omething hard and
painful--pressing between her shoulder-blades. She shot a glance over
her shoulder to see the ugly face of Dakota Joe Fenbrook peering out at
her between the walls of a narrow crack in the face of the cliff. The
thing he pressed against her was a long stick, and, with a grin of
menace, he drove that stick more firmly against Ruth's body!

"Ready? Camera! Go!" shouted Mr. Hooley, and the scene was on.

Ruth, with a stifled cry, realized that she was being pushed to the edge
of the steep path. There was a drop of twenty feet and more, and where
she stood there was no net to break the fall!

If Fenbrook pushed her over the brink of the path Ruth knew very well
that the outcome would be even too realistic for a moving picture.

CHAPTER XXIV

WONOTA'S SURPRISE

Ruth Fielding might have cried out. But at that moment the attention of
everyone was so given to the taking of the important scene that perhaps
nobody would have understood her cry--what it meant.

Behind her Dakota Joe stretched forward, pushing the stick into the
small of her back and urging her closer to the brink. The spot on which
she stood was so narrow that it was impossible for her to escape without
turning her body, and the bad man knew very well that the pressure of
the stick kept her from doing that very thing!

The cameras were being cranked steadily, and Mr. Hooley shouted his
orders as needed. Fortunately for the success of the scene, Onehorse did
not need the admonitions of Ruth to "keep in the picture." The point
came where he made his leap for the shoulders of the white man, and it
was timed exactly. The two came to the brink of the rock in perfect
accord with the appearance of Wonota on the ground below.

The Indian girl came, gun in hand, as though just from the chase. As she
ran into the field of the camera Hooley shouted his advice and she
obeyed his words to the letter. Until----

She raised her eyes, quite as she was told. But she looked beyond Grand
and Onehorse struggling on the rock. It was to another figure she
looked--that of Ruth being forced over the verge of the narrow path.

The girl of the Red Mill was half crouched, striving to push back
against the thrust of the stick in Dakota Joe's hands. The upper part of
Fenbrook's body was plainly visible from Wonota's station at the foot of
the cliff, and his wicked face could be mistaken for no other.

"Now! The gun!" shouted Mr. Hooley. "Wonota! Come ali