CHAPTER IX
A FILM MYSTERY
"I told you there were pirates there," Helen declared that evening, whenshe and Ruth were in the room they shared together. Wonota slept in aroom adjoining and had already retired.
"I don't think that poor old man was a pirate," returned Ruth, smiling alittle.
"Didn't he tell you he was 'king of the pirates'?" demanded Helen.
Ruth laughed outright. "He said he was 'king of the pipes'--whatever thatmay mean. Poor old fellow!"
"Well, it seems he most certainly had been 'smoking the pipe'--or do theycall it 'hitting the pipe'?"
"Don't ask me to aid you with any information on slang," admonished herfriend. "I don't suppose he is really king of anything except of acountry of his dreams--poor fellow."
"Dear me!" grumbled Helen. "You never will boost romance, Ruth Fielding.Maybe there are pirates on that island."
"Or pipes," said Ruth calmly.
"Never mind. When the boys come I am going to shoo them on to thatplace."
"What boys?" demanded Ruth in surprise.
"The Copleys arrive to-morrow. And their place is not five miles awayfrom this very spot. We'll get a motor-boat and go down there to-morrowevening and welcome them. I got a telegram from Tom when I came back fromcanoeing. I forgot to tell you."
"Tom!" exclaimed Ruth, and for perhaps the first time in her life sheseemed undesirous of hearing about Tom Cameron.
Helen gave her a somewhat puzzled side glance as she found the telegramand gave it to her chum, who read:
"Vacation begins to-morrow. Will be with you next day. Tom."
Helen giggled. "You can make up your mind that he knows Chess Copley hasstarted for this neck of woods. Tom is becoming Mr. Jealous Jellaby. Didyou ever?"
"I am sorry Tom considers it necessary to take a vacation when he hasonly just begun work with your father, Helen."
"There you go again!" exclaimed her chum. "I don't understand you at all,Ruth Fielding. Tom doesn't have to work."
"It might be better if he did," said Ruth, and refused to discuss thepoint further that evening.
The next day was just as lovely as that first one. Preparations wereunder way all over the island Mr. Hammond had rented for the making ofthe picture which Ruth had written. The continuity was being studied byMr. Hooley, the director; and the principals had been furnished withtheir detail.
The ordinary participants in the filming of a picture--the "extras"--seldomknow much about the story. They merely appear in certain scenes and do whatthey are told. As the scenes are not made in sequence these actors of thesmaller parts have little idea of the story itself.
Ruth, under the advice of Mr. Hammond, had chosen a certain series ofincidents relating to early French-Canadian history, and it began with anallegory of the bringing of the Christian religion to the Indians by thefirst French priests. This allegory included the landing of the Frenchupon the shore of a rocky island where they were met by the wonderingIndians, and Mr. Hooley's assistant had chosen the spot for this scene tobe "shot," not far from the place where the company had its headquarters.
Ruth paid little attention to the locations until the moment arrived forthe camera work. In fact, after supplying the detailed script she hadlittle to do with the preparation of the picture until the scenes weremade. She had never made continuity, as it is called, for that is more orless of a mechanical process and is sure to interfere with the creativefaculty of the screen writer.
In the afternoon of this day Helen engaged a motor-boat, and she and Ruthset out for the Copley island, which was some miles away, towardAlexandria Bay. Caretakers and servants had been at work there for sometime, it was evident, for the lawns were neatly shaved, the gardens infull growth, and the family were already comfortably settled in theirsummer home.
Chess Copley must have been on the watch (could it be possible that hehad inside information about this early visit of Helen and Ruth?) for hecame running down to the dock before the gardener could reach that pointto fasten the boat's line.
"Hurrah!" he shouted. "I was just wondering if we would see you girlsto-day; and if you hadn't come I should have got out our launch and triedto find your camp this evening."
"Oh, hullo, Chess," Helen said coolly as she stepped ashore, refusing hisassistance. "Where are the girls?"
"There they are--waiting for you on the porch," he said, rather subduedit would seem by her bruskness.
Helen started directly for the wide veranda of the villa-like house thattopped the higher part of the island. There were several acres of groundsabout the Copley house, for the whole island was cultivated to thewater's edge. There was nothing wild left in the appearance of theproperty, save a few of the tall forest trees that had been allowed tostand and some huge boulders almost covered with climbing vines.
Ruth gave Chess her hand--and he squeezed it warmly. She gave him a franksmile, and Chess seemed comforted.
"Nell's dreadfully tart with a fellow," he grumbled. "She's nothing likeshe used to be. But you are kind, Ruth."
"You should not wear your heart on your sleeve," she told him briskly, asthey followed Helen Cameron toward the veranda.
The two girls from the moving picture camp passed a pleasant evening withtheir New York friends. The Copley girls always managed to gather, Helendeclared, "perfectly splendid house parties;" and they had brought withthem several companionable girls and young men.
Music and dancing filled the evening, and it was ten o'clock when the twochums from Cheslow sought their motor-boat and set out for the camp onthe Chippewa Bay island. Chess Copley had kept by Ruth's side almost allthe evening, and although Helen treated him so cavalierly, she seemedprovoked at her chum for paying the young man so much attention.
"I don't understand what you see in Chess," she said in a vexed tone tothe girl of the Red Mill. "He's nothing much."
"He is pleasant, and you used to like him," said Ruth quietly.
"Humph!" Helen tossed her head. "I found him out. And he's not to becompared with Tommy-boy."
"I quite agree with you--that is, considering Tom as a brother," observedRuth, and after that refused to be led into further discussion regardingChess Copley.
It was not often that Ruth and Helen had a disagreement. And this was notreally of importance. At least, there was no sign of contention betweenthem in the morning.
To tell the truth, there was so much going on, on this day, that thegirls could scarcely have found time to quarrel. The sun was bright andthe sky cloudless. It was an ideal day for out-of-door "shots," and thecamera men and Mr. Hooley had the whole company astir betimes.
The few real Indians, besides Wonota and Totantora, in the company, andall those "extras" who were dressed as aborigines, got into theircostumes before breakfast. Soon after eight o'clock the company got awayin barges, with launches to tow them through the quiet waterways.
In a costume play like this that had been planned, the participantsnaturally make a very brilliant spectacle wherever they appear. But amongthe islands of Chippewa Bay there were few spectators at this time savethe wild fowl.
"And they," Helen said, "might be descendants of the very birds wholooked on the actual first appearance of the white man in thiswilderness. Isn't it wonderful?"
When Mr. Hooley, megaphone in hand and stationed with the two cameras onone of the decked-over barges, had got his company in position and theaction was begun, it was indeed an impressive picture. Of course, a sceneis not made off-hand--not even an outdoor pageant like this. The detailmust be done over and over again before the cranks of the cameras areturned. It was almost noon before Mr. Hooley dared tell the camera men to"shoot the scene."
The flag-decorated barge bearing the Frenchmen to the rocky shore movedforward into focus in a stately way, while the Indians gathered in aspectacular group on the sloping shore--tier upon tier of dark faces,wearing nodding feather head-dresses, blankets, deerskin leggings, andother garments of Indian manufacture--all grouped to make
a brilliantspectacle.
Totantora, a commanding figure, and his daughter as _White Fawn_, thedemure yet dominant princess of the Hurons, stood forth from thebackground of the other Indians in a graceful picture. Helen wasdelighted and could not help shouting to the Osage girl that she was"great"--a remark which elicited a frown from the director and anadmonition from Ruth.
Behind the grouped Indians was the greenery of the primeval forest withwhich this rocky island seemed to be covered. The cameras whirred whilethe barge containing the actors representing the Frenchmen pushed closeinto the shore and the whites landed.
A boy carried ashore the great cross, and with him came a soldier bearingthe lilies of France, the standard of which he sank into the turf. Thedetail of costume and armament had been carefully searched out by Ruthherself, and the properties were exact. She was sure that this part ofthe picture at least could not be criticised but to be praised.
It was three o'clock before the party disembarked and went back to thecamp for a delayed lunch. The remainder of the afternoon was devoted tothe taking of several "close-ups" and an interior scene that had beenbuilt on the island rather than in the city studio of the Alectrion FilmCorporation.
The films taken earlier in the day were developed, and that evening afterdinner Ruth and Helen joined Mr. Hammond and Mr. Hooley in the projectionroom to see a "run" of the strip taken at the island where the Frenchmenlanded.
"Do you know that that island is the one we landed on ourselves the otherevening, Ruth?" Helen remarked, as they took their seats and waited inthe darkness for the operator to project the new film.
"Do you mean it? I did not notice. The island where I met that strangeold man?"
"The pirate--yes," giggled Helen. "Only we went ashore at the far end ofit."
"I never thought of it--or of him," admitted Ruth. "Poor, crazy oldfellow--"
The machine began its whirring note and they fell silent. Upon the silversheet there took shape and actuality the moving barge with its bannersand streamers and costumed actors. Then a flash was given of the Indiansgathering on the wild shore--wondering, excited, not a little fearful ofthe strange appearance of the white men. The pageant moved forward to itsconclusion--the landing of the strangers and the setting up of thebanners and the cross.
But suddenly Ruth shrieked aloud, and Mr. Hammond shouted to the operatorto "repeat." The dense underbrush had parted behind the upper tier ofIndians and in the aperture thus made appeared a face and part of thefigure of a man--a wild face with straggling hair and beard, and theupper part of his body clad in the rags of a shirt.
"What in thunder was that, Hooley?" cried Mr. Hammond. "Somebody buttedin. It's spoiled the whole thing. I thought your men warned everybody offthat island?"
"I never saw that scarecrow before," declared the director, quite asangrily.
But Ruth squeezed Helen's hand hard.
"The King of the Pipes," she whispered.
Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence; Or, The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands Page 9