"Why not?" demanded Wonota, promptly. "He is the one hurt. Who other
than he should deal out punishment?"

Ruth was silenced for the time being. In fact, Wonota looked upon
mundane matters from such a different angle that it was sometimes
impossible for Ruth to convince her protégé that the white man's way was
better.

However, this incident gave Ruth Fielding a warning that she did not
intend to ignore. A little later she told Mr. Hammond of the Indian
girl's suspicion that it was Fenbrook who had been the cause of Ruth's
slight injury. It was too late then to set the police on the track of
the showman, for on making private inquiry Mr. Hammond found that Dakota
Joe's show had already left Brooklyn and was _en route_ for some city in
the Middle West.

"But it seems scarcely probable, Miss Ruth," the producer said, "that
that fellow would take such a chance. And to hurt _you!_ Why, if he had
tried to injure that Indian girl, I might be convinced. She probably saw
somebody in the car with a sombrero on--"

"I noticed two men in that car with broad hats," confessed Ruth. "But I
gave them only a glance. It doesn't seem very sensible to believe that
the man would deliberately hurt me. Yet he did threaten us when he was
angry, there at the mill. No getting around that."

Mr. Hammond shrugged his shoulders and laughed. "You will begin to
believe that the making of moving pictures is a pretty perilous
business."