Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence Part 4

"Keep a-making of it, Niece Ruth," Uncle Jabez advised earnestly. "You never can tell when you are going to want more or when your ability to make money is going to stop. I'd sell the Red Mill or give up and never grind another grist for n.o.body, if I didn't feel that perhaps by next year I should have to stop, anyway--and another year won't much matter."

"You get so little pleasure out of life, Uncle Jabez," Ruth once said in answer to this statement of the old man.

"Shucks! Don't you believe it. I don't know no better fun than watching the corn in the hopper or the stuns go round and round while the meal flour runs out of the spout below, warm and nice-smellin'. The millin'

business is just as pretty a business as there is in the world--when once you git used to the dust. No doubt of it."

"I can see, Uncle Jabez, that you find it so," said Ruth, but rather doubtfully.

"Of course it is," said the old man stoutly. "You get fun out of running about the country and looking at things and seeing how other folks live and work. And that's all right for you. _You_ make money out of it. But what would I get out of gadding about?"

"A broader outlook on life, Uncle Jabez."

"I don't want no broader outlook. I don't need nothing of the kind. Nor does Alviry Boggs, though she's got to talking a dreadful lot lately about wanting to ride around in an automobile. At her age, too!"

"You should own a car, Uncle Jabez," urged Ruth.

"Now, stop that! Stop that, Niece Ruth! I won't hear to no such foolishness. You show me how I can make money riding up and down the Lumano in a pesky motor-car, and maybe I'll do like Alviry wants me to, and buy one of the contraptions." "Hullo, now!" added the miller suddenly. "Who might this be?"

Ruth turned to see one of the very motor-cars that Uncle Jabez so scorned (or pretended to) stopping before the wide door of the mill itself.

But as it was the man driving the roadster, rather than the car itself, Uncle Jabez had spoken of, Ruth gave her attention to him. He was a ruddy, tubby little man in a pin-check black and white suit, faced with silk on lapels and pockets--it really gave him a sort of minstrel-like appearance as though he should likewise have had his face corked--and he wore in a puffed maroon scarf a stone that flashed enough for half a dozen ordinary diamonds--whether it really was of the first water or not.

This man hopped out from back of the wheel of the roadster and came briskly up the graveled rise from the road to the door of the mill. He favored Ruth with a side glance and half smile that the girl of the Red Mill thought (she had seen plenty of such men) revealed his character very clearly. But he spoke to Uncle Jabez.

"I say, Pop, is this the place they call the Red Mill?"

"I calkerlate it is," agreed the miller dryly. "Leastways, it's the only Red Mill I ever heard tell on."

"I reckoned I'd got to the right dump," said the visitor cheerfully. "I understand there's an Injun girl stopping here? Is that so?"

Uncle Jabez glanced at Ruth and got her permission to speak before he answered:

"I don't know as it's any of your business, Mister; but the Princess Wonota, of the Osage Nation, is stopping here just now. What might be your business with her?"

"So she calls herself a 'princess' does she?" returned the man, grinning again at Ruth in an offensive way. "Well, I have managed a South Sea Island chief, a pair of Circa.s.sian twins, and a bunch of Eskimos, in my time. I guess I know how to act in the presence of Injun royalty. Trot her out."

"Trot who out?" asked the miller calmly, but with eyes that flashed under his penthouse brows. "Wonota ain't no horse. Did you think she was?"

"I know what she is," returned the man promptly. "It's what she is going to be that interests me. I'm Bilby--Horatio Bilby. Maybe you've heard of me?"

"I have," said Ruth rather sharply.

At once Mr. Bilby's round, dented, brown hat came off and he bowed profoundly.

"Happy to make your acquaintance, Miss," he said.

"You haven't made it yet--near as I can calkerlate," gruffly said Uncle Jabez. "And it's mebbe a question if you get much acquainted with Wonota.

What's your business with her, anyway?"

"I'll show you, old gent," said Bilby, taking a number of important looking papers from his pocket. "I have come here to get this princess, as you call her. The Indian Department has sent me. She is a ward of the Government, as you perhaps know. It seems she is held under a false form of contract to a moving picture corporation, and Wonota's friends have applied to the Bureau of Indian Affairs to look into the matter and get at the rights of the business."

Ruth uttered a cry of amazement; but Uncle Jabez said calmly enough:

"And what have you got to do with it all, Mister--if I may be so curious as to ask?"

"The girl is given into my charge while her affairs are being looked into," said Mr. Horatio Bilby, with an explanatory flourish which included both the miller and Ruth in its sweeping gesture.

CHAPTER V

TROUBLE IN PROSPECT

Ruth Fielding wished that Mr. Hammond was within reach; but she knew he was already on his way to the Thousand Islands, for which she herself expected to start the next day with Wonota and her father. She had not heard much about this Bilby; but what she had learned--together with what she now saw of him--impressed her not at all in his favor.

In any event she was not willing to accept either Horatio Bilby or his declaration at face value. And she was glad to see that the hardheaded old miller was not much impressed by the man, either.

"I don't know much about this business, Mister," said Uncle Jabez, with much calmness. "But it strikes me that you'd better see the girl's father."

"What girl's father?" demanded the visitor, and now he seemed surprised.

"Wonota's. Chief Totantora is the name he goes by. It strikes me that he ought to have a deal more to say about the girl than any Government department."

"Why, he's nothing but a blanket Injun!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Bilby, with disgust.

"Mebbe so," rejoined Uncle Jabez. "But his wearing a blanket (though I never see him with it on; he wears pants and a shirt when he comes here) don't figger none at all. He still remains the girl's father."

"I guess you don't know, Pop, that these Injuns are all wards of Uncle Sam."

"Mebbe so," again observed the miller. "And I have sometimes thought that Uncle Sam ain't always been any too good to his red relations. However, that isn't to the point. The girl's here. She's sort of in my care while she is here. Unless Chief Totantora shows up and asks to have her handed over to you, I calkerlate you won't get her."

"See here, my man!" exclaimed Bilby, at once becoming bl.u.s.terous, "you'll get into trouble with the Government if you interfere with me."

"That doesn't scare me none," was the prompt reply of Jabez Potter.

"Right now the Government of the United States don't look so important to me as our local constable. I guess to get possession of the girl you will have to bring an officer with you to certify to all this you say you are.

Until you do, I might as well tell you, first as last, that you ain't got a chance--not a chance!--to even see Wonota."

Mr. Bilby grew even redder in the face than nature seemed to have intended him to be. And his little greenish-gray eyes sparkled angrily.

"You'll get into trouble, old man," he threatened.

"Don't you let that bother you none," rejoined the miller. "I've had so much trouble in my life that I'm sort of used to it, as you might say.

Now, if that is all you got to offer, you might as well get back into that go-cart of yours and drive on."

Mr. Potter turned on his heel and went back into the mill, beckoning to Ruth to come with him. She did so--for a little way at least; but she soon stopped to peer out and watch the man, Bilby.

When they were, as he thought, out of hearing, he gave vent to several grunts, kicked a pebble across the road, and scowled ferociously. He said something about "these rubes are smarter than they used to be." He seemed convinced that he could do nothing further in the matter he had come upon. Not at this time, it was quite plain.