Mr. Hammond was on hand in New York to greet Ruth with hearty enthusiasm and congratulations.
“Wait till you see the film before you praise me too much,” Ruth warned him, laughing.
“We’ll arrange for a special view at once,” Mr. Hammond told her. “But meanwhile, Miss Ruth Fielding, if you say the film is good, I am quite willing to take your word.”
Within a few days after their return to New York, Ruth and Tom and some members of their company, together with Helen and Chess, found themselves assembled in the projection room for a private view of “The Girl of Gold.”
Mr. Hammond was there, of course, and the same group of men who had first met Ruth in his office, including Jim McCarty and the dubious Raymond Howell. Ruth had descried the author of the book, too, who came in late just as the lights went down. No wonder the hand of the young director was cold as she slipped it into Helen’s.
“Don’t be nervous, honey,” said the latter, with a warm squeeze of the hand. “As our friend, Mary Chase, would say, ‘you have no call to be!’”
“I had a letter from Mary to-day,” Ruth answered. “She says the men that Mr. Knowles and Layton Boardman set to working the mine have found it richer in gold than they originally supposed. She is coming on with Ellen as soon as she can leave the mine——”
“And then Mary and your handsome actor will be married,” concluded Helen happily. “What a darling little romance we stumbled into, Ruth Fielding!”
“Hush!” said Ruth, pressing her fingers. “It has started!”
When the lights went up again Ruth was surrounded by an enthusiastic group of actors, directors and friends.