“When I first saw the poor old chap he was little more than a skeleton.  But the life Indians lead certainly makes them tough and enduring.  He stood starvation and confinement better than the white men.  Some of the ex-show people died in that influenza epidemic the second year of the war.  But old Totantora was pretty husky, in spite of having all the appearance of a professional living skeleton,” explained Tom.

Whether Totantora told Wonota the details of his imprisonment or not, the white girls never knew.  Wonota, too, was inclined to be very secretive.  But she was supremely happy.

She was to have a recess from work, and when the special car started East with Ruth and her chums, Wonota and her father accompanied them to Kansas City.  Then the Osages went south to the reservation.

Totantora had heard all about his daughter’s work in the moving picture before the party separated, and he put his mark on Mr. Hammond’s contract binding himself to allow the girl to go on as already agreed.  Totantora had possibly some old-fashioned Indian ideas about the treatment of squaws; but he knew the value of money.  The sums Wonota had already been paid were very satisfactory to the chief of the Osages.

In Ruth’s mind, the money part of the contract was the smallest part.  She desired greatly to see Wonota develop and grow in her chosen profession.  To see the Indian maid become a popular screen star was going to delight the girl of the Red Mill, and she was frank in saying so.

“See here,” Tom Cameron said when they were alone together.  “I can see very well, Ruthie, that you are even more enamored of your profession than you were before I left for Europe.  How long is this going to last?”

“How long is what going to last?” she asked him, her frank gaze finding his.

“You know what I mean,” said the young man boyishly.  “Gee, Ruth! the war is over.  You know what I want.  And I feel as though I deserved some consideration after what I have been through.”

She smiled, but still looked at him levelly.

“Well, how about it?” he demanded.

“Do you think we know our own minds?  Altogether, I mean?” asked the girl.  “You are in a dreadfully unsettled state.  I can see that, Tom.  And I have only just begun with Wonota.  I could not stop now.”

“I don’t ask you to stop a single, solitary thing!” he cried with sudden heat.  “I expect to get to work myself—­at something.  I feel a lot of energy boiling up in me,” and he laughed.

“But, say, Ruth, I want to know just what I am going to work for?  Is it all right with you?  Haven’t found anybody else you like better than your old chum, have you?”

Ruth laughed, too.  Yet she was serious when she gave him both her hands.

“I am very sure, Tom, dear, that that could never be.  You will always be the best beloved of all boys——­”

“Great Scott, Ruth!” he interrupted.  “When do you think I am going to be a man?”