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!

“Oh!” exclaimed Mercy Curtis, bitterly, “why didn’t she shoot him instead of the ball?  He deserves it, I know.”

“Dear me, Mercy,” drawled Jennie Stone, “you most certainly are a blood-thirsty person!”

“I just know that man is a villain, and the Indian girl is in his power.”

“Next reel!” giggled Helen.  “It is a regular Western cinema drama, isn’t it?”

“I certainly want to become better acquainted with that Wonota,” declared Ruth, not at all sure but that Mercy Curtis was right in her opinion.  “There!  Wonota is going off.”

The applause the Indian girl received was vociferous.  Most of the spectators believed that the shooting of the glass ball out of the man’s hand had been rehearsed and was one of Wonota’s chief feats.  Ruth and her friends had watched what had gone before too closely to make that mistake.  There was plainly a serious schism between Dakota Joe and the girl whom he had called the Indian princess.

The girls settled back in their seats after Wonota had replied to the applause with a stiff little bow from the entrance to the dressing-tent.  The usual representation of “Pioneer Days” was then put on, and while the “stage” was being set for the attack on the emigrant train and Indian massacre, the fellow who had stood at the pasture fence and talked to the girls when the black bull had done his turn, suddenly appeared in the aisle between the plank seats and gestured to Ruth.

“What?” asked the girl of the Red Mill “You want me?”

“You’re the lady,” he said, grinning.  “Won’t keep you a minute.  You can git back and see the rest of the show all right.”

“It must be that Wonota has sent him for me,” explained Ruth, seeing no other possible reason for this call.  Refusing to let even Helen go with her, she followed the man up the aisle and down a narrow flight of steps to the ground.