CHAPTER VIII

A WONDERFUL EVENT

Wonota was a long way ahead of the Westerner.  She was light and she bestrode a horse with much more speed than the one Dakota Joe rode.  She lay far along her horse’s neck and urged it with her voice rather than a cruel goad.

The plucky pony was responding nobly, although it was plain, as it came nearer to the girls before the old mill farmhouse, that it had traveled hard.  It was thirty miles from the town where the Wild West Show was performing to the Red Mill.

“Oh, Wonota!” cried Jennie Stone, beckoning the Indian girl on.  “What is the matter?”

Ruth had not waited to get any report from Wonota.  She turned and dashed for the house.  Already Sarah, the maid-of-all-work, had started through the covered passage to the mill, shrieking for Ben, the hired man.

Ben and the miller ran down the long walk to roadside.  Jabez Potter was no weakling despite his age, while Ben was a giant of a fellow, able to handle two ordinary men.

Wonota pulled her pony in behind Helen’s car, whirling to face her pursuer.  She did not carry the light rifle she used in her act.  Perhaps it would have been better had she been armed, for Dakota Joe was quite beside himself with wrath.  He came pounding along, swinging his whip and yelling at the top of his voice.

“What’s the matter with that crazy feller?” demanded the old miller in amazement.  “He chasin’ that colored girl?”

“She’s not colored.  She is my Indian princess, Uncle Jabez,” Ruth explained.

“I swanny, you don’t mean it!  Hi, Ben!” But nobody had to tell Ben what to do.  As Fenbrook drew in his horse abruptly, the mill-hand jumped into the road, grabbed Dakota Joe’s whip-hand, broke his hold on the reins, and dragged the Westerner out of the saddle.  It was a feat requiring no little strength, and it surprised Dakota Joe as much as it did anybody.

“Hey, you!  What you doin’?” bawled Dakota Joe, when he found himself sitting on the hard ground, staring up at the group.

“Ain’t doing nothing,” drawled Ben.  “It’s done.  Better sit where you be, Mister, and cool off.”

“What sort o’ tomfoolishness is this?” asked the miller again.  “Makin’ one o’ them picture-shows right here on the public road?  I want to know!”

At that, and without rising from his seat in the road, Dakota Joe Fenbrook lifted up his voice and gave his opinion of all moving picture people, and especially those that would steal “that Injun gal” from a hard-working man like himself.  He stated that the efforts of a “shark named Hammond” and this girl here that he thought was a lady an’ friendly to him were about to ruin his show.

“They’ll crab the whole business if they git Wonota away from me.  That’s what will happen!  And I ought to give her a blame’ good lickin’—­”

“We won’t hear nothing more about that,” interrupted the old miller, advancing a stride or two toward the angry Westerner.  “Whether the gal’s got blue blood or red blood, or what color, she ain’t going to be mishandled none by you.  Understand?  You git up and git!”