“What is the matter with her?  What does she want me for?” Ruth asked him when she could get within earshot and away from the audience.

“Her?”

“Yes.  You come from Wonota, don’t you?”

The man chuckled, but still kept on.  “You’ll see her in a minute.  Right this way, Miss,” he said.

They came to a canvas-enclosed place with a flap pinned back as though it were the entrance to a tent.  The guide flourished a hamlike hand, holding back the canvas flap.

“Just step in and you’ll find her,” he said, again chuckling.

Ruth was one not easily alarmed.  But the fellow seemed impudent.  She gave him a reproving look and marched into what appeared to be an office, for there was a desk and a chair in view.

There, to her surprise, was Dakota Joe, the long-haired proprietor of the Wild West Show!  He stood leaning against a post, his arms folded and smoking a very long and very black cigar.  He did not remove his hat as Ruth entered, but rolled his cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other and demanded harshly: 

“You know this Injun girl I got with the show?”

“Certainly I know her!” Ruth exclaimed without hesitation, “She saved my life.”

“Huh!  I heard about that, ma’am.  And I don’t mean it just that way.  I’m talking about her—­drat her!  She says she has got a date with you and your friends between the afternoon and night shows.”

“Yes,” Ruth said wonderingly.  “We are to meet—­and talk.”

“That’s just it, ma’am,” said the man, rolling the cigar again in an offensive way.  “That’s just it.  When you come to talk with that Injun girl, I want you to steer her proper on one p’int.  We’re white, you an’ me, and I reckon white folks will stick together when it comes to a game against reds.  Get me?”

“I do not think I do—­yet,” answered Ruth hesitatingly.

“Why, see here, now,” Dakota Joe went on.  “It’s easy to see you’re a lady—­a white lady.  I’m a white gent.  This Injun wench has got it in for me.  Did you see what she come near doin’ to me right out there in the ring?”

Ruth restrained a strong wish to tell him exactly what she had seen.  But somehow she felt that caution in the handling of this rough man would be the wiser part.

“I saw that she made a very clever shot in breaking that ball in your hand, Mr. Dakota Joe,” the girl of the Red Mill said.

“Heh?  Well, didn’t you see she aimed straight at me?  Them reds ain’t got no morals.  They’d jest as lief shoot a feller they didn’t like as not.  We have to keep ’em down all the time.  I know.  I been handling ’em for years.”

“Well, sir?” asked Ruth impatiently.

“Why, this Wonota—­drat her!—­is under contract with me.  She’s a drawin’ card, I will say.  But she’s been writin’ back to the agency where I got her and making me trouble.  She means to leave me flat if she can—–­and a good winter season coming on.”