Her thought regarding Princess Wonota of the Osage Tribe was partly due to her wish to help the Indian girl, and partly due to her desire to furnish Mr. Hammond and the Alectrion Film Corporation with another big feature picture.

Ruth and Jennie (who became enthusiastic when she was awake in the morning) chattered about the idea like magpies from breakfast to lunch.  Then Helen drove over from The Outlook, and she had to hear it all explained while Ruth and Jennie were making ready to go out in the car with her.

“You must drive us right to Cheslow,” Ruth said, “where I can get Mr. Hammond on the long-distance ’phone.  This is important.  I feel that I have a really good idea.”

“But what do you suppose that Dakota Joe will say?” drawled Helen.  “He won’t love you, I fear.”

“Has he got to know?” demanded Jennie.  “Don’t be a goose, Helen.  This is all going to be done on the q.t.”

“Very well,” sniffed the other girl.  “Guess you’ll find it difficult to take Wonota away from the Wild West Show without Joe’s knowing anything about it.”

“Of course!” laughed Ruth.  “But until the fatal break occurs we must not let him suspect anything.”

“I see.  It is a fell conspiracy,” remarked Helen.  “Well, come on!  The chariot awaits, my lady.  If I am to drive a bunch of conspirators, let’s be at it.”

“Helen would hustle one around,” complained Jennie, “if she were in the plot to kill Caesar.”

“Your tense is bad, little lady,” said Helen.  “Caesar, according to the books, has been dead some years now.  Right-o?”

The girls sped away from the old mill, and in a little while Ruth was shut into a telephone booth talking with Mr. Hammond in a distant city.  She told him a good deal more than she had the girls.  It was his due.  Besides, she had already got the skeleton of a story in her mind and she repeated the important points of this to the picture producer.

“Sounds good, Miss Ruth,” he declared.  “But it all depends upon the girl.  If you think she has the looks, is amenable to discipline, and has some natural ability, we might safely go ahead with it, I will get into communication by telegraph with the Department of Indian Affairs at Washington and with the agent at Three Rivers Station, Oklahoma, as well.  We can afford to invest some money in the chance that this Wonota is a find.”

“Fifty-fifty, Mr. Hammond,” Ruth told him.  “On whatever it costs, remember, I am just as good a sport as you are when it comes to taking a chance in business.”

He laughed.  “I have often doubted your blood relationship to Uncle Jabez,” Mr. Hammond declared “He has no gambler’s blood in his old veins.”

“He was born too long before the moving picture came into existence,” she laughingly returned.  “Now I mean to see Wonota again and try to encourage her to throw in her fortunes with us.  At least, I hope to get her away from that disgusting Dakota Joe.”