shooting."

The calm way in which the Indian girl spoke of this taking off of the
Indian lover who became the villain in the end of the moving picture,
rather shocked the young author.

"But," said Jennie, "Wonota it only a single generation removed from
arrant savagery. She calls a spade a spade. You shouldn't blame her. It
is civilization--which is after all a sort of make-believe--that causes
us white folk to refer to a spade as an agricultural implement."

But Ruth would not laugh. She had become so much interested in Wonota by
this time that she wished her to improve her opportunities and learn the
ways--the better ways, at least--of white people.

Mr. Hammond naturally looked at the commercial end of Wonota's
improvement. Nor did Ruth overlook the chance the Osage maid had of
becoming a money-earning star in the moving picture firmament. But she
desired to help the girl to something better than mere money.

Wonota responded to a marked degree to Ruth's efforts. She was naturally
refined. The Indian is not by nature coarse and crude. He is merely
different from the whites. Wonota seemed to select for herself, when she
had the opportunity, the better things obtainable--the better customs
of the whites rather than the ruder ones.

Meanwhile the work of preparing for the scenes of "Brighteyes" to be
shot in the canyon went on. The day came when all the company were
informed that the morrow would see the work begun. At daybreak, after a
hasty breakfast, the motors and vans and the cavalcade of riders left
the Clearwater station for a week--and that the last week of their
stay--up in the lovely canyon Ruth and her two girl chums had found.

"I do declare!" exclaimed the gay Jennie (even the lack of letters from
Henri Marchand could not quench her spirits for long), "this bunch of
tourists does look like an old-time emigrant train. We might be
following the Santa Fe Trail, all so merrily."

"Only there were no motor-cars in those old days," remarked Ruth.

"Nor portable stoves," put in Helen with a smile.

"And I am quite sure," suggested Mr. Hammond, who heard this, "that no
moving picture cameras went along with the old Santa Fe Trailers."

"Yet," said Ruth thoughtfully, "the country about here, at any rate, is
just about as wild as it was in those old days. And perhaps some of the
people are quite as savage as they were in the old days. Oh, dear!"

"Who are you worrying about? William?" asked Helen slyly.