“Well, wasn’t that handy?” cried the girl.

“It sounded good.  But Silas didn’t have it on paper.  First off they did stop for him if he hailed the train.  He didn’t go to town more’n three or four times a year.  Then the railroad changed hands.  ’There arose up a new king over Egypt which knew not Joseph’—­you know, like it says in the Bible.  And when Silas Bassett waved his hat, the train didn’t even hesitate!”

Ruth laughed, but reminded her that they were talking about her great-grandmother’s adventures in the Indian country years and years before.

“Yes, that’s a fact,” said Aunt Alvirah Boggs.  “She did have exciting times.  Why, when they was traveling acrosst them Western prairies one day, what should pop up but a band of Indians, with tall feathers in their hair, and guns—­mebbe bow and arrows, too.  Anyway, they scare’t the white people something tremendous,” and the old woman nodded vigorously.

“Well, the neighbors who were traveling together hastened to turn their wagons so as to make a fortress sort of, of the wagon-bodies, with the horses and the cattle and the humans in the center.  You understand?”

“Yes,” Ruth agreed.  “I have seen pictures of such a camp, with the Indians attacking.”

“Yes.  Well, but you see,” cackled the old woman suddenly, “them, Indians didn’t attack at all.  They rode down at a gallop, I expect, and scared the white folks a lot But what they come for was to see if there was a doctor in the party.  Those Indians had heard of white doctors and knowed what they could do.  The chief of the tribe had a favorite child that was very sick, and he come to see if a white doctor could save his child’s life.”

“Oh!” cried Ruth, her eyes sparkling.  “What an idea!”

“Well, my pretty, I dunno,” said Aunt Alvirah. “’Twas sensible enough, I should say, for that Indian chief to want the best doctoring there was for his child.  The medicine men had tried to cure the poor little thing and failed.  I expect even Red Indians sometimes love their children.”

“Why, of course, Aunt Alvirah.  And you ought to see how lovable this girl Wonota is.”

“Mm—­well, mebbe.  Anyway, there was a doctor in that party my great-grandmother traveled with, and he rode to the Indian village and cured the sick child.  And for the rest of their journey across them plains Indians, first of one tribe, then of another, rode with the party of whites.  And they never had no trouble.”

“Isn’t that great!” cried Ruth.

And when she told Helen and Jennie about it—­and the idea it had given Ruth for a screen story—­her two chums agreed that it was “perfectly great.”

So Ruth was hard at work on a scenario, or detailed plot, even before Mr. Hammond made his arrangements with the Indian Department for the transferring of the services of Princess Wonota from Dakota Joe’s Wild West Show to the Alectrion Film Corporation for a certain number of months.