Later Jennie teasingly suggested:  “You should have taken up with his offer, Ruthie.  You could have had free passes to the show in several towns.”

“I don’t much wish to see the show again,” Ruth declared.

“I bet Mercy Curtis would like to see it,” giggled Helen, “if Wonota was sure to shoot Joe.  What a bloodthirsty child that Mercy continues to be.”

“She has changed a lot since we were all children together,” Ruth said reflectively.  “And I never did blame Mercy much for being so scrappy.  Because of her lameness she missed a lot that we other girls had.  I am so glad she has practically gotten over her affliction.”

“But not her failings of temper,” suggested Jennie.  “Still, as long as she takes it out on Dakota Joe, for instance, I don’t know but I agree with her expressions of savage feeling.”

“Hear!  Hear!” cried Helen.

Despite their expressed dislike for Fenbrook, Helen and Jennie Stone accompanied Ruth the next day to the afternoon performance of the Wild West Show at a town much farther away than that at which they had first met Wonota, the Indian princess.

Wonota was glad to see them—­especially glad to see Ruth Fielding.  For Ruth had given her hope for a change.  The Indian girl was utterly disillusioned about traveling with a tent show; and even the promises Fenbrook had made her of improved conditions during the winter, when they would show for week-runs in the bigger cities, did not encourage Wonota to continue with him.

“Yet I would very much like to earn money to spend in searching for the great Chief Totantora,” she confessed to the three white girls.  “The Great Father at Washington can do nothing now to find my father—­and I do not blame the White Father.  The whole world is at war and those peoples in Europe are sick with the fever of war.  It is sad, but it cannot be helped.”

“And if you had money how would you go about looking for Chief Totantora?” Helen asked her curiously.

“I must go over there myself.  I must search through that German country.”

“Plucky girl!” ejaculated Jennie.  “But not a chance!”

“You think not, lady?” asked Wonota, anxiously.

“We three have been to Europe—­to France.  We know something about the difficulties,” said Ruth, quietly.  “I understand how you feel, Wonota.  And conditions may soon change.  We believe the war will end.  Then you can make a proper search for your father.”

“But not unless I have much money,” said Wonota quickly.  “The Osage people have valuable oil lands on their reservation.  But it will be some years before money from them will be available, so the agent tells me.  That is why I came with this show.”

“And that is why you wish to keep on earning money?” suggested Ruth reflectively.

“That is why,” Wonota returned, nodding.

At this point in the conversation the showman himself came up.  He smirked in an oily manner at the white girls and tried to act kindly toward his pretty employee.  Wonota scarcely looked in the man’s direction, but Ruth of course was polite in her treatment of Dakota Joe.