nce in and liking for each other until it seemed that
nothing but their youth and Tom's duties in the army kept them from
announcing their engagement.

"Do finish the war quickly, Tom," she had said to him whimsically, not
long before Tom had gone back to France. "I do not feel as though I
could return to college, or write another scenario, or do another single
solitary thing until peace is declared."

"And _then_?" Tom had asked significantly, and Ruth had given him an
understanding smile.

The uncertainty of that time--the whole nation waited and listened
breathlessly for news from abroad--seemed to Ruth more than she could
bear. She had entered upon this pleasure jaunt to the Wild West Show
with the other girls because she knew that anything to take their minds
off the more serious thoughts of the war was a good thing.

Now, as she felt herself in peril of being gored by that black bull a
tiny thought flashed into her mind:

"What terrible peril may be facing Tom Cameron at this identical
moment?"

When the bull was gone, wounded by that unexpected rifle shot, and her
three chums gathered about her, this thought of Tom's danger was still
uppermost in Ruth's mind.

"Dear me, how silly of me!" she murmured. "There are lots worse things
happening every moment over there than being gored by a bull."

"What an idea!" ejaculated Helen. "Are you crazy? What has that to do
with you being pitched over that fence, for instance?"

She glanced at the fence which divided the field in which the
automobiles stood from that where the two great tents of the Wild West
Show were pitched. A broad-hatted man was standing at the bars. He
drawled:

"Gal ain't hurt none, is she? That was a close shave--closer, a pile,
than I'd want to have myself. Some savage critter, that bull. And if
Dakota Joe's gal wasn't a crack shot that young lady would sure been
throwed higher than Haman."

Ruth had now struggled to her feet with the aid of Jenny and Mercy.

"Do find out who it was shot the bull!" she cried.

Jennie, although still white-faced, grinned broadly again. "_Now_ who is
guilty of the most atrocious slang? 'Shot the bull,' indeed!"

"Thar she is," answered the broad-hatted man, pointing to a figure
approaching the fence. Helen fairly gasped at sight of her.

"Right out of a Remington black-and-white," she shrilled in Ruth
Fielding's ear.

The sight actually jolted Ruth's mind away from the fright which had
overwhelmed