Jennie stared at him with open mouth as well as eyes.
"Well!" she gasped after a minute. "That is what you might call being wrapped up in one's business, sure enough! Ruined your shot, indeed! How about ruining a perfectly good girl named Ruth Fielding?"
"Oh, I beg Miss Fielding's pardon," stammered the director. "You must remember that taking such a scene as this costs the corporation a good deal of money. Miss Fielding's danger, I must say, threw me quite off my balance. If I didn't have two of the keenest camera men in the business all this," and he gestured toward the turbulent river, "would have gone for nothing."
"I can thank Mr. Hooley for what he tried to do for me," smiled Ruth. "I saw his gestures if I could not hear his voice. That was my salvation. But I believe it must have been Dakota Joe who started that avalanche of logs down upon me."
"I'll have the scoundrel looked for," promised Hooley, turning to go upstream again.
"But don't tell these rough men why you want Dakota Joe," advised the girl of the Red Mill.
"No?"
"You know how they are—even some of the fellows working for the picture company. They are pretty rough themselves. I do not want murder done because of my narrow escape."
The other girls cried out at this, but Mr. Hooley nodded understandingly.
"I get you, Miss Fielding. But I'll make it so he can't try any capers around here again. No, sir!"