Ruth Fielding in Alaska

by Alice B. Emerson

There were the two assistant directors, Gerard Bolton and Maurice Brandt. The former was a stockily built man with extremely broad shoulders and a forehead that jutted heavily over deep-set gray eyes. It was the forehead, Ruth decided after a second look, that made him look so pugnacious, as if, having once got hold of an idea, he would be extraordinarily slow to relinquish it.

However, he was pleasant enough, and his companion, Maurice Brandt, was extremely talkative and cordial.

Ruth decided that Maurice Brandt might prove a trifle too self-assertive upon further acquaintance, and then and there prepared to resist him with some self-assertiveness of her own.

The leading lady was Alice Lytelly, a fluffy little blonde who ought to do well in the rather unexacting title rôle. Despite the gushing greeting of the latter, Ruth read temperament in the stormy blue eyes of the star and the pouting, too-full, red lips. Ruth had had experience before with temperamental stars, and she knew just how to catalogue Miss Lytelly.

There were others in rôles of varying importance, from the tall, distinguished-looking “father” of the heroine and the pitiful, humpbacked dwarf who played the villain of the piece to the lad of eleven, freckle-faced and elfish, who took the part of the star’s younger brother and who by his astuteness and precocity managed to discover the designs of the villain and lead the hero to his hiding place.

This youngster, by name Eben Howe, was to become, as Tom teasingly said, his rival in Ruth’s affections. However much that may be an overstatement of fact, it certainly is true that Ruth liked the mischievous, freckled boy at sight and that Eben developed an adoration for the young director of the company that was like the devotion of a good-natured, tail-wagging collie dog.

Such was the general personnel of the company of actors Ruth was to direct in a moving picture of the first magnitude, “The Girl of Gold.”

The three cameramen, Traymore, Schultz and Atwater, were all pleasant and competent men, and Ruth felt instinctively that there would be little friction in her association with them.

Artists, every one of them in their line—in this day of the “super-film,” there is a great deal more importance to the work of the cameramen than is generally suspected—they all had heard of her and respected her ability and had decided to give their best in service to their youthful “chief.”

Ruth felt this and was grateful for it. But about the actors and the two directors, she was not so sure. She seemed to sense a slight undercurrent of resentment toward her—partly, perhaps, because of her youth, partly because of her sex.