A policeman charged after the car at top speed, but when he reached the corner there were so many other cars in the cross street that he could not identify the one that had caused the accident.

To Ruth, Wonota gasped:  “That bad man!  I knew he would do something mean, but I thought it would be to me.”

Ruth could scarcely reply.  The director was at her side, as well as other sympathetic people.  She was lifted up, but she could not stand.  Something had happened to her left ankle.  She could bear no weight upon it without exquisite pain.

For the time the taking of the picture was called off.  The traffic officer allowed the stalled cars to pass on.  A crowd began to assemble about Ruth.

“Do take me into the hotel—­somewhere!” she gasped.  “I—­I can’t walk—­”

One of the camera men and the director, Mr. Hooley, made a seat with their hands, and sitting in this and with Wonota to steady her, the girl of the Red Mill was hurried under cover, leaving the throng of spectators on the street quite sure that the accident had been a planned incident of the moving picture people.  They evidently considered Ruth a “stunt actress.”

It was not until Ruth was alone with Wonota in a hotel room, lying on a couch, the Indian girl stripping the shoe and stocking from the injured limb, that Ruth asked what Wonota had meant when she first bounded toward her, shrieking her warning of the motor-car’s approach.

“What did you mean, Wonota?” asked the girl of the Red Mill.  “Who was it ran over me?  I know Mr. Hooley will try to find him, but—­”

“That bad, bad Dakota Joe!” interrupted the Indian girl with vehemence, her eyes flashing and the color deeping in her bronze cheeks.  “When your friend told us he was in this city, I feared.”

“Why, Wonota!” cried Ruth, sitting up in surprise, “do you mean to say that Dakota Joe Fenbrook was driving that car?”

“No.  He cannot drive a car.  But it was one of his men—­Yes.”

“I can scarcely believe it.  He deliberately ran me down?”

“I saw Dakota Joe in the back of the car just as it shot down toward you, Miss Fielding.  He is a bad, bad man!  He was leaning forward urging that driver on.  I know he was.”

“Why, it seems terrible!” Ruth sighed.  “Yes, that feels good on my ankle, Wonota.  I do not believe it is really sprained.  Oh, but it hurt at first!  Wrenched, I suppose.”

Jim Hooley, the director, had telephoned for Mr. Hammond, and the producer hurried to the hotel.  He insisted on bringing a surgeon with him.  But by the time of their arrival Ruth felt much easier, and after the medical man had pronounced no real harm done to the ankle, Ruth dressed again, insisting that a second attempt be made to shoot the scene while the sun remained high enough.

The police had endeavored to trace the motor-car that had caused the accident.  But it seemed that nobody had noted the numbers on the machine, or even the kind of car it was.  Ruth had forbidden Wonota to tell what she revealed to her.  If it was Dakota Joe who had run her down there was no use attempting to fasten the guilt of the incident upon him unless they were positive and could prove his guilt.