“Maybe he is not alive now,” said Helen, thoughtfully.

“I would not suggest that,” Ruth hastened to rejoin.  “As long as she can hope, the better for Wonota.  And I should not want her to find out that Totantora has died in captivity, before my picture is finished.”

“Whoo!” breathed Jennie.  “You sound sort of selfish, Ruthie Fielding.”

“For her sake as well as for the sake of the picture,” returned the other practically.  “I tell you Wonota has got it in her to be a valuable asset to the movies.  But I hope nothing will happen to make her fall down on this first piece of work.  Like Mr. Hammond, I hope that she will develop into an Indian star of the very first magnitude.”

CHAPTER XIII

DAKOTA JOE MAKES A DEMAND

At first Ruth and her friends did not worry about the presence of Fenbrook and his Wild West Show in Chicago.

“Just riding past the billboard of the show isn’t going to hurt us,” chuckled Jennie Stone.

It was a fact soon proved, however, that the Westerner had made it his business in some way to keep track of the movements of Wonota and her friends.  He made this known to them in a most unexpected way, Mr. Hammond called Ruth up at her hotel.

“I must warn you, Miss Fielding” he said, “that I had a very unpleasant meeting with that man, Fenbrook, only an hour ago.  He actually had the effrontery to look me up here in Wabash Avenue where I am staying with my family, and practically demanded that I help finance his miserable show because I had taken Wonota from him.  He claims now she was his chief attraction, though he would not admit that she was worth a living wage when he had her under contract He was so excited and threatening that I called an officer and had him put out of the house.”

“Oh!” murmured Ruth.  “Then he is in jail?  He will not trouble us, then?”

“He is not in jail.  I made no complaint.  Just warned him to keep away from here.  But he said something about finding Wonota and making trouble.”

“I am sure, Mr. Hammond,” said Ruth with no little anxiety, “that we had better leave Chicago, then, as soon as possible.  And if he comes here to the hotel I will try to have him arrested and kept by the police.  I am afraid of him.

“I do not believe he will do anything very desperate—­”

“I am not so sure,” Ruth interrupted.  “Wonota is confident it was he who ran me down in New York.  I am afraid of him,” she repeated.

“Well, I will arrange for the shortening of our stay here.  Mr. Hooley will ’phone you the time we will leave—­probably to-morrow morning very early.”

Ruth said nothing to the other three girls—­why trouble them with a mere possibility?—­and they went to the theatre that evening and enjoyed the play immensely.  But getting out of the taxicab at the hotel door near midnight, Wonota, who was the first to step out, suddenly crowded back into Ruth Fielding’s arms as the latter attempted to follow her to the sidewalk.