She spurred her horse up into the pass and ran the pony half a mile before she turned him and raced back to Mr. Hammond. She came with flying hair and rosy cheeks to the worried president, bursting with an idea that had assailed her mind.
“Mr. Hammond! It is the greatest sight you ever saw! Get the camera man and hurry right up there to the mouth of the pass. Tell Mr. Grimes——”
“What do you mean?” snapped the president of the Alectrion Film Corporation. “Do you want to disorganize my whole company again?”
“I want to show you the greatest moving picture that ever was taken!” cried the girl of the Red Mill. “Oh, Mr. Hammond, you must take it! It must be incorporated in this film. Why! it is the real thing!”
“What is that? A joke?” he growled.
“No joke at all, I assure you,” said Ruth, patiently. “You can see them coming through the pass—and beyond—for miles and miles. Men afoot, on horseback, in all kinds of wagons, on burros—oh, it is simply great! There are hundreds and hundreds of them. Why, Mr. Hammond! this Freezeout Camp is going to be a city before night!”
The chief reason why Mr. Hammond was a wealthy man and one of the powers in the motion picture world was because he could seize upon a new idea and appreciate its value in a moment. He knew that Ruth was a sane girl and that she had judgment, as well as imagination. He gaped at her for a moment, perhaps; the next he was shouting for Mr. Grimes, for the camera men, for the horse wrangler, and for the “call-boy” to round up the company.
In half an hour a train set out for the pass, which met the first of the advance guard of gold seekers pouring down into the valley. The eager-faced men of all ages and apparently of all walks in life hurried on almost silently toward the spot where they were told a ledge of free gold had been found.
There were roughly dressed teamsters, herdsmen, nondescripts; there were Mexicans and Indians; there were well dressed city men—lawyers, doctors, other professional men, perhaps. Afterward Ruth read in an Arizona newspaper that such a typical stampede to any new-found gold or silver strike had not been seen in a decade.
A camera man set up his machine in a good spot and waited for the whole film company to drift along into the pass and join the real gold seekers that streamed down toward Freezeout.