“Yes, Wonota’s courageous,” agreed Ruth quietly.

Arrangements were made for the next morning.  Ruth went with Mr. Hooley to the bunkhouse to hear him instruct the timbermen hired from the Benbow Company and who were much interested in this “movie stuff.”

The girl of the Red Mill had already made some acquaintances among the rough but kindly fellows.  She stepped into the long, shed-like bunkhouse to speak to one of her acquaintances, and there, at the end of the plank table, partaking of a late supper that the cook had just served him, was no other than Dakota Joe Fenbrook, the erstwhile proprietor of the Wild West and Frontier Round-Up.

CHAPTER XVIII

AN ACCIDENT THREATENING

Probably the ex-showman was not as surprised to see Ruth Fielding as she was to see him.  But he was the first, nevertheless, to speak.

“Ho! so it’s you, is it?” he growled, scowling at the girl of the Red Mill.  “Reckon you didn’t expect to see me.”

“I certainly did not,” returned Ruth tartly.  “What are you doing at Benbow Camp, Mr. Fenbrook?”

“I reckon you’d be glad to hear that I walked here,” sneered the showman, and filled his cheek with a mighty mouthful.  He wolfed this down in an instant, and added, with a wide grin:  “But I didn’t.  I saved my horse an’ outfit from the smash, and enough loose change to bring me West—­no thanks to you.”

“I am sorry to hear you have failed in business, Mr. Fenbrook,” Ruth said composedly.  “But I am sorrier to see that you consider me in a measure to blame for your misfortune.”

“Oh, don’t I, though!” snarled Dakota Joe.  “I know who to thank for my bust-up—­you and that Hammond man.  Yes, sir-ree!”

“You are quite wrong,” Ruth said, calmly.  “But nothing I can say will convince you, I presume.”

“You can’t soft-sawder me, if that’s what you mean,” and Dakota Joe absorbed another mighty mouthful.

Ruth could not fail to wonder if he ever chewed his food.  He seemed to swallow it as though he were a boa-constrictor.

“I know,” said Dakota Joe, having swallowed the mouthful and washed it down with half a pannikin of coffee, “that you two takin’ that Injun gal away from me was the beginning of my finish.  Yes, sir-ree!  I could ha’ pulled through and made money in Chicago and St. Louis, and all along as I worked West this winter.  But no, you fixed me for fair.”

“Wonota had a perfect right to break with you, Mr. Fenbrook,” Ruth said decidedly, and with some warmth.  “You did not treat her kindly, and you paid her very little money.”

“She got more money than she’d ever saw before.  Them Injuns ain’t used to much money.  It’s jest as bad for ’em as hootch.  Yes, sir-ree!”

“She was worth more than you gave her.  And she certainly was worthy of better treatment.  But that is all over.  Mr. Hammond has her tied up with a hard and fast contract.  Let her alone, Mr. Fenbrook.”