For the owner of the show caught the flying ball. He wheeled his spirited horse, and, holding the ball at arm's length, he spurred down the field toward the Indian girl.
"Oh!" cried Ruth under her breath. "He is going to throw it at her!"
"The villain!" ejaculated Mercy Curtis, her eyes flashing.
But if that was his intention, Dakota Joe did not fulfill it. The Indian girl whipped up the muzzle of her rifle and seemed to take deliberate aim at the angry man. Evidently this act was not on the bill!
CHAPTER IV
SMOKING THE PEACE PIPE
Ruth Fielding almost screamed aloud. She rose in her seat, clinging to Helen Cameron's arm.
"Oh! what will she do?" gasped the girl of the Red Mill, just as the rifle in the Indian sharp-shooter's hands spat its brief tongue of flame.
The glass ball in Dakota Joe's fingers was shattered and he went through a cloud of feathers as he turned his horse at a tangent and rode away from the Indian girl. It was a good shot, but one that the proprietor of the Wild West Show did not approve of!