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+Project Gutenberg's Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp, by Alice B. Emerson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp
+
+Author: Alice B. Emerson
+
+Posting Date: July 6, 2011 [EBook #6851]
+Release Date: November, 2004
+[This file was first posted on February 2, 2003]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RUTH FIELDING AT SNOW CAMP ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Avinash Kothare, Tom Allen, Charles Franks and
+the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+RUTH FIELDING
+
+AT SNOW CAMP
+
+OR
+
+LOST IN THE BACKWOODS
+
+BY
+
+ALICE B. EMERSON
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER
+
+I.     A LIVELY TIME
+
+II.    A SURPRISING APPEARANCE
+
+III.   THE NEWSPAPER CLIPPING
+
+IV.    THE MYSTERIOUS BEHAVIOR OF FRED HATFIELD
+
+V.     OFF FOR THE BACKWOODS
+
+VI.    ON THE TRAIN
+
+VII.   A RUNAWAY IN GOOD EARNEST
+
+VIII.  FIRST AT SNOW CAMP
+
+IX.    "LONG JERRY" TODD
+
+X.     BEARS--AND OTHER THINGS
+
+XI.    THE FROST GAMES
+
+XII.   PERIL--AND A TAFFY PULL
+
+XIII.  SHELLS AND KERNELS
+
+XIV.   A TELEPHONE CHASE
+
+XV.    THE BATTLE IN THE SNOW
+
+XVI.   AN APPEARANCE AND A DISAPPEARANCE
+
+XVII.  LONG JERRY'S STORY
+
+XVIII. "THE AMAZON MARCH"
+
+XIX.   BESIEGED BY THE STORM KING
+
+XX.    THE SNOW SHROUD
+
+XXI.   ADRIFT IN THE STORM
+
+XXII.  THE HIDEOUT
+
+XXIII. A DOUBLE CAPTIVITY
+
+XXIV.  THE SEARCH
+
+XXV.   CERTAIN EXPLANATIONS
+
+
+
+
+RUTH FIELDING
+
+AT SNOW CAMP
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+A LIVELY TIME
+
+
+"I don't think we'd better go home that way, Helen."
+
+"Why not? Mr. Bassett won't care--and it's the nearest way to the
+road."
+
+"But he's got a sign up--and his cattle run in this pasture," said
+Ruth Fielding, who, with her chum, Helen Cameron, and Helen's twin
+brother, Tom, had been skating on the Lumano River, where the ice was
+smooth below the mouth of the creek which emptied into the larger
+stream near the Red Mill.
+
+"Aw, come on, Ruthie!" cried Tom, stamping his feet to restore
+circulation.
+
+The ground was hard and the ice was thick on the river; but the
+early snows that had fallen were gone. It was the day after
+Christmas, and Helen and Ruth had been at home from school at
+Briarwood Hall less than a week. Tom, too, who attended the Military
+Academy at Seven Oaks, was home for the winter holidays. It was
+snapping cold weather, but the sun had been bright this day and for
+three hours or more the friends had enjoyed themselves on the ice.
+
+"Surely Hiram Bassett hasn't turned his cows out in this weather,"
+laughed Helen.
+
+"But maybe he has turned out his bull," said Ruth. "You know how
+ugly that creature is. And there's the sign."
+
+"I declare! you do beat Peter!" ejaculated Tom, shrugging his
+shoulders. "We are only going to cut across Bassett's field--it won't
+take ten minutes. And it will save us half an hour in getting to the
+mill. We can't go along shore, for the ice is open there at the creek."
+
+"All right," agreed Ruth Fielding, doubtfully. She was younger than
+the twins and did not mean to be a wet blanket on their fun at any
+time; but admiring Helen so much, she often gave up her own
+inclinations, or was won by the elder girl from a course which she
+thought wise. There had been times during their first term at
+Briarwood Hall, now just completed, when Ruth had been obliged to
+take a different course from her chum. This occasion, however, seemed
+of little moment. Hiram Bassett owned a huge red herd-leader that was
+the terror of the countryside; but it was a fact, as Helen said, that
+the cattle were not likely to be roaming the pasture at this time of
+year.
+
+"Come on!" said Tom, again. "The car was to go down to the Cheslow
+station for father and stop at the mill for us on its return. We
+don't want to keep him waiting."
+
+"And we've got so much to do to-night, Ruthie!" cried Helen. "Have
+you got your things packed?"
+
+"Aunt Alvirah said she would look my clothes over," said Ruth, in
+reply. "I don't really see as I've much to take, Helen. We only want
+warm things up there in the woods."
+
+"And plenty of 'em," advised Tom. "Bring your skates. We may get a
+chance to use them if the snow isn't too heavy. But up there in the
+backwoods the snow hasn't melted, you can bet, since the first fall
+in November."
+
+"We'll have just the loveliest time!" went on Helen, with her usual
+enthusiasm. "Tom and I spent a week-end at Snow Camp when Mr. Parrish
+owned it, and when we knew he was going to sell, we just _begged_ papa
+to buy it. You never saw such a lovely old log cabin--"
+
+"I never saw a log cabin at all," responded Ruth, laughing.
+
+They had climbed the steep bank now and started across the pasture
+in what Tom called "a catter-cornering" direction, meaning to come
+out upon the main road to Osago Lake within sight of the Red Mill,
+which was the property of Mr. Jabez Potter, Ruth's uncle.
+
+Ruth Fielding, after her parents died, had come from Darrowtown to
+live with her mother's uncle at the Red Mill, as was told in the
+first volume of this series, entitled "Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill;
+Or, Jasper Parloe's Secret." The girl had found Uncle Jabez very hard
+to get along with at first, for he was a good deal of a miser, and
+his finer feelings seemed to have been neglected during a long life
+of hoarding and selfishness.
+
+But through a happy turn of circumstances Ruth was enabled to get at
+the heart of her crotchety uncle, and when Ruth's very dear friend,
+Helen Cameron, planned to go away to school, Uncle Jabez was won over
+to the idea of sending Ruth with her. The girls were now home for the
+winter holidays after spending their first term at Briarwood Hall,
+where they had made many friends as well as learning a good many
+practical and necessary things. The fun and work of this first term
+is all related in "Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall; Or, Solving the
+Campus Mystery," which is the second volume of the Ruth Fielding
+Series.
+
+And now another frolic was in immediate prospect. Mr. Cameron, who
+was a very wealthy dry-goods merchant, had purchased a winter camp
+deep in the wilderness, up toward the Canadian line, and Christmas
+itself now being over, Helen and Tom had obtained his permission to
+take a party of their friends with them to the lodge in the backwoods
+--Snow Camp.
+
+It was really Helen's party. Besides Ruth, she had invited Madge
+Steele, Jennie Stone, Belle Tingley, and Lluella Fairfax to be of the
+party. She had invited one other girl from Briarwood, too; but Mary
+Cox had refused the invitation. "The Fox," as her school-fellows
+called her, had been under a cloud at the end of the term, and
+perhaps she might have felt somewhat abashed had she joined the party
+of her school-fellows at Snow Camp.
+
+Tom had invited his chum at school, who was Madge Steele's brother
+Bob, and another boy named Isadore Phelps. With Mr. Cameron himself
+and Mrs. Murchiston, the lady who had been the twins' governess when
+they were small, and several servants, the party were to take train
+at Cheslow the next day for the northern wilderness.
+
+The trio of friends, as they hurried across Hiram Bassett's pasture,
+were full of happy anticipations regarding the proposed trip, and
+they chatted merrily as they went on. Halfway across the field they
+passed along the edge of a bush-bordered hollow. Their skating caps--
+Tom's white, Ruth's blue, and Helen's of a brilliant scarlet--bobbed
+up and down beside the hedge, and anybody upon the other side, in the
+hollow, might have been greatly puzzled to identify the bits of color.
+
+"For mercy's sake! what's that?" ejaculated Helen, suddenly.
+
+The others fell silent. A sudden stamping upon the frozen ground
+arose from beyond the bushes. Then came a reverberating bellow.
+
+Tom leaped through the bushes and looked down the hill. There
+sounded the thundering of pounding hoofs, and the boy sprang back to
+the side of his sister and her chum with a cry.
+
+"Run!" he gasped. "The bull is there--I declare it is! He's coming
+right up the hill and will head us off. We've got to go back. He must
+have seen us through the bushes."
+
+"Oh, dear me! dear me!" cried his sister. "What will we do--"
+
+"Run, I tell you!" repeated Tom, seizing her hand.
+
+Ruth had already taken her other hand. With their skates rattling
+over their shoulders, the trio started back across the field. The
+bull parted the bushes and came thundering out upon the plain. He
+swerved to follow them instantly. There could be no doubt that he had
+seen them, and the bellow he repeated showed that he was very much
+enraged and considered the three friends his particular enemies.
+
+Ruth glanced back over her shoulder and saw that the angry beast was
+gaining on them fast. It was indeed surprising how fast the bull
+could gallop--and he was very terrible indeed to look upon.
+
+"He will catch us! he will catch us!" moaned Helen.
+
+"You girls run ahead," gasped Tom, letting go of his sister's hand.
+"Maybe I can turn him---"
+
+"He'll kill you!" cried Helen.
+
+"Come this way!" commanded Ruth, suddenly turning to the left,
+toward the bank of the open creek. The current of this stream was so
+swift that it had not yet frozen--saving along the edges. The bank
+was very steep. A few trees of good size grew along its edge.
+
+"We can't cross the creek, Ruthie!" shrieked Helen. "He will get us,
+sure."
+
+"But we can get below the bank--out of sight!" panted her chum.
+"Come, Tom! that beast will kill you if you delay."
+
+"It's our caps he sees," declared Master Tom. "That old red cap of
+Nell's is what is exciting him so."
+
+In a flash Ruth Fielding snatched the red cap from her chum's head
+and ran on with it toward the bank of the creek. The others followed
+her while the big bull, swerving in his course, came bellowing on
+behind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+A SURPRISING APPEARANCE
+
+
+Helen was sobbing and crying as she ran. Tom kept a few feet behind
+the girls, although what he could have done to defend them, had the
+big bull overtaken him, it would be hard to say. And for several
+moments it looked very much as though Hiram Bassett's herd-leader was
+going to reach his prey.
+
+The thunder of his hoofs was in their ears. They did not speak again
+as they came to the steep bank down to the open creek. There, just
+before them, was an old hollow stump, perhaps ten feet high, with the
+opening on the creek side. All three of them knew it well.
+
+As Helen went over the bank and disappeared on one side of the
+stump, Tom darted around the other side. Ruth, with the red cap in
+her hand, stumbled over a root and fell to her knees. She was right
+beside the hollow stump, and Helen's cap caught in a twig and was
+snatched from her hand.
+
+As Ruth scrambled aside and then fairly rolled over the edge of the
+bank out of sight, the cap was left dangling right in front of the
+stump. The bull charged it. That flashing bit of color was what had
+attracted the brute from the start.
+
+As the three friends dived over the bank--and their haste and
+heedlessness carried them pell-mell to the bottom--there sounded a
+yell behind them that certainly was not emitted by the bull. Goodness
+knows, he roared loudly enough! But this was no voice of a bull that
+so startled the two girls and Tom Cameron--it was far too shrill.
+
+"There's somebody in that tree!" yelled Tom.
+
+And then the forefront of the bull collided with the rotten old
+stump. Taurus smashed against it with the force of a pile-driver--
+three-quarters of a ton of solid flesh and bone, going at the speed
+of a fast train, carries some weight. It seemed as though a live tree
+could scarcely have stood upright against that charge, let alone this
+rotten stump.
+
+Crash!
+
+The rotten roots gave way. They were torn out of the frozen ground,
+the stump toppled over, and, carrying a great ball of earth with it,
+plunged down the bank of the creek.
+
+Tom had clutched the girls by their hands again and the three were
+running along the narrow shore under shelter of the bank. The bull no
+longer saw them. Indeed, the shock had thrown him to the ground, and
+when he scrambled up, he ran off, bellowing and tossing his head, in
+an entirely different direction.
+
+But the uprooted stump went splash! into the icy waters of the
+creek, and as it plunged beneath the surface--all but its roots--the
+trio of frightened friends heard that eyrie cry again.
+
+"It's from the hollow trunk! I tell you, some body's in there!"
+declared Tom.
+
+But the uprooted stump had fallen into the water with the opening
+down. If there really was anybody in it, the way in which the stump
+had fallen served to hold such person prisoner.
+
+Ruth Fielding was as quick as Tom to turn back to the spot where the
+old stump had been submerged; but Helen had fallen in her tracks, and
+sat there, hugging her knees and rocking her body to and fro, as she
+cried:
+
+"He'll be drowned! Don't you see, he _is_ drowned? And suppose that
+bull comes back?"
+
+"That bull won't get us down here, Nell," returned her brother,
+laying hold of the roots of the hollow tree and trying to turn it over.
+
+But although he and Ruth both exerted themselves to the utmost, they
+could barely stir the stump. Suddenly they heard a struggle going on
+inside the hollow shell; as well, a thumping on the thin partition of
+wood and a muffled sound of shouting.
+
+"He's alive--the water hasn't filled the hollow," cried Ruth. "Oh,
+Tom! we must do something."
+
+"And I'd like to know what?" demanded that youth, in great
+perturbation.
+
+The stump rested on the shore, but was half submerged in the water
+for most of its length. The unfortunate person imprisoned in the
+hollow part of the tree-trunk must be partly submerged in the water,
+too. Had the farther end of the stump not rested on a rock, it would
+have plunged to the bottom of the creek and the victim of the
+accident must certainly have been drowned.
+
+"Why don't he crawl out? Why don't he crawl out?" cried Ruth,
+anxiously.
+
+"How's he going to do it?" sputtered Tom.
+
+"Can't he dive down into the water through the hole in the tree and
+so come up outside?" demanded the girl from the Red Mill, irritably.
+"I never saw such a fellow!"
+
+Whether this referred to Tom, or to the unknown, the former did not
+know. But he recognized immediately the good sense in Ruth's
+suggestion. Tom leaped out upon the log and stamped upon it. Helen
+screamed:
+
+"You'll go into the creek, too, Tom!"
+
+"No, I won't," he replied.
+
+"Then you'll make the stump fall in entirely and the man will be
+drowned."
+
+"No, I won't do that, either," muttered Master Tom.
+
+He stamped upon the wooden shell again. A faint halloo answered him,
+and the knocking on the inner side of the hollow tree was repeated.
+
+"Come out! Come out!" shouted Tom, "Dive down through the water and
+get out. You'll be suffocated there."
+
+But at first the prisoner seemed not to understand--or else was
+afraid to make the attempt.
+
+"Oh, if I only had an axe!" groaned Master Tom.
+
+"If you cut into that tree you might do some damage," said his
+sister, now so much interested in the prisoner that she got up and
+came near.
+
+Ruth saw Helen's red cap high up on the bank and she scrambled up
+and got it, stuffing it under her coat again.
+
+"We'll keep _that_ out of sight," she said.
+
+"If it hadn't been for that old red thing," growled Tom, "the bull
+wouldn't have chased us in the first place."
+
+But all of them were thinking mainly of the person in the hollow of
+the old stump. How could they get this person out?
+
+And the answer to that question was not so easily found--as Tom had
+observed. They could not roll the stump over; they had no means of
+cutting through to the prisoner. But, suddenly, that individual
+settled the question without their help. There was a struggle under
+the log, a splashing of the water, and then a figure bobbed up out of
+the shallows.
+
+Ruth screamed and seized it before it fell back again. It was a boy--
+a thin, miserable-looking, dripping youth, no older than Tom, and
+with wild, burning eyes looking out of his wet and pallid face. Had
+it not been for Ruth and Tom he must have fallen back into the stream
+again, he was so weak.
+
+They dragged him ashore, and he fell down, shaking and chattering,
+on the edge of the creek. He was none too warmly dressed at the best;
+the water now fast congealed upon his clothing. His garments would
+soon be as stiff as boards.
+
+"We've got to get him to the Mill, girls," declared Tom. "Come! get
+up!" he cried to the stranger. "You must get warmed and have dry
+clothing."
+
+"And something hot to drink," said Ruth. "Aunt Alviry will make him
+something that will take the cold out of his bones."
+
+The strange boy stared at them, unable, it seemed, to speak a word.
+They dragged him upright and pushed him on between them. The bull had
+run towards the river and had not come back; so the friends, with
+their strange find, hurried on to the public road and crossed the
+bridge at the creek, turning off into the orchard path that led up to
+the Red Mill.
+
+"What's your name?" demanded Tom of the strange boy.
+
+But all the latter could do was to chatter and shake his head. The
+icy water had bitten into his very bones. They fairly dragged him
+between them for the last few yards, and burst into Aunt Alvirah's
+kitchen in a manner "fit to throw one into a conniption!" as that
+good lady declared.
+
+"Oh, my back, and oh, my bones!" she groaned, getting up quickly
+from her rocking chair by the window, where she had been knitting.
+"For the good land of mercy! what is this?"
+
+All three of the friends began to tell her together. But the little
+old woman with the bent back and rheumatic limbs understood one
+thing, if she made nothing else out of the general gabble. The
+strange boy had been in the water, and his need was urgent.
+
+"Bring him right in here, Tommy," she commanded, hobbling into Mr.
+Potter's bedroom, which was the nearest to the kitchen, and thereby
+the warmest. "I don't know what Jabez will say, but that child's got
+to git a-twixt blankets right away. It's a mercy if he ain't got his
+death."
+
+They drew off the stranger's outer clothing, and then Aunt Alviry
+left Tom to help him further disrobe and roll up in the blankets on
+Mr. Potter's bed. Meantime the old woman filled a stone water-bottle
+with boiling water, to put at his feet, and made a great bowl of
+"composition" for him to drink down as soon as it was cool enough for
+him to swallow.
+
+Ruth wrung out the boy's wet garments and hung them to dry around
+the stove, where they began immediately to steam. As she had noticed
+before, the stranger's clothing was well worn. He had no overcoat--
+only a thick jacket. All his clothing was of the cheapest quality.
+
+Suddenly Helen exclaimed: "What's that you've dropped out of his
+vest, Ruthie? A wallet?"
+
+It was an old leather note-case. There appeared to be little in it
+when Ruth picked it up, for it was very flat. Certainly there was no
+money in it. Nor did there seem to be anything in it that would
+identify its owner. However, as Ruth carried it to the window she
+found a newspaper clipping tucked into one compartment, and, as it
+was damp, too, she took this out, unfolded it, and laid it carefully
+on the window sill to dry. But when she looked further, she saw
+inside the main compartment of the wallet a name and address
+stenciled, It was:
+
+JONAS HATFIELD
+
+SCARBORO, N. Y.
+
+"Sec, Helen," she said to her chum. "Maybe this is his name--Jonas
+Hatfield."
+
+"And Scarboro, New York!" gasped Helen, suddenly. "Why, Ruthie!"
+
+"What's the matter?" returned Ruth, in surprise.
+
+"What a coincidence!"
+
+"What is a coincidence?" demanded Ruth, still greatly amazed by her
+chum's excitement.
+
+"Why this boy--if this is his wallet and that is his name and
+address--comes from right about where we are going to-morrow.
+Scarboro is the nearest railroad station to Snow Camp. What do you
+think of that?"
+
+Before Ruth could reply, the sound of an automobile horn was heard
+outside, and both girls ran to the door. The Cameron automobile was
+just coming down the hill from the direction of Cheslow, and in a
+minute it stopped before the door of the Potter farmhouse.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE NEWSPAPER CLIPPING
+
+
+The Red Mill was a grist mill, and Mr. Jabez Potter made wheat-flour,
+buckwheat, cornmeal, or ground any grist that was brought to him.
+Standing on a commanding knoll beside the Lumano River, it was
+very picturesquely situated, and the rambling old farmhouse connected
+with it was a very homey-looking place indeed.
+
+The automobile had stopped at the roadside before the kitchen door,
+and Mr. Cameron alighted and started immediately up the straight path
+to the porch. He was a round, jolly, red-faced man, who was forever
+thinking of some surprise with which to please his boy and girl, and
+seldom refused any request they might make of him. This plan of
+taking a party of young folk into the backwoods for a couple of weeks
+was entirely to amuse Tom and Helen. Personally, the dry-goods
+merchant did not much care for such an outing.
+
+He came stamping up the steps and burst into the kitchen in a jolly
+way, and Helen ran to him with a kiss.
+
+"Hullo I what's all this?" he demanded, his black eyes taking in the
+grove of airing garments around the stove. "Tom been in the river?
+No! Those aren't Tom's duds, I'll be switched if they are!"
+
+"No, no," cried Helen. "It's another boy."
+
+And here Tom himself appeared from the bedroom.
+
+"I thought Tom could keep out of the river when the ice was four
+inches thick--eh, son?" laughed Mr. Cameron.
+
+His children began to tell him, both together, of the adventure with
+the bull and the mysterious appearance of the strange boy.
+
+"Aye, aye!" he said. "And Ruth Fielding was in it, of course--and
+did her part in extricating you all from the mess, too, I'll be
+bound! Whatever would we do without Ruth?" and he smiled and shook
+hands with the miller's niece.
+
+"I guess we were all equally scared. But it certainly was my fault
+that the old bull bunted the hollow stump into the creek. So this boy
+can thank me for getting him such a ducking," laughed Ruth.
+
+"And who is he? Where does he come from?"
+
+Ruth showed Mr. Cameron the stencil on the inside of the wallet.
+
+"Isn't that funny, Father?" cried Helen. "Right where we are going--
+Scarboro."
+
+"If the wallet is his," muttered Mr. Cameron.
+
+"What do you mean, sir?" questioned Ruth, quickly. "Do you think he
+is a bad boy--that he has taken the wallet----"
+
+"Now, now!" exclaimed Mr. Cameron, smiling at her again. "Don't
+jump at conclusions, Mistress Ruth Fielding. I have no suspicion
+regarding the lad----How is the patient, Aunt Alviry?" he added,
+quickly, as the little old woman came hobbling out of the bedroom
+where the strange boy lay.
+
+"Oh, my back, and oh, my bones!" said Aunt Alviry, under her breath.
+But she welcomed Mr. Cameron warmly enough, too. "He's getting on
+fine," she declared. "He'll be all right soon. I reckon he won't
+suffer none in the end for his wetting. I'm a-goin' to cook him a
+mess of gruel, for I believe he's hungry."
+
+"Who is he, Aunt Alviry?" asked the gentleman. Aunt Alvirah Boggs
+was "everybody's Aunt Alviry," although she really had no living kin,
+and Mr. Jabez Potter had brought her from the almshouse ten years or
+more before to act as his housekeeper.
+
+"Dunno," said Aunt Alvirah, shaking her head in answer to Mr.
+Cameron's question. "Ain't the first idee. You kin go in and talk to
+him, sir."
+
+With the wallet in his hand and the three young folk at his heels,
+both their interest and their curiosity aroused, Mr. Cameron went
+into the passage and so came to the open door of the bedroom. Mr.
+Potter slept in a big, four-post bedstead, which was heaped high at
+this time of year with an enormous feather bed. Rolled like a mummy
+in the blankets, and laid on this bed, the feathers had plumped up
+about the vagabond boy and almost buried him. But his eyes were wide
+open--pale blue eyes, with light lashes and eyebrows, which gave his
+thin, white countenance a particularly blank expression.
+
+"Heigho, my lad!" exclaimed Mr. Cameron, in his jolly way. "So your
+name is Jonas Hatfield, of Scarboro; is it?"
+
+"No; sir; that was my father's name, sir," returned the boy in bed,
+weakly. "My name is Fred."
+
+And then a brilliant flush suddenly colored his pale face. He half
+started up in bed, and the pale blue eyes flashed with an entirely
+different expression. He demanded, in a hoarse, unnatural voice:
+
+"How'd' you find me out?"
+
+Mr. Cameron shook his head knowingly, and laughed.
+
+"That was a bit of information you were keeping to yourself--eh?
+Well, why did you carry your father's old wallet about with you, if
+you did not wish to be identified? Come, son! what harm is there in
+our knowing who you are?"
+
+Fred Hatfield sank back in the feathers and weakly rolled his head
+from side to side. The blood receded from his cheeks, leaving him
+quite as pale as before. He whispered:
+
+"I ran away."
+
+"Yes. That's what I supposed," said Mr. Cameron, easily. "What for?"
+
+"I--I can't tell you."
+
+"What did you do?"
+
+"I didn't say I did anything. I just got sick of it up there, and
+came away," the boy said, sullenly.
+
+"Your father is dead?" asked the gentleman, shrewdly.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Got a mother?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Doesn't she need you?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"She's got Ez, and Peter, and 'Lias to work the farm. They're all
+older'n me. Then there's the two gals and Bob, who are younger. She
+don't need me," declared Fred Hatfield, doggedly.
+
+"I don't believe a mother ever had so many children that she didn't
+sorely miss the one who was absent," declared Mr. Cameron, quietly.
+"Tell me how you came away down here."
+
+Brokenly the boy told his story--not an uncommon one. He had
+traveled most of the distance afoot, working here and there for
+farmers and storekeepers. He admitted that he had been some weeks on
+the road. His being in that hollow stump in Hiram Bassett's field was
+quite by accident. He was passing through the field, making for the
+main road, when he had seen Ruth, Helen, and Tom, and stepped behind
+the tree so as not to be observed.
+
+"What made you so afraid of being seen by anyone?" demanded Mr.
+Cameron, at this point. "Do you think your folks are trying to find
+you?"
+
+"I--I don't know," stammered the lad.
+
+This was about all his questioner was able to get out of him.
+
+"You'll be cared for here to-night--I'll speak to Mr. Potter," said
+Mr. Cameron. "And in the morning I'll decide what's to be done with
+you."
+
+"Why, Dad! we're going----"
+
+Tom had begun this speech when his father warned him with a look to
+be still.
+
+"You'll be all right here," pursued Mr. Cameron, cheerfully. "Aunt
+Alviry and Ruth will look after you. Why! I wouldn't want better
+nurses if _I_ was sick."
+
+"But I'm not sick," said Fred Hatfield, as the little old woman
+hobbled in with a steaming bowl. His eyes were wolfish when he saw
+the gruel, however.
+
+"No, you're not so sick but that a good, square meal would be your
+best medicine, I'll be bound," cried the gentleman, laughing.
+
+He went out to the mill then and was gone some moments; when he
+returned he called Helen and Tom to come with him quickly to the car.
+
+"Remember and be ready as early as nine o'clock, Ruth!" called
+Helen, looking back as she climbed into the automobile.
+
+When her friends had bowled away up the frozen road, Ruth came back
+into the kitchen. Aunt Alvirah was still in the bedroom with their
+strange guest. Of a sudden the girl's eye caught sight of the
+newspaper clipping laid on the window sill to dry.
+
+Mr. Cameron had placed the old wallet belonging to Fred Hatfield's
+father on the table when he came out of the bedroom. Now Ruth picked
+it up, found it dry, and went to the window to replace the clipping
+in it. It was the most natural thing in the world for Ruth to glance
+at the slip of paper when she picked it up. There is nothing secret
+about a newspaper clipping; it was no infringement of good manners to
+read the article.
+
+And read it Ruth did when she had once seen the heading--she read it
+all through with breathless attention. Her rosy face paled as she
+came to the conclusion, and she glanced suddenly toward the bedroom
+as she heard Aunt Alvirah's voice again.
+
+Dropping the old wallet on the table, Ruth folded the clipping and
+hastily thrust it into the bosom of her frock. She did not dare face
+the old woman when she appeared, but kept her back turned until she
+was sure the color had returned to her cheeks. And all the time she
+helped Aunt Alvirah get supper, Ruth was very, very silent.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE MYSTERIOUS BEHAVIOR OF FRED HATFIELD
+
+
+Uncle Jabez Potter came in from the mill after a time. He was a
+gaunt, gray-faced man, who seldom smiled, and whose stern, rugged
+countenance had at first almost frightened Ruth whenever she looked
+at it. But she had fortunately gotten under the crust of Mr. Potter's
+manner and learned that there was something better there than the
+harsh surface the miller turned to all the world.
+
+Uncle Jabez hoarded money for the pleasure of hoarding it; but he
+had been generous to Ruth, having put her at one of the best boarding
+schools in the State. He could be charitable at times, too; Aunt
+Alvirah could testify to that fact. So could a certain little lame
+friend of Ruth Fielding, Mercy Curtis, who was attending Briarwood
+Hall as the result of the combined charity of Uncle Jabez and Dr.
+Davison, of Cheslow.
+
+But it is said that "charity begins at home"; when charity begins in
+a man's very bed, that seems a little too near! At least, so Mr.
+Potter thought.
+
+"What's this I hear about a vagabond boy in my bed, Aunt Alviry?" he
+demanded, when he came in.
+
+"The poor child!" said the old woman. "Oh, my back, and oh, my
+bones! Come in and see him, Jabez," she urged, hobbling toward the
+passage.
+
+"No. Who is he? What is he here for? That Cameron talks so fast I
+never can get the rights of what he's saying till afterward. Says the
+boy belongs up there where he wants to take Ruth to-morrow?"
+
+"He has run away from his home at Scarboro, Uncle," said Ruth.
+
+"Young villain! A widder's son, too!" said her uncle.
+
+"He says his father is dead," said Ruth, hesitating.
+
+"I venture to say!" exclaimed Jabez Potter. "And he's in my bed; is
+he?"
+
+He came back to this as being a reason for objection.
+
+"Now, now, Jabez," said Aunt Alvirah, soothingly. "He ain't hurted
+the bed. He was wet--the coat frozen right on him--when they brought
+him in. I had to git him atween blankets jest as quick as I could.
+And your bedroom isn't so cold as the rooms upstairs."
+
+"Well?" grunted Mr. Potter.
+
+"Before bedtime I'll make him up a couch in here near the fire and
+put your bed straight for you."
+
+"Young vagabond!" grunted Mr. Potter. "Don't know who he is. May rob
+us before morning. Perhaps he come here for just that purpose."
+
+"That's not possible, Uncle," said Ruth, laughing. She told him the
+story of their adventure with the bull and Fred Hatfield's
+appearance. Yet all the time she looked worried herself. There was
+something troubling the girl of the Red Mill.
+
+Ruth took the tray into the bedroom with the supper that Aunt
+Alvirah had prepared. There was a flaming red spot in the center of
+each of the boy's pallid cheeks, and his eyes were still bright. He
+had no little fever after the chill of his plunge into the creek. But
+the fever might have been as much from a mental as a physical cause.
+
+It was on Ruth's lips to ask the boy certain questions. That
+newspaper clipping fairly burned in the bosom of her frock. But his
+suppressed excitement warned her to be silent.
+
+He was hungry still. It was plain that he had been without proper
+food for some time. But in the midst of his appreciation of the meal
+he asked Ruth, suddenly:
+
+"Wasn't there anything in that wallet when you gave it to that man,
+Miss?"
+
+"No," she replied, truthfully enough.
+
+"No. He didn't say there was," muttered the boy, and said not
+another word.
+
+Ruth watched him eat. He did not raise his light eyes to her. The
+color faded out of his cheeks. She knew that it was actual starvation
+that kept him eating; but he was greatly troubled in his mind. She
+went back to her own supper, and remained very quiet all through the
+evening.
+
+Later Aunt Alvirah made up the couch with plenty of blankets and
+thick, downy "comforters," and when Ruth had gone to bed the boy came
+out into the kitchen and left Uncle Jabez free to seek his own
+repose. But though the whole house slept, Ruth could not--at first.
+Long after it was still, and she knew Aunt Alvirah was asleep and
+Uncle Jabez was snoring, Ruth arose, slipped on a warm wrapper and
+her slippers, and squeezing something tightly between her fingers,
+crept down the stairs to the kitchen door. She unlatched it softly
+and let it swing open a couple of inches.
+
+There was a stir within. She waited, holding her breath. She heard
+the couch creak. Then came the sound of a shuffling step.
+
+The moonlight lay in a broad band under the front window. Into this
+radiance moved the figure of the vagabond boy, shrouded in a blanket.
+He came to the table and he felt around until he found the wallet. He
+had doubtless marked it lying there by the window before Aunt Alvirah
+had put the lamp out and left him.
+
+He seized the wallet and opened it wide. He shook it over the table.
+Then Ruth heard him groan:
+
+"It's gone! it's gone!"
+
+He stood there, shaking, and dropped the leather case unnoticed. For
+half a minute he stood there, uncertain and--Ruth thought--sobbing
+softly. Then the boy approached the garments hung upon the chairs
+about the stove, wherein the coal fire was banked for the night.
+
+He stopped before he touched his underclothing. All these garments
+were well dried by this time; but Aunt Alvirah had wished them left
+there to be warm when he put them on in the morning. Ruth knew
+exactly what Fred Hatfield had in his mind. The vagabond boy was
+determined to dress quietly and secretly leave the miller's house.
+
+But when Master Fred touched the first garment Ruth rattled the door
+latch ever so lightly. Fred stopped and turned fearfully in that
+direction. His lips parted. She could see that he was panting with
+fear.
+
+Ruth rattled the latch again. He ran back to his couch and plunged
+into the comforters with a gasp. Ruth pulled the door quietly to and
+stood there, shivering in the dark, wondering what to do. She knew
+that the boy had it in his mind to escape. She did not wish to arouse
+Uncle Jabez. Nor did she wish the strange boy to depart so secretly.
+
+Mr. Cameron expected to find him here when he came in the morning,
+she was sure. Although Mr. Cameron only supposed him an ordinary
+runaway, and perhaps wished to advise him to return to his mother,
+Ruth knew well that Fred Hatfield's was no ordinary case of
+vagabondage.
+
+Ruth hesitated on the stairs for some minutes. Uncle Jabez snored.
+There was no further movement from the boy on the couch.
+
+She was growing very cold. Ruth could not remain there on the stairs
+to guard the boy all night. Something desperate had to be done--and
+something very desperate she did!
+
+She unlatched the door again as quietly as possible. She pushed it
+open far enough to slip through into the kitchen. There was no
+movement from the boy--not a sound. Nor did Ruth dare even look in
+his direction.
+
+She crept across the kitchen floor to the stove. She reached the
+garments hung upon the chair backs. She selected one and withdrew in
+a hurry to the staircase, and so ran up to her room.
+
+"There!" she thought, shutting her door and breathing heavily. "If
+he wants to run away he can; but he'll have to go without his
+trousers!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+OFF FOR THE BACKWOODS
+
+
+It was still dark when Ruth awoke and slipped down to the kitchen
+again. But she heard her uncle rattling the stove grate. He was a
+very early riser. She peered into the kitchen and saw the grove of
+drying clothing, so knew that her trick of the night before had kept
+Fred Hatfield from running away.
+
+Therefore she merely dropped the boy's nether garments inside the
+kitchen door and scurried back to her own room to dress by candle-light.
+She heard Aunt Alvirah stumbling about her room and groaning
+her old, old tune, "Oh, my back, and oh, my bones!" As soon as Ruth
+was dressed she ran in to see if she could do anything for the old
+woman.
+
+"Ah, deary! what a precious pretty you be," said the old woman,
+hugging her. "I'm so glad to see you again after your being away so
+long. And your Uncle's that proud of you, too! He often reads the
+reports the school teacher sends him--I see him doing that in the
+evening. He keeps the reports in his cash-box, just as though they
+was as precious as his stocks and bonds. Yes-indeedy!"
+
+"You are so glad to have me at home, Aunt Alvirah, that I feel
+guilty to be going away again so soon," Ruth said.
+
+"No, honey. Have your good times while ye may, my pretty creetur.
+It's mighty nice of the Camerons to take you away with them. You go
+and have a good time. Your trunk's all packed and ready, and your
+young friend, Helen, would be dreadful disappointed if you didn't go.
+Now, let's go down and git breakfast. Jabez has been up for some time
+and I heard him just go out to the mill. That boy must be up and
+dressed by now, for if he had been sick, Jabez would have hollered up
+the stairs about it."
+
+She was right. Fred Hatfield was completely dressed when they came
+into the kitchen. Ruth did not look at him, but busied herself with
+the details of getting breakfast. She did not speak to him, nor did
+Fred speak to her. But Aunt Alvirah was as cheerful and as chatty as
+ever.
+
+Uncle Jabez was never talkative; but he was no more taciturn this
+morning than was their guest. The boy ate his breakfast with downcast
+eyes and only said timidly, at the end of the meal:
+
+"I'm real obliged for your kindness, Mr. Potter. I think I'm all
+right again now. Can't I do some work for you to pay--"
+
+"I don't need another hand at the mill--and I couldn't make use of a
+boy like you at all," said Mr. Potter, hastily. "You wait till Mr.
+Cameron comes here this morning."
+
+Ruth saw that there was an understanding between her uncle and Mr.
+Cameron regarding this boy. But Fred said, still hesitating:
+
+"If--if I can't do anything to repay you, I'd rather go on. I was
+making for Cheslow. I'll get a job--"
+
+"You wait here as you're told, boy," snapped Uncle Jabez, and the
+runaway shrank into his chair again and said nothing more.
+
+Breakfast at the Red Mill was always early; it had been finished
+before seven o'clock on this clear winter morning. It was a fine day
+when the sun appeared, and Ruth's mind--at least, a _part_ of
+it!--delighted in the thought of the journey to be taken into the
+great woods to the north and east of Osago Lake. She had several
+little things to do in preparation; therefore she could not be blamed
+if she lost sight of Fred Hatfield occasionally.
+
+Suddenly, however, she found that he had left the kitchen. She cried
+up the stairs to Aunt Alvirah:
+
+"Have you seen him, Auntie? Where is he?"
+
+"Where's who?" returned the old woman.
+
+"That boy. He's not here."
+
+"For the land's sake!" returned Aunt Alvirah. "I dunno. Didn't your
+uncle tell him to wait for Mr. Cameron here?"
+
+"But he's gone!" exclaimed Ruth; and picking up her cap she pulled
+it on, and likewise her sweater, and went out of the house with a
+bang. He was not on the road to Cheslow. She could see that, straight
+before the mill, for a mile. She ran down to the gate and looked
+along the river road, up stream. No figure appeared there. Nor in the
+other direction--although the Camerons' car would appear from that
+way, and if the runaway went in that direction he would surely run
+right into the Camerons.
+
+"He slipped out of the back door--towards the river," she whispered.
+
+Back she ran into the house. She caught up her skates in the back
+hall and burst out upon the back porch, which was partly enclosed.
+There was the figure of Fred Hatfield on the ice--some distance,
+already, from the shore.
+
+Ruth ran eagerly down to the shore. She had no idea what young
+Hatfield intended; but she was well aware that he could get across
+the Lumano if he chose; the ice was thick enough.
+
+She quickly clamped the skates upon her shoes, and within five
+minutes was darting off across the ice.
+
+Hatfield heard the ring of her skates within a very few moments; he
+threw a glance over his shoulder, saw her, and then began to run. It
+was a feeble attempt to escape, for unless some accident happened to
+Ruth, she could easily overtake him.
+
+And she did so, although he ran straight ahead, and ran so hard that
+finally he slipped and fell, panting, to his knees. Ruth was beside
+him before he could rise.
+
+"Don't you be such a ridiculous boy!" she commanded, seizing the lad
+by the shoulder, as he attempted to rise. "You mustn't run away. Mr.
+Cameron expects to find you at the mill, and you must stay. And
+they'll be here, ready to take the train from Cheslow, shortly."
+
+"I--I don't want to stay here," stammered the boy. "I--I don't want
+to see that man again."
+
+"But he expects to see you, and I could not let you go before he
+comes."
+
+"You're just the meanest girl I ever saw!" cried Hatfield, almost in
+tears. "I'd got away in the night if it hadn't been for you."
+
+Ruth fairly giggled at that--she couldn't help it.
+
+"Well, don't you be nasty about it," she said. "You are a dreadfully
+foolish boy--"
+
+"What do you know about me?" he gasped, turning to look at her
+finally with frightened eyes.
+
+"I know that running away isn't going to help you," Ruth Fielding
+said, with returning gravity.
+
+"You think that man--that Cameron man--will take me back?"
+
+"Back where?"
+
+"To--to Scarboro?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"I tell you I won't go," the boy cried. "I won't go."
+
+"But we're all going up there this very day," said Ruth, slowly.
+"Mr. Cameron, and Helen and Tom, and some other girls and boys. I'm
+going, too--"
+
+"_Going where_?" shrieked Fred Hatfield, actually shaking with terror,
+and as pale as a ghost.
+
+"We're off for the backwoods--up Scarboro way. Mr. Cameron is going
+to take us for a fortnight to Snow Camp. And you--"
+
+With another wild cry Fred Hatfield crumpled down upon the ice and
+burst into a tempest of sobbing. He beat his ungloved hands upon the
+ice, and although Ruth could not help feeling contempt for a boy who
+would so give way to weakness she could not help but pity him, too.
+
+For Ruth Fielding had more than an inkling of the trouble that so
+weighed Fred Hatfield down, and had made him an outcast from his home
+and friends.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+ON THE TRAIN
+
+
+When the Cameron automobile arrived at the Red Mill that forenoon
+Fred Hatfield sat gloomily upon the porch steps. Ruth kept an eye on
+him from the doorway. Mr. Cameron seemed to understand their position
+when he came up the walk, and asked Ruth:
+
+"So, he wants to leave; does he?"
+
+Ruth merely nodded; but Fred Hatfield scowled at the dry-goods
+merchant and turned away his head.
+
+"Now, young man," said Mr. Cameron, standing in front of the sullen
+boy, with his legs wide apart and a smile upon his ruddy face, "now,
+young man, let's get to the bottom of this. You confide in me, and I
+will not betray your confidence. Why don't you want to live at home?"
+
+"I don't want to--that's all," muttered Fred Hatfield, shortly. "And
+I _won't_."
+
+Mr. Cameron shook his head. "I hate to see one so young so
+obstinate," he said. "It may be that your mother and brothers and
+sisters find you a sore trial; perhaps they are glad you are not at
+home. But until I am sure of that I consider it my duty to keep an
+eye on you. I want you to come along with us to-day."
+
+"I know where you are going. This girl has told me," said the
+light-haired youth, nodding at Ruth. "You're going up to Scarboro."
+
+"Yes. And I propose to take you with us. We'll see whether your
+mother wants you or not."
+
+"You don't know what you're doing, sir!" gasped Fred Hatfield,
+crouching down upon the step.
+
+"I certainly do not know what I am doing," admitted Mr. Cameron.
+"But that is your fault, not mine. If you would trust us--"
+
+"I can't!" cried the boy, shaking as though with a chill.
+
+"Then, you come along, young man," commanded the merchant.
+
+He put a hand upon Fred's shoulder and the boy wriggled out from
+under it and started to run. But Tom had got out of the automobile
+and seemed rather expecting this move. He sprang for the other boy
+and held him.
+
+"Here! hold on!" he cried. "Put on this old overcoat of mine that
+I've brought along, It's going to be cold riding. Put it on--and then
+get into the auto with us. Aw, come on! What are you afraid of?
+We aren't going to eat you."
+
+Snivelling, but ceasing his struggles, Fred Hatfield got into the
+coat Tom offered him, and entered the car. Ruth said never a word,
+but she looked very grave.
+
+Uncle Jabez came to the door of the mill and Ruth ran to him and
+kissed the old miller goodbye. Not that he returned the kiss; Uncle
+Jabez looked as though he had never kissed anybody since he was born!
+But Aunt Alvirah hugged and caressed her "pretty creetur" with a
+warmth that made up for the miller's coldness.
+
+"Bless ye, deary!" crooned the little old woman, enfolding Ruth in
+her arms. "Go and have the best of times with your young friends.
+We'll be thinkin' of ye here--and don't run into peril up there in
+the woods. Have a care."
+
+"Oh, we won't get into any trouble," Ruth declared, happily, with no
+suspicion of what was before the party in the backwoods. "Goodbye!"
+
+"Good-bye, Ruthie--Oh, my back and oh, my bones!" groaned Aunt
+Alvirah, as she hobbled into the house again, while Ruth ran down to
+the car, leaped aboard, and the chauffeur started immediately. Ben,
+the hired man, had gone on to Cheslow with Ruth's trunk early in the
+morning, and now the automobile sped quickly over the smooth road to
+the railroad station.
+
+By several different ways--for Cheslow was a junction of the
+railroad lines--the young folk who had been invited to Snow Camp had
+gathered at the station to meet the Camerons and Ruth Fielding.
+Nobody noticed Fred Hatfield, saving Mr. Cameron and Ruth herself;
+but the runaway found no opportunity of leaving the party. Tom had no
+attention to give the Scarboro boy as he welcomed his own chums.
+
+"Here's old Bobbins and Busy Izzy!" he cried, seeing Bob Steele and
+his sister, with Isadore Phelps, pacing the long platform as the car
+halted.
+
+Bob Steele was a big, yellow-haired boy, rosy cheeked and
+good-natured, but not a little bashful. As Madge, his sister, was a
+year and a half older than Bob she often treated him like a very
+small boy indeed.
+
+"Now, Master Cameron!" she cried, when Tom appeared, "don't muss his
+nice clean clothes. Be careful he doesn't get into anything. Be a
+good boy, Bobbie, and the choo-choo cars will soon come."
+
+Isadore Phelps was a sharp-looking boy, with red hair and so many
+freckles across the bridge of his nose and under his eyes that, at a
+little distance, he looked as though he wore a brown mask. Isadore
+seldom spoke without asking a question. He was a walking
+interrogation point. Perhaps that was one reason why he was known
+among his mates as "Busy Izzy," being usually busy about other
+people's business.
+
+"What do you let her nag you for that way, Bob?" he cried. "I'd
+shake her, if she was my sister--wouldn't you, Tom?"
+
+"No," said Tom, boldly, for he considered Madge Steele quite a young
+lady. "She's too big to shake--isn't she, Bobbins?"
+
+But Bob only smiled in his slow way, and said nothing. The girls
+were in a group by themselves--Helen and Ruth, Belle and Lluella,
+Jennie Stone (who rejoiced in the nickname of "Heavy" because of her
+plumpness) and Madge Steele. Mr. Cameron had gone to the ticket
+window to make an inquiry. It was Ruth who saw Fred Hatfield making
+across the tracks to where a freight train was being made up for the
+south.
+
+"Tom!" she cried to Helen's brother, and he turned and saw her glance.
+
+"By George, fellows!" exclaimed Tom, with some disgust. "There's
+that chap sneaking off again. We've got to watch him. Come on!"
+
+He ran after the runaway. Busy Izzy was at his ear in a moment:
+
+"What's the matter with him? Who is he? What's he been doing? Is he
+trying to get aboard that freight? What do you want of him?"
+
+"Oh, hush! hush!" begged Tom. "Your clatter would deafen one." Then
+he shouted to Hatfield: "Hold on, there! the train will be in soon.
+Come back!"
+
+Hatfield stopped and turned back with a scowl. Tom grinned at him
+cheerfully and added:
+
+"Might as well take it easy. Dad says you're to go along with us, so
+I advise you to stick close."
+
+"Pleasant-looking young dog," said Bob, in an undertone. "What's he
+done?"
+
+"I don't know that he has done anything," returned Tom, in the same
+low tone. "But we're going to take him with us to Scarboro. That is
+the place he has run away from."
+
+"Did he run away from home?" demanded Isadore Phelps. "What for?"
+
+"I don't know. But don't you ask him!" commanded Tom. "He wouldn't
+tell you, anyway; he won't tell father. But don't nag him, Izzy."
+
+To the great surprise of the young folks, when the train bound north
+came along, there was a private car attached to it, and in that car
+the Cameron party were to travel. One of the railroad officials had
+lent his own coach to the Cheslow merchant, and he and his party had
+the car to themselves.
+
+There was a porter and a steward aboard--both colored men; and soon
+after the train started odors from the tiny kitchen assured the girls
+and boys that they were to have luncheon on the train.
+
+"Isn't it delightful?" sighed Heavy, gustily, in Ruth's ear. "Riding
+through the country on this fast train and being served with our
+meals--Oh, dear! why weren't _all_ fathers born rich?"
+
+"It's lucky your father isn't any richer than he is, Jennie Stone!"
+whispered Madge Steele, who heard this. "If he was, you'd do nothing
+but eat all the livelong day."
+
+"Well, I might do a deal worse," returned Heavy. "Father says that
+himself. He says he wishes my reports were better at Briarwood; but
+he can't expect me to put on flesh and gain much learning at the same
+time--not when the days are only twenty-four hours long."
+
+They all laughed a good deal at Heavy, but she was so good-natured
+that the girls all liked her, too. What they should do when they
+reached Snow Camp was the principal topic of conversation. As the
+train swept northward the snow appeared. It was piled in fence
+corners and lay deep in the woods. Some ice-bound streams and ponds
+were thickly mantled in the white covering.
+
+Mr. Cameron read his papers or wrote letters in one compartment;
+Mrs. Murchiston was the girls' companion most of the time, while Tom
+and his two chums had a gay time by themselves. They tried to get
+Fred Hatfield into their company, but the runaway boy would not
+respond to their overtures.
+
+At the dinner table, when the fun became fast and furious, Fred
+Hatfield did not even smile. Heavy whispered to Ruth that she never
+did see a boy before who was so dreadfully solemn. "And he grows
+solemner and solemner every mile we travel!" added Heavy. "What do
+you suppose is on his mind?"
+
+Ruth was quite sure she knew what was on the lad's mind; but she did
+not say. Indeed, all the day long she was troubled by the special
+knowledge she had gained from the newspaper clipping that she carried
+hidden in the bottom of her pocket. Should she tell Mr. Cameron about
+it? Should she speak plainly to Fred himself about it? The nearer
+they approached Scarboro the more uncertain she became, and the more
+sullen Fred Hatfield looked.
+
+Ruth watched him a good deal, but so covertly that her girl friends
+did not notice her abstraction. The short Winter day was beginning to
+draw in and the red sun was hanging low above the tree-tops when Mr.
+Cameron announced that the second stop of the train would be their
+destination. The party--at least, Mr. Cameron, the governess, and the
+young folk--were to remain at the hotel in Scarboro over-night. The
+serving people and the baggage were to go on that evening to Snow Camp.
+
+Fred Hatfield sauntered to the rear of the car and stood looking out
+of the window in the door. The flagman was on the rear platform,
+however, and he could not get down without being observed. The stop
+at this town was brief; then the train sped on through the deep woods.
+
+But suddenly the airbrakes were put on again and they slowed down
+with a good deal of clatter and bumping.
+
+"We're not at Scarboro yet, surely?" cried Mrs. Murchiston.
+
+"No, no!" Mr. Cameron assured them. "We're stopping from some other
+cause--why, this is merely a flag station. Not even a station--just a
+crossing."
+
+A white-sheeted road crossed the rails. There were two or three
+houses in sight and a big general store, over the door of which was
+painted:
+
+EMORYVILLE P. O.
+
+But the train had stopped and the rear brake-man, or flagman, seized
+his lamp and ran back to wait for the engineer to recall him. It was
+growing dusk and the lamps had been lighted the length of the train.
+The general interest of the party drew their attention forward. Ruth,
+suddenly remembering Fred Hatfield, looked toward the rear of the
+car. Fred was just going out of the door in the wake of the brakeman.
+
+"Oh, he mustn't go!" whispered Ruth to herself, and leaving her girl
+companions she ran back to speak to the runaway boy. When she reached
+the door, Fred had already descended the steps. She saw him run
+across the tracks, and quick as a flash she sprang down after him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+A RUNAWAY IN GOOD EARNEST
+
+
+Fred Hatfield, the runaway, was approaching the old, rambling
+country store at Emoryville Crossroads. It was so cold an evening
+that there were no loungers upon the high, railless porch which
+extended clear across the front of the building. Indeed, there was
+but one wagon standing before the store and probably there were very
+few customers, or loungers either, inside. The stopping of the train
+had brought nobody to the door.
+
+As Fred gained the sidewalk in front of the store he glanced back.
+There was Ruth crossing the tracks behind him.
+
+"You come back! Come back immediately, Fred Hatfield!" she called.
+"Come back or I shall call Mr. Cameron."
+
+The girl had been his Nemesis all day. Fred knew he could have given
+the party the slip at some station, had Ruth not kept such a sharp
+watch upon him. And here she was on his very heels, when he might
+have gotten well away.
+
+The next stop would be Scarboro. Fred did not want to appear in
+Scarboro again. And he had a suspicion that Ruth knew his reasons for
+desiring to keep away from his home and friends.
+
+He looked wildly about the lonely crossroads. The panting of the
+locomotive exhaust was not the only sound he heard. The two mules
+hitched to the timber wagon--the only wagon standing by the store--
+jingled their harness as they shook their heads. One bit at the
+other, and his mate squealed and stamped. They were young mules and
+full of "ginger"; yet their driver had carelessly left them standing
+unhitched in the road.
+
+Fred gave another glance at Ruth and kept on running. The engineer
+suddenly whistled for the return of the flagman. But none of the
+train-hands--nor did the party in the private car--notice the boy and
+girl who had so incautiously left the train.
+
+"Come back!" commanded Ruth, so much interested in following Fred
+that she did not notice the lantern of the rear brakeman bobbing
+along beside the ties. In a moment he swung himself aboard the
+private car and his lantern described half an arc in the dusk. The
+engine answered with a loud cough and the heavy train began to move.
+
+But at that moment Fred Hatfield, grown desperate because of Ruth's
+pursuit, leaped aboard the timber wagon. He was a backwoods boy
+himself; he knew how to handle mules. He gave a shout to which the
+team responded instantly. They leaped ahead just as Ruth came to the
+side of the long reach that connected the small pair of front wheels
+with the huge wheels in the rear.
+
+"Get off of that wagon, Fred!" she had just cried, when the mules
+started. She was directly in front of the large rear wheel. If it
+struck her--knocked her down--ran over her! Fred knew that she would
+be killed and he seized her hands and dragged her up beside him on
+the jouncing timber-reach.
+
+"Now see what you've done!" he bawled, as the mules broke into a
+gallop.
+
+But Ruth was too frightened for the moment to speak. Her uncle had a
+pair of mules, and she knew just how hard they were to manage. And
+this pair were evidently looking toward supper. They flew up the
+road, directly away from the railroad, and the wagon jounced about so
+that she could only hold on with both hands.
+
+"Stop them! Stop them!" she cried.
+
+But that was much easier said than done. The animals had been
+willing enough to start when given the word by a stranger; but now
+they did not recognize their master's voice when the boy yelled:
+
+"Yea-a! Yea-a!"
+
+Instead of stopping, the mules went faster and faster. They had
+their bits 'twixt their teeth and were running away in good earnest.
+
+Almost immediately, when the bumping and jouncing wagon got away
+from the store and the two or three neighboring houses, they were in
+the deep woods. There were no farms--no clearings--not even an open
+patch in the timber. The snow lay deep under the pines and firs. The
+road had been used considerably since the last snow, and the ruts
+were deep. Therefore the mules kept to the beaten track.
+
+"Oh, stop them! stop them!" moaned Ruth, clinging to the swaying,
+jouncing cart.
+
+"I can't! I can't!" repeated the terrified boy.
+
+"Oh, you wicked, wicked boy! you'll kill us both!" cried Ruth.
+
+"It's your own fault you're here," returned Fred, sharply. "And I
+wouldn't never have got onto the wagon if you hadn't chased me."
+
+"I believe you are the very worst boy who ever lived!" declared the
+girl from the Red Mill, in both anger and despair. "And I wish I had
+let you go your own wicked way."
+
+"I wish you had," growled Hatfield, and then tried to soothe the
+running mules again.
+
+He was successful in the end. He had driven mules before and
+understood them. The beasts, after traveling at least two miles,
+began to slow down. The wagon was now passing through a wild piece of
+the forest, and it was growing dark very fast. Only the snow on the
+ground made it possible for the boy and girl to see objects at a
+distance.
+
+Ruth was wondering what her friends would think when they missed
+her, and likewise how she would ever get back to the railroad. Would
+Mr. Cameron send back for her? What would happen to her, here in the
+deep woods, even when the mules stopped so that she dared leap down
+from the cart?
+
+And just then--before these questions became very pertinent in her
+mind--she was startled by a wild scream from the bush patch beside
+the road. Fred cried out in new alarm, and the mules stopped dead--
+for a moment. They were trembling and tossing their heads wildly. The
+awful, blood-chilling scream was repeated, and there was the soft
+thudding of cushioned paws in the bushes. Some beast had leaped down
+from a tree-branch to the hard snow.
+
+"A cat-o'-mountain!" yelled Fred Hatfield, and as he shouted, the
+lithe cat sprang over the brush heap and landed in the road, right
+beside the timber cart.
+
+Once Ruth had been into the menagerie of a traveling circus that had
+come to Darrowtown while her father was still alive. She had seen
+there a panther, and the wicked, graceful, writhing body of the beast
+had frightened her more than the bulk of the elephant or the roaring
+of the lion. This great cat, crouching close to the snow, its tail
+sweeping from side to side, all its muscles knotted for another
+spring, struck Ruth dumb and helpless.
+
+Fortunately her gloved hands were locked about the timber on which
+she lay, for the next instant a third savage scream parted the
+bewhiskered lips of the catamount and on the heels of the cry the
+mules started at full gallop. The panther sprang into the air like a
+rubber ball. Had the mules not started the beast must have landed
+fairly upon the boy and the girl clinging to the reach of the timber
+wagon.
+
+But providentially Ruth Fielding and her companion escaped this
+immediate catastrophe. The savage beast landed upon the wagon,
+however--far out upon the end of the timber, beyond the rear wheels.
+Mad with fright, the mules tore on along the wood road. There were
+many turns in it, and the deep ruts shook them about terrifically.
+Ruth and Fred barely retained their positions on the cart--nor was
+the catamount in better situation. It hung on with all its claws,
+yowling like the great Tom-cat it was.
+
+On and on plunged the poor mules, sweating and fearful. Ruth and
+Fred Hatfield clung like mussels to a rock, while the panther bounded
+into the air, screeching and spitting, always catching the tail of
+the cart as it came down--afraid to leap off and likewise afraid to
+hang on.
+
+The mules came to a hill. They were badly winded by now and their
+pace grew slower. The panther scratched along the reach nearer to the
+two human passengers, and Ruth saw its eyes blazing like huge
+carbuncles in the dusk. There was a fork of the roads at the foot of
+the hill. Fred Hatfield uttered a shriek of despair as the mules took
+the right hand road and struck into the bush itself--a narrow and
+treacherous track where the limbs of the trees threatened to brush
+all three passengers from the cart at any instant.
+
+"Oh! oh! we're done for now!" yelled Fred. "They've taken the road
+to Rattlesnake Hill. We'll be killed as sure as fate!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+FIRST AT SNOW CAMP
+
+
+Fred Hatfield's fears might have been well-founded had the mules not
+been so winded. They had run at least four miles from the railroad
+and even with the fear of the snarling panther behind them they could
+not continue much farther at this pace.
+
+But over this rougher and narrower road the timber cart jounced more
+than ever. In all its life the panther had probably never received
+such a shaking-up. The mules had not gone far on what Fred called the
+Rattlesnake Hill Road when, with an ear-splitting cry, the huge cat
+leaped out from the flying wagon and landed in the bush.
+
+"We're saved!" gasped Ruth. "That dreadful beast is gone."
+
+Fred immediately tried to soothe the mules into a more leisurely
+pace; but nothing but fatigue would bring them down. Thoroughly
+frightened, they kept starting and running without cause, and there
+was no chance in this narrow road to turn them.
+
+The fact that it ascended the side of the hill steeply did more
+toward abating the pace of the runaways than aught else. The track
+crept along the edge of several abrupt precipices, too--not more than
+thirty or forty feet high, but enough to wreck the wagon and kill
+mules and passengers had they gone over the brink.
+
+These dangerous places in the winding road were what had so
+frightened young Hatfield at first. He knew this locality well. But
+to Ruth the place was doubly terrifying, for she was lost--completely
+lost.
+
+"Oh, where are we going? What will become of us?" she murmured,
+still obliged to cling with both hands to the jumping, rocking reach.
+
+The mules could gallop no longer. Fred yelled at them "Yea-a! Yea-a!"
+at the top of his voice. They began to pay some attention--or
+else were so winded that they would have halted of their own
+volition. And as the cart ceased its thumping and rumbling a light
+suddenly blazed up before them, shining through the dusk, and higher
+up the hill.
+
+"What is that? A house?" cried Ruth, seizing Fred by the shoulder.
+
+Not more than half an hour ago the girl from the Red Mill had
+slipped out of the private car at the Emoryville Crossing, in pursuit
+of the runaway youth; now they were deep in the wilderness and
+surrounded by such dangers as Ruth had never dreamed of before.
+
+The baying of a hound and the angry barking of another dog was
+Ruth's only answer. She turned to see Fred Hatfield sliding down off
+the cart.
+
+"You sha'n't leave me!" cried Ruth, jumping down after him and
+seizing the runaway desperately. "You sha'n't abandon me in this
+forest, away from everybody. You're a cruel, bad boy, Fred Hatfield;
+but you've just _got_ to be decent to me."
+
+"What did you interfere for, anyway?" he demanded, snarling like a
+cross dog. "Lemme go!"
+
+But if Ruth was afraid of what terrors the forest might hold, and of
+her general situation, she had seen enough of this boy to know that
+he was just a poor, miserable coward--he aroused no fear in her heart.
+
+"I'm going to just stick to you, Freddie," she assured him. She was
+quite as strong as he, she knew. "You are going home. At least, you
+shall go back to Mr. Cameron--"
+
+Just then the flare of light ahead broadened and a gruff voice
+shouted:
+
+"Hullo! what's wanted? Down, Tiger! Behave, Rose!"
+
+The dogs instantly stopped their clamor. The light came through the
+open door and the glazed window of a little hut perched on a rock
+overlooking the road. The mules had halted just below this eminence,
+and Ruth saw that there was a winding path leading up to the door of
+the hovel. Down this path came the huge figure of a man, with the two
+dogs gamboling about him in the snow. The occupant of this cabin in
+the wilderness carried a rifle in one hand.
+
+"Hullo!" he said again. "That's Sim Rogers's team--I know those
+mules. Are you there, Sim? What's happened ye?"
+
+"Who is it?" whispered Ruth, again, still clinging to Fred's jacket.
+
+"It's--it's the Rattlesnake Man," returned the boy, in a shaking
+voice.
+
+"Who is he?" asked Ruth, in surprise.
+
+"He lives here alone on the hill. He's a hermit. They say he's
+crazy. And I guess he is," added Fred, with a shudder.
+
+"Why do you think he's crazy?"
+
+But before Fred could reply--if he intended to--the hermit reached
+the road. He was an old but very vigorous-looking man, burly and
+stout, with a great mat of riotous gray hair under his fur cap, and a
+beard of the same color that reached his breast. He seemed to have
+very good eyes indeed, for he immediately muttered:
+
+"Ha! Sim's mules--been running like the very kildee! All of a sweat,
+I vow. Two young folks--ha! Scared. Runaway--ah! What's that?"
+
+The dogs began to bay again. Far behind the boy and girl--down the
+hill road--rose the eyrie scream of the disappointed panther.
+
+"That cat-o'-mountain chase ye, boy?" the hermit asked, sharply.
+
+But Fred had no answer. He stood, in Ruth's sharp clutch, and hung
+his head without a word. The girl had to reply:
+
+"I never was so scared. The beast jumped right on the cart and we
+just shook him off down the hill yonder."
+
+"A girl," said the hermit, talking to himself, but talking aloud, in
+the same fashion as before. Without doubt, being so much alone in
+these wilds he had contracted the habit of talking to himself--or to
+his dogs--or to whatever creature chanced to be his company.
+
+"A girl. Not Sim's gal. Sim ain't got nothing but louts of boys. Let
+me see. What boy is this?"
+
+"He is Fred Hatfield," said Ruth, simply. Fred jumped and tried to
+pull away from her; but Ruth's hold was not to be so easily broken.
+The hermit, however, seemed to have never heard the name before. He
+only said, idly:
+
+"Fred Hatfield, eh? You his sister?"
+
+"No, sir. I am Ruth Fielding," she replied.
+
+"Ruth Fielding? Don't know her. She's not belongin' around here. No.
+Well, how'd you get here? And with Sim's mules?"
+
+Ruth told him briefly, but without bringing Fred Hatfield's trouble
+into the story. They had got aboard the timber cart at the crossing,
+the mules had run away, the panther had taken a ride with them and--
+here they were!
+
+The hermit merely nodded in acknowledgment of the tale. His
+questions dealt with her alone:
+
+"Where do you belong?"
+
+"The party I was with are bound for Snow Camp. Do you know where
+that is, sir?" Ruth asked.
+
+"Not ten miles away. Yes."
+
+"They will be worried--"
+
+"I will get you over there before bedtime. Go up to my house and
+wait. This boy and I will stable the mules in my barn; it's just
+along the road here. Sim will follow the beasts and find them; but
+he'll be some time in getting along. He lives along this road himself
+--not far, not far. Ah!"
+
+The old man talked mostly as though he spoke to himself. He seldom
+more than glanced at her, his eye roving everywhere but at the person
+to whom he spoke. Ruth started toward the house from which the fire
+and lamplight shone so cordially. The dogs stood before her--Tiger,
+the big hound, and Rose, a beautiful Gordon setter.
+
+"Let her alone," said the hermit to his canine companions. "She's
+all right."
+
+The dogs seemed to agree with him immediately. The hound sniffed
+once at the hem of Ruth's frock; Rose gambolled about her and licked
+her hand. Ruth now realized how cold she was, and she ran quickly up
+to the open door of the cabin.
+
+On the threshold she hesitated a moment. A great lamp with a tin
+shade, hanging from the rafters, illuminated all the center of the
+room. At one end burned a hot log fire on the hearth; but the two
+further corners were in gloom. Ruth had said she had never seen a log
+cabin, and it was true. This one seemed to her to be a very cozy
+place indeed, even if it was the habitation of a hermit.
+
+As she entered, however, she found that there was a rather
+suffocating, unpleasant odor in the place. It was light, yet
+penetrating enough to be distinguished clearly. In one of the darker
+corners was what appeared to be a big green chest, and it had a
+glazed window frame for a cover. Something rustled there.
+
+The dogs followed her in and she sat down in an old-fashioned, bent
+hickory chair on the hearth--perhaps the hermit himself had just
+risen from it, for there was a sheepskin lying before it for a mat
+and a pair of huge carpet slippers on either side of the sheepskin.
+The dogs came in and sat down by the slippers, just where Ruth could
+rest a hand on either head, and so blinked at the flames while they
+waited for the return of the hermit and the runaway boy.
+
+So she sat when they came into the cabin, stamping the snow from
+their shoes. The hermit led Fred by the arm. He had not overlooked
+the care with which Ruth had retained him by her side.
+
+"So you want to go over to Mr. Parrish's Snow Camp?" asked the old
+man.
+
+"It belongs to Mr. Cameron, now." said Ruth. "I know that there is a
+telephone there, and I can get word to Mr. Cameron and Helen and Tom
+at Scarboro that we are safe."
+
+"I'm not going," said Fred "I'll stay here."
+
+"You'll go along with Young Miss," said the hermit, firmly. "I'll
+git ye a pannikin of tea and a bite. Then we'll start. We'll go
+'cross the woods on snowshoes--'twill be easier."
+
+"Oh, can I do it, do you suppose?" cried Ruth. "I never wore such
+things in my life."
+
+"You'll learn," said the hermit.
+
+He bustled about, making the tea and warming a big pancake of
+cornbread which he put into an iron dripping-pan down before the
+glowing coals at one side. While they waited for the water to bubble
+for the tea the old man went to the big chest, and began to talk and
+fondle something. Ruth heard the rustling again and turned around to
+look.
+
+"Want to see my children, Young Miss?" asked the old man, whose eyes
+seemed as sharp as needles.
+
+Ruth arose in curiosity and approached. Within a yard of the old man
+and his chest she stopped suddenly with a gasp. The hermit stood up
+with two snakes twining about his hands and wrists. The serpents ran
+their tongues out like lightning, and their beady eyes glowed as
+though living fire dwelt in their heads. Ruth was frightened, but she
+would not scream. The hermit handled the snakes as though they were
+as harmless as kittens--as probably they were, the poison sacks
+having been removed.
+
+"They won't hurt you--harmless, harmless," said the old man,
+caressingly. "There, there, my pretties! Go to bed again."
+
+He lifted the glass cover of the chest and dropped them into its
+interior. There was a great hissing and rustling. The hermit stepped
+to the hanging lamp and turned the shade so as to send the radiance
+of it into that corner. Through the pane Ruth saw a squirming mass of
+scaly bodies, mixed up with an old quilt. More than one tail, with
+rows of "buttons" and rattles on it, was elevated, and one angry
+serpent "sprung his rattle" sharply.
+
+"Hush, hush, my dears!" said the hermit, soothingly. "Go to sleep
+again now. My children," he said, nodding at Ruth. "Pretty dears!"
+
+To tell the truth, the girl from the Red Mill wanted to scream; but
+she held herself down, clenching her hands, and saying nothing. The
+kettle began to sing and she was glad to go back to the chair by the
+fire and afterward to sip the tin cup of hot tea that their host gave
+her, and eat with good appetite a square of the crisp cornbread.
+
+Meanwhile, the hermit took from the walls three pairs of great,
+awkward-looking snowshoes and tightened the lacings and fitted thongs
+to them. The pair he selected for Ruth looked to the girl to be so
+big that she never could take a step in them; but he seemed to expect
+her to try.
+
+They went out of the cabin as the moon was rising. It came up as red
+and fiery as the sun had gone down. Long shadows of the tall trees
+were flung across the snow. The hermit commanded Rose, the setter, to
+guard the hut, while he allowed the hound to follow at heel. He
+carried his rifle, and Ruth was glad of this.
+
+"Haven't heard a cat-o'-mountain around here this winter," he said,
+as they started up the hill. "Didn't hear nor see one at all last
+winter. Neighbors will have to get up a hunt for this one that
+troubled you, Young Miss, 'fore it does more damage."
+
+At the top of the ascent they stopped and the old man put on Ruth's
+snowshoes for her. Fred, always without a word and looking mighty
+sullen (but evidently afraid of the rattlesnake man) tied his own in
+place and the hermit slipped into his and they each gave Ruth a hand.
+
+She stood up and found that her weight made little or no impression
+upon the well-packed snow. There was no wind and, although the air
+was very keen (the thermometer probably being almost to the zero
+mark) it was easy for her to move over the drifts. With some little
+instruction from the rattlesnake man, and after several tumbles--
+which were of little moment because he and Fred held her up--Ruth was
+able to put one foot before the other and shuffle over the snow at a
+fairly good pace.
+
+The moonlight made the unbroken track as plain as noonday. To Ruth
+it seemed almost impossible that the hermit could find his way
+through a forest which showed no mark of any former traveler; but he
+went on as though it was a turnpike.
+
+Two hours and a half were they on the way, and Ruth had begun to be
+both tired and cold when they crossed a road on which there were
+telegraph, or telephone poles and then--a little farther into the Big
+Woods--they struck a well-defined private track over which sleds had
+recently traveled.
+
+"You say some of your party and the baggage were coming over to-night,"
+said the hermit to Ruth. "They have been along. This is the road to
+Snow Camp--and there is the light from the windows!"
+
+Ruth saw several points of light directly ahead. They quickly
+reached a good-sized clearing, in the middle of which stood a two-story
+log cabin, with a balcony built all around it at the height of the
+second floor. Sleigh bells jingled as the horses stamped in the
+yard. The heavy sledges with the luggage and the serving people had
+just arrived. Ruth Fielding was the first of the pleasure party to
+arrive at Snow Camp.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+"LONG JERRY" TODD
+
+
+Some dogs began barking, and the hermit's hound replied by baying
+with his nose in the air--a sound to make anybody shiver! The
+Rattlesnake Man gave a lusty shout, and a door opened, flooding the
+porch of the big log cabin with lamplight.
+
+"Hello!" came the answering shout across the clearing, and a very
+tall man--as thin as a lath--strode down from the porch and
+approached them, after sending back the dogs--all but one. This big
+creature could not be stayed in his impetuous rush over the snow and
+the next instant he sprang up and put both his forepaws on Ruth's
+shoulders.
+
+"Oh, Reno!" she cried, fondling Tom Cameron's big mastiff, that had
+come all the way from Cheslow with them in the baggage car.
+"_You_ know me; don't you?"
+
+"Guess that proves her right to be here," said the hermit, more to
+himself than to the surprised tall man, who was the guide and keeper
+in charge of Snow Camp. "Your boss lose one of his party off the
+train, Long Jerry Todd?"
+
+"So I hear. Is this here the gal?" cried the other, in immense
+surprise. "I swanny!"
+
+"Yep. She's all right. I'll go back," said the rattlesnake man,
+without further ado, turning in his tracks.
+
+"Oh, sir!" cried Ruth. "I'm so much obliged to you."
+
+But the hermit slipped away on his snowshoes and in less than a
+minute was out of sight. Then Ruth looked around suddenly for Fred
+Hatfield. The runaway had disappeared.
+
+"Where's that boy?" she cried.
+
+"What boy?" returned Long Jerry, curiously. "Didn't see no boy here."
+
+"Why, the boy that came here with us. He left the train at
+Emoryville when I did--you must have seen him."
+
+"I never did," declared the guide. "He must have slipped away. Maybe
+he's gone into the house. You'd better come in yourself. The women
+folks will 'tend to you. Why, Miss, you're dead beat!"
+
+Indeed Ruth was. She could scarcely stumble with the guide's help to
+the porch. She had kicked off the snowshoes and the hermit had taken
+them with him. Had it not been for the hermit and Fred Hatfield, Ruth
+Fielding would never have been able to travel the distance from the
+hermit's cabin to Snow Camp. And the terrible shaking up she had
+received on the timber cart made her feel like singing old Aunt
+Alvirah's tune of "Oh, my back and oh, my bones!"
+
+There were two maids whom Mr. Cameron had brought along and they,
+with two men, had come over from Scarboro (a ride of eight miles, or
+so) with the luggage. They welcomed Ruth and set her down before a
+great fire in the dining room, and one of them removed the girl's
+shoes so that her feet might be dried and warmed, while the other
+hurried to make some supper for the wanderer.
+
+But as soon as Ruth got her slippers on, and recovered a little from
+the exhaustion of her trip, two things troubled her vastly. She
+inquired for the boy again, and learned that he had not been seen
+about the camp. When she and the hermit had entered the clearing,
+Fred had undoubtedly taken the opportunity to slip away.
+
+"And in the night--and it so cold, too," thought Ruth. "What will
+Mr. Cameron say?"
+
+That question brought her to the second of her troubles. Her friends
+would worry about her all night if she did not find some way of
+allaying their anxiety.
+
+"Oh, Mary!" she said to the maid. "Where's the telephone? Tom said
+there was telephone connection here."
+
+"So there is, Miss," returned the maid. "And somebody had better
+tell Mrs. Murchiston that you're safe. They're all as worried as they
+can be about you, for the folks at that store by the railroad--where
+the train stopped--when _they_ was called up as soon as the
+train reached Scarboro, declared that you had got run away with by a
+team of mules."
+
+"Which was most certainly true," admitted Ruth. "I never had such a
+dreadful time in all my life. Run away with by mules, and frightened
+to death by a great big catamount----"
+
+Mary squealed and covered her ears. "Don't tell me!" she gasped.
+"Sure, Miss, there do bes bears, an' panthers, an' wild-cats, an'--
+an' I dunno what-all in these woods. Sure, me and Janey will never go
+out of this house whilst we stay. 'Tain't civilized hereabout."
+
+Ruth laughed rather ruefully. "I guess you're right, Mary," she
+said. "It doesn't seem to be very civilized here in the backwoods--
+and such queer people live here, too. But now! let me telephone."
+
+The maid showed her where it was and Ruth called up Scarboro and got
+the hotel where the Cameron party was stopping. Almost immediately
+she heard Mr. Cameron's voice.
+
+"Hullo! Snow Camp? What's wanted?" he asked, in a nervous, jerky way.
+
+"This is me, Mr. Cameron--Ruth, you know. I am all right at Snow
+Camp."
+
+"Well! That's fine! Thank goodness you're safe!" ejaculated the
+merchant, in an entirely different tone. "Why, Ruth, I was just about
+sending a party out from the store at Emoryville to beat up the woods
+for you. They say there is a big panther in that district."
+
+"Oh, I know it. The beast frightened us most to death--"
+
+"Who was with you?" interrupted Mr. Cameron.
+
+"Why, that boy! He jumped off the train and I followed to stop him.
+Now he's run away again, sir."
+
+"Oh, the boy calling himself Fred Hatfield?" ejaculated Mr. Cameron.
+"He's left you?"
+
+"He came here to Snow Camp and then disappeared. I am sorry--"
+
+"You're a good little girl, Ruth. I wanted to bring him up here--and
+there are people who would be glad to know who he really is."
+
+"But don't you know? Isn't his name Fred Hatfield?" questioned Ruth,
+in surprise.
+
+"That can't be. Fred Hatfield was shot here in the woods more than a
+month ago. It was soon after the deer season opened, they tell me,
+and it is supposed to have been an accident. Young 'Lias Hatfield,
+half-brother of the real Fred, is in jail here, held for shooting his
+brother. Who the boy was whom we found and brought from the Red Mill,
+seems to be a mystery."
+
+"Oh!" cried Ruth, but before she could say more, Mr. Cameron went on:
+
+"We'll all be over in the morning. I hope you have not taken cold,
+or overtaxed your strength, I must go and tell Helen. She has been
+frightened half to death about you. Goodnight."
+
+He hung up the receiver, leaving Ruth in rather a disturbed state of
+mind. The newspaper clipping that had dropped out of the old wallet
+the strange boy had carried, was the account of the shooting affair.
+Mention was made in it about the very frequent mistakes made in the
+hunting season--mistakes which often end in the death of one hunter
+by the hand of another.
+
+It said that 'Lias Hatfield and his younger brother, Fred, had had a
+quarrel and then gone hunting, each taking a different direction. The
+younger boy had ensconced himself just under the brink of a steep
+bank at the bottom of which was Rolling River, a swift and deep
+stream. His brother's story was that he had come up facing this
+place, having started a young buck not half a mile away. He thought
+he heard the buck stamping, and blowing, and then saw what he thought
+was the animal behind a fringe of bushes at the top of this steep
+river bank.
+
+The hunter blazed away, and heard a dreadful scream, a rolling and
+thrashing in the brush, and a splash in the river. He ran forward and
+found his brother's old gun and tippet. There was blood on the
+bushes. The supposition was that Fred Hatfield had been shot and had
+rolled into the swift-flowing river. 'Lias had given himself up to
+the authorities and there seemed some doubt in the minds of the
+people of Scarboro as to whether the shooting had been an accident.
+
+"If there was no body found," thought Ruth, all the time she was
+eating the supper that Mary brought her, "how do they know Fred
+Hatfield is really dead? And if he _is_ dead, who is the boy who
+is traveling about the country using Fred Hatfield's name and
+carrying Mr. Hatfield's old wallet? I guess Fred has run away,
+instead of being killed, and is staying away because he hates his
+brother 'Lias, and wishes him to get into trouble about the shooting.
+If that's so, isn't he just the meanest boy that ever was?"
+
+Long Jerry Todd came in with a huge armful of wood for the fire, and
+Ruth determined to pump him about the accident. The tall man knew all
+about it, and was willing enough to talk.
+
+He sat down beside the fire and answered Ruth's questions most
+cheerfully.
+
+"Ya-as, I knowed old man Hatfield," he said. "He's been dead goin'
+on ten year. That Fred wasn't good to his mother. His half-brothers--
+children of Old Man Hatfield's fust wife--is nicer to their marm than
+Fred was. Oh, ya-as! he was shot by 'Lias, all right. I dunno as
+'Lias meant to do it. Hope not. But they found Fred's body in the
+river t'other day, and so they arrested 'Lias."
+
+But Long Jerry hadn't seen any sign of the boy that had been with
+Ruth and the hermit when they arrived at Snow Camp. Ruth did not like
+to discuss the mystery with him any more; for it _was_ a mystery
+now, that was sure. Fred Hatfield's body had been found in the river,
+yet a boy was traveling about the country bearing Fred Hatfield's name.
+
+The guide finally unfolded himself and rose slowly to his full
+height, preparatory to going back to the kitchen regions. He was
+nearly seven feet tall, and painfully thin. He grinned down upon Ruth
+Fielding as she gazed in wonder at his proportions.
+
+"I'm some long; ain't I, Miss?" he chuckled. "But I warn't no taller
+than av'rage folks when I was a boy. You hear of some folks gettin'
+stunted by sickness, or fright, or the like. Wal, I reckon _I_
+got stretched out longer'n common by fright. Want to hear about it?"
+
+He was so jolly and funny that Ruth was glad to hear him talk and
+she encouraged him to go on. So Jerry sat down again and began his
+story.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+BEARS--AND OTHER THINGS
+
+
+"Ye see," drawled Jerry, "my marm was alive in them days--bless her
+heart! Dad was killed on the boom down Rolling River when I was a
+little shaver; but marm hung on till I got growed. Ya-as! I mean till
+I got clean through growin' and that was long after I voted fust
+time," and he chuckled and wagged his head.
+
+"Wal, mebbe I was sixteen; mebbe seventeen. Boys up here in the
+woods have to cut their own vittles pretty airly. I was doin' a man's
+labor when I was 'leven. Ya-as, Miss! Had to work for me an' marm.
+
+"And marm worked, too. One day I started for Drownville with a big
+bundle of aperns marm had sewed for Mis' Juneberry that kep' store at
+Drownville. She got two bits a dozen for makin' them aperns, I
+remember. Wal, it was a wilder country then than it is now, and I
+never see a soul, nor heard the sound of an axe in walking four
+miles. Just at the end o' them four miles," continued Long Jerry, his
+eyes twinkling, "there was a turn in the road. I swung around it--I
+was travelin' at a good clip--and come facin' up an old she b'ar
+which riz up on her hind laigs an' said: 'How-d'-do, Jerry Todd!'
+jest as plain as ever a bear spoke in its e-tar-nal life!
+
+"Why," said Long Jerry, almost choking with his own laughter, "by
+the smile on thet thar b'ar's face and the way she spread her arms
+wide to receive me, it was plain enough how glad she was ter see me."
+
+"I should think you'd have been scared to death!" gasped Ruth,
+looking down at him.
+
+"Wal, I calculate I was some narvous. I was more narvous in them
+days than I be now. Hadn't seen so much of the world. And sure hadn't
+seen so much o' b'ars," cackled Jerry. "Not bein' used to b'ar
+sassiety I natcherly balked when that ol' she b'ar appeared so
+lovin'. I had pretty nigh walked right into her arms and there wasn't
+much chance to make any particular preparations. Fact was, I didn't
+have nothin' with me more dangerous than a broken jack-knife, and I
+don't know how it might strike you, Miss, but to me that didn't seem
+to be no implement with which to make a b'ar's acquaintance."
+
+"I should think not!" giggled Ruth. "What _did_ you do?"
+
+"Wal, first of all I give her marm's bundle--ya-as I did! I pitched
+that there bundle of aperns right at her, and the way she growled an'
+tore at 'em was a caution, now I tell ye! I seen at once what she'd
+do to me if she got me, so I left them parts, an' left 'em quick! I
+started off through the woods, hittin' only the high spots, and
+fancied I could beat the old gal runnin'. But not on your tin-type!
+No, sir-ree! The old gal jest give a roar, come down on all four
+feet, and started after me at a pace that set me a-thinkin' of my sins.
+
+"Jest as sure as you live, if I'd kept on running she'd had me
+within thirty yards. An' I knew if I climbed a big tree she'd race me
+to the top of it and get me, too. Ye see, a small-round tree was my
+only chance. A b'ar climbs by huggin' their paws around the trunk,
+and it takes one of right smart size to suit them for climbin'.
+
+"I see my tree all right, and I went for it. Missus B'ar, she come
+cavortin' an' growlin' along, and it did seem to me as though she'd
+have a chunk out o' me afore I could climb out o' reach. It was jest
+about then, I reckon," pursued Long Jerry, chuckling again, "when I
+believe I began to grow tall!
+
+"I stretched my arms up as fur as I could, an' the way I shinnied up
+that sapling was a caution to cats, now I tell ye! She riz up the
+minute she got to the tree and tried to scrape me off with both paws.
+She missed me by half a fraction of an infinitessimal part of an inch
+--that's a good word, that 'infinitessimal'; ain't it, Miss? I got it
+off of a college perfesser what come up here, and he said he got it
+straight-away out of the dictionary."
+
+"It's a good word, Mr. Todd," laughed Ruth, highly delighted at the
+man and his story.
+
+"Wal!" chuckled Jerry, "we'll say she missed me. I was so scar't
+that I didn't know then whether she had missed me or was chawin' of
+me. I felt I was pretty numb like below my waist. And how I did
+stretch up that tree! No wonder I growed tall after that day," said
+Jerry, shaking his head. "I stretched ev'ry muscle in my carcass,
+Miss--I surely did!
+
+"There was that ol she b'ar, on her hind legs and a-roarin' at me
+like the Mr. Bashan's Bull that they tell about, and scratchin' the
+bark off'n that tree in great strips. She cleaned the pole, as far up
+as she could reach, as clean as a bald man's head. She jumped as far
+as she could, gnashed her teeth, and tried her best to climb that
+sapling. Every time she made a jump, or howled, I tried to climb
+higher. An', Miss, that was the time I got stretched out so tall, for
+sure.
+
+"The bear, with wide-open mouth, kept on a-jumpin' an' ev'ry time
+she jumped I clumb a little higher, I was so busy lookin' down at her
+that I never looked up to see how fur I was gettin' toward the top,
+so, all of a suddent-like, the tree top begun to bend over with me
+an' sumpin' snapped. 'Twarn't my galluses, neither!" crowed Long
+Jerry, very much delighted by his own tale. "I knowed that, all
+right. Sna-a-ap! she went again, and I begun to go down.
+
+"I swanny! but that was a warm time for me, Miss--it sure was. There
+was that ol' she b'ar with her mouth as wide open as a church door--
+or, so it looked to Jerry Todd. They say a feller that's drowndin'
+thinks over all his hull endurin' life when he's goin' down. I
+believe it. Sure I do. 'Twarn't twenty feet from the top o' that tree
+to the ground, but I even remembered how I stole my sister Jane's rag
+baby when I couldn't more'n toddle around marm's shanty--that's
+right!--an' berried of it in the hog-pen. Every sin that was
+registered to my account come up before me as plain as the wart on
+Jim Biggle's nose!"
+
+"Oh, Mr. Todd!" cried Ruth. "Falling right on that awful bear?"
+
+"That's what I was doin', Miss--and it didn't take me long to do it,
+neither, I reckon. Mebbe the b'ar warn't no more ready to receive me
+than I was to drap down on her. I heard her give a startled _whuff_,
+and she come on all four paws. The next thing I done was to land
+square on her back--I swanny! that was a crack. Purty nigh drove my
+spine up through the top of my head, it did. And the ol' b'ar must ha'
+been mighty sorry arterwards that she was right there to receive me.
+She give a most awful grunt, shook me off onto the ground and kited
+out o' that as though she'd been sent for in a hurry! I swanny! I
+never did see a b'ar run so fast," and Long Jerry burst into an
+uproarious laugh.
+
+"But that, I reckon, is the time I got so stretched out an' begun to
+grow so tall, Miss," he added. "Stretchin' an' strainin' to git away
+from that ol' she b'ar was what done it."
+
+Ruth was delighted with the guide; but she was very tired, too, and
+when the maids came in she was only too glad to fall in with the
+suggestion of bed. She was put to sleep in a great, plainly furnished
+room, where there were three other beds--a regular dormitory. It was
+like one of the Prime sleeping rooms at Briarwood Hall.
+
+And how Ruth did sleep that night after her adventurous day! The sun
+shone broadly on the clearing about the camp when she first opened
+her eyes. Mary put her head in at the door and said:
+
+"Your breakfast will be spoilt, Miss Ruth, or I wouldn't disturb
+you. All the men's ate long ago and Janey's fussin' in the kitchen.
+Besides, the folks will be over from Scarboro in an hour. Mr. Cameron
+just telephoned and asked how you were."
+
+"Oh, I feel fine!" cried the girl from the Red Mill, joyfully.
+
+But when she hopped out of bed she found herself dreadfully stiff
+and lame; the jouncing she had received while riding with the boy
+calling himself Fred Hatfield, and the catamount, on the timber cart,
+and later her first long walk on snow-shoes, had together strained
+her muscles and lamed her limbs to a degree. Old Aunt Alvirah's
+oft-repeated phrase fitted her condition, and she grimly repeated it:
+
+"Oh, my back and oh, my bones!"
+
+But the prospect of the other girls, coming--and Tom and his
+friends, too--and the fun in store for them all at Snow Camp, soon
+made Ruth Fielding forget small troubles. Besides, the muscles of
+youth are elastic and the weariness soon went out of her bones.
+Before the party arrived from Scarboro she had opportunity of going
+all about the great log lodge, and getting acquainted with all it
+held and all that surrounded it.
+
+The great hall on the lower floor was arranged so as to have a broad
+open fireplace at either end. These fires were kept burning day and
+night and the great heaps of glowing logs made the hall, and most of
+the upper rooms, very comfortable indeed. The walls of this hall were
+hung with snowshoes, Canadian toboggans--so light, apparently, that
+they would not hold one man, let alone four, but very, very strongly
+built--guns, Indian bows and sheaf of arrows, fish-spears, and a
+conglomeration of hunting gear for much of which Ruth Fielding did
+not even know the names, let alone their uses.
+
+Outside the snow had been cleared away immediately around the great
+log house and a wide path was cut through the drifts down to a small
+lake, or pond. In coming from Rattlesnake Hill the night before with
+the old hermit, and the boy who called himself Fred Hatfield, they
+had come down a long incline in sight of the camp. Now, Ruth saw that
+a course had been made level upon that hillside, banked up on either
+side with dykes of snow, and water poured over the whole to make a
+perfect slide. There was a starting platform at the top and the
+course was more than half a mile in length, Long Jerry told her.
+
+But when she had seen all these things sleigh bells were heard and
+Ruth ran out to welcome her friends.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE FROST GAMES
+
+
+The big sleigh in which were Helen and the other girls swept into
+the clearing in advance and Ruth's chum led the chorus addressed
+vociferously to the girl from Red Mill.
+
+"Oh, Ruthie!"
+
+"The lost is found!"
+
+"And she got here first--wasn't that cute of her?"
+
+"Oh, _do_ tell us all about it, Ruth," cried Lluella Fairfax.
+
+"However could you scare us so, Ruthie?" cried Jennie Stone, the
+heavyweight. "I was so worried I was actually sick."
+
+"And that is positively 'no error,'" laughed Belle Tingley. "For
+once Heavy was so troubled that she couldn't eat."
+
+Helen was out of the sleigh at once and hugged Ruth hard. "You
+blessed girl!" she cried. "I was _so_ afraid something dreadful
+had happened to you."
+
+"And what became of that horrid boy Mr. Cameron tried to take to
+Scarboro?" demanded Madge Steele.
+
+The boys piled out of their sledge before Ruth could answer these
+questions, and she was unable to give a very vivid explanation of all
+that had happened to her since leaving the train, until the whole
+party was gathered before one of the open fires in the hall, waiting
+for dinner. Before this hour came, however, and while the rest of the
+young folks were getting acquainted with the possibilities of Snow
+Camp, Ruth had a serious talk with Mr. Cameron regarding the
+mysterious boy who had disappeared on the verge of the Snow Camp
+reservation.
+
+"I don't know how he escaped us. He sped away through the woods with
+the old hermit's snowshoes--I am sure of that. And that old
+Rattlesnake Man didn't seem to be bothered at all by his loss," Ruth
+said.
+
+"Perhaps that hermit knows something about the fellow. We'll look
+into that," said the merchant, gravely. "However, Ruth, you did what
+you thought was right. It was reckless. I cannot commend you for
+leaving the train, child. Something dreadful might have happened to
+you."
+
+"I thought something dreadful _did_ happen to me," said Ruth, with a
+shudder, "when those mules ran away and that catamount leaped up on
+the timber cart."
+
+"I believe you! And your going to the cabin of that rattlesnake
+catcher. They say he is mad, and he handles the serpents just as
+though they were white mice. The people hereabout are afraid of him,"
+said Mr. Cameron, earnestly.
+
+"He was as kind as he could be to me," said Ruth, shaking her head.
+"I don't think I should ever be afraid of him. His eyes are kind. But
+the snakes--oh! they did frighten me dreadfully."
+
+"From what I hear of this young man, 'Lias Hatfield, who is in jail
+at Scarboro, he is a decent lad and has worked hard for his
+stepmother. The half-brother he shot was about the age of this boy we
+found down home. But _his_ body was recovered from the river
+only the other day when they arrested 'Lias. I shall make it my
+business to see the Hatfields personally and learn, if possible, how
+a stranger like that boy who came here with you, Ruth, could have
+obtained Mr. Hatfield's old wallet."
+
+"He had some deep interest in the mystery of this shooting,"
+declared Ruth, and she told the merchant of the newspaper clipping
+that had dropped out of the old wallet when she had undertaken to dry
+the boy's clothing at the Red Mill.
+
+Meanwhile, the other young folks were highly delighted over the
+possibilities for fun at Snow Camp. Tom and his friends did not pay
+much attention to what was inside the great log house; but before
+noon they knew all that was to be done outside and were unhappy only
+because they did not know which to do first. In addition, Busy Izzy
+had exhausted himself and every man about the place, asking
+questions; and finally Tom and Bob gagged him with his own
+handkerchief and threatened to tie him up and not give him any dinner
+if he did not stop it.
+
+"But _do_ let him ask for a second helping to pudding, boys,"
+urged the kind-hearted Heavy. "It's going to be fine--I had a taste
+of the dough. Mary says it's 'Whangdoodle Pudding, with Lallygag
+Sauce'; but you needn't be afraid of the fancy name she gives it,"
+added the plump girl, rolling her eyes. "It's just scrumptious!"
+
+They laughed at Heavy's ecstasies, yet all did full justice to the
+pudding. Such a hearty appetite as everybody had! The snapping cold
+and the odor of balsam and pine gave a tang to the taste that none of
+them had ever known before. The girls were full of plans for quiet
+hours around the great open fires, as well as for the out-of-door
+fun; but Tom was leader on this first day of the vacation at Snow
+Camp, and he declared for skating in the afternoon.
+
+Even Mrs. Murchiston went down to the pond.
+
+The boys took turns in pushing her about in an ice-chair. But Mr.
+Cameron put on skates and proved himself master of them, too. Long
+Jerry came down to watch them and grinned broadly at the boys' antics
+on the ice. Jerry was no skater; but he was stringing snowshoes and
+by the morning would have enough ready for the whole party and
+promised to teach the young folk the art of walking on them in half a
+day.
+
+That afternoon on the ice only put an edge on the appetite of the
+whole party for the frost games. "Plenty of time to make those
+pine-needle pillows for the girls at Briarwood, if we have a stormy day,"
+quoth Helen Cameron. "We mustn't mope before the fire this evening.
+The moon is coming up--big as a bushel and red as fire! Oh, we'll
+have some fun this night."
+
+"What now?" demanded Madge Steele. "I see the boys have stolen out
+after supper. A sleigh ride?"
+
+"No; although that would be fun," said Helen.
+
+"Oh, dear! Can't we take it easy this evening?" whined Heavy, after
+a mighty yawn. "I _was_ so hungry--"
+
+"You shouldn't give way to that dreadful appetite of yours, Jennie
+Stone!" cried Belle Tingley. "If there's any fun afoot I want to be
+in it."
+
+"Come on! All ready!" shouted the boys outside the house, and the
+sextette of girls ran to get on their wraps.
+
+They bundled out of the house to find Tom, Bob and Isadore each
+drawing a long, flat, narrow toboggan. Helen clapped her hands and
+shouted:
+
+"Fine! fine! See these sleds, girls."
+
+"We're going to shoot the chutes, Heavy," sang out Madge. "Do you
+think you can stand it?"
+
+"Now, don't any of you back out," Tom said. "Each of us will take
+two girls on his sled. There's plenty of room."
+
+"You'd better draw matches for us," said the irrepressible Heavy.
+"That is, if you intend drawing _us_--two to each toboggan--to
+the top of that slide. I never did care much for boys--they are
+greedy; but which one of you could drag Madge and me, for instance,
+up that hill?"
+
+"We draw the line at that," cried Tom. "Those who can't toddle along
+to the top of the chute needn't expect to ride to the bottom."
+
+They all hurried off, laughing and shouting. It was a most beautiful
+moonlight night. Save their own voices, only the distant barking of a
+fox broke the great silence that wrapped the snow-clad country about.
+None of the grown folk followed them. The party had the hill to
+themselves.
+
+It being a race to the hill-top, with the first two girls to take
+their places on the toboggan of the first boy, naturally Heavy was
+out of the running, and bound to be last. She came panting to the
+starting platform, and found Ruth waiting to share Isadore's sled
+with her.
+
+Tom, with Madge and Belle, had already shot down the icy chute. Bob
+Steele, with Lluella and Helen before him, dropped over the verge of
+the platform and their toboggan began to whiz down the pathway, as
+Jennie plumped down upon the remaining toboggan.
+
+"Come on, Ruthie! You're a good little thing to wait for me--and I
+guess Tom Cameron didn't like it much, either? He wanted you."
+
+"Nonsense, Jennie," returned Ruth, with a laugh. "What does it
+matter? As long as we all get a slide--"
+
+"Hurry up, now," cried Busy Izzy, troubled because he was behind his
+comrades, if the girls were not. "Sit tight."
+
+He pushed the toboggan over the edge of the drop almost before Ruth
+was settled behind Jennie. He flung himself upon the sled, sitting
+sideways, and "kicked" them over the drop. The toboggan struck the
+icy course and began to descend it like an arrow shot from a bow.
+Jennie Stone shrieked a single, gasping:
+
+"Oh!"
+
+The toboggan whizzed down the path, with the low, icy dykes on
+either hand, and so rapidly that their eyes watered and they could
+not see. It seemed only a breath when the third toboggan shot onto
+the level at the bottom, and they passed the crew of the first sled
+already coming back. It was exhilarating sport--it was delightful.
+Yet every time they started Ruth felt as though the breath left her
+lungs and that she couldn't catch it again until they slowed down at
+the bottom of the hill.
+
+She would have felt safer with one of the other boys, too. Isadore
+Phelps was none too careful, and once the toboggan ran up one of the
+side dykes and almost spilled them on the course.
+
+"Do look out what you are about, Isadore," Ruth begged, when they
+reached the bottom of the slide that time. "If we should have a spill----"
+
+"Great would be the fall thereof!" grinned Isadore, looking at
+Heavy, puffing up the hill beside them.
+
+"You take care now, and don't spatter me all over the slide," said
+the cheerful stout girl, whose doll-like face was almost always
+wreathed in smiles.
+
+But Isadore was really becoming reckless. To tell the truth, Bob and
+Tom were laughing at him. He had been the last to get away each time
+from the starting platform, and he could not catch up with the
+others. Perhaps that was the stout girl's fault; but Ruth would climb
+the hill no faster than Jennie, and so the third toboggan continued
+far behind the others. As they panted up the hill Tom and his two
+companions shot past and waved their hands at them; then followed Bob
+Steele's crew and Helen shouted some laughing gibe at them. Isadore's
+face grew black.
+
+"I declare! I wish you girls would stir yourselves. Hurry up!" he
+growled quite ungallantly.
+
+"What's the hurry?" panted Heavy.
+
+"There's nobody paying us for this; is there? Let 'em catch up with
+us and then we will be--all--to--geth--er--Woof! My goodness me, I'm
+winded," and she had to stop on the hill and breathe.
+
+"Go on and leave us. Take one trip by yourself, Isadore," said Ruth.
+
+"No, I won't," returned Phelps, ungratefully. "Then they'll all gab
+about it. Come along; will you?"
+
+"Don't you mind him, Jennie," whispered Ruth. "I don't think he's
+very nice."
+
+They got aboard the toboggan once more and Isadore recklessly flung
+himself on it, too, and pushed off. At the moment there came a shrill
+hail from below. Tom was sending up some word of warning--at the very
+top of his voice.
+
+But the three just starting down the slide could not distinguish his
+words.
+
+Jennie shut her eyes tight the moment the toboggan lurched forward,
+so she could not possibly see anything that lay before them. Ruth
+peered over the stout girl's shoulder, the wind half blinding her
+eyes with tears. But the moonlight lay so brilliantly upon the track
+that it was revealed like midday. Something lay prone and black upon
+the icy surface of the slide.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+PERIL--AND A TAFFY PULL
+
+
+It seemed to Ruth Fielding, as the toboggan dashed down the chute
+toward that strange object in their course, as though her lips were
+glued together. She could not speak--she could not utter a sound.
+
+And yet this inaction--this dumbness--lasted but a very few seconds.
+The thing upon the slide lay more than half way down the hill--a
+quarter of a mile ahead when her stinging eyes first saw it.
+
+Toward it the sled rushed, gathering speed every moment, and the
+object on the track grew in her eyes apace. When her lips parted she
+screamed so that Isadore heard her words distinctly:
+
+"Stop, Izzy! There's something ahead! Look!"
+
+Of course it was foolish to beg of the boy to stop. Nothing could
+halt them once they had started upon the icy incline. But her cry
+warned Isadore of the peril ahead.
+
+He echoed her cry, and was as panic-stricken as the girl herself. At
+first, the thing looked like somebody lying across the slide. Had one
+of their friends fallen off either of the other toboggans, and been
+too hurt to rise? Then, the next instant, both Isadore and Ruth knew
+that the thing was too small for that.
+
+It was really a jacket that Bob Steele had tied about his neck by
+the arms. On the way down the sleeves had become untied and the
+jacket had spread itself out upon the slide to its full breadth.
+
+It didn't seem as though such a thing could do the coming toboggan
+any harm; but Ruth and Isadore Phelps knew well that if it went upon
+the outspread coat there would be a spill. It would act like a brake
+to the sled, and that frail vehicle on which the three young folk
+rode would stop so abruptly that they would be flung off upon the icy
+course.
+
+Ruth at least understood this peril only too well; but she made no
+further outcry. Jennie Stone's eyes were still tight shut.
+
+One moment the outspread jacket lay far before them, across the
+path. The next instant--or so it seemed--they were right upon it.
+
+"Hang on!" yelled Isadore, and shot his boot-heel into the icy
+surface of the slide.
+
+The toboggan swerved. Jennie uttered a cry. The sled went up the
+left hand dyke like a bolting horse climbing a roadside wall or a
+side hill.
+
+In Ruth's ears rang the shouts of their friends, who were coming
+hastily up the hillside. They could do nothing to help the endangered
+crew, nor could the latter help themselves.
+
+Up the toboggan shot into the air. It leaped the shoulder of the
+dyke and--crew and all--darted out into space.
+
+That was certainly an awful moment for Ruth Fielding and her two
+companions. Jennie's intermittent squeal turned into a sudden shriek--
+as keen and nerve-racking as the whistle of a locomotive. Isadore
+Phelps "blew up" with a muffled roar as he turned half a somersault
+in the air and landed headfirst in a huge snowdrift.
+
+That is how the girls landed, too. At least, if they didn't dive
+headfirst into the drift, they were pretty well swallowed up in it.
+And it was providential that they all did find such a soft cushion
+when they landed.
+
+Their individual shrieks were broken off suddenly by the smothering
+snow. Their friends, on the other side of the slide, came plunging
+across the course, and Bob Steele, slipping on the smooth surface,
+kicked up both feet high in the air, landed with a crash on the small
+of his back, and finished the slide to the very bottom of the chute
+in that most undignified position.
+
+Bob's accident turned the whole affair into a most ludicrous scene.
+Tom Cameron laughed so hard that he scarcely had the strength to help
+the girls out of the snowdrift. As for Isadore, he had to scramble
+out by himself--and the soft snow had got down his neck, and he had
+lost his hat, his ears were full of snow, and altogether he was in
+what Madge Steele called "a state of mind."
+
+"Huh!" Izzy growled, "you all can laugh. Wait! I'll get square with
+you girls, now, you better believe that."
+
+And he actually started off for the camp in a most abused state. The
+others could not help their laughter--the more so that what seemed
+for a few seconds to promise disaster had turned out to be nothing
+but a most amusing catastrophe.
+
+This ended the coasting for this particular evening, however. Jennie
+Stone was pried out of the snowdrift last of all, and they all went
+to the bottom of the hill where Bob Steele sat with his back against
+a tree trunk, waiting, as he said, for the "world to stop turning
+around so fast." His swift descent had made him dizzy.
+
+They all ran back to Snow Camp, catching up with Isadore before he
+got there with his grouch, and Tom and Bob fell upon the grouch and
+dumped it into another snowbank--boy and all--and managed in the
+scuffle to bring Busy Izzy into a better state of mind.
+
+"Just the same," he declared, "I'll get square with those girls for
+laughing at me--you see if I don't!"
+
+"A lot of good that'll do you," returned Tom Cameron. "And why
+shouldn't they laugh? Do you suppose that the sight of you on your
+head in a snowbank with your legs waving in the wind was something to
+make them _weep_? Huh!"
+
+But when they got inside the big hall, where the two fires burned,
+Izzy forgot his grouch. There was a basket of popcorn and several
+"poppers" and the crowd of young folk were soon shelling corn and
+popping it, turning the fluffy, snow-white kernels into big bowls,
+over which thick cream was poured, and, as Jennie declared, "they ate
+till they couldn't eat another crumb!"
+
+"Isn't it just grand?" cried Belle Tingley, when the girls had
+retired to the big room in which Ruth Fielding had slept alone the
+night before. "I never did know you could have so much fun in the
+woods in the dead of winter. Helen! your father is just the dearest
+man to bring us up here! We'll none of us forget this vacation."
+
+But in the morning there were new things to go and learn. The
+resources of Snow Camp seemed unending. As soon as breakfast was over
+there was Long Jerry ready with snowshoes for all. Tom and Helen, as
+well as Bob Steele, were somewhat familiar with these implements. And
+Ruth had had one unforgettable experience with them.
+
+But at first there were a good many tumbles, and none of the party
+went far from the big lodge on this occasion. They came into the mid-day
+dinner pretty well tired, but oh, how hungry!
+
+"I declare, eating never seemed so good before," Bob Steele
+murmured. "I really wish I could eat more; but room I have not!"
+
+Heavy went to sleep before the fire directly after the meal, but was
+awakened when the girls all trooped out to the kitchen to make
+molasses taffy. The boys had gone with Long Jerry to try to shoot
+squirrels; but they came back without having any luck before the
+girls were fairly in possession of Janey's kitchen.
+
+"Let us help--aw, do!" cried Tom, smelling the molasses boiling on
+the range and leading the way into the kitchen.
+
+"You can't cook anything good to eat when there are boys within a
+mile, and they not know it," sighed Jennie Stone.
+
+"Or be able to keep them out of it," declared Madge Steele. "I
+suppose we shall have to let them hang around, Helen."
+
+"I tell you!" cried Helen, who never would go back upon her twin,
+and who liked to have him around, "we'll make some nut candy. There's
+nuts--half a bushel of them. The boys must crack and pick the nuts
+and we'll make some walnut taffy--it will be lots nicer than plain
+taffy."
+
+"Oh, well, that _does_ put another face upon the matter,"
+laughed Lluella Fairfax.
+
+"But they must all three whistle while they're picking out the
+nuts," cried Heavy. "I know them! The nut meats will never go into
+the taffy pan if they don't whistle."
+
+Tom and his chums agreed to this and in a few minutes they were all
+three sitting gravely on the big settee by the fire, a flatiron in
+each boy's lap, each with a hammer and the basket of nuts in reach,
+and all dolefully whistling--with as much discord as possible. The
+whistling did certainly try the girls' nerves; but the boys were not
+to be trusted under any other conditions.
+
+Busy Izzy, however--that arch schemer--had not forgiven the girls
+for laughing at his overset on the toboggan slide the night before.
+And as he sat whistling "Good Night, Ladies" in a dreadful minor, he
+evolved such a plan for reprisal in his fertile mind that his eyes
+began to snap and he could hardly whistle for the grin that wreathed
+his lips.
+
+"Keep at it, Mr. Isadore Phelps!" cried Ruth, first to detect Izzy's
+defection. "We're watching you."
+
+"Come! aren't we going to have a chance to eat a single kernel?"
+Izzy growled.
+
+"Not one," said Helen, stoutly. "After you have the nuts cracked and
+picked out, we'll spread the kernels in the dripping pans, the taffy
+will then be ready, we'll pour it over, and then set the candy out to
+cool in the snow. After that we'll give you some--if you're good."
+
+"Huh!" grunted Isadore. "I guess I know a trick worth two of that.
+We'll get our share, fellows," and he winked at Tom and Bob.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+SHELLS AND KERNELS
+
+
+The three boys stuck to their work, with only a whisper or two,
+until there was a great bowl of nutmeats, and Ruth pronounced the
+quantity sufficient. Meanwhile, the taffy was boiling in the big
+kettle, and Ruth and Jennie had buttered three dripping pans. They
+spread the nutmeats evenly in the pans and then set the pans
+carefully on a snowdrift outside the back door to get thoroughly cold
+before the taffy was poured thinly over the nuts.
+
+Everybody was on the _qui vive_ about the candy then. The girls
+couldn't drive the boys out of the room. The bubbling molasses filled
+the great kitchen with a rich odor. Jennie began popping corn with
+which to make cornballs of the taffy that could not be run into the
+three pans of nuts.
+
+Isadore Phelps disappeared for possibly three minutes--no longer;
+and the girls never missed him.
+
+At last the candy could be "spun" and Ruth pronounced it ready to
+pour into the pans outside. Isadora said he would help--the kettle
+was too heavy for the girls to carry. He was adjured to be very, very
+careful and the girls followed him to the door in a body when he
+carried out the steaming couldron.
+
+"Do pour it carefully, Izzy!" cried Helen.
+
+"If that boy spoils it, I'll never forgive him," sighed Heavy.
+
+Ruth ran out after him. But Isadore took great care in pouring the
+mixture into the pans as he had been instructed, and even she had no
+complaint to make. He hurried back to the kitchen, too, poured the
+residue of the boiled molasses upon the popcorn and they made up the
+cornballs at once.
+
+"Come on, now," said Izzy, in a great hurry. "Give us fellows our
+share of the cornballs and we'll beat it. We're going skating. We'll
+help you eat your old candy when we come back.
+
+"Maybe it will be all gone by that time," said Heavy, slily.
+
+"I wish you joy of it, then, Miss Smartie," returned Isadore,
+chuckling. "Come on, fellows."
+
+They seized their skates and ran away. Isadore could hardly talk for
+laughter; and he carried a good sized paper bag besides his share of
+the popcorn balls.
+
+The girls "cleaned up"--for that had been the agreement with Janey
+when she let them have her kitchen--and then sat down before the hall
+fire to make pine pillows, of which they were determined to take a
+number to Briarwood to give to their friends. Helen had bought a lot
+of denim covers stamped and lettered with mottoes, including the
+ever-favorite "I Pine for Thee and Likewise Balsam."
+
+But although they were very merry around the fire, Heavy could not
+long be content. The popcorn balls disappeared like magic and the
+stout girl kept worrying the others with questions about the taffy.
+
+"Don't you suppose that candy's cool? I declare! those boys might
+play a joke on us--they might creep back and steal all three pans."
+
+"Dear me, Jennie!" cried Ruth Fielding. "If you are so anxious, why
+don't you run and bring a pan in? We'll see if it's brittle enough to
+break up."
+
+Heavy sighed, but put down her work and arose. "It's always I who
+has to do the work," she complained.
+
+"Bring the pan in here and break the candy," advised Madge Steele.
+"We'll have to watch you."
+
+Heavy came back with one of the candy pans in short order, bringing
+a hammer, too, with which to crack the brittle taffy.
+
+"Come! we'll see how it tastes; and if it's good enough," she added,
+smiling broadly, "we won't let the boys have even a little bit. They
+were mean enough to go off skating without us."
+
+She cracked up a part of the candy, passed the pan around quickly,
+and popped a piece into her own mouth. In a moment she spat the candy
+into the fire, with a shriek, and put her hand to her jaw.
+
+"Oh! oh! oh!" she cried.
+
+"What's the matter with you, Heavy?" demanded Helen, startled.
+
+"Oh, I've broken a tooth I believe. Oh!"
+
+"Why were you so greedy?" began Madge, sedately. And then, suddenly,
+she stopped chewing the bit of candy she had taken into her mouth,
+and a sudden flush overspread her face.
+
+"Why, here's a piece of nutshell!" cried Lluella.
+
+"How careless those boys were!" Helen added. "They got some of the
+shells in with the meat."
+
+"We should have expected it," Belle cried. "They never should have
+been trusted to crack the nuts."
+
+"Oh, girls!" gasped Ruth, who had quickly examined the candy in the
+pan.
+
+Her voice was tragic, and the others looked at her (all but Madge)
+in surprise. "What have those horrid boys done?" demanded Jennie Stone.
+
+"They've spoiled it all!" Ruth cried. "There's nothing but shells in
+the candy. They've ruined it!"
+
+"Oh! oh! oh!" shrieked Heavy again. "It can't be true!"
+
+"It can be, for it is!" said Madge Steele, decidedly. "Those mean
+boys! I certainly will fix Bob for that."
+
+"And Tom!" cried Helen, almost in tears. "How could he be so mean?"
+
+"I don't believe Tom did it, Helen," said Ruth, slowly.
+
+"He was just as bad as the others, I venture to say," Madge said,
+sharply.
+
+"If he is, I won't speak to him for a month!" cried his twin sister.
+"We won't have anything more to do with them while we are here--there
+now! Oh, how mean!"
+
+"Maybe it's only one pan that is this way," suggested Heavy, timidly.
+
+They all ran out to see. The other pans were just like the first
+one. The nut meats had been removed and shells scattered in the pans
+instead. No wonder Isadore Phelps had wanted to pour the molasses
+taffy!
+
+"And they've got all the meats," said Belle Tingley. "They are
+eating them and chuckling over the trick right now, I wager."
+
+"It's a mean, mean trick!" gasped Helen, in a temper. "I never will
+forgive Tom. And I just hate those other boys."
+
+"You're welcome to hate Bobbie," said Madge. "He deserves it."
+
+"_Such_ a contemptible joke!" groaned Belle.
+
+"Let's make some more," Ruth suggested. "And we won't give them any."
+
+"No. I don't want to go all through it again," Helen said, shaking
+her head.
+
+At that moment the telephone rang. Ruth was nearest and she jumped
+up and answered the call. At the other end of the wire an excited
+female voice demanded:
+
+"Is this Snow Camp?"
+
+"Yes," replied Ruth, "it is."
+
+"Mr. Cameron's camp?"
+
+"Yes. But he is not in the house just now."
+
+"Aren't any of your men-folks there?" queried the excited voice.
+
+"I guess most of the men are drawing in logs for the fires," said
+Ruth. "What is the matter?"
+
+"I want to warn you all to look out for the panther. It is supposed
+to be coming your way--towards Snow Camp. The beast has just killed a
+pig for us, and was frightened away. It's done other damage to-day
+among the neighbors' cattle. Do you hear me?"
+
+"Oh, I hear you!" cried Ruth, and then held her hand over the
+mouthpiece and spoke to the other girls: "That panther--that
+catamount!" she cried. "It is supposed to be coming this way. Where
+is your father, Helen? And Long Jerry Todd?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+A TELEPHONE CHASE
+
+
+The excited screaming of the other girls brought Mrs. Murchiston to
+the hall in a hurry. When she heard what had caused the excitement
+she called the maids, intending to send one of them for Mr. Cameron.
+
+But just then the woman--a farmer's wife along the road--began
+talking to Ruth again, and the maids learned from her answers into
+the 'phone the cause of the excitement. Go out into the open when the
+catamount might be within a couple of miles of the lodge? No, indeed!
+
+Mary threw her apron over her head and sank down on the floor,
+threatening hysterics. Janey was scared both dumb and motionless.
+These women who had lived all their lives in towns, or near towns,
+were not fit to cope with the startling incidents of the backwoods.
+
+The woman on the wire explained to Ruth that she was telephoning all
+along the line toward Scarboro, warning each farmer of the big cat's
+approach.
+
+"But if it keeps on in the same direction it was going when we saw
+it last, the creature will strike Snow Camp first," declared the
+excited lady. "You must get your men out with guns and dogs to stop
+the beast if you can. It's mad with hunger and it will do some
+dreadful damage if it is not killed."
+
+Ruth repeated this to her friends, and asked Mrs. Murchiston what
+they should do.
+
+"If the baste comes here," cried Mary, the maid, "he can jump right
+into these low winders. We'll be clawed to pieces."
+
+"There are heavy shutters for these windows," Mrs. Murchiston said,
+faintly. "But they are to heavy for us to handle--and I suppose they
+are stored in one of the outbuildings, anyway."
+
+"Why, I wouldn't go out of doors for a fortune!" cried Lluella
+Fairfax.
+
+"But the creature isn't here yet," Ruth said, doubtfully.
+
+"How do you know how fast he's traveling?" returned Helen, quickly.
+
+"But think of the boys down there skating," said her chum.
+
+"Oh, oh!" gasped Jennie. "If that panther eats them up they'll be
+more than well paid for spoiling our taffy."
+
+"Hush, Jennie!" commanded Madge. "This is no time for joking. How
+are we going to warn them--and the men in the woods?"
+
+"And father?" cried Helen Cameron.
+
+"Oh, I wouldn't _dare_ go out!" gasped Belle Tingley.
+
+But Ruth ran out into the big kitchen and opened the door. The
+outbuildings were not far away, but not a soul appeared about them.
+There seemed to be a brooding silence over the whole place. The men
+were so deep in the woods that she could not hear a sound from them;
+nor was the ring of skates on the pond apparent to her ear.
+
+"Come back, Ruth! come back!" begged her chum, who had followed her.
+"Suppose that beast should be hiding near?"
+
+"I don't suppose he's within a mile of the camp," said Ruth, her
+voice unshaken. "There are all the guns in the hall--even the little
+shotguns. I don't suppose the men have a gun with them, and of course
+the boys have not. And both parties should be warned. I'm going----"
+
+"Oh, Ruth! you're mad!" cried Helen. "You mustn't go."
+
+"Who'll go, then?" demanded her friend. "I guess we're all equally
+scared--Mrs. Murchiston and all."
+
+"Nobody will go----"
+
+"I'm going!" declared Ruth, firmly. "If the panther is coming from
+that woman's house--the woman who telephoned--then the pond is in the
+very opposite direction. I'll take Tom's rifle and some cartridges."
+
+"But you don't know how to shoot!" cried Helen.
+
+"We ought to know. It's a shame that girls don't learn to handle
+guns just like boys. I'm going to get Long Jerry Todd to show me how."
+
+While she spoke she had run into the hall and caught up Tom's light
+rifle. She knew where his ammunition was, too. And she secured half a
+dozen cartridges and put them into the magazine, having seen Tom load
+the gun the day before.
+
+"You'll shoot yourself!" murmured Helen.
+
+"I hope not," returned Ruth, shaking her head. "But I hope I won't
+have a chance to shoot the panther. I don't want to see that awful
+beast again."
+
+"I don't see how you dare, Ruth Fielding!" cried Helen.
+
+"Huh! It isn't because I'm not afraid," admitted her chum. "But
+somebody must tell those boys, dear."
+
+Ruth had already seized her coat and cap. She shrugged herself into
+the former, pulled the other down upon her ears, and catching up the
+loaded gun ran out of the kitchen just before Mrs. Murchiston, who
+had suddenly suspected what she was about, came to forbid the
+venture. Ruth, however, was out of the house and winging her way down
+the cleared path toward the pond, before the governess could call to
+her.
+
+"Oh, she will be killed, Mrs. Murchiston!" cried Helen, in tears.
+
+"Not likely," declared that lady. "But she should not have gone out
+without my permission."
+
+Nor was Ruth altogether as courageous as she appeared. She did not
+suppose that the huge cat that had so frightened her and the strange
+boy that Mr. Cameron had brought up from Cheslow, was very near Snow
+Camp as yet. Yet she glanced aside as she ran with expectation in her
+eyes, and when of a sudden something jumped in the bushes, she almost
+shrieked and ran the faster.
+
+There was a crash beside the path, the bushes parted, and a great,
+fawn-colored body leaped out into the path.
+
+"Oh, Reno!" Ruth cried. "I never _was_ so frightened! You bad
+dog--I thought you were the cat-o'-mountain."
+
+But immediately she felt that her fear was gone. Here was Tom's
+faithful mastiff, whose tried courage she knew, and which she knew
+would not fail her if they came face to face with the panther.
+
+She hurried on, nevertheless, to the pond, to warn the boys; but to
+her surprise, as she approached the ice, she heard nothing of the
+truants. There was no ring of steel on the ice, nor were their voices
+audible. When Ruth Fielding reached the ice, the pond was deserted.
+
+"Now what could have happened to them? Where have they gone?"
+thought the girl.
+
+She hesitated, not alone staring about the open pond, but looking
+sharply on either side into the snow-mantled woods. Reno remained by
+her and she had a hand upon his collar. Should she shout? Should she
+call for Tom Cameron and his mates? If she called, and the terrible
+cat was within earshot, it might be attracted to her by the sound.
+
+"Baby!" she finally apostrophized herself. "I don't suppose that
+beast is anywhere near. Here goes!" and she raised her clear voice in
+a lusty shout.
+
+There came, however, no reply. She shouted again and again, with a
+like result.
+
+"Where under the sun could those boys have gone?" was her unspoken
+question. "Could they have returned to the house by some other path?"
+
+But she did not believe this was so. Rather, she was inclined to
+think Tom and his comrades had gone farther than the pond. There was
+a good-sized stream through which the waters of this pond emptied
+into Rolling River. That outlet was frozen over, too, and it would be
+just like the three boys to explore the frozen stream.
+
+Ruth wished that she had brought her skates instead of the gun with
+her. She felt now that the boys should indeed be warned of the
+roaming panther, as they had gone so far from the lodge. Here was
+Reno, too. If she told the mastiff to find Tom, he would doubtless do
+so. She could even send some written word to the boys by the dog--had
+she a pencil and paper. It would not be the first time that Reno had
+played message-bearer.
+
+But the warn Tom and his companions would not be all Ruth had
+started out to do. Tom was a good shot and a steady hand, she knew.
+With this loaded rifle in his hand the party might feel fit to meet
+the panther, if it so fell out. Without any weapon even the noble
+mastiff might prove an insufficient protection.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE BATTLE IN THE SNOW
+
+
+It was a fact that Ruth was tempted to run back to the house, just
+as fast as she could go, and from there send Reno out to find his
+young master. Whether the dog could have traced Tom on the ice,
+however, is a question, for Ruth did not yield to this cowardly
+suggestion. She had come out with the gun to find the boys, and her
+hesitation at the edge of the pond was only momentary.
+
+She started down the pond toward the stream, seeing the scratches of
+the boys' skates leading in that direction. There could be no doubt
+as to where they had gone. Ruth only wished that she had brought her
+skates when she ran so hastily from Snow Camp.
+
+Not a sound reached her ears, save the sharp twitter of a sparrow
+now and then, the patter of Reno's feet on the ice, and the rattle of
+the loaded rifle against the buttons of her sweater-coat. The forest
+that surrounded the pond seemed uninhabited. The axes of the woodsmen
+did not echo here, and the boys must indeed be a great way off, for
+she could distinguish no sound whatever from them.
+
+Yet she had no doubt that she was following their trail--not even
+when she came down to the outlet of the pond. The strokes of the
+skates upon the ice were still visible. The three boys had certainly
+gone down the frozen stream.
+
+"Come on, Reno!" she exclaimed aloud, encouraging herself in her
+duty. "We'll find them yet. They certainly could not have gone clear
+to Rolling River--that's ten miles away!"
+
+The stream was not ten yards across--nothing more than a creek. The
+woods and underbrush shut it in closely. There was not a mark in the
+snow on either hand of footsteps--not that Ruth could see. And how
+heavy the afternoon silence was!
+
+Ruth had recovered in a measure from the first fear she had felt of
+the marauding panther. The beast, had he traveled toward Snow Camp,
+was likely miles away from the spot. She had determined to go on and
+find Tom and the others, more that they might be warned of peril on
+approaching Snow Camp, than for any other reason.
+
+And she did wish, now, that Tom and the other boys would appear. She
+was more than a mile--quite two miles, indeed--from the lodge.
+
+"I guess Mr. Cameron will call me reckless again. He suggested that
+I was that when I followed Fred Hatfield--or whatever his name was--
+from the cars at Emoryville. He'll surely scold me for this," thought
+Ruth.
+
+She kept on down the stream, however, and at last began to shout for
+her boy friends. Her clear voice rang from wall to wall of the
+forest; but it could not have been heard far into the snowy depths on
+either hand. Suddenly Reno growled a little, sniffed, and the hair
+upon his neck began to rise.
+
+"Now, there's no use your doing that, boy," Ruth declared, clutching
+the mastiff tight by the collar with her left hand, while she
+balanced the rifle in her right. "If you hear them, bark! Tom will
+know it's you, then, and your bark will carry farther than my voice,
+I do believe."
+
+Reno whined, and looked from side to side, sniffing the keen, still
+air. It seemed as though he scented danger, but did not know for sure
+from which direction it was coming.
+
+"You're scaring me, acting so, Reno!" exclaimed Ruth. "I wish you
+wouldn't. I can't help feeling that the panther is right behind me
+somewhere. Oh!"
+
+The end of her soliloquy was a shriek. Something flashed through the
+brush clump on her left hand. Reno broke into a savage barking and
+sprang toward the bank. But Ruth did not lose her grip on his collar,
+and her hand restrained him.
+
+"Oh, Tom! Tom!" the girl cried.
+
+There was another movement in the bushes. It was between Ruth and
+the way to the camp, had she been so foolish as to try to reach the
+house directly through the woods. But she did face up stream again,
+and had Reno been willing to accompany her she would have run as hard
+as ever she could in that direction.
+
+"Come, Reno! Come, good dog!" she gasped, tugging at his collar.
+"Let it alone--we must go back----"
+
+Reno uttered another savage growl and sprang upon the bank. The hard
+packed snow crunched under him. There sounded a scream from the brush
+--a sound that Ruth knew well. The catamount was really at hand--there
+could be no mistaking that awful cry, once having heard it.
+
+The dog burst through the bushes with such a savage clamor that Ruth
+was indeed terrified. She sprang after him, however, hoping to drag
+him back from any affray with the panther. What would Tom Cameron say
+if anything happened to his brave and beautiful Reno?
+
+It was past the girl's power, however, to stay the mastiff. With
+angry barks he broke through the barrier and entered a small glade
+not a stone's throw from the bank of the stream. Before Ruth reached
+this cleared place she saw the tracks of the beast which had so
+startled her. There could be no mistaking the round impressions of
+the great, padded paws. Unlike the print of the bear, or the dog,
+that of the cat shows no marks of claws unless it be springing at its
+prey.
+
+And now, when Reno burst into the open, the panther uttered another
+fierce and blood-chilling scream. Ruth noted the flash of the great,
+lithe body as the beast sprang into the air. Startled for the moment
+by the on-rush and savage baying of the dog, the panther had leaped
+into a low-branching cedar. The tree shook to its very tip, and to
+the ends of its great limbs. There the panther crouched upon a limb,
+its eyes balefully glaring down upon the leaping, growling mastiff.
+
+As Ruth remembered the creature from the time of her dreadful ride
+on the timber cart with the so-called Fred Hatfield, it displayed a
+temper and ferocity that was not to be mistaken. Reno's sudden
+onslaught was all that had driven it to leap into the tree. But there
+it crouched, squalling and tearing the hard wood into splinters with
+its unsheathed claws. In a moment it would leap down upon the dog,
+and Ruth was horror-stricken.
+
+"Oh, Reno! Good dog!" she moaned. "Come back! come back!"
+
+The mastiff would not obey and in a moment the huge cat sprang out
+of the tree directly upon Tom Cameron's faithful companion. Reno was
+too sharp to be easily caught, however; he leaped aside and the sabre-like
+claws of the panther missed him. Nor was the dog unwise enough
+to meet the panther face to face.
+
+He sprang in and bit the cat shrewdly, and then got away before the
+beast wheeled, yelling, to strike him. Round and round in the snow
+they went, so fast that it was impossible for Ruth to see which was
+dog and which was cat, their paws throwing up a cloud of snow-dust
+that almost hid the combatants.
+
+"Ah!" cried Ruth, aloud. "I've missed my chance, I should have tried
+to shoot the creature while it was in the tree."
+
+And that seemed true enough. For had she been the best of shots with
+the rifle, it looked now as though she was as likely to shoot Reno as
+the panther whilst they battled in the snow.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+AN APPEARANCE AND A DISAPPEARANCE
+
+
+The dog's snapping barks and the squalling of the catamount stilled
+every other sound to Ruth Fielding's ears. She had fallen back to the
+edge of the clearing, and knew not what to do.
+
+She feared desperately for Reno's safety; but for the moment did not
+know what she might do to help the faithful beast.
+
+She tripped upon a branch and fell to her knees, and the butt of the
+rifle which she had clung to, struck her sharply in the side.
+
+"Oh! if I had only learned to use a gun!" gasped the distracted girl.
+"_Could_ I shoot straight enough to do any good, if I tried? Or would
+I kill the poor dog?"
+
+At the moment Reno expressed something beside rage in his yelping.
+He sprang out of the cloud of snow-spray with an agonized cry, and
+Ruth saw that there was blood upon his jaws, and a great gash high up
+on one shoulder.
+
+"Oh! the poor fellow! Poor Reno!" gasped Ruth Fielding. "He will be
+killed by that hateful brute."
+
+Spurred by this thought she did not rise from her knee, but threw
+the barrel of the gun forward. It chanced to rest in the crook of a
+branch--the very branch over which she had tripped the moment before.
+She drew the butt of the gun close to her shoulder; she drew back the
+hammer and tried to sight along the barrel. Suddenly she saw the
+tawny side of the panther directly before her--seemingly it was at
+the end of the rifle barrel.
+
+The beast was crouching to leap. Ruth did not know where Reno then
+was; but she could hear him whimpering. The mastiff had been sorely
+hurt and the panther was about to finish him.
+
+And with this thought in her mind, Ruth steadied the rifle as best
+she could and pulled the trigger. The sharp explosion and the shriek
+of the panther seemed simultaneous. Through the little drift of smoke
+she saw the creature spring; but it did not spring far. One hind leg
+hung useless--there was a patch of crimson on the beaten snow--the
+huge cat, snarling and yowling, was going around and around, snapping
+at its own leg.
+
+But that flurry was past in a moment. The snow-dust subsided. Ruth
+had sprung to her feet, dropping the rifle, delighted for the moment
+that she should have shot the panther.
+
+But she little knew the nature and courage of the beast. On three
+legs only the huge cat writhed across the clearing, having spied the
+girl; and now, with a fierce scream of anger, it crouched to spring
+upon Ruth. She seemed devoted to the panther's revenge, for she was
+smitten with that terror which shackles voice and limb.
+
+"Oh, Reno! Reno!" she whispered; but the sound did not pass her own
+lips. The dog was not in sight He lay somewhere in the bushes,
+licking his wounds. The fierce panther had bested him, and now
+crouched, ready to spring upon the helpless girl.
+
+With a snarl of pain and rage the beast leaped at her. Its broken
+leg caused it to fall short by several yards, and the pain of the
+injured limb, when it landed, caused the catamount to howl again and
+tear up the snow in its agony.
+
+Ruth could not run; she was rooted to the spot. She had bravely shot
+at the creature once. Better had it been for her had she not used the
+rifle at all. She had only turned the wrath of the savage cat from
+Reno to herself.
+
+And Ruth realized that she was now its helpless quarry. She could
+neither fight nor run. She sank back into the snow and awaited the
+next leap of the panther.
+
+At this very moment of despair--when death seemed inevitable--there
+was a crash in the bushes behind her and a figure broke through and
+flung itself past her. A high, shrill, excited voice cried:
+
+"Give me that gun! Is it loaded?"
+
+Ruth could not speak, but the questioner saw instantly that there
+were cartridges in the magazine of Tom Cameron's gun. He leaped
+upright and faced the crouching cat.
+
+The panther, with a fearful snarl, had to change the direction of
+its leap. It sprang into the air, all four paws spread and its
+terrible claws unsheathed. But its breast was displayed, too, to the
+new victim of its rage.
+
+Bang!
+
+The rifle spat a yard of fire, which almost scorched the creature's
+breast. The impact of the bullet really drove the cat backward--or
+else the agony of its death throes turned the heavy body from its
+victim. It threw a back somersault and landed again in the snow,
+tearing it up for yards around, the crimson tide from its wounds
+spattering everything thereabout.
+
+"Oh, it's dead!" cried Ruth, with clasped hands, when suddenly the
+beast's limbs stiffened. "You've killed it!"
+
+Then she had a chance to look at the person who had saved her.
+
+"Fred Hatfield!" she cried. "Is it you? Or, who _are_ you? for
+they all say Fred Hatfield is dead and buried."
+
+"It doesn't matter who I am, Ruth Fielding," said the strange lad,
+in no pleasant tone.
+
+"Never mind. Come and see Mr. Cameron. Come to the camp. He will
+help you----"
+
+"I don't want his help," replied the boy. "I'll help myself--with
+_this_," and he tapped the barrel of the rifle.
+
+"But that belongs to Tom----"
+
+"He'll have to lend it to me, then," declared the boy. "I tell you,
+I am not going to be bound by anybody. I'm free to do as I please.
+You can go back to that camp. There's nothing to hurt you now."
+
+At the moment Ruth heard voices shouting from the frozen stream. The
+boys were skating back toward the pond, and had heard the rifle shots.
+
+"Oh, wait till they come!" Ruth cried.
+
+"No. I'm off--and don't any of you try to stop me," said the boy,
+threateningly.
+
+He slipped on the snowshoes which he had kicked off when he sprang
+for the rifle, and at once started away from the clearing.
+
+"Don't go!" begged Ruth. "Oh, dear! wait! Let me thank you."
+
+"I don't want your thanks. I hate the whole lot of you!" returned
+the boy, looking back over his shoulder.
+
+The next moment he had disappeared, and Ruth was left alone. She
+made a detour of the spot where the dead panther lay and called to
+Reno. The mastiff dragged himself from under a bush. He was badly cut
+up, but licked her hand when she knelt beside him.
+
+"Hello! who's shooting over there?" cried Tom Cameron from the stream.
+
+"Oh, Tom! Tom! Come and help me!" replied Ruth, and in half a minute
+the three boys, having kicked off their skates, were in the glade.
+
+"Merciful goodness!" gasped Bob Steele. "See what a beast that is!"
+
+Tom, with a cry of pain, dashed forward and fell beside Ruth to
+examine the mastiff.
+
+"My poor dog!" he cried. "Is he badly hurt? What's happened to him?"
+
+"Did she shoot that panther?" demanded Isadore Phelps. "Look at it,
+Tom!"
+
+"Reno isn't so badly hurt, Tom," Ruth declared. "I believe he has a
+broken leg and these cuts. He dashed right in and attacked the
+panther. What a brave dog he is!"
+
+"But he never killed the beast," said Bob. "Who did that?"
+
+"Who was shooting here? Where's the gun, Ruth?" Tom demanded, now
+giving some attention to the dead animal.
+
+Ruth related the affair in a few words, while she helped Tom bind up
+Reno's wounds. The young master tore up his handkerchiefs to do duty
+as bandages for the wounded dog.
+
+"We'll carry him to camp--we can do it, easily enough, old man,"
+said Bob Steele.
+
+"And what about the panther? Don't we want his pelt?" cried Isadore.
+
+"We'll send Long Jerry after that," Tom said. "I wish that fellow
+hadn't run away with the rifle. But you couldn't help it, Ruth."
+
+"He certainly is a bad boy," declared the girl. "Yet--somehow--I am
+sorry for him. He must be all alone in these woods. Something will
+happen to him."
+
+"Never mind. We can forgive him, and hope that he'll pull through
+all right, after he saved you, Ruthie," Tom said. "Come on, now,
+Bobbins. Lend a hand with the poor dog."
+
+Tom had removed his coat and in that, for a blanket, they carried
+Reno through the woods to the camp. It was a hard journey, for in
+places the snow had drifted and was quite soft. But in less than an
+hour they arrived at the lodge.
+
+The men had come in with the wood by that time, and Mr. Cameron with
+them. Mrs. Murchiston and the girls were greatly worried over Ruth's
+absence and the absence, too, of the three boys. But the death of the
+catamount, and the safety of all, quickly put a better face upon the
+situation.
+
+Ruth was praised a good bit for her bravery. And Mr. Cameron said:
+
+"There's something in that poor boy whom we tried to return to his
+friends--if the Hatfields _are_ his friends. He does not lack
+courage, that is sure--courage of a certain kind, anyway. I must see
+to his business soon. I believe the Hatfields live within twenty
+miles of this place, and in a day or two I will ride over and see
+them."
+
+"Oh! let us all go, father," urged Helen. "Can't we go in the
+sleighs we came over in from Scarboro?"
+
+"Don't take them, sir," said Mrs. Murchiston. "I shan't feel safe
+for them again until we get out of these woods."
+
+"Why, Mis' Murchiston," drawled Long Jerry, who had come into the
+hall with a great armful of wood, "there ain't a mite of danger now.
+That panther's killed--deader'n last Thanksgivin's turkey. There may
+not be another around here for half a score of years."
+
+"But they say there are bears in the woods," cried the governess.
+
+"Aw, shucks!" returned the woodsman. "What's a b'ar? B'ar's is
+us'ally as skeery as rabbits, unless they are mighty hungry. And ye
+don't often meet a hungry bear this time o' year. They are mostly
+housed up for the winter in some warm hole."
+
+"But what would these girls do if they met a bear, Mr. Todd?" asked
+Mr. Cameron, laughing.
+
+"Why, this here leetle Ruth Fielding gal, _she'd_ have pluck
+enough to shoot him, I reckon," chuckled Long Jerry. "And she
+wouldn't be the first girl that's shot a full growed b'ar right in
+this neighborhood."
+
+"I thought you said there wasn't any around here, Jerry?" cried Helen.
+
+"This happened some time ago, Miss," returned the woodsman. "And it
+happened right over yon at Bill Bennett's farm--not four mile from
+here. Sally Bennett was a plucky one, now I tell ye. And pretty--wal,
+I was a jedge of female loveliness in them days," went on Long Jerry,
+with a sly grin. "Ye see, I was lookin' 'em all over, tryin' to make
+up my mind which one of the gals I should pick for my partner through
+life. And Sally was about the best of the bunch."
+
+"Why didn't you pick her then?" asked Tom.
+
+"She got in her hand pickin' first," chuckled Jerry. "And she picked
+a feller from town. Fac' is, I was so long a-pickin' that I never got
+nary wife at all, so have lived all my life an old bachelder."
+
+"But let's hear about Sally and the bear," proposed Ruth, eagerly,
+knowing what a resourceful story-teller Long Jerry was.
+
+"Come Jerry, sit down and let's have it," agreed Mr. Cameron, and
+the party of young folk drew up chairs, before the fire. Long Jerry
+squatted down in his usual manner on the hearth, and the story was
+begun.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+LONG JERRY'S STORY
+
+
+"Ol' man Bennett," began Jerry Todd, "warn't a native of this neck
+o' woods. He come up from Jarsey, or some such place, and bringed his
+fam'bly with him, and Sally Bennett. She was his sister, and as he
+was a pretty upstandin' man, so was she a tall, well-built gal. She
+sartain made a hit up here around Scarboro and along Rollin' River.
+
+"But she wasn't backwoods bred, and the other girls said she was
+timid and afraid of her shadder," chuckled Long Jerry. "She warn't
+afraid of the boys, and mebbe that's why the other gals said sharp
+things about her," pursued the philosophical backwoodsman. "You
+misses know more about that than I do--sure!
+
+"Howsomever, come the second spring the Bennetts had been up here,
+Mis' Bennett, old Bill's wife, was called down to see her ma, that
+was sick, they said, and that left Miss Sally to keep house. Come the
+first Saturday thereafter and Bennett, _he_ had to go to Scarboro
+to mill.
+
+"You know jest how lonesome it is up here now; 'twas a whole sight
+wuss in them days. There warn't no telephone, and it was more than
+'two hoots and a holler,' as the feller said, betwixt neighbors.
+
+"But Old Bill's going to mill left only Miss Sally and the three
+little boys at home. Bennett had cleared a piece around the house,
+scratched him a few hills of corn betwixt the stumps the year before,
+and this spring was tryin' to tear out the roots and small stumps
+with a pair o' steers and a tam-harrer.
+
+"So, from the door of the cabin he'd built, Sally could see the
+virgin forest all about her, while she was a-movin' about the room
+getting dinner for the young 'uns. While she was at work the littlest
+feller, Johnny, who was building a cobhouse on the floor, yelps up
+like a terrier:
+
+"'Aunt Sally! Aunt Sally! Looker that big dog!"
+
+"Miss Sally, she turns around, an' what does she see but a big brown
+bear--oh, a whackin' big feller!--with his very nose at the open door."
+
+"Oh!" squealed Helen.
+
+"How awful!" cried Belle Tingley.
+
+"A mighty onexpected visitor," chuckled Jerry. "But, if she was
+scar't, she warn't plumb stunned in her tracks--no, sir! She gave a
+leap for the door and she swung it shut right against Mr. B'ar's
+nose. And then she barred it."
+
+"Brave girl," said Mrs. Murchiston.
+
+"I reckon so, ma'am," agreed the guide. "And then she remembered
+that Tom and Charlie, the other two boys, were gone down the hill to
+a spring for a bucket of fresh water.
+
+"There were two doors to the cabin, directly opposite each other,
+and they'd both been open. The spring was reached from the other door
+and Miss Sally flew to it and saw the boys just comin' up the hill.
+
+"'Run, boys, run!' she screams. 'Never mind the water! Drop it and
+run! There's a b'ar in the yard! Run! Run!'
+
+"And them boys _did_ run, but they held fast to their bucket
+and brought most of the water inter the house with 'em. Then Miss
+Sally barred that door, too, and they all went to the winder and
+peeped out. There was Mister B'ar snoopin' about the yard, and
+lookin' almost as big as one of the steers.
+
+"He went a-sniffin' about the yard, smellin' of everything like
+b'ars do when they're forragin', s'archin' for somethin' ter tempt
+his appetite. Suddenly he stood stock still, raised his big head, and
+sniffed the air keen-like. Then he growled and went straight for the
+pig-pen.
+
+"'Oh, the pigs! the pigs!' squealed one of the boys. 'The nice pigs!
+He'll eat 'em all up!'
+
+"And there was a good reason for their takin' on," said Jerry, "for
+their next winter's meat was in that pen--a sow and five plump little
+porkers.
+
+"'Oh, Aunty Sally,' cries one of the bigger boys, 'What shall we do?
+What'll father say when he comes back and finds the pigs killed?'
+
+"Ye see," continued Long Jerry, shaking his head, "it was a tragedy
+to them. You folks livin' in town don't understand what it means for
+a farmer to lose his pigs. Old Bennett warn't no hunter, and wild
+meat ain't like hog-meat, anyway. If the b'ar got those porkers them
+young 'uns would go mighty hungry the next winter.
+
+"Miss Sally, she knew that, all right, and when the boy says: 'What
+shall we do?' she made up her mind pretty quick that she'd got to
+_try_ ter do sumpin'--yes, sir-ree! She run for her brother's rifle
+that hung over the other door.
+
+"'I'm goin' to try and shoot that b'ar, boys,' says she, jest as
+firm as she could speak.
+
+"'Oh, Aunt Sally! you can't,' says Tom, the oldest.
+
+"'I don't know whether I can or not till I try,' says she. She felt
+like Miss Ruthie did--eh?" and the long guide chuckled. "No tellin'
+whether you kin do a thing, or not, till you have a whack at it.
+
+"'Don't you try it, Aunt Sally,' says Charlie. 'He might kill you.'
+
+"'I won't give him a chance at me,' says she. 'Now boys, let me out
+and mind jest what I say. If anything _does_ happen to me, don't
+you dars't come out, but go in and bar the door again, and stay till
+your father comes back. Now, promise me!'
+
+"She made 'em promise before she ventured out of the door, and then
+she left 'em at the open door, jest about breathless with suspense
+and terror, while Miss Sally sped across the yard toward the pig-pen.
+Mister Ba'r, he'd torn down some of the pine slabs at one corner and
+got into the pen. The old sow was singin' out like all Kildee, and
+the little fellers was a-squealin' to the top o' their bent. The b'ar
+smacked one o' the juicy little fellers and begun to lunch off'n him
+jest as Miss Sally come to the other end o' the pen.
+
+"His back was towards her and he didn't notice nothin' but his pork
+vittles," pursued Long Jerry. "She crept up beside him, poked the
+barrel of the Winchester through the bars of the pen, rested it on
+one bar, and pulled the trigger. The ball went clear through the old
+feller's head!
+
+"But it takes more'n one lucky shot to kill a full grown brown
+b'ar," Jerry said, shaking his head. "He turned like a flash, and
+with a horrid roar, made at her, dropping the pig. His huge carcass
+smashing against the pen fence, snapped a white-oak post right off at
+the ground, and felled two lengths of the fence.
+
+"But Miss Sally didn't give up. She backed away, but she kept
+shootin' until she had put three more balls into his big carcass. He
+sprung through the broke-down fence to get at her; but jest as he got
+outside, the blood spouted out of his mouth, and he fell down,
+coughing and dying. 'Twas all over in ten seconds, then."
+
+"My goodness!" gasped Jennie Stone. "How dreadful."
+
+"But wasn't she a brave girl?" cried Helen.
+
+"Not a bit braver than Ruthie," said her twin, stoutly.
+
+"I could almost forgive you for spoiling our taffy after that,
+Master Tom," declared Helen. "Is that all the story, Mr. Todd?" she
+added, as the long guide rose up to go.
+
+"Pretty near all, I reckon, Missy," he returned. "Nobody didn't
+never say Sally Bennett was afraid, after she'd saved Bill's meat for
+him. And that ol' b'ar pelt was a coverin' on her bed till she was
+married, I reckon. But things like that don't happen around here
+now-a-days. B'ars ain't so common--and mebbe gals ain't so brave,"
+and he went away, chuckling.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+"THE AMAZON MARCH"
+
+
+There had been no open battle between the girls and the boys over
+the spoiled taffy; but that night, when the six friends from
+Briarwood Hall retired to their big sleeping room, they seriously
+discussed what course they should take with the three scamps who had
+played them so mean a trick; for even Helen admitted that one boy was
+probably as guilty as another.
+
+"And that Isadore Phelps had the cheek to ask me how I liked the
+taffy!" exclaimed Heavy. "I could have shaken him!"
+
+"The panther scare spoiled their 'gloat' over us, that's a fact,"
+said Madge Steele. "But I intimated to that brother of mine that I
+proposed to see the matter squared up before we left Snow Camp."
+
+"I'd like to know how we'll get the best of them?" complained Lluella.
+
+"That's so! Mrs. Murchiston won't let us have any freedom," said
+Belle. "She's on the watch."
+
+"I expect she would object if we tried anything very 'brash,'" said
+Heavy. "We have got to be sly about it."
+
+"I do not know how much at fault Tom and Mr. Steele are," said Ruth,
+quietly. "But so much has happened since they spoiled the candy, that
+I had all but forgotten the trick."
+
+"There now! Ruth will forgive, of course," said Helen, sharply. "But
+I won't. They ought to be paid back."
+
+"Wouldn't it be best to just cut them right out of our good times?"
+suggested Belle.
+
+"But won't that cut us out of their good times?" urged Heavy. "And
+boys always do think up better fun than girls."
+
+"I never would admit it!" cried Madge.
+
+"You always have been a regular Tom-boy, Jennie," said Lluella.
+
+"You ought to be ashamed to say such a thing, Miss Stone," added
+Belle.
+
+"Well, don't they?" demanded the unabashed stout girl.
+
+"Then it's because we girls don't put ourselves out to think up new
+and nice things to do," proclaimed Madge Steele.
+
+"Perhaps girls are not as naturally inventive as boys," suggested
+Ruth, timidly.
+
+"I won't admit it!" cried Madge.
+
+"At least," said the girl from the Red Mill,
+
+"We don't want to do anything mean to them just because they were
+mean to us."
+
+"Why not?" demanded Belle, in wonder.
+
+"That wouldn't be nice--nor any fun," declared Ruth, firmly. "A joke--yes."
+
+"Do you call it a joke on us--spoiling our taffy and stealing the
+nutmeats?" wailed Heavy.
+
+"What else was it? It was a joke to them. There was a sting to it
+for us. We must pay them back in like manner, but without being mean
+bout it."
+
+"Well now!" cried Helen. "I'd like to see you do it, Ruth."
+
+"Perhaps we can think of a plan," said Ruth, gaily. "I for one shall
+not lose any sleep over it. But if you want to pay them off by
+showing how much we disapprove of their actions, and have nothing to
+do with their schemes to-morrow, I will agree."
+
+"We'll begin that way," said Madge Steele, promptly. "Treat them in
+a dignified manner and refuse to join in any games with them. That is
+what we _can_ do."
+
+"Oh, well," sighed the irrepressible Heavy. "We're bound to have a
+dreadfully slow day, then. Good-night!"
+
+It began by being a gray day, too. The sun hidden and the wind
+sighed mournfully in the pines. Long Jerry cocked his head knowingly
+and said:
+
+"It's borne in on me, youngsters, that you'll see a bit of hard
+weather before the New Year--that it do."
+
+"A snowstorm, Jerry?" queried Helen Cameron, clapping her hands.
+"Oh, goody!"
+
+"Dunno about it's being so everlastin' good," returned the guide.
+"You never see a big snow up in these woods; did ye?"
+
+"No, Jerry; but I want to. Don't you Ruth?"
+
+"I love the snow," admitted Ruth Fielding. "But perhaps a snowstorm
+in the wilderness is different from a storm in more civilized
+communities."
+
+"And you're a good guesser," grunted Long Jerry. "Anyhow, unless I'm
+much mistook, you'll have means of knowin' afore long."
+
+"Then," said Helen, to Ruth, "we must get the balsam to-day for our
+pillows. It won't snow yet awhile, will it, Jerry?"
+
+"May not snow at all to-day," replied the guide. "This weather we've
+had for some days has been storm-breeding, and it's been long comin'.
+It won't be soon past, I reckon."
+
+This conversation occurred right after breakfast. The boys had seen
+by the way the girls acted that there was "something in the wind."
+
+The girls ignored Tom, Bob and Isadore as they chatted at the
+breakfast table, and at once they went about their own small affairs,
+leaving the boys by themselves.
+
+Tom and his mates discussed some plan for a few minutes and then Tom
+sang out: "Who'll go sliding? There's a big bob-sled in the barn and
+we fixed it up yesterday morning. It will hold the whole crowd. How
+long will it take you girls to get ready?"
+
+Helen turned her back on him. Ruth looked doubtful, and flushed; but
+Madge Steele exclaimed: "You can go sliding alone, little boy. We
+certainly sha'n't accompany you."
+
+"Aw, speak for yourself, Miss," growled her brother. Then Bob turned
+deliberately to Helen and asked: "Will you go sliding, Helen?"
+
+"No, sir!" snapped Helen.
+
+"Aw, let 'em alone, Bob," said Isadore. "Who wants 'em, anyway?"
+
+Jennie Stone would have replied, only Belle and Lluella shook her.
+It took two girls to shake Heavy satisfactorily. And the entire six
+ignored the three boys, who went off growling among themselves.
+
+"Just for a little old mess of candy," snorted Isadore, who was the
+last to leave the house.
+
+"That's the way to treat them!" declared Madge, tossing her head,
+when the boys had gone.
+
+"I don't know," said Ruth slowly. "We might be glad to have them
+help us get the pine-needles."
+
+"I believe you are too soft-hearted, Ruth Fielding," declared Belle
+Tingley.
+
+"It's because she likes Tom so well," said Lluella, slily.
+
+"Well, Tom never did so mean a thing before yesterday," said Tom's
+sister, sharply.
+
+"Boys are all alike when they get together," said Heavy. "It spoils
+'em awfully to flock in crowds."
+
+"What does it do to girls?" demanded Ruth, smiling.
+
+"Gives them pluck," declared Madge Steele. "We've got to keep the
+boys down--that's the only way to manage them."
+
+"My, my!" chuckled Jennie Stone, the stout girl. "Madge is going to
+be a regular suffragette; isn't she?"
+
+"Well, I guess girls can flock by themselves and have just as good
+times without their brothers, as with them."
+
+But Ruth and Helen looked more than doubtful at this point. They
+knew that Tom Cameron, at least, had been a loyal friend and mate on
+many a day of pleasure. They couldn't bear to hear him abused.
+
+But the girls felt that they really had reason for showing the boys
+they were offended. Soon after the departure of Tom and his friends
+the girls started out with bags to gather the balsam for the pillows.
+On the back porch they sat down to put on the snowshoes which, by
+this time, they were all able to use with some proficiency. The three
+boys, snowballing behind the barn, espied them.
+
+"Hullo!" bawled Busy Izzy. "Here come the Amazons. They're going on
+their own hook now--haven't any use for boys at all."
+
+He threw a snowball; but Tom tripped him into a bank of snow and
+spoiled his aim. "None o' that, Izzy!" he commanded.
+
+"Let 'em alone," growled Bob Steele. "If they want to flock by
+themselves, who cares?"
+
+"Not I!" declared Izzy. "Look at the Amazon March. My, my! if they
+should see a squirrel, or a rabbit, they'd come running back in a
+hurry. They'd think it was another panther. Oh, my!"
+
+But the girls paid no attention to his gibes and shuffled on into
+the woods. Helen suddenly saw a snow flake upon her jacket sleeve.
+She called Ruth's attention to it.
+
+"Maybe the snow will come quicker than Long Jerry thought," declared
+the girl from the Red Mill. "See! there's another."
+
+"Oh, pshaw! what's a little snow?" scoffed Belle Tingley.
+
+But the flakes came faster and faster. Great feathery flakes they
+were at first. The girls went on, laughing and chatting, with never a
+thought that harm could befall them through the gathering of these
+fleecy droppings from the lowering clouds.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+BESIEGED BY THE STORM KING
+
+
+Tom Cameron and his two friends were so busy setting up a target and
+throwing iced snow-balls at it, that they barely noticed the first
+big flakes of the storm. But by and by these flakes passed and then a
+wind of deadly chill swept down upon the camp and with it fine
+pellets of snow--not larger than pin-points--but which blinded one
+and hid all objects within ten feet.
+
+"Come on!" roared Bob. "This is no fun. Let's beat it to the house."
+
+"Oh, it can't last long this way," said Isadore Phelps. "My
+goodness! did you ever see it snow harder in your life?"
+
+"That I never did," admitted Tom. "I wonder if the girls have come
+back?"
+
+"If they haven't," said Bob, "they'd better wait where they are
+until this flurry is over."
+
+"I hope they have returned," muttered Tom, as they made their way
+toward the rear of Snow Camp.
+
+The snow came faster and faster, and thicker and thicker. Bob bumped
+square into the side of one of the out-sheds, and roared because he
+found blood flowing from his nose.
+
+"What do you say about this?" he bellowed. "How do we know we're
+going right?"
+
+"Here!" cried Isadore. "Where are you fellows? I don't want to get
+lost in the back yard."
+
+Tom found him (he had already seized the half-blinded Bob by the
+arm) and the three, arm in arm, made their way cautiously to the
+kitchen porch. They burst in on Janey and Mary with a whoop.
+
+"Have the girls got back?" cried Tom, eagerly.
+
+"I couldn't tell ye, Master Tom," said Mary. "But if they haven't
+come in, by the looks of you boys, they'd better."
+
+Tom did not stop to remove the snow, but rushed into the great
+central hall which was used as a general sitting room.
+
+"Where's Helen--and Ruth--and the rest of them?" he demanded.
+
+"Why, Thomas! you're all over snow," said Mr. Cameron, comfortably
+reading his paper before the fire, in smoking jacket and slippers.
+
+"Is it snowing?" queried Mrs. Murchiston, from the warmest nook
+beside the hearth. "Aren't the girls out with you, Tom?"
+
+"What's the matter, my son?" demanded his father, getting up
+quickly. "What has happened?"
+
+"I don't know that anything has happened," said Tom, swallowing a
+big lump in his throat, and trying to speak calmly. "The girls have
+not been with us. They went into the woods somewhere to get stuff for
+their pillows. And it is snowing harder than I ever knew it to snow
+before."
+
+"Oh, Tom!" gasped the governess.
+
+"Come! we'll go out and see about this at once," cried his father,
+and began to get into his out-of-door clothing, including a pair of
+great boots.
+
+"Is it snowing very hard, Tom?" queried the lady, anxiously. "What
+makes you look so?"
+
+For Tom was scared--and he showed it. He turned short around without
+answering Mrs. Murchiston again, and led the way to the kitchen. The
+other boys had shaken off the snow and were hovering over the range
+for warmth.
+
+"Found 'em all right; didn't you?" demanded Bob Steele.
+
+"No. They haven't come in," said Tom, shortly, and immediately Bob
+began pulling on his coat again.
+
+"Oh, pshaw!" said Isadore. "They'll be all right."
+
+"Where are Jerry and the others?" Mr. Cameron asked the maids.
+
+"Sure, sir," said Mary, who was peering wonderingly out of the
+window at the thick cloud of snow sweeping across the pane, "sure,
+sir, Jerry and the min went down in the swamp to draw up some back-logs.
+And it's my opinion they'd better be in out of this storm."
+
+"I agree with you, Mary," returned Mr. Cameron, grimly, as he opened
+the door and saw for the first time just what they had to face. "But
+perhaps they'll pick up the girls on their way home. Trust those
+woodsmen for finding their way."
+
+Tom and Bob followed him out of the house. They faced a wall of
+falling snow so thick that every object beyond arm's length from them
+was blotted out.
+
+"Merciful heavens!" groaned Mr. Cameron. "Your sister and the girls
+will never find their way through this smother."
+
+"Nor the men, either," said Tom, shortly.
+
+"Oh, I say!" exclaimed Bob, "It can't snow like this for long; can
+it?"
+
+"We have never seen a right good snowstorm in the woods," quoth Mr.
+Cameron. "From what the men tell me, this is likely to continue for
+hours. I am dreadfully worried about the girls--"
+
+"What's that?" cried Tom, interrupting him.
+
+A muffled shout sounded through the driving snow. In chorus Mr.
+Cameron and the two boys raised their own voices in an answering shout.
+
+"They're coming!" cried Bob.
+
+"It is Long Jerry Todd and the men--hear the harness rattling?"
+returned Tom, and he started down the steps in the direction of the
+stables.
+
+"Wait! we'll keep together," commanded Mr. Cameron. "I hope they
+have brought the girls with them."
+
+"Oh, but the girls didn't go toward the swamp," returned his son.
+"They started due north."
+
+"Shout again!" commanded Mr. Cameron, and the two parties kept
+shouting back and forth until they met not far beyond the
+outbuildings belonging to the lodge. The great pair of draught horses
+were ploughing through the drifts and the three men were whooping
+loudly beside them.
+
+"Dangerous work this, for you, sir," cried Long Jerry. "You'd all
+better remained indoors. It's come a whole lot quicker than I
+expected. We're in for a teaser, Mr. Cameron. Couldn't scarce make
+out the path through the woods."
+
+"Have you seen the girls, Jerry?" cried Tom Cameron.
+
+"Bless us!" gasped the tall guide. "You don't mean that any of them
+gals is out of bounds?"
+
+"All six of them went into the woods--toward the north--about two
+hours ago. They went on snowshoes," said Tom.
+
+The three woodsmen said never a word, but standing there in the
+driving snow, at the heads of the horses, they looked at each other
+for some moments.
+
+"Well," said Jerry, at last, and without commenting further on Tom's
+statement; "we'd best put up the horses and then see what's to be
+done."
+
+"To the north, Tom?" said his father, brokenly. "Are you sure?"
+
+"Yes, sir. I am sure of it."
+
+"Is there any house in that direction--within reasonable distance,
+Jerry?" asked the gentleman.
+
+"God bless us, sir!" gasped the guide. "I don't know of one betwixt
+here and the Canadian line. The wind is coming now from the
+northwest. If they are trying to get back to the camp they'll be
+drifted towards the southeast and miss us altogether."
+
+"Don't say that, Jerry!" gasped Tom. "We _must_ find them. Why,
+if this keeps up for an hour they'll be buried in the drifts."
+
+"Pray heaven it hold's off soon," groaned his father.
+
+The men could offer them no comfort. Being old woodsmen themselves,
+they knew pretty well what the storm foreboded. A veritable blizzard
+had swept down from the Lakes and the whole country might be shrouded
+for three or four days. Meanwhile, as long as the snow kept falling,
+it would be utterly reckless to make search for those lost in the snow.
+
+Jerry and his mates said nothing more at the time, however. They all
+made their way to the stables, kicked the drift away from the door,
+and got the horses into their stalls. They all went inside out of the
+storm and closed the doors against the driving snow. In five minutes,
+when the animals were made secure and fed, and they tried to open the
+doors again, the wind had heaped the snow to such a height against
+them that they could not get out.
+
+Fortunately there was a small door at the other end of the barn, and
+by this they all got out and made their way speedily across the
+clearing to the house--Long Jerry leading the way. Tom and Bob
+realized that they might easily have become lost in that short
+distance had they been left to their own resources.
+
+Mr. Cameron was very pale and his lips trembled when he stood before
+the three woodsmen in the lodge kitchen.
+
+"You mean that to try to seek for the girls now is impossible,
+Jerry?" he asked.
+
+"What do you think about it yourself, sir?" returned the guide. "You
+have been out in it."
+
+"I--I don't expect you to attempt what I cannot do myself--"
+
+"If mortal man could live in it, we'd make the attempt without ye,
+sir," declared Long Jerry, warmly. "But neither dogs nor men could
+find their way in this smother It looks like it had set in for a big
+blizzard. You don't know jest what that means up here in the
+backwoods. Logging camps will be snowed under and mules, horses and
+oxen will have to be shot to save them from starvation. The hunting
+will be mighty poor next fall, for the deer and other varmints will
+starve to death, too.
+
+"If poor people in the woods don't starve after this storm, it will
+be lucky. Why, the last big one we had the Octohac Company had a gang
+of fifty men shoveling out a road for twenty miles so as to get tote
+teams through with provisions for their camp. And then men had to
+drag the tote teams instead of horses, the critters were so near
+starved. Ain't that so, Ben?"
+
+"Surest thing you know," agreed one of the other hands. "I remember
+that time well. I was working for the Goodwin & Manse Company. There
+was nigh a hundred of us on snow-shoes that dragged fodder from the
+farmers along Rolling River to feed our stock on, and we didn't get
+out enough logs that winter to pay the company for keeping the camp
+open."
+
+"That's the way on it, Mr. Cameron," said Long Jerry. "We got to sit
+down and wait for a hold-up. Nothing else to do. You kin try
+telephoning up and down the line to see if the girls changed their
+route and got to any house."
+
+But when Mr. Cameron tried to use the 'phone he found that already
+there was a break somewhere on the line. He could get no reply.
+
+They were besieged by the Storm King, and he proved to be a most
+pitiless enemy. The drifting snow rose higher and higher about the
+lodge every hour. The day dragged on its weary length into night, and
+still the wind blew and the snow sifted down, until even the top
+panes of the first floor windows were buried beneath the white mantle.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE SNOW SHROUD
+
+
+It was rather difficult to find trees with the new and fragrant
+leaves started, at this time of year; therefore Ruth and her
+companions went rather farther from Snow Camp than they had at first
+intended. But the warning flakes of snow served in no manner to
+startle them. The snow had been floating down, and whitening their
+clothing and adorning the trees with a beautiful icing, for more than
+half an hour, before anybody gave the coming storm a serious thought.
+
+"Perhaps we'd better go back and not get any stuffing for the
+pillows to-day, Helen," said Ruth, doubtfully. "See yonder! isn't
+that more snow coming?"
+
+"Bah!" exclaimed Lluella, interrupting, "What's a little snow?"
+
+"Cautious Ruthie is usually right," said Madge Steele, frankly.
+"Let's go back."
+
+"But we've scarcely got anything in the bags yet!" wailed Jennie
+Stone. "All this walk on these clumsy old snowshoes for nothing?"
+
+"Well, we'll just go as far as that grove of small trees that we
+found the other day, and no farther," said Helen, who naturally--
+being hostess--had her "say" about it.
+
+As yet there was no real sign of danger. At least, in the woods the
+girls had no means of apprehending the approach of the shroud of
+thick snow that was sweeping out of the northwest. They could not see
+far about them through the aisles of the wood.
+
+Laughing and joking, the jolly party reached the spot of which Helen
+had spoken. They set to work there in good earnest to fill their bags
+with the pungent new growth of the trees, whose bending branches were
+easily within their reach.
+
+"How this soft snow does clog the snow-shoes," complained Belle
+Tingley, removing the racquettes to knock them free.
+
+"But the flakes are smaller now," said Ruth. "See, girls! it's
+coming faster and finer. I believe we shall have to hurry back, Helen."
+
+"Ruth is right," added Madge Steele, who, as the oldest of the
+party, should have used her authority before this. "Why! it's coming
+in a perfect sheet."
+
+"Sheet!" repeated Jennie Stone, with scorn. "Call it rather a
+blanket. And a thick one."
+
+"B-r-r-r! How cold it's grown!" cried Lluella.
+
+"The wind is coming with the snow, girls," shouted Helen. "Come on!
+let's bustle along home. This place was never meant for us to be
+bivouacked in. Why! we'll have Long Jerry Todd, and the boys, and the
+dogs, and all hands out hunting for us. Dear me! how the wind blows!"
+
+"I can't see, girls!" wailed Belle. "Wait for me! Don't be mean!"
+
+"And don't forget Little Eva!" begged Heavy, tramping on behind and
+carrying one of the bags. "I declare! I can't see Ruth and Helen."
+
+"Don't get so far ahead, girls!" sang out Madge Steele, warningly.
+"We'll get separated from you."
+
+To their surprise Ruth answered from their left hand--and not far
+away.
+
+"We're not ahead, girls," said Ruth, quietly. "Only the snow is
+falling so thickly that you can't see us. Wait! Let us all get
+together and make a fresh start. It wouldn't do to get separated in
+such a storm."
+
+"Oh, this won't last--it can't snow so hard for long!" cried Jennie.
+"But we can go on, clinging to each other's jacket-tails."
+
+The six had come together, and Helen laughingly "counted noses."
+"Though we mustn't even count 'em _hard_," she said, briskly
+rubbing her own, "or we'll break them off. Isn't it cold?"
+
+"It's dreadful!" wailed Lluella. "The wind cuts right through
+everything I've got on. I shall freeze if we stand here."
+
+"We won't stand here. We'll hurry on to the camp."
+
+"Which way, girls?" demanded Heavy. "I confess I have lost all the
+points of the compass--and I never did know them too well."
+
+"Oh, I know the way back," said Helen, stoutly. "Don't you, Ruth?"
+
+"I believe so," replied the girl from the Red Mill.
+
+But when they started, Ruth was for one direction and Helen for
+another. The fact that they did not all think alike frightened them,
+and Madge called another halt.
+
+"This will never do," she said, earnestly. "Why, we might be lost in
+such thick snow as this."
+
+"I can't walk any farther with this bag and on these old snow-shoes!"
+cried Heavy. "Say! let's get under shelter somewhere and wait
+for it to hold up--or until they come and dig us out."
+
+"We're a nice lot of 'babes in the woods'," sniffed Belle.
+
+"I wish we'd let the boys come with us," said Helen.
+
+"Won't they have the laugh on us?" observed Madge.
+
+"I don't care if they do," mourned Lluella. "I wish they were here
+to help us home."
+
+"Come, come!" said Ruth, cheerfully. "We ought to be able to help
+ourselves. Here is a big tree with drooping branches. Let's get under
+it where the snow is not so deep. It may hold up in a little while,
+and then we can start fresh. Come around here where the wind won't
+get at us."
+
+She led the way and the other girls crowded after her. The low-branched
+tree broke the force of the gale. Ruth lifted the end of one
+sweeping branch and her friends all crawled beneath the shelter, and
+as she followed them Heavy squealed:
+
+"Oh, oh, oh! suppose there should be a bear under here?"
+
+"Nonsense! suppose there should be a griffin--or a unicorn. Don't
+be foolish," snapped Madge.
+
+They at once found the retreat a perfect windbreak, and became
+comfortable--all hugging together "like a nestful of owlets," Helen
+said, and all declared themselves as "warm as toast."
+
+But the wind howled mournfully through the wood, and the snow sifted
+down with a strange, mysterious "hush--hush--hus-s-sh" that made them
+feel creepy. Although it was not yet midday, the light was very dim
+under the thick branches of the tree. The snow became banked high
+behind them, and Ruth, who was in front, had to continually break
+away the drifting snow with her mittened hands so that they could see
+out.
+
+And they could see precious little outside of their den. Just the
+snow drifting down, faster and faster, thicker and thicker, gathering
+so rapidly that they all were secretly frightened, although at first
+each girl tried to speak cheerfully of it.
+
+"If we'd only thought to get Janey to put us up a luncheon," sighed
+Heavy, "I wouldn't have minded staying here all day. It's warm
+enough, that's sure."
+
+"My feet are cold," complained Lluella. "I don't believe it will
+remain warm forever."
+
+"And we couldn't make a fire," said Helen.
+
+"I've matches in my pocket," Ruth said quietly. "I've carried them
+in a bottle ever since we've been in the woods."
+
+"For pity's sake! what for?" demanded Belle.
+
+"Well--Tom told me to. He does. Helen knows," said Ruth, hesitating.
+
+"Goodness me! it's like being cast away on a desert island," cried
+Heavy. "Carrying matches!"
+
+"Tom _did_ tell us to," admitted Helen, laughing. "But I didn't
+pay much attention to what he said. I know he told us that we could
+never tell when matches would come in handy in the woods."
+
+"But we'd set the forest afire--and then see what damage would be
+done!" cried Belle.
+
+"Not necessarily. Especially in this snow," returned Ruth, calmly.
+"If we get very cold, and are delayed for long, we can break the dry
+branches off underneath this tree--and others like it--and get a fire
+very easily. Tom told us how to do it."
+
+"So he did!" cried Helen. "I do believe Ruth never forgets anything
+she is told. And we may be glad of those matches."
+
+"Goodness me!" whined Lluella. "Don't talk so dreadfully."
+
+"How do you mean?" queried Helen.
+
+"As though we'd have to stay here under this old tree so long! It's
+_got_ to stop snowing soon. Or else the men will come after us."
+
+"Why, we all believe that we shall soon get home," said Madge
+cheerfully. "But the boys, or the men, either, couldn't find us in
+this storm. We will have to be patient."
+
+Patience was hard indeed to cultivate in their present situation.
+The minutes dragged by with funereal slowness. Lluella began to sob,
+and the most cheerful of the party could not keep up her spirits
+indefinitely.
+
+"Oh, but we'll be all right, I am sure!" quoth Madge. "Don't get
+down-hearted, girls."
+
+Helen broke down next and declared that she could not remain idle
+any longer. "We must move out of this," she said. "We must find our
+way back. Why, they might come this way hunting for us and never find
+us--go right by the tree. We ought to get outside and shout, at least."
+
+"Don't let's leave this warm shelter," begged Ruth. "It will be
+really serious if we move farther from the regular camp instead of
+toward it."
+
+"But we cannot hear any rescue party shouting for us, nor can they
+hear us under this drift," insisted Helen.
+
+"Then we'll go out, one at a time, and shout," declared Ruth. "Let
+me try."
+
+She sprang up and pushed her way through the drift at the mouth of
+their burrow. Not until she was standing outside did she realize the
+extent of the storm. The snow was swept across the country in a thick
+and heavy curtain, with a wind driving it, against which she knew she
+could not stand.
+
+She could not shout into the teeth of the gale, and her cry was
+driven back into her own ears as weak as the mew of a kitten.
+
+"Ho!" exclaimed Madge Steele. "They couldn't hear that if they were
+a stone's throw off. Let _me_ give a warwhoop."
+
+"We're all coming out!" cried the dissatisfied Lluella. "Let's all
+shout. Oh, girls! we've _got_ to get back to the camp. We'll die
+here."
+
+They scrambled out of the burrow. The wind smote full against them
+when once they were in the open. When they raised their voices in
+chorus it seemed as though there was an answering shout from a
+certain direction.
+
+"Here we are! here we are! Father! Tom!" shrieked Helen, at the top
+of her voice.
+
+"Don't go!" begged Ruth. "Let us stick by the tree. It will shelter
+us. Shout again."
+
+But the majority of the girls were for setting off at once toward
+the sound they thought they had heard in the midst of the storm.
+Again and again they shouted. They clung to each other's hands as
+they ploughed through the drifts (the snowshoes were of no use to
+them now) but they did not hear the answering cry again.
+
+At last they stopped, all sorely frightened, Lluella in tears. "What
+will we do now?" gasped Belle.
+
+"We'd better go back to that tree. We were safe there," muttered
+Heavy, her teeth chattering.
+
+But they had drifted with the storm, and when they turned to face it
+they knew at once that never could they make way against the wind and
+snow.
+
+"Oh, oh, oh!" wailed Helen. "We're lost! we're lost!"
+
+"Hold up! Be brave!" urged her chum. "We must not give up now. Some
+other tree will give us shelter. Cling together, girls. We _must_ get
+somewhere."
+
+But where? It was a question none of them could answer. They
+remained cowering in the driving snow, utterly confused as to
+direction, and fast becoming buried where they stood.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+ADRIFT IN THE STORM
+
+
+"We shall freeze to death if we stay here!"
+
+Madge Steele spoke thus, and the situation precluded any doubt as to
+the truth of the statement. The six girls from Snow Camp were indeed
+in peril of death--and all were convinced of the fact.
+
+Lluella Fairfax was in tears, and her chum, Belle Tingley, was on
+the verge of weeping, too. Helen Cameron had hard work to keep back
+her own sobs; even Jennie Stone, the stout girl, was past turning the
+matter into a joke. And Madge Steele was unable to suggest a single
+cheerful portent.
+
+As they clung to each other in the driving snow they seemed,
+intuitively, to turn to Ruth Fielding. She was the youngest of the
+six girls; but she was at this moment the more assertive and held
+herself better under control than her mates.
+
+It had been against her advice that they had left their temporary
+shelter under the tree. Now they could not beat their way back to it.
+Indeed, none of them now knew the direction of the burrow that had
+sheltered them for more than an hour.
+
+What next should they do?
+
+Although unspoken, this was the question that the five silently
+asked of the girl of the Red Mill. She had displayed her pluck and
+good sense on more than one occasion, and her friends looked to her
+for help. Particularly did Helen cling to her in this emergency, and
+although Ruth was secretly as terrified as any of her mates, she
+could not give in to the feeling when her chum so depended upon her.
+
+"Why, we're acting just as silly as we can act!" she cried, speaking
+loud so that they could all hear her. "We mustn't give up hope. The
+boys, or Mr. Cameron, will find us. It can't keep on snowing forever."
+
+"But we're freezing to death!" said Belle, and broke out sobbing
+like her chum.
+
+"Stop, you silly thing!" cried Madge, trying to shake her. But she
+was really so cold herself that she could not do this. Indeed, the
+keen wind would soon make movement impossible if they stood still for
+long.
+
+"Let's keep moving!" shouted Ruth. "Take hold of hands, girls--two
+by two. Helen and I will go ahead. Now, Belle, you take Lluella.
+Madge and Heavy in the rear. Forward--march!"
+
+"This is a regular Amazon March; isn't it?" croaked Heavy, from
+behind.
+
+"But where shall we march to?" Belle queried.
+
+"We'll keep going until we find some shelter. That's the best we can
+do. Indeed, it is all we _can_ do," replied Ruth.
+
+It was impossible to do more than drift before the gale. Ruth knew
+this, and likewise she was confident that they were by no means
+getting nearer to the camp when they followed such a course. But she
+hoped to find some shelter before the weakest of the girls gave out.
+
+This was Lluella Fairfax. She was delicately built, and unused to
+muscular exertion of any kind. She seldom took up any gym work at
+Briarwood, Ruth knew; therefore it was not strange that she should be
+the first to give out.
+
+For, although the sextette of girls went but a short distance, and
+traveled very slowly, it was indeed a fearful task for them. The
+storm drove them on, and suddenly, when Jennie Stone gave utterance
+to a wild whoop and disappeared from view, Lluella and Belle burst
+out crying again, and even Madge showed signs of weakening.
+
+"Help! help!" she cried. "She's fallen down a precipice!"
+
+"She's smothered in a snow-bank!" gasped Helen.
+
+Heavy uttered another cry, but seemingly from a great way off. Ruth
+scrambled back to Madge, and suddenly found her own feet slipping
+over the brink of some steep descent. She cried out and clung to
+Madge. Helen took hold of Madge's other hand, and they drew Ruth back
+to safety.
+
+"Look out!" commanded the older girl. "You'll be down in that hole,
+too, Ruth."
+
+"No, no! We must make some attempt to get her up. Jennie! Jennie!
+where are you?" shrieked Ruth.
+
+"Right under you. Girls! you want to be careful. I've slid down a
+bank and am standing on what appears to be a narrow shelf along the
+face of this bank, or hill. And the snow isn't drifted here. Come
+down."
+
+"Oh, I wouldn't dare!" cried Lluella.
+
+"If the place will afford us any shelter from this awful wind, why
+not?" demanded Helen. "We might try it."
+
+"How deep are you down, Jennie?" asked Madge.
+
+"Only a few feet. You couldn't ever haul me up, anyway," and the
+stout girl laughed, hysterically. "You know how heavy I am."
+
+"Let me try it," said Ruth, eagerly. "Here's where Jennie slid over.
+Look out, below!"
+
+"Oh, come on! you can't hurt me," declared the stout one, and in a
+moment Ruth had slipped over the edge of the bank and had landed
+beside Heavy.
+
+"It's all right, girls!" shouted Ruth at once. She could see that
+the shelf widened a little way beyond, and was overhung by a huge
+boulder in the bank, making a really admirable shelter--not exactly a
+cave, but a large-sized cavity.
+
+After some urging, Lluella and Belle allowed themselves to be
+lowered by Madge and Helen over the brink of the bank. Then Helen
+herself slid down, and then the oldest girl. When Miss Steele landed
+upon the shelf beside them, she cried:
+
+"This is just a mercy! Another five minutes up there in the wind and
+snow, and I don't believe I could have walked at all. My, my! ain't I
+cold!"
+
+The six girls cowered together under the overhanging rock. The snow
+blew in a thick cloud over their heads and they heard it sifting down
+through the trees below them. They were upon a steep side-hill--the
+wall of a steep gully, perhaps. How deep it was they had no means of
+knowing; but several good-sized trees sprouted out of the hill near
+their refuge. They could see the dim forms of these now and then as
+the snow-cloud changed.
+
+But although they were out of the beat of the storm, they grew no
+warmer. More than Madge Steele complained of the cold within the next
+few minutes. Ruth, indeed, felt her extremities growing numb. The
+terrible, biting frost was gradually overcoming them, now that they
+were no longer fighting the blast. Exertion had fought this deadly
+coldness off; but Ruth Fielding knew that their present inaction was
+beckoning the approach of unconsciousness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+THE HIDEOUT
+
+
+Helen had drawn close to her chum and they sat upon the pile of
+leaves that had blown into this lair under the bank, with their arms
+about each other's waists.
+
+"What do you suppose will become of us, Ruthie?" Helen whispered.
+
+"Why, how can we tell? Maybe the boys and Long Jerry are searching
+for us right now----"
+
+"In this dreadful storm? Impossible!" declared Helen.
+
+"Well, that they _will_ search for us as soon as it holds up, we can
+be sure," Ruth rejoined.
+
+"But, in the meantime? They may be hours finding us. And I am sure I
+would not know how to start for Snow Camp, if the storm should stop."
+
+"Quite true, Helen."
+
+"We won't an-n-ny of us start for Snow Camp again!" quavered Lluella
+Fairfax. "We'll be frozen dead--that's what'll happen to us."
+
+"I _am_ dreadfully cold," said Madge. "How are you, Heavy?"
+
+"Stiff as a poker, thank you!" returned the irrepressible. "I
+haven't any feet at all now. They've frozen and dropped off!"
+
+"Don't talk so terribly!" wailed Belle. "We are freezing to death
+here. I am sleepy. I've read that when folks get drowsy out in a
+storm like this they are soon done for. Now, isn't that a fact, Madge
+Steele?"
+
+"Nonsense!" exclaimed the older girl; but Heavy broke in with:
+
+"It strikes me that now is the time to make use of Ruth's matches.
+Let's build a rousing fire."
+
+"How?" demanded Helen. "Where can we get fuel? It's all under the
+snow."
+
+"There's plenty of kindling right under _us_" declared Jennie Stone,
+vigorously. "And Ruth spoke about the under branches of these trees
+being dry----"
+
+"And so they are," declared Ruth, struggling to her feet. "We must
+do something. A rousing fire against this rock will keep us warm. We
+can heat the rock and then draw the fire out and get behind it. It
+will be fine!"
+
+"Oh, I can't move!" wailed Lluella.
+
+"Luella doesn't want to work," said Madge. "But you get up and do
+your share, Miss! If you freeze to death here your mother will never
+forgive me."
+
+Of course, it would be Heavy that got into trouble. She made a
+misstep off the platform and sunk to her arm-pits in a soft bank of
+snow, and it was all the others could do to pull her out. But this
+warmed them, and actually got them to laughing.
+
+"I believe that laughing warms one as much as anything," said Madge.
+
+"Ha, ha!" croaked Heavy, grimly. "_Your_ laughing hasn't warmed _me_
+any. I'm wet to my waist, I do believe!"
+
+"We shall have to have a fire now to dry Jennie," said Ruth. "Now
+take care."
+
+They had all abandoned their snowshoes long since, and the
+racquettes would have been of no use to them in the present
+emergency, anyway. But Ruth and Madge got to the nearest tree, and
+fortunately it was half dead. They could break off many of the
+smaller branches, and soon brought to the platform a great armful of
+the brush.
+
+Ruth's matches were dry and they heaped up the leaves and rubbish
+and started a blaze. The other girls brought more fuel and soon a hot
+fire was leaping against the side of the rock and its circle of
+warmth cheered them. They got green branches of spruce and pine and
+brushed away the snow and banked it up in a wall all about the
+platform, which served them for a camp. Then they scraped the fire
+out from the rock, threw on more branches (for the green ones would
+burn now that the fire was so hot) and crowded in between the blaze
+and the rock.
+
+"This is just scrumptious!" declared Heavy. "We sha'n't freeze now."
+
+"Not if we can keep the fire going," said Helen.
+
+Being warm, they all tried to be cheerful thereafter. They told
+stories, they sang their school songs, and played guessing games.
+
+Meanwhile, the wind shrieked through the forest above their
+"hideout," and the snow continued to fall as though it had no
+intention of ever stopping. The hours dragged by toward dark--and an
+early dark it would be on this stormy day.
+
+"Oh, if we only had something to eat!" groaned Heavy. "Wish I'd
+saved my snow-shoes."
+
+"What for?" demanded Bell. "What possible good could they have been
+to you, silly?"
+
+"They were strung with deer-hide, and I have heard that when
+castaway sailors get very, very hungry, they always chew their boots.
+I can't spare my boots," quoth Jennie Stone, trying to joke to the
+bitter end.
+
+The wind wheezed above them, the darkness fell with the snow. Beyond
+the glow of the pile of coals on the rocky ledge, the curtain of snow
+looked gray--then drab--then actually black. Moon and stars were far,
+far away; none of their light percolated through the mass of clouds
+and falling snow that mantled these big wastes of the backwoods.
+
+"Oh! I never realized anything could be so lonely," whispered Helen
+in Ruth's ear.
+
+"And how worried your father and Mrs. Murchiston will be," returned
+her chum. "Of course, we shall get out of it all right, Helen; but
+_did_ you ever suppose so much snow could fall at one time?"
+
+"Never!"
+
+"And no sign of it holding up at all," said Madge, who had overheard.
+
+"Sh! Belle and Lluella have curled up here and gone to sleep," said
+Helen.
+
+"Lucky Infants," observed Madge.
+
+"I'm going to sleep, too," said Heavy, with a yawn.
+
+"There is no danger now. We're as warm as can be here," Ruth said.
+"Why don't you take a nap, Helen? Madge and I will keep the first
+watch--and keep the fire burning."
+
+"Suppose there should be wolves--or bears," whispered Helen.
+
+"Ridiculous! no self-respecting beast would be out in such a gale.
+They'd know better," declared Madge Steele, briskly.
+
+"And if one does come here," muttered Jennie, sleepily, "I shall
+kill and eat him."
+
+She nodded off the next moment and Helen followed her example. Madge
+and Ruth talked to keep each other awake. Occasionally they fought
+their way to the half-dead tree and brought back armfuls of its
+smaller branches.
+
+"It's a shame," declared Miss Steele, "that girls don't carry
+knives, and such useful things. Did you ever know a girl to have
+anything in her pocket that was worth carrying--if she chanced by
+good luck to have a pocket at all? Now, with a knife, we could get
+some better wood."
+
+"I know," Ruth admitted. "I know more about camping out than ever I
+did before. Next time, I'm going to carry things. You never know what
+is going to happen."
+
+As the evening advanced the cold became more biting. They stirred up
+the fire with a long stick and the glowing coals threw out increased
+warmth. The four sleeping girls stirred uneasily, and Madge, putting
+her hand against the back wall of rock, found that it had cooled.
+
+"When it comes ten o'clock," she said, consulting the watch she
+carried, "we'll wake them up, make them stir around a bit, and we'll
+drag all these coals over against the rock again. Then we'll heap on
+the rubbish and heat up the stones once more. We ought to keep warm
+after that till near daylight."
+
+"The smut is spoiling our clothes," said Ruth.
+
+"I don't know as that matters much. I'd rather spoil everything I've
+got on than run the risk of freezing," declared Madge, with conviction.
+
+They did what they could to keep the other girls warm; but before
+the hour Madge had proposed to awaken them, Lluella roused and cried
+a little because she was so chilly.
+
+"My goodness me, Lu!" yawned Heavy, who was awakened, too, "you are
+just the _leakiest_ person that I ever saw! You must have been
+born crying!"
+
+"I never heard that we came into the world laughing," said Madge;
+"so Lluella isn't different from the rest of us on that score."
+
+"But thank goodness we're not all such snivelers," grumbled Heavy.
+"Want me to get up? What for?"
+
+But when Madge and Ruth explained what they intended to do, all the
+girls willingly bestirred themselves and helped in the moving of the
+fire and the gathering of more fuel.
+
+"Of course we can't expect any help to-night," said Helen. "But I
+know that they'll start out hunting for us at daybreak, no matter
+whether it keeps on snowing, or not."
+
+"And a nice time they'll have finding us down in this hole,"
+complained Belle Tingley.
+
+"Lucky I fell into this hole, just the same," remarked Heavy. "It
+just about saved our lives."
+
+"But I guess we would have been a whole lot better off if we hadn't
+moved from the first big tree Ruth got us to creep under," Helen
+said, thoughtfully. "We couldn't have been more than two miles from
+Snow Camp then. _Now_ we don't know where we are."
+
+"Never mind that, Helen," advised Madge. "Help get in the wood. Now,
+we want a big, rousing fire. We'll just heat that old rock up so that
+it will stay warm all night. It will be like sleeping as the Russian
+peasants do--on top of their stoves."
+
+They had piled the brush on the coals, after scraping the coals back
+upon the ledge, and the firelight was dancing far up the rock, and
+shining out into the steadily drifting snow, when suddenly Helen
+seized her chum's hand and cried:
+
+"Listen! what's that?"
+
+The girls grew silent instantly--and showing no little fear. From
+somewhere out in the storm a cry came to their ears.
+
+"There it is again," gasped Helen. "I heard it twice before."
+
+"I hear it," repeated Madge. "Wait."
+
+Again the distant sound came forlornly to their ears. That time they
+all distinguished it. And they knew that their first hope was
+quenched. It was no sound of a rescuing party searching for them in
+the storm, for the word--repeated several times, and unmistakable--
+they all identified.
+
+"_Help!_"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+A DOUBLE CAPTIVITY
+
+
+"It's a ghost!" gasped Belle as the voice out of the storm died away
+down the wind.
+
+"So are you!" snapped Madge. "What would a ghost want any help for?
+Ridiculous!"
+
+"Goodness me!" drawled Heavy. "Seems to me even a disembodied spirit
+might feel the need of help if it was out in such a gale as this."
+
+"I mean that we only thought we heard the voice," chattered Belle.
+
+"Funny we should all think with such unanimity," scoffed Ruth. "That
+was certainly a very able-bodied spirit--There!"
+
+Again the cry came brokenly through the storm.
+
+"Somebody lost like ourselves," said Lluella, with a shiver.
+
+"And he sees the light of our fire," Jennie Stone urged.
+
+"We must help, whoever it is," Ruth cried. "Shout, girls! Maybe he
+wants to know the way--"
+
+"The fire will show him," said Madge, quickly.
+
+"Perhaps he is hurt!" said Helen.
+
+"Shout!" commanded Ruth.
+
+They raised their voices in a ragged chorus of cries. "Again!" cried
+Ruth, and that time they sent their halloo out into the storm with
+more vigor and unanimity. Once more, after they had waited a full
+minute, they could plainly distinguish the word "Help!"
+
+"This won't do," said Ruth, briskly. "Whoever it is cannot get to us."
+
+"And we can't get to him!" cried Lluella.
+
+"I am going to try. I'll go alone. You girls keep hollering. I won't
+go out of earshot," promised Ruth.
+
+"Don't do it, Ruthie! You'll be lost," cried Helen. "Then whatever
+should we do?"
+
+"I won't get lost--not if you girls continue to shout," returned her
+chum.
+
+She had buttoned her coat about her and pulled the skating cap she
+wore down over her ears, yet not too low to muffle them. Again the
+cry came wandering through the storm. Ruth started down the bank of
+the gully; the cry came from the other side of the hollow, she was
+sure--almost directly opposite the ledge on which they had taken
+shelter.
+
+When she plunged off the ledge she at once entered the wall of
+driving, smothering snow. It almost took her breath, it was so deep
+under her feet and shrouded her about so much like a mantle. Had she
+ventured this way when first she and her friends had descended to the
+ledge, Ruth must have actually sunk out of sight in the soft drifts.
+
+But the sifting snow had packed harder and harder as the storm
+increased. After all, she sank only to her knees and soon found that
+she was plunging over rather than through the great drifts that
+filled the gully. How broad this gully was--or how deep when the snow
+was out of it--she could not imagine. Nor did she give a thought to
+these things now.
+
+Again she heard the muffled cry for help; but it sounded louder. She
+had made no mistake in the direction she had taken. The person
+needing succor was directly in front of the ledge, but could not get
+over to the fire.
+
+She glanced back over her shoulder. The leaping flames she could not
+see; but their glow made a round spot of rosy light against the
+screen of the falling snow. The mystery of the sight terrified her
+for a moment. Would she ever be able to fight her way back to that
+ledge?
+
+"Our Father, help me!" was her unspoken prayer, and then she plunged
+on.
+
+She heard the shrill cries of her friends behind; ahead the lost one
+shouted out once more.
+
+"Here! here! This way! Help!"
+
+"I'm coming!" responded Ruth Fielding and, beaten as she was by the
+gale behind, kept steadily on.
+
+The way began to rise before her. She was ascending the other bank
+of the gully. Suddenly through the snow-wreath that surrounded her
+she saw something waving. She sprang forward with renewed courage,
+crying again:
+
+"I'm coming!"
+
+The next moment she seized somebody's gloved hand. "Oh, oh!" cried a
+shrill, terrified voice. "Who are you? Help me! I am freezing.
+can't walk--"
+
+"Fred Hatfield!" gasped the amazed girl. "Is it you? What is the
+matter?"
+
+"Take me to that house. I see the light, but I cannot reach it Help
+me, for God's sake!" cried the boy.
+
+She could see his white, pinched face as he lay there more than half
+buried in the snow. His eyes were feverish and wild and he certainly
+did not know Ruth.
+
+"Help me out! help me out!" he continued to beg. "My leg is caught."
+
+But it was more weakness and exhaustion than aught else that held
+the boy in the drift, as Ruth very soon found out when she laid hold
+of his shoulders and exerted her strength. In a few moments, what
+with her pulling and his scrambling, the boy was out of the drift.
+
+He had clung to the rifle--Tom Cameron's weapon, of course--and into
+his belt was stuck a knife and a camp hatchet.
+
+"Why, how did you get here in this storm?" demanded Ruth, as he lay
+panting at her feet.
+
+"I got lost--from my--my camp," he responded. "I'm frozen! I can't
+feel my feet at all--"
+
+"Come across to the fire," urged Ruth. "We girls are lost from Snow
+Camp. But we're all right so far. My! how the snow blows."
+
+Facing the storm they could hardly make headway at all. Indeed, the
+youth fell within a few yards and Ruth was obliged to drag him
+through the drifts.
+
+Her friends continued to shout, and occasionally she stood upright,
+made a megaphone of her hands, and returned their hail. But her
+strength--all of it--finally had to be given to the boy. She seized
+him by the shoulders and fairly dragged him toward the other side of
+the gully, thus walking against the wind, backwards. Occasionally she
+threw a glance over her shoulder to make sure that she was making
+straight for the campfire.
+
+The girls' voices drew nearer and finally, at the foot of the slope
+leading up to the camp, she was forced to halt and drop her burden.
+
+"Come down and help me, Madge!" she cried. "It's a boy--a boy! He
+can't help himself. Come quick!"
+
+The girls were only a few yards away, but so fiercely did the wind
+blow that Ruth had to repeat her call for help before Madge Steele
+understood. Then the big girl dropped down off the ledge and plowed
+her way toward Ruth and her burden.
+
+"The poor fellow! who is he?" gasped Madge, as together they raised
+the strange boy and started up the sharp ascent.
+
+"Not Tom! Oh! it's never Tom?" shrieked Helen at the top of the hill.
+
+"No, no!" gasped Ruth. "It's--the--boy--that--ran away."
+
+They got him upon the dry ledge of rock before the fire. His cheeks
+showed frostbitten spots, and Jennie began to rub them with snow.
+"That's the way to treat frostbite," she declared. "Take off his
+boots. If his feet _are_ frosted we'll have to treat them the
+same way."
+
+Helen and Belle obeyed Heavy, who seemed quite practical in this
+emergency. Ruth had no strength, or breath, for the time being, but
+lay beside the fire herself. Meanwhile Madge and Lluella scrapped the
+red coals out from the rock and swept the platform clean with green
+branches. Ruth and the runaway boy were drawn into this cozy retreat
+and soon the boy began to weep and cry out as the heat got into his
+feet. It was very painful to have the frost drawn out in this manner.
+
+It was now after midnight and the storm still raged. Madge and
+Jennie floundered out for more fuel. The hatchet the boy carried was
+of great aid to them in this work and soon they had piled on the
+ledge sufficient wood to keep the blaze alive until dawn.
+
+By this time the strange youth had been thawed out and was dropping
+asleep against the warm rock. Helen and Belle agreed to stand the
+next watch, and to feed the fire. Both Ruth and Madge needed sleep,
+the former aching in every muscle from her fight to bring the rescued
+one in.
+
+"We're doubly captives now," the girl of the Red Mill whispered to
+Madge before she dropped asleep. "If it should stop snowing we
+couldn't try to get back to camp and leave this chap here. And it is
+certain sure that he could not travel himself, nor could we carry him."
+
+"You are right, Ruth," returned Madge. "This addition to our party
+makes our situation worse instead of better."
+
+"But maybe it will all come out right in the end, dear."
+
+"Let us hope so."
+
+"What a boy of mystery he is!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Do you think we'll ever get to the bottom of his trouble?"
+
+"Let us hope so."
+
+Then both girls turned over, to get what sleep they could under such
+trying circumstances.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+THE SEARCH
+
+
+It was a most anxious night for everybody at Snow Camp. The thought
+of the six girls adrift in the blizzard kept most of the household
+awake, Long Jerry Todd, the guide, remained in the kitchen, on the
+watch for the first break in the storm. The others retired, all but
+Mr. Cameron and Tom, who sat before the fire in the living hall.
+
+"I couldn't sleep anyway," said Tom, "with Helen and Ruth out in the
+cold. It's dreadful, Dad. I feel that we boys are partly to blame,
+too."
+
+"How's that?" his father asked him.
+
+"Why, the girls were mad with us. I let Isadore go too far with his
+joking," and he told Mr. Cameron about the spoiled taffy. "If we
+hadn't done that to them of course they wouldn't have gone into the
+woods without us--"
+
+"But I am afraid you lads would have been no more cautious than the
+girls," interposed Mr. Cameron. "This storm would have taken you by
+surprise just the same."
+
+"But we could have been with them and helped them."
+
+"I have great faith in that little Fielding girl's good sense--and
+Madge Steele is to be trusted," said his father. "Don't blame
+yourself, boy. It was something entirely unforeseen."
+
+Several times during the night Mr. Cameron tried to communicate with
+the neighbors over the telephone; but some disaster had overtaken the
+line and it probably could not be repaired until after the storm.
+
+About five o'clock Long Jerry came into the room. He had been out
+into the storm, for he was covered with snow.
+
+"How does it look?" asked Mr. Cameron, earnestly.
+
+"She's going to break with sun-up," prophesied the woodsman. "I've
+been feeding the cattle and I've got the other men up. If it breaks
+at all, we three'll start for the neighbors and rouse a gang to help
+beat the woods."
+
+"But hadn't we better try to find the girls at once, Jerry?" queried
+Tom.
+
+"We'll need a large party, Master Tom," said the guide. "We must
+cover a deal of ground, and the more men we have who are used to the
+trail, the better. If it stops snowing we can get around to the
+neighbors on snowshoes easier than any other way. The drifts are
+packed hard. I had to tunnel out of the kitchen door. The snow has
+banked up to the second story gallery."
+
+"They'll be buried yards under this snow," groaned Tom.
+
+"Keep up your courage," said Long Jerry, cheerfully. "If them gals
+was sharp at all they'd find some shelter and make a fire."
+
+"If they had matches," said Mr. Cameron, doubtfully.
+
+"Ruth had matches, I know," said Tom.
+
+"Oh, we'll find them safe and sound," declared the guide.
+
+One of Long Jerry's prophecies was fulfilled within the hour. The
+storm broke. Tom had aroused his friends and the three boys had
+enlarged the tunnel through the snow from the back porch into the
+yard, and were shoveling a passageway to the stables. The last flakes
+of the blizzard fluttered down upon them, and the tail of the gale
+blew the clouds to tatters and revealed the almost black sky with the
+stars sparkling like points of living fire.
+
+"Hurrah!" cried Bob Steele. "It's over!"
+
+The guide and the two other men were already getting on their
+snowshoes, having eaten hurriedly by the kitchen fire. They started
+out at once to rouse the neighbors. By sunrise the sky was entirely
+clear and the visitors to the backwoods could climb to the second
+floor gallery of the lodge and look out over the great drifts. In
+places the snow was heaped fifteen feet high; but the men shuffled
+off over these drifts and back again as easily as they would have
+walked on six inches of snow.
+
+They brought with them six other men, who also sat down to breakfast
+in the big kitchen, while Mr. Cameron and the boys and Mrs.
+Murchiston finished their meal in the dining-room. To the surprise of
+the visitors to the camp, one of the men whom Long Jerry had brought
+in to help find the girls was the Rattlesnake Man, as he was called.
+
+"We found him poking about the woods by himself, sir," said Long
+Jerry, privately, to Mr. Cameron. "He says there's been a boy staying
+with him for a while back, and that he started out hunting just
+before the storm. The old hermit was looking for him. By what he
+says, I believe it's the same boy you folks was bringing up here-the
+one that claims to be Fred Hatfield."
+
+"That poor fellow may have lost himself in the blizzard, too, eh?"
+returned the merchant. "Let us hope we will find them all safely."
+
+In fifteen minutes the whole party started from the lodge on
+snowshoes, the boys dragging their toboggans and the men carrying
+food and hot coffee in vacuum bottles. They separated into four
+parties; the three boys and Jerry Todd kept together. Jerry believed
+that the girls would have drifted some with the storm and therefore
+he struck off due east from the house.
+
+In an hour they came back to the bank of the stream near where Ruth
+and Reno had their adventure with the panther.
+
+"If old Reno had been well enough to come with us, he would have
+scented them in a hurry," declared Tom. "See the creek! it's
+completely smothered in snow."
+
+They followed the course of the stream for some distance and found
+the banks growing more steep. Suddenly Jerry began to sniff the keen
+air, and in a moment he cried:
+
+"There's a fire near, boys. Somebody is burning pine boughs--and
+there isn't any house near, that I can swear to!"
+
+They hurried on. Inside of half a mile Isadore descried a column of
+blue smoke ahead. They began to shout at once, and it was not long
+before answering cries delighted them.
+
+"That's Madge yelling," declared Bob. "I'd know her warwhoop
+anywhere."
+
+Tom had set out as fast as he could travel, the toboggan jumping
+after him over the drifts. Even Busy Izzy grew excited, and yelled
+like a good fellow as he joined in the chase. They all ran down the
+bed of the stream and reached a deep cut where the banks were very
+high on either hand.
+
+Up the white slope of the left hand bank was a small plateau on
+which the fire was burning. Some sort of a camp had been established,
+surrounded by an embankment of tramped snow. Over this fortress the
+heads of all six of the girls became visible, all crying out to their
+rescuers in such a medley of exclamations that no one was
+understandable.
+
+"Helen! Ruth!" cried Tom. "Are you all right?"
+
+"We're right as right can be, Tommy," returned his sister, gaily.
+
+"We're not!" squealed Jennie Stone. "We're almost starved to death.
+If you haven't brought anything for us to eat, don't dare come up
+here, for we've turned cannibals and we're just about to cast lots to
+see who should first be sacrificed to the general good!"
+
+But there was more than laughter to season this rescue. Some tears
+of relief were shed, and even Isadore Phelps showed some shame-faced
+joy that the catastrophe had resulted in no worse hardships for the
+girls. He said to Heavy:
+
+"I'm sorry I spoiled that old taffy. If you'd eaten your full share
+of _that_ the other day, I expect you wouldn't have suffered so
+from hunger."
+
+The only person who was seriously troubled by the adventure was the
+strange boy. He had suffered severely In the storm and now he could
+scarcely move for pains in his back and legs. Otherwise it is
+doubtful if he would not have run when he heard Long Jerry's voice
+among the rescuers.
+
+"Great turtle soup!" roared the guide, when he beheld the shrinking,
+cowering boy. "How did you get here? Do you mean to say you are
+alive, Fred Hatfield? Why, they buried you--"
+
+"No, they didn't!" snarled the boy. "They only thought they did."
+
+"And you've let 'em think all this time that you were shot--and poor
+'Lias in jail? Well! you always was a mean little scamp, Fred
+Hatfield!"
+
+But Ruth would not let the guide scold the boy any more. "He's very
+sick, Mr. Todd," she said. "He'll have to be carried to the lodge. I
+believe it is rheumatism, and he ought to have a doctor at once."
+
+"Lucky he is down and out, then," muttered the guide, "or I'd be
+tempted to lay him across my knee and spank him right here and now!"
+
+The girls were very thankful indeed for the hot drink and the food
+that had been brought. Jerry signaled with his rifle and brought the
+whole party to the spot within the hour, including the Rattlesnake
+Man. But when the old hermit saw that the boy was found he would stop
+no longer.
+
+"Let his folks look after him. I gave him shelter; but he's a bad
+boy, I reckon. And he doesn't like my children. I don't want anybody
+about my place that doesn't like my children. Now, that little girl,"
+he added, pointing to Ruth, "_she_ wasn't afraid of them; was
+you?"
+
+"Not much," returned Ruth, bravely. "And I'm coming to see you
+again, sir, if I can."
+
+"You may come at any time, and welcome," answered the Rattlesnake
+Man, with a low bow. "Maybe you would like to learn how to handle my
+pets," he added, with a queer grin.
+
+"What, the snakes!" screamed Helen.
+
+"No, I don't think I'd care to do that," replied Ruth.
+
+"They would not hurt you-they soon learn to know their friends-and
+they get to be as friendly as kittens," returned the hermit. "I have
+a name for each one of them," he went on, somewhat proudly.
+
+"Maybe I'll--I'll look at them-but I won't want to touch them,"
+answered Ruth. A few minutes later the strange Rattlesnake Man took
+his departure.
+
+Fred Hatfield and the girls were all packed upon the sleds and drawn
+over the snow to the camp, where the rescued and rescuers arrived in
+safety before noon. But the girls had been through such an
+experience, and were so exhausted, that as soon as dinner was over
+they were commanded to go to bed, while one of the men started to
+town for a doctor to attend young Hatfield.
+
+"And be sure and take this letter to the sheriff," said Mr. Cameron.
+"This foolish boy's brother must be released from jail at once. And
+if his folks want him, they can come here to Snow Camp and take him
+home," added the merchant, in some disgust. "I must say that it seems
+as though pity would be wasted on Fred Hatfield."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+CERTAIN EXPLANATIONS
+
+
+But the boy was more seriously ill than any of them suspected at the
+time. Before night, when the doctor arrived (walking over on snow-shoes
+with the guide) Fred was in a high fever and was rambling in his
+speech. None of the girls was seriously injured by the adventure
+in the snow; but the doctor shook his head over Hatfield.
+
+Mrs. Murchiston gave the youth good attention, however, and the
+doctor promised to come again as soon as a horse could get through
+the roads. Two days passed before anybody got to Snow Camp saving on
+snowshoes. The governess was so kind to the sick boy that he broke
+down and confessed all his wretched story to her.
+
+His home life had not been very happy since his father's death. His
+brother 'Lias, and the other big boys, were hard-working woodsmen and
+thought Fred ought to work hard, too, in the woods and on their poor
+little farm. He had finally had a fierce quarrel with 'Lias and the
+older boy had thrashed him.
+
+"I only meant to scare him," Fred confessed, "when he shot at me and
+thought it was a deer. The bullet whistled right by my head. When I
+jumped I dislodged a stone in the bank, and that rolled down the hill
+and splashed into Rolling River. I hid.
+
+"I saw 'Lias was frightened, and I thought it served him right--
+shooting so carelessly. Lots of folks are shot for deer up here in
+the hunting reason, and 'Lias is real careless with a gun. So I
+stayed hid. Then I heard two men talking at night and they said they
+guessed marm would be glad to get rid of me--I was no good.
+
+"So I got a ride off on the railroad, and I wasn't going back. I
+didn't know 'Lias had been arrested until Mr. Cameron brought me back
+up this way and I heard about it from a logger that didn't know me.
+He said my body had been found. Of course, it wasn't me. Somebody
+else was drowned in Rolling River. There's been a little French
+Canadian feller missing since last fall and he was supposed to have
+been drowned. It was his body they found, I reckon. The man told me
+the body was so broken and disfigured that nobody could recognize the
+features--and the clothing was torn all off it.
+
+"I don't know what marm and the boys will do to me if they find me,"
+wailed Hatfield, who seemed to be more afraid of the rough usage of
+his big half-brothers than anything else.
+
+But the first sled to get through to Snow Camp brought, besides the
+doctor, the boy's mother and 'Lias Hatfield himself. The backwoods
+woman showed considerable tenderness when she met her lost boy, and
+the young fellow who had suffered in jail for some weeks held no
+anger against his brother because of it.
+
+"Why, Mr. Cam'ron," he said to the merchant, "I reckon it sarved me
+out right. I _was_ purty ha'sh with the boy. He ain't naught but
+a weakling, after all. Marm, she does her best by us all, and we
+stick to her; but if Fred ain't fitten to work in the woods, or on
+the farm, we'll find him something to do in town--if he likes it
+better. I don't hold no grudge."
+
+Two days later the boy was well enough to move, and they all went
+away from Snow Camp; but Mr. Cameron had agreed, before they went,
+to give Fred Hatfield a chance in his store in the city, if they
+would send him down there in the spring.
+
+"He's not fit for the rough life up here," he told Tom and Helen and
+Ruth, when they talked it over. "He's not an attractive boy, either.
+But he needs a chance, and I will give him one. If we only helped
+those people in the world who really _deserved_ helping, we
+wouldn't boost many folks."
+
+Meanwhile the girls had all recovered from their adventure in the
+blizzard, and the entire party of young folk found plenty of
+amusement in the snow-bound camp. In one monstrous heap in the yard
+the boys excavated a good-sized cavern--big enough so that all the
+girls as well as the boys could enter it at once; and they lit it up
+at night with candles and held a "party" there, at which plenty of
+walnut taffy was served--without shells in it!
+
+"This is heaping coals of fire on your head, young man," said Madge,
+tartly, as she passed the pan to Busy Izzy.
+
+"All right," he returned, with a grin. "Keep on heaping. I can stand
+it."
+
+"If you girls had been right smart," drawled Bob Steele, "when you
+were lost the other day, you'd have scooped you out a hole like this
+in a snowbank and hived up as snug as a bug in a rug till the storm
+was over."
+
+"Oh, yes! we all know lots of things to do when we are lost again,"
+returned Helen. "But I hope that our next vacation won't have any
+such unpleasant experience in store for us."
+
+"I'm with you in that wish," cried Belle Tingley.
+
+"Well, now, yo've all promised to go with me to our cottage at
+Lighthouse Point for two weeks next summer," cried Heavy. "I
+guarantee you won't be lost in the snow down there."
+
+"Not at that time of year, that's sure," laughed Ruth. "But we don't
+know yet, Jennie, that we _can_ go with you."
+
+However, it is safe to state here that Ruth, at least, was able to
+accept the stout girl's invitation, for we shall meet her next in a
+story entitled: "Ruth Fielding at Lighthouse Point; Or, Nita, the
+Girl Castaway."
+
+There was plenty of fun around Snow Camp for the remainder of the
+ten days they spent there, and when the time came to go back to
+civilization both girls and boys assured good Mr. Cameron that they
+had had a most delightful time. They traveled as far as Cheslow
+together, where Heavy and Belle and Lluella went to their homes for a
+day or two, to finish out the tag-end of the vacation, while the
+Steeles and Isadore went home with the Camerons, and Ruth returned to
+the Red Mill.
+
+And how glad Aunt Alvirah was to see Ruth! Uncle Jabez didn't
+display his feelings so openly; but Ruth had learned how to take the
+miller, and how to understand him. She helped him with his accounts,
+made out his bills for the year, and otherwise made herself of use to
+him.
+
+"You just wait, Uncle Jabez," she told him, earnestly. "I'm going to
+make your investment in my schooling at Briarwood pay you the biggest
+dividend of anything you ever speculated in--you see."
+
+"I'm sure I hope so, Niece Ruth," he grumbled. "I don't much expect
+it, though. They teach you too many folderols up there. What's
+_this_ now?" he asked, pointing his stubbed forefinger to the
+little gold and black enamel pin she wore on her blouse.
+
+"'S. B.'"
+
+"Is them the letters?"
+
+"Yes, sir. My society emblem. We're the Sweetbriars, of Briarwood
+Hall. And you wait! we're going to be the most popular club in the
+school before long. We've had Mrs. Tellingham, the Preceptress, at
+one of our meetings."
+
+"What good is that?" he demanded, shaking his grizzled head.
+
+"Fraternity--fellowship--helpfulness--hope--oh! it stands for lots
+of things. And then, Uncle Jabez, I am learning to sing and play.
+Maybe before long I can open the old cottage organ you've got stowed
+away in the parlor and play for you."
+
+"That won't lower the price of wheat, or raise the price of flour,"
+he grumbled.
+
+"How do you know it won't, until we've tried it?" she answered him,
+gaily.
+
+And so she made the old mill, and the farmhouse adjoining, a much
+brighter, gayer, pleasanter place while she was in it. Her
+cheerfulness and sweetness were contagious. Aunt Alvirah complained
+less frequently of her back and bones when Ruth was about, and in
+spite of himself, the old miller's step grew lighter.
+
+"Ah, Jabez," Aunt Alvirah said, as they watched Ruth get into the
+Cameron automobile to be whisked away to the station, and so to
+Briarwood for her second half, "that's where our endurin' comfort an'
+hope is centered for our old age. We've only got Ruthie."
+
+"She's a mighty expensive piece of property," snarled the old man.
+
+"Ye don't mean it, Jabez, ye don't mean it," she returned, softly.
+"You're thawin' out--and Ruth Fielding is the sun that warms up your
+cold old heart!"
+
+But this last was said so low that Jabez Potter did not hear it as
+he stumped away toward the Red Mill.
+
+In the automobile the young folks were having a gay time. Helen was
+with Ruth, and Tom was on the front seat.
+
+"Say, we sure did have some excitement in Snow Camp as well as fun,"
+came from Tom.
+
+"And that catamount!" gasped Helen.
+
+"And Ruth's shot!" broke in her twin brother. "Ruth, you ought to
+try for a marksmanship badge!"
+
+"And wasn't it fine how it came out about Fred," said Ruth, her face
+beaming with satisfaction. "I am so glad to know he is no longer a
+homeless wanderer!"
+
+"All due to you," said Tom. "Ruth, you're a wonder!" he added,
+admiringly.
+
+"Oh, Tom!" she answered. Nevertheless, she looked much pleased.
+
+And here let us say good-bye.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp, by Alice B. Emerson
+
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