“So she calls herself a ‘princess’ does she?” returned the man, grinning again at Ruth in an offensive way. “Well, I have managed a South Sea Island chief, a pair of Circassian twins, and a bunch of Eskimos, in my time. I guess I know how to act in the presence of Injun royalty. Trot her out.”
“Trot who out?” asked the miller calmly, but with eyes that flashed under his penthouse brows. “Wonota ain’t no horse. Did you think she was?”
“I know what she is,” returned the man promptly. “It’s what she is going to be that interests me. I’m Bilby—Horatio Bilby. Maybe you’ve heard of me?”
“I have,” said Ruth rather sharply.
At once Mr. Bilby’s round, dented, brown hat came off and he bowed profoundly.
“Happy to make your acquaintance, Miss,” he said.
“You haven’t made it yet—near as I can calkerlate,” gruffly said Uncle Jabez. “And it’s mebbe a question if you get much acquainted with Wonota. What’s your business with her, anyway?”
“I’ll show you, old gent,” said Bilby, taking a number of important looking papers from his pocket. “I have come here to get this princess, as you call her. The Indian Department has sent me. She is a ward of the Government, as you perhaps know. It seems she is held under a false form of contract to a moving picture corporation, and Wonota’s friends have applied to the Bureau of Indian Affairs to look into the matter and get at the rights of the business.”
Ruth uttered a cry of amazement; but Uncle Jabez said calmly enough:
“And what have you got to do with it all, Mister—if I may be so curious as to ask?”