“Poor Heavy!” said Ruth.  “You always have the hard part.  But, thank goodness, we escaped in safety!”

“Do let’s go to a hotel somewhere and stay a week to recuperate,” begged the fleshy girl, as they rode on toward the railroad town.  “One day of movie making calls for a week of rest—­believe me!”

“You and Helen can remain at the car—­”

“Not me!” cried Helen Cameron.  “I do not wish to be in the picture again, but I want to see it made.”

After they arrived at the special car, where a piping hot supper was ready for them, the girls forgot the shock of their adventure.  Jennie, however, groaned whenever she moved.

“’Tis too bad that fat girl got so bunged up,” observed one of the punchers to Helen Cameron.  “I see she’s a-sufferin’.”

“Miss Stone’s avoirdupois is forever making her trouble,” laughed Helen, rather wickedly.

“Huh?” demanded the man.  “Alfy Dupoy?  Who’s that?  Her feller?”

“Oh, dear me, no!” gasped Helen. “His name is Henri Marchand.  I shall have to tell her that.”

“Needn’t mind,” returned the man.  “I can’t be blamed for misunderstanding half what you Easterners say.  You got me locoed right from the start.”

The joke had to be told when the three friends retired that night, and it was perhaps fortunate that Jennie Stone possessed an equable disposition.

“I am the butt of everybody’s joke,” she said, complacently.  “That is what makes me so popular.  You see, you skinny girls are scarcely noticed.  It is me the men-folk give their attention to.”

“Isn’t it nice to be so perfectly satisfied with one’s self?” observed Helen, scornfully.  “Come on, Ruthie!  Let’s sleep on that.”

There were other topics to excite the friends in the morning, even before the company got away for the “location.”  Mail which had followed them across the continent was brought up from the post-office to the special car.  Helen and Ruth were both delighted to receive letters from Captain Tom.

In the one to Ruth the young man acknowledged the receipt of her letter bearing on the matter of Chief Totantora.  He said that news of the captured Wild West performers had drifted through the lines long before the armistice, and that he had now set in motion an inquiry which might yield some important news of the missing Osage chieftain—­if he was yet alive—­before many weeks.  As for his own return, Tom could not then state anything with certainty.

* * * * *

“Nobody seems to know,” he wrote.  “It is all on the knees of the gods—­and a badgered War Department.  But perhaps I shall be with you, dear Ruth, before long.”

* * * * *

Ruth did not show her letter to her girl friends.  Jennie had received no news from Henri, and this disaster troubled her more than her bruised flesh.  She went around with a sober face for at least an hour—­which was a long time for Jennie Stone to be morose.