"I certainly will be glad to see a porcelain bathtub again," yawned Jennie, breaking in. "I don't really feel as though a sponge-down in an icy cold brook with a tarpaulin around one for a bath-house is altogether the height of luxury."
"It is out here," laughed Helen.
"I do not mind the inconveniences so much," said Ruth reflectively. "The old Red Mill farmhouse was not very conveniently arranged—above stairs, at least—until I had it built over at my own expense, greatly to Uncle Jabez's opposition. It is not the roughing it. That is good for us I verily believe. But I have a depressing feeling that before the picture is done something may happen."
"I should expect it would!" cried Helen, not at all disturbed by the prophecy. Once Helen had prophesied disaster, and it had come. But she forgot that now. "I expect something to happen—every day, most likely. But of course it will be a pleasant and exciting something. Yes, indeedy!"
Neither of her friends, after all, realized that Ruth Fielding was actually in fear. She was very anxious every waking moment. That strange man whom the girls had spied here in the canyon might be a perfectly harmless person. And then again—
Two days were occupied in placing the paraphernalia and training the actors in their parts. They all got a working knowledge of what was expected of them when the picture was being photographed, and the principals learned their lines. For nowadays almost as much care is given to what is said by actors before the camera as by those having speaking parts upon the stage.
The big scene—the really big scene in the drama—was set upon that overhanging lip of rock that Ruth had spied when first she, with Helen and Jennie, had ridden up the trail. On that overhanging shelf occurred the struggle between the white lover of Brighteyes and the Indian who had trailed him and the girl to this wild spot.
Mr. Grand, in spite of Wonota's scorn of him, was a handsome man and made as fine an appearance in the out-of-door garments the part called for as he did in the dress-suit to which he was so much addicted. The Indian who played the part of the villain was an excellent actor and had appeared many times on the silver sheet. He was earnest in his desire to please the director, but he failed sometimes to "keep in the picture" when he was not actually dominating a scene.
Because of this failing in John Onehorse, Mr. Hooley sent Ruth to the top of the rock to watch and advise Onehorse as the scene proceeded.
She was quite able by this time to act as assistant director. Indeed, it was Ruth's ambition to direct a picture of her own in the near future. She sometimes had ideas that conflicted with those of Mr. Hammond and his directors, and she wished to try her own way to get certain results.