of helpless fury, “I had never seen you!”
As the seconds raced into minutes and the minutes dragged into hours and still no help came to her, Ruth began to feel as though release would never come.
She worked at the steel jaws of the trap, calmly at first, then feverishly, until her fingers were bruised and bleeding with the effort to free the imprisoned foot.