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 theroad. "

"But he's got a sign up--and his cattle run in this pasture, " saidRuth Fielding, who, with her chum, Helen Cameron, and Helen's twinbrother, Tom, had been skating on the Lumano River, where the ice wassmooth below the mouth of the creek which emptied into the largerstream near the Red Mill. 

"Aw, come on, Ruthie!" cried Tom, stamping his feet to restorecirculation. 

The ground was hard and the ice was thick on the river; but theearly snows that had fallen were gone. It was the day afterChristmas, and Helen and Ruth had been at home from school atBriarwood Hall less than a week. Tom, too, who attended the MilitaryAcademy at Seven Oaks, was home for the winter holidays. It wassnapping cold weather, but the sun had been bright this day and forthree 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 howugly that creature is. And there's the sign. "

"I declare! you do beat Peter!" ejaculated Tom, shrugging hisshoulders. "We are only going to cut across Bassett's field--it won'ttake ten minutes. And it will save us half an hour in getting to themill. We can't go along shore, for the ice is open there at the creek. "

"All right, " agreed Ruth Fielding, doubtfully. She was younger thanthe twins and did not mean to be a wet blanket on their fun at anytime; but admiring Helen so much, she often gave up her owninclinations, or was won by the elder girl from a course which shethought wise. There had been times during their first term atBriarwood Hall, now just completed, when Ruth had been obliged totake a different course from her chum. This occasion, however, seemedof little moment. Hiram Bassett owned a huge red herd-leader that wasthe terror of the countryside; but it was a fact, as Helen said, thatthe cattle were not likely to be roaming the pasture at this time ofyear. 

"Come on!" said Tom, again. "The car was to go down to the Cheslowstation for father and stop at the mill for us on its return. Wedon't want to keep him waiting. "

"And we've got so much to do to-night, Ruthie!" cried Helen. "Haveyou got your things packed?"

"Aunt Alvirah said she would look my clothes over, " said Ruth, inreply. "I don't really see as I've much to take, Helen. We only wantwarm things up there in the woods. "

"And plenty of 'em, " advised Tom. "Bring your skates. We may get achance to use them if the snow isn't too heavy. But up there in thebackwoods the snow hasn't melted, you can bet, since the first fallin November. "

"We'll have just the loveliest time!" went on Helen, with her usualenthusiasm. "Tom and I spent a week-end at Snow Camp when Mr. Parrishowned it, and when we knew he was going to sell, we just _begged_ papato 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 pasturein what Tom called "a catter-cornering" direction, meaning to comeout 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 tolive with her mother's uncle at the Red Mill, as was told in thefirst volume of this series, entitled "Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill;Or, Jasper Parloe's Secret. " The girl had found Uncle Jabez very hardto get along with at first, for he was a good deal of a miser, andhis finer feelings seemed to have been neglected during a long lifeof hoarding and selfishness. 

But through a happy turn of circumstances Ruth was enabled to get atthe heart of her crotchety uncle, and when Ruth's very dear friend, Helen Cameron, planned to go away to school, Uncle Jabez was won overto the idea of sending Ruth with her. The girls were now home for thewinter holidays after spending their first term at Briarwood Hall, where they had made many friends as well as learning a good manypractical and necessary things. The fun and work of this first termis all related in "Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall; Or, Solving theCampus Mystery, " which is the second volume of the Ruth FieldingSeries. 

And now another frolic was in immediate prospect. Mr. Cameron, whowas a very wealthy dry-goods merchant, had purchased a winter campdeep in the wilderness, up toward the Canadian line, and Christmasitself now being over, Helen and Tom had obtained his permission totake 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 MadgeSteele, Jennie Stone, Belle Tingley, and Lluella Fairfax to be of theparty. She had invited one other girl from Briarwood, too; but MaryCox had refused the invitation. "The Fox, " as her school-fellowscalled her, had been under a cloud at the end of the term, andperhaps she might have felt somewhat abashed had she joined the partyof her school-fellows at Snow Camp. 

Tom had invited his chum at school, who was Madge Steele's brotherBob, and another boy named Isadore Phelps. With Mr. Cameron himselfand Mrs. Murchiston, the lady who had been the twins' governess whenthey were small, and several servants, the party were to take trainat 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, andthey chatted merrily as they went on. Halfway across the field theypassed along the edge of a bush-bordered hollow. Their skating caps--Tom's white, Ruth's blue, and Helen's of a brilliant scarlet--bobbedup and down beside the hedge, and anybody upon the other side, in thehollow, 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 groundarose from beyond the bushes. Then came a reverberating bellow. 

Tom leaped through the bushes and looked down the hill. Theresounded the thundering of pounding hoofs, and the boy sprang back tothe side of his sister and her chum with a cry. 

"Run!" he gasped. "The bull is there--I declare it is! He's comingright up the hill and will head us off. We've got to go back. He musthave 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 rattlingover their shoulders, the trio started back across the field. Thebull parted the bushes and came thundering out upon the plain. Heswerved to follow them instantly. There could be no doubt that he hadseen them, and the bellow he repeated showed that he was very muchenraged and considered the three friends his particular enemies. 

Ruth glanced back over her shoulder and saw that the angry beast wasgaining on them fast. It was indeed surprising how fast the bullcould 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 soswift that it had not yet frozen--saving along the edges. The bankwas 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 ofNell's is what is exciting him so. "

In a flash Ruth Fielding snatched the red cap from her chum's headand ran on with it toward the bank of the creek. The others followedher while the big bull, swerving in his course, came bellowing onbehind. 

CHAPTER II

A SURPRISING APPEARANCE

Helen was sobbing and crying as she ran. Tom kept a few feet behindthe girls, although what he could have done to defend them, had thebig bull overtaken him, it would be hard to say. And for severalmoments it looked very much as though Hiram Bassett's herd-leader wasgoing to reach his prey. 

The thunder of his hoofs was in their ears. They did not speak againas they came to the steep bank down to the open creek. There, justbefore them, was an old hollow stump, perhaps ten feet high, with theopening on the creek side. All three of them knew it well. 

As Helen went over the bank and disappeared on one side of thestump, Tom darted around the other side. Ruth, with the red cap inher hand, stumbled over a root and fell to her knees. She was rightbeside the hollow stump, and Helen's cap caught in a twig and wassnatched from her hand. 

As Ruth scrambled aside and then fairly rolled over the edge of thebank out of sight, the cap was left dangling right in front of thestump. The bull charged it. That flashing bit of color was what hadattracted the brute from the start. 

As the three friends dived over the bank--and their haste andheedlessness carried them pell-mell to the bottom--there sounded ayell behind them that certainly was not emitted by the bull. Goodnessknows, he roared loudly enough! But this was no voice of a bull thatso 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 oldstump. Taurus smashed against it with the force of a pile-driver--three-quarters of a ton of solid flesh and bone, going at the speedof a fast train, carries some weight. It seemed as though a live treecould scarcely have stood upright against that charge, let alone thisrotten 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 wererunning along the narrow shore under shelter of the bank. The bull nolonger saw them. Indeed, the shock had thrown him to the ground, andwhen he scrambled up, he ran off, bellowing and tossing his head, inan entirely different direction. 

But the uprooted stump went splash! into the icy waters of thecreek, and as it plunged beneath the surface--all but its roots--thetrio 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 openingdown. If there really was anybody in it, the way in which the stumphad fallen served to hold such person prisoner. 

Ruth Fielding was as quick as Tom to turn back to the spot where theold stump had been submerged; but Helen had fallen in her tracks, andsat there, hugging her knees and rocking her body to and fro, as shecried:

"He'll be drowned! Don't you see, he _is_ drowned? And suppose thatbull 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, theycould barely stir the stump. Suddenly they heard a struggle going oninside the hollow shell; as well, a thumping on the thin partition ofwood 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 greatperturbation. 

The stump rested on the shore, but was half submerged in the waterfor most of its length. The unfortunate person imprisoned in thehollow 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 wouldhave plunged to the bottom of the creek and the victim of theaccident 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 andso 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 notknow. But he recognized immediately the good sense in Ruth'ssuggestion. Tom leaped out upon the log and stamped upon it. Helenscreamed:

"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 bedrowned. "

"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 andget out. You'll be suffocated there. "

But at first the prisoner seemed not to understand--or else wasafraid 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 hissister, now so much interested in the prisoner that she got up andcame near. 

Ruth saw Helen's red cap high up on the bank and she scrambled upand 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 bullwouldn't have chased us in the first place. "

But all of them were thinking mainly of the person in the hollow ofthe old stump. How could they get this person out?

And the answer to that question was not so easily found--as Tom hadobserved. They could not roll the stump over; they had no means ofcutting through to the prisoner. But, suddenly, that individualsettled the question without their help. There was a struggle underthe log, a splashing of the water, and then a figure bobbed up out ofthe 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, andwith wild, burning eyes looking out of his wet and pallid face. Hadit not been for Ruth and Tom he must have fallen back into the streamagain, 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 wouldsoon be as stiff as boards. 

"We've got to get him to the Mill, girls, " declared Tom. "Come! getup!" he cried to the stranger. "You must get warmed and have dryclothing. "

"And something hot to drink, " said Ruth. "Aunt Alviry will make himsomething 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 hadrun towards the river and had not come back; so the friends, withtheir strange find, hurried on to the public road and crossed thebridge at the creek, turning off into the orchard path that led up tothe 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. Theicy water had bitten into his very bones. They fairly dragged himbetween them for the last few yards, and burst into Aunt Alvirah'skitchen in a manner "fit to throw one into a conniption!" as thatgood lady declared. 

"Oh, my back, and oh, my bones!" she groaned, getting up quicklyfrom 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 littleold woman with the bent back and rheumatic limbs understood onething, if she made nothing else out of the general gabble. Thestrange 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 therebythe warmest. "I don't know what Jabez will say, but that child's gotto git a-twixt blankets right away. It's a mercy if he ain't got hisdeath. "

They drew off the stranger's outer clothing, and then Aunt Alviryleft Tom to help him further disrobe and roll up in the blankets onMr. Potter's bed. Meantime the old woman filled a stone water-bottlewith 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 forhim to swallow. 

Ruth wrung out the boy's wet garments and hung them to dry aroundthe stove, where they began immediately to steam. As she had noticedbefore, 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 hisvest, Ruthie? A wallet?"

It was an old leather note-case. There appeared to be little in itwhen Ruth picked it up, for it was very flat. Certainly there was nomoney in it. Nor did there seem to be anything in it that wouldidentify its owner. However, as Ruth carried it to the window shefound a newspaper clipping tucked into one compartment, and, as itwas damp, too, she took this out, unfolded it, and laid it carefullyon the window sill to dry. But when she looked further, she sawinside the main compartment of the wallet a name and addressstenciled, It was:

JONAS HATFIELD

SCARBORO, N. Y. 

"Sec, Helen, " she said to her chum. "Maybe this is his name--JonasHatfield. "

"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 herchum's excitement. 

"Why this boy--if this is his wallet and that is his name andaddress--comes from right about where we are going to-morrow. Scarboro is the nearest railroad station to Snow Camp. What do youthink of that?"

Before Ruth could reply, the sound of an automobile horn was heardoutside, and both girls ran to the door. The Cameron automobile wasjust coming down the hill from the direction of Cheslow, and in aminute 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 wasvery picturesquely situated, and the rambling old farmhouse connectedwith 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 pathto the porch. He was a round, jolly, red-faced man, who was foreverthinking of some surprise with which to please his boy and girl, andseldom refused any request they might make of him. This plan oftaking a party of young folk into the backwoods for a couple of weekswas entirely to amuse Tom and Helen. Personally, the dry-goodsmerchant did not much care for such an outing. 

He came stamping up the steps and burst into the kitchen in a jollyway, and Helen ran to him with a kiss. 

"Hullo I what's all this?" he demanded, his black eyes taking in thegrove 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 fourinches thick--eh, son?" laughed Mr. Cameron. 

His children began to tell him, both together, of the adventure withthe bull and the mysterious appearance of the strange boy. 

"Aye, aye!" he said. "And Ruth Fielding was in it, of course--anddid her part in extricating you all from the mess, too, I'll bebound! Whatever would we do without Ruth?" and he smiled and shookhands with the miller's niece. 

"I guess we were all equally scared. But it certainly was my faultthat the old bull bunted the hollow stump into the creek. So this boycan 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 heis a bad boy--that he has taken the wallet----"

"Now, now!" exclaimed Mr. Cameron, smiling at her again. "Don'tjump at conclusions, Mistress Ruth Fielding. I have no suspicionregarding the lad----How is the patient, Aunt Alviry?" he added, quickly, as the little old woman came hobbling out of the bedroomwhere 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 onfine, " she declared. "He'll be all right soon. I reckon he won'tsuffer none in the end for his wetting. I'm a-goin' to cook him amess of gruel, for I believe he's hungry. "

"Who is he, Aunt Alviry?" asked the gentleman. Aunt Alvirah Boggswas "everybody's Aunt Alviry, " although she really had no living kin, and Mr. Jabez Potter had brought her from the almshouse ten years ormore 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 tohim, sir. "

With the wallet in his hand and the three young folk at his heels, both their interest and their curiosity aroused, Mr. Cameron wentinto 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 atthis time of year with an enormous feather bed. Rolled like a mummyin the blankets, and laid on this bed, the feathers had plumped upabout the vagabond boy and almost buried him. But his eyes were wideopen--pale blue eyes, with light lashes and eyebrows, which gave histhin, white countenance a particularly blank expression. 

"Heigho, my lad!" exclaimed Mr. Cameron, in his jolly way. "So yourname 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 halfstarted up in bed, and the pale blue eyes flashed with an entirelydifferent 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, ifyou did not wish to be identified? Come, son! what harm is there inour knowing who you are?"

Fred Hatfield sank back in the feathers and weakly rolled his headfrom side to side. The blood receded from his cheeks, leaving himquite 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, andcame 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 allolder'n me. Then there's the two gals and Bob, who are younger. Shedon't need me, " declared Fred Hatfield, doggedly. 

"I don't believe a mother ever had so many children that she didn'tsorely 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 hadtraveled most of the distance afoot, working here and there forfarmers and storekeepers. He admitted that he had been some weeks onthe road. His being in that hollow stump in Hiram Bassett's field wasquite by accident. He was passing through the field, making for themain road, when he had seen Ruth, Helen, and Tom, and stepped behindthe 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 findyou?"

"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, " saidMr. Cameron. "And in the morning I'll decide what's to be done withyou. "

"Why, Dad! we're going----"

Tom had begun this speech when his father warned him with a look tobe still. 

"You'll be all right here, " pursued Mr. Cameron, cheerfully. "AuntAlviry and Ruth will look after you. Why! I wouldn't want betternurses if _I_ was sick. "

"But I'm not sick, " said Fred Hatfield, as the little old womanhobbled in with a steaming bowl. His eyes were wolfish when he sawthe gruel, however. 

"No, you're not so sick but that a good, square meal would be yourbest medicine, I'll be bound, " cried the gentleman, laughing. 

He went out to the mill then and was gone some moments; when hereturned he called Helen and Tom to come with him quickly to the car. 

"Remember and be ready as early as nine o'clock, Ruth!" calledHelen, looking back as she climbed into the automobile. 

When her friends had bowled away up the frozen road, Ruth came backinto the kitchen. Aunt Alvirah was still in the bedroom with theirstrange guest. Of a sudden the girl's eye caught sight of thenewspaper clipping laid on the window sill to dry. 

Mr. Cameron had placed the old wallet belonging to Fred Hatfield'sfather on the table when he came out of the bedroom. Now Ruth pickedit up, found it dry, and went to the window to replace the clippingin it. It was the most natural thing in the world for Ruth to glanceat the slip of paper when she picked it up. There is nothing secretabout a newspaper clipping; it was no infringement of good manners toread the article. 

And read it Ruth did when she had once seen the heading--she read itall through with breathless attention. Her rosy face paled as shecame to the conclusion, and she glanced suddenly toward the bedroomas she heard Aunt Alvirah's voice again. 

Dropping the old wallet on the table, Ruth folded the clipping andhastily thrust it into the bosom of her frock. She did not dare facethe old woman when she appeared, but kept her back turned until shewas sure the color had returned to her cheeks. And all the time shehelped 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 agaunt, gray-faced man, who seldom smiled, and whose stern, ruggedcountenance had at first almost frightened Ruth whenever she lookedat it. But she had fortunately gotten under the crust of Mr. Potter'smanner and learned that there was something better there than theharsh surface the miller turned to all the world. 

Uncle Jabez hoarded money for the pleasure of hoarding it; but hehad been generous to Ruth, having put her at one of the best boardingschools in the State. He could be charitable at times, too; AuntAlvirah could testify to that fact. So could a certain little lamefriend of Ruth Fielding, Mercy Curtis, who was attending BriarwoodHall 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 ina 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?" hedemanded, when he came in. 

"The poor child!" said the old woman. "Oh, my back, and oh, mybones! Come in and see him, Jabez, " she urged, hobbling toward thepassage. 

"No. Who is he? What is he here for? That Cameron talks so fast Inever can get the rights of what he's saying till afterward. Says theboy 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; ishe?"

He came back to this as being a reason for objection. 

"Now, now, Jabez, " said Aunt Alvirah, soothingly. "He ain't hurtedthe bed. He was wet--the coat frozen right on him--when they broughthim 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 andput your bed straight for you. "

"Young vagabond!" grunted Mr. Potter. "Don't know who he is. May robus before morning. Perhaps he come here for just that purpose. "

"That's not possible, Uncle, " said Ruth, laughing. She told him thestory of their adventure with the bull and Fred Hatfield'sappearance. Yet all the time she looked worried herself. There wassomething troubling the girl of the Red Mill. 

Ruth took the tray into the bedroom with the supper that AuntAlvirah had prepared. There was a flaming red spot in the center ofeach of the boy's pallid cheeks, and his eyes were still bright. Hehad no little fever after the chill of his plunge into the creek. Butthe 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. Thatnewspaper clipping fairly burned in the bosom of her frock. But hissuppressed excitement warned her to be silent. 

He was hungry still. It was plain that he had been without properfood for some time. But in the midst of his appreciation of the mealhe 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 notanother word. 

Ruth watched him eat. He did not raise his light eyes to her. Thecolor faded out of his cheeks. She knew that it was actual starvationthat kept him eating; but he was greatly troubled in his mind. Shewent back to her own supper, and remained very quiet all through theevening. 

Later Aunt Alvirah made up the couch with plenty of blankets andthick, downy "comforters, " and when Ruth had gone to bed the boy cameout into the kitchen and left Uncle Jabez free to seek his ownrepose. But though the whole house slept, Ruth could not--at first. Long after it was still, and she knew Aunt Alvirah was asleep andUncle Jabez was snoring, Ruth arose, slipped on a warm wrapper andher slippers, and squeezing something tightly between her fingers, crept down the stairs to the kitchen door. She unlatched it softlyand let it swing open a couple of inches. 

There was a stir within. She waited, holding her breath. She heardthe couch creak. Then came the sound of a shuffling step. 

The moonlight lay in a broad band under the front window. Into thisradiance 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. Hehad doubtless marked it lying there by the window before Aunt Alvirahhad 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. Forhalf a minute he stood there, uncertain and--Ruth thought--sobbingsoftly. Then the boy approached the garments hung upon the chairsabout the stove, wherein the coal fire was banked for the night. 

He stopped before he touched his underclothing. All these garmentswere well dried by this time; but Aunt Alvirah had wished them leftthere to be warm when he put them on in the morning. Ruth knewexactly what Fred Hatfield had in his mind. The vagabond boy wasdetermined to dress quietly and secretly leave the miller's house. 

But when Master Fred touched the first garment Ruth rattled the doorlatch ever so lightly. Fred stopped and turned fearfully in thatdirection. His lips parted. She could see that he was panting withfear. 

Ruth rattled the latch again. He ran back to his couch and plungedinto the comforters with a gasp. Ruth pulled the door quietly to andstood there, shivering in the dark, wondering what to do. She knewthat the boy had it in his mind to escape. She did not wish to arouseUncle 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 ordinaryrunaway, and perhaps wished to advise him to return to his mother, Ruth knew well that Fred Hatfield's was no ordinary case ofvagabondage. 

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 stairsto guard the boy all night. Something desperate had to be done--andsomething very desperate she did!

She unlatched the door again as quietly as possible. She pushed itopen far enough to slip through into the kitchen. There was nomovement from the boy--not a sound. Nor did Ruth dare even look inhis direction. 

She crept across the kitchen floor to the stove. She reached thegarments hung upon the chair backs. She selected one and withdrew ina hurry to the staircase, and so ran up to her room. 

"There!" she thought, shutting her door and breathing heavily. "Ifhe wants to run away he can; but he'll have to go without histrousers!"

CHAPTER V

OFF FOR THE BACKWOODS

It was still dark when Ruth awoke and slipped down to the kitchenagain. But she heard her uncle rattling the stove grate. He was avery early riser. She peered into the kitchen and saw the grove ofdrying clothing, so knew that her trick of the night before had keptFred Hatfield from running away. 

Therefore she merely dropped the boy's nether garments inside thekitchen door and scurried back to her own room to dress by candle-light. She heard Aunt Alvirah stumbling about her room and groaningher old, old tune, "Oh, my back, and oh, my bones!" As soon as Ruthwas dressed she ran in to see if she could do anything for the oldwoman. 

"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 solong. And your Uncle's that proud of you, too! He often reads thereports the school teacher sends him--I see him doing that in theevening. He keeps the reports in his cash-box, just as though theywas as precious as his stocks and bonds. Yes-indeedy!"

"You are so glad to have me at home, Aunt Alvirah, that I feelguilty 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 goand have a good time. Your trunk's all packed and ready, and youryoung 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 timeand I heard him just go out to the mill. That boy must be up anddressed by now, for if he had been sick, Jabez would have hollered upthe stairs about it. "

She was right. Fred Hatfield was completely dressed when they cameinto the kitchen. Ruth did not look at him, but busied herself withthe details of getting breakfast. She did not speak to him, nor didFred speak to her. But Aunt Alvirah was as cheerful and as chatty asever. 

Uncle Jabez was never talkative; but he was no more taciturn thismorning than was their guest. The boy ate his breakfast with downcasteyes and only said timidly, at the end of the meal:

"I'm real obliged for your kindness, Mr. Potter. I think I'm allright 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 aboy 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 wasmaking for Cheslow. I'll get a job--"

"You wait here as you're told, boy, " snapped Uncle Jabez, and therunaway shrank into his chair again and said nothing more. 

Breakfast at the Red Mill was always early; it had been finishedbefore seven o'clock on this clear winter morning. It was a fine daywhen the sun appeared, and Ruth's mind--at least, a _part_ ofit!--delighted in the thought of the journey to be taken into thegreat woods to the north and east of Osago Lake. She had severallittle things to do in preparation; therefore she could not be blamedif she lost sight of Fred Hatfield occasionally. 

Suddenly, however, she found that he had left the kitchen. She criedup 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 youruncle tell him to wait for Mr. Cameron here?"

"But he's gone!" exclaimed Ruth; and picking up her cap she pulledit on, and likewise her sweater, and went out of the house with abang. He was not on the road to Cheslow. She could see that, straightbefore the mill, for a mile. She ran down to the gate and lookedalong the river road, up stream. No figure appeared there. Nor in theother direction--although the Camerons' car would appear from thatway, and if the runaway went in that direction he would surely runright 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 backhall 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 youngHatfield intended; but she was well aware that he could get acrossthe Lumano if he chose; the ice was thick enough. 

She quickly clamped the skates upon her shoes, and within fiveminutes was darting off across the ice. 

Hatfield heard the ring of her skates within a very few moments; hethrew a glance over his shoulder, saw her, and then began to run. Itwas a feeble attempt to escape, for unless some accident happened toRuth, she could easily overtake him. 

And she did so, although he ran straight ahead, and ran so hard thatfinally he slipped and fell, panting, to his knees. Ruth was besidehim before he could rise. 

"Don't you be such a ridiculous boy!" she commanded, seizing the ladby 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. Andthey'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 wantto see that man again. "

"But he expects to see you, and I could not let you go before hecomes. "

"You're just the meanest girl I ever saw!" cried Hatfield, almost intears. "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 dreadfullyfoolish boy--"

"What do you know about me?" he gasped, turning to look at herfinally with frightened eyes. 

"I know that running away isn't going to help you, " Ruth Fieldingsaid, 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'mgoing, 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 goingto take us for a fortnight to Snow Camp. And you--"

With another wild cry Fred Hatfield crumpled down upon the ice andburst into a tempest of sobbing. He beat his ungloved hands upon theice, and although Ruth could not help feeling contempt for a boy whowould 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 soweighed Fred Hatfield down, and had made him an outcast from his homeand friends. 

CHAPTER VI

ON THE TRAIN

When the Cameron automobile arrived at the Red Mill that forenoonFred Hatfield sat gloomily upon the porch steps. Ruth kept an eye onhim from the doorway. Mr. Cameron seemed to understand their positionwhen 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-goodsmerchant and turned away his head. 

"Now, young man, " said Mr. Cameron, standing in front of the sullenboy, 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 Iwill 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. "AndI _won't_. "

Mr. Cameron shook his head. "I hate to see one so young soobstinate, " he said. "It may be that your mother and brothers andsisters find you a sore trial; perhaps they are glad you are not athome. But until I am sure of that I consider it my duty to keep aneye on you. I want you to come along with us to-day. "

"I know where you are going. This girl has told me, " said thelight-haired youth, nodding at Ruth. "You're going up to Scarboro. "

"Yes. And I propose to take you with us. We'll see whether yourmother 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 fromunder it and started to run. But Tom had got out of the automobileand seemed rather expecting this move. He sprang for the other boyand held him. 

"Here! hold on!" he cried. "Put on this old overcoat of mine thatI've brought along, It's going to be cold riding. Put it on--and thenget 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 thecoat 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 andkissed the old miller goodbye. Not that he returned the kiss; UncleJabez looked as though he had never kissed anybody since he was born!But Aunt Alvirah hugged and caressed her "pretty creetur" with awarmth that made up for the miller's coldness. 

"Bless ye, deary!" crooned the little old woman, enfolding Ruth inher 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 inthe woods. Have a care. "

"Oh, we won't get into any trouble, " Ruth declared, happily, with nosuspicion of what was before the party in the backwoods. "Goodbye!"

"Good-bye, Ruthie--Oh, my back and oh, my bones!" groaned AuntAlvirah, as she hobbled into the house again, while Ruth ran down tothe car, leaped aboard, and the chauffeur started immediately. Ben, the hired man, had gone on to Cheslow with Ruth's trunk early in themorning, and now the automobile sped quickly over the smooth road tothe railroad station. 

By several different ways--for Cheslow was a junction of therailroad lines--the young folk who had been invited to Snow Camp hadgathered 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 noattention to give the Scarboro boy as he welcomed his own chums. 

"Here's old Bobbins and Busy Izzy!" he cried, seeing Bob Steele andhis sister, with Isadore Phelps, pacing the long platform as the carhalted. 

Bob Steele was a big, yellow-haired boy, rosy cheeked andgood-natured, but not a little bashful. As Madge, his sister, was ayear and a half older than Bob she often treated him like a verysmall boy indeed. 

"Now, Master Cameron!" she cried, when Tom appeared, "don't muss hisnice clean clothes. Be careful he doesn't get into anything. Be agood boy, Bobbie, and the choo-choo cars will soon come. "

Isadore Phelps was a sharp-looking boy, with red hair and so manyfreckles across the bridge of his nose and under his eyes that, at alittle distance, he looked as though he wore a brown mask. Isadoreseldom spoke without asking a question. He was a walkinginterrogation point. Perhaps that was one reason why he was knownamong his mates as "Busy Izzy, " being usually busy about otherpeople's business. 

"What do you let her nag you for that way, Bob?" he cried. "I'dshake her, if she was my sister--wouldn't you, Tom?"

"No, " said Tom, boldly, for he considered Madge Steele quite a younglady. "She's too big to shake--isn't she, Bobbins?"

But Bob only smiled in his slow way, and said nothing. The girlswere in a group by themselves--Helen and Ruth, Belle and Lluella, Jennie Stone (who rejoiced in the nickname of "Heavy" because of herplumpness) and Madge Steele. Mr. Cameron had gone to the ticketwindow to make an inquiry. It was Ruth who saw Fred Hatfield makingacross the tracks to where a freight train was being made up for thesouth. 

"Tom!" she cried to Helen's brother, and he turned and saw her glance. 

"By George, fellows!" exclaimed Tom, with some disgust. "There'sthat 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 hetrying to get aboard that freight? What do you want of him?"

"Oh, hush! hush!" begged Tom. "Your clatter would deafen one. " Thenhe 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 himcheerfully and added:

"Might as well take it easy. Dad says you're to go along with us, soI advise you to stick close. "

"Pleasant-looking young dog, " said Bob, in an undertone. "What's hedone?"

"I don't know that he has done anything, " returned Tom, in the samelow tone. "But we're going to take him with us to Scarboro. That isthe 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'ttell 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 northcame along, there was a private car attached to it, and in that carthe Cameron party were to travel. One of the railroad officials hadlent his own coach to the Cheslow merchant, and he and his party hadthe car to themselves. 

There was a porter and a steward aboard--both colored men; and soonafter the train started odors from the tiny kitchen assured the girlsand boys that they were to have luncheon on the train. 

"Isn't it delightful?" sighed Heavy, gustily, in Ruth's ear. "Ridingthrough the country on this fast train and being served with ourmeals--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 nothingbut eat all the livelong day. "

"Well, I might do a deal worse, " returned Heavy. "Father says thathimself. He says he wishes my reports were better at Briarwood; buthe can't expect me to put on flesh and gain much learning at the sametime--not when the days are only twenty-four hours long. "

They all laughed a good deal at Heavy, but she was so good-naturedthat the girls all liked her, too. What they should do when theyreached Snow Camp was the principal topic of conversation. As thetrain swept northward the snow appeared. It was piled in fencecorners and lay deep in the woods. Some ice-bound streams and pondswere 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 Tomand his two chums had a gay time by themselves. They tried to getFred Hatfield into their company, but the runaway boy would notrespond to their overtures. 

At the dinner table, when the fun became fast and furious, FredHatfield did not even smile. Heavy whispered to Ruth that she neverdid see a boy before who was so dreadfully solemn. "And he growssolemner and solemner every mile we travel!" added Heavy. "What doyou suppose is on his mind?"

Ruth was quite sure she knew what was on the lad's mind; but she didnot say. Indeed, all the day long she was troubled by the specialknowledge she had gained from the newspaper clipping that she carriedhidden in the bottom of her pocket. Should she tell Mr. Cameron aboutit? Should she speak plainly to Fred himself about it? The nearerthey approached Scarboro the more uncertain she became, and the moresullen Fred Hatfield looked. 

Ruth watched him a good deal, but so covertly that her girl friendsdid not notice her abstraction. The short Winter day was beginning todraw 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 theirdestination. The party--at least, Mr. Cameron, the governess, and theyoung folk--were to remain at the hotel in Scarboro over-night. Theserving 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 outof the window in the door. The flagman was on the rear platform, however, and he could not get down without being observed. The stopat this town was brief; then the train sped on through the deep woods. 

But suddenly the airbrakes were put on again and they slowed downwith 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 othercause--why, this is merely a flag station. Not even a station--just acrossing. "

A white-sheeted road crossed the rails. There were two or threehouses in sight and a big general store, over the door of which waspainted:

EMORYVILLE P. O. 

But the train had stopped and the rear brake-man, or flagman, seizedhis lamp and ran back to wait for the engineer to recall him. It wasgrowing 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 thecar. 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 girlcompanions she ran back to speak to the runaway boy. When she reachedthe door, Fred had already descended the steps. She saw him runacross 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, ramblingcountry store at Emoryville Crossroads. It was so cold an eveningthat there were no loungers upon the high, railless porch whichextended clear across the front of the building. Indeed, there wasbut one wagon standing before the store and probably there were veryfew customers, or loungers either, inside. The stopping of the trainhad 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 giventhe party the slip at some station, had Ruth not kept such a sharpwatch upon him. And here she was on his very heels, when he mighthave gotten well away. 

The next stop would be Scarboro. Fred did not want to appear inScarboro again. And he had a suspicion that Ruth knew his reasons fordesiring to keep away from his home and friends. 

He looked wildly about the lonely crossroads. The panting of thelocomotive exhaust was not the only sound he heard. The two muleshitched to the timber wagon--the only wagon standing by the store--jingled their harness as they shook their heads. One bit at theother, and his mate squealed and stamped. They were young mules andfull of "ginger"; yet their driver had carelessly left them standingunhitched in the road. 

Fred gave another glance at Ruth and kept on running. The engineersuddenly whistled for the return of the flagman. But none of thetrain-hands--nor did the party in the private car--notice the boy andgirl who had so incautiously left the train. 

"Come back!" commanded Ruth, so much interested in following Fredthat she did not notice the lantern of the rear brakeman bobbingalong beside the ties. In a moment he swung himself aboard theprivate car and his lantern described half an arc in the dusk. Theengine answered with a loud cough and the heavy train began to move. 

But at that moment Fred Hatfield, grown desperate because of Ruth'spursuit, leaped aboard the timber wagon. He was a backwoods boyhimself; he knew how to handle mules. He gave a shout to which theteam responded instantly. They leaped ahead just as Ruth came to theside of the long reach that connected the small pair of front wheelswith the huge wheels in the rear. 

"Get off of that wagon, Fred!" she had just cried, when the mulesstarted. She was directly in front of the large rear wheel. If itstruck her--knocked her down--ran over her! Fred knew that she wouldbe killed and he seized her hands and dragged her up beside him onthe jouncing timber-reach. 

"Now see what you've done!" he bawled, as the mules broke into agallop. 

But Ruth was too frightened for the moment to speak. Her uncle had apair of mules, and she knew just how hard they were to manage. Andthis pair were evidently looking toward supper. They flew up theroad, directly away from the railroad, and the wagon jounced about sothat 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 beenwilling enough to start when given the word by a stranger; but nowthey 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 hadtheir bits 'twixt their teeth and were running away in good earnest. 

Almost immediately, when the bumping and jouncing wagon got awayfrom the store and the two or three neighboring houses, they were inthe deep woods. There were no farms--no clearings--not even an openpatch in the timber. The snow lay deep under the pines and firs. Theroad had been used considerably since the last snow, and the rutswere 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 Iwouldn'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 thegirl from the Red Mill, in both anger and despair. "And I wish I hadlet you go your own wicked way. "

"I wish you had, " growled Hatfield, and then tried to soothe therunning mules again. 

He was successful in the end. He had driven mules before andunderstood them. The beasts, after traveling at least two miles, began to slow down. The wagon was now passing through a wild piece ofthe forest, and it was growing dark very fast. Only the snow on theground made it possible for the boy and girl to see objects at adistance. 

Ruth was wondering what her friends would think when they missedher, and likewise how she would ever get back to the railroad. WouldMr. Cameron send back for her? What would happen to her, here in thedeep woods, even when the mules stopped so that she dared leap downfrom the cart?

And just then--before these questions became very pertinent in hermind--she was startled by a wild scream from the bush patch besidethe road. Fred cried out in new alarm, and the mules stopped dead--for a moment. They were trembling and tossing their heads wildly. Theawful, blood-chilling scream was repeated, and there was the softthudding of cushioned paws in the bushes. Some beast had leaped downfrom a tree-branch to the hard snow. 

"A cat-o'-mountain!" yelled Fred Hatfield, and as he shouted, thelithe cat sprang over the brush heap and landed in the road, rightbeside the timber cart. 

Once Ruth had been into the menagerie of a traveling circus that hadcome to Darrowtown while her father was still alive. She had seenthere a panther, and the wicked, graceful, writhing body of the beasthad frightened her more than the bulk of the elephant or the roaringof the lion. This great cat, crouching close to the snow, its tailsweeping from side to side, all its muscles knotted for anotherspring, struck Ruth dumb and helpless. 

Fortunately her gloved hands were locked about the timber on whichshe lay, for the next instant a third savage scream parted thebewhiskered lips of the catamount and on the heels of the cry themules started at full gallop. The panther sprang into the air like arubber ball. Had the mules not started the beast must have landedfairly upon the boy and the girl clinging to the reach of the timberwagon. 

But providentially Ruth Fielding and her companion escaped thisimmediate 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 weremany turns in it, and the deep ruts shook them about terrifically. Ruth and Fred barely retained their positions on the cart--nor wasthe 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 andFred Hatfield clung like mussels to a rock, while the panther boundedinto the air, screeching and spitting, always catching the tail ofthe cart as it came down--afraid to leap off and likewise afraid tohang on. 

The mules came to a hill. They were badly winded by now and theirpace grew slower. The panther scratched along the reach nearer to thetwo human passengers, and Ruth saw its eyes blazing like hugecarbuncles in the dusk. There was a fork of the roads at the foot ofthe hill. Fred Hatfield uttered a shriek of despair as the mules tookthe right hand road and struck into the bush itself--a narrow andtreacherous track where the limbs of the trees threatened to brushall three passengers from the cart at any instant. 

"Oh! oh! we're done for now!" yelled Fred. "They've taken the roadto 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 notbeen so winded. They had run at least four miles from the railroadand even with the fear of the snarling panther behind them they couldnot continue much farther at this pace. 

But over this rougher and narrower road the timber cart jounced morethan ever. In all its life the panther had probably never receivedsuch a shaking-up. The mules had not gone far on what Fred called theRattlesnake Hill Road when, with an ear-splitting cry, the huge catleaped 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 leisurelypace; but nothing but fatigue would bring them down. Thoroughlyfrightened, they kept starting and running without cause, and therewas no chance in this narrow road to turn them. 

The fact that it ascended the side of the hill steeply did moretoward abating the pace of the runaways than aught else. The trackcrept along the edge of several abrupt precipices, too--not more thanthirty or forty feet high, but enough to wreck the wagon and killmules and passengers had they gone over the brink. 

These dangerous places in the winding road were what had sofrightened young Hatfield at first. He knew this locality well. Butto Ruth the place was doubly terrifying, for she was lost--completelylost. 

"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--orelse were so winded that they would have halted of their ownvolition. And as the cart ceased its thumping and rumbling a lightsuddenly blazed up before them, shining through the dusk, and higherup 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 hadslipped out of the private car at the Emoryville Crossing, in pursuitof the runaway youth; now they were deep in the wilderness andsurrounded by such dangers as Ruth had never dreamed of before. 

The baying of a hound and the angry barking of another dog wasRuth's only answer. She turned to see Fred Hatfield sliding down offthe cart. 

"You sha'n't leave me!" cried Ruth, jumping down after him andseizing the runaway desperately. "You sha'n't abandon me in thisforest, 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 across dog. "Lemme go!"

But if Ruth was afraid of what terrors the forest might hold, and ofher general situation, she had seen enough of this boy to know thathe 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 wasquite as strong as he, she knew. "You are going home. At least, youshall go back to Mr. Cameron--"

Just then the flare of light ahead broadened and a gruff voiceshouted:

"Hullo! what's wanted? Down, Tiger! Behave, Rose!"

The dogs instantly stopped their clamor. The light came through theopen door and the glazed window of a little hut perched on a rockoverlooking the road. The mules had halted just below this eminence, and Ruth saw that there was a winding path leading up to the door ofthe hovel. Down this path came the huge figure of a man, with the twodogs gamboling about him in the snow. The occupant of this cabin inthe wilderness carried a rifle in one hand. 

"Hullo!" he said again. "That's Sim Rogers's team--I know thosemules. 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 shakingvoice. 

"Who is he?" asked Ruth, in surprise. 

"He lives here alone on the hill. He's a hermit. They say he'scrazy. 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 reachedthe road. He was an old but very vigorous-looking man, burly andstout, with a great mat of riotous gray hair under his fur cap, and abeard of the same color that reached his breast. He seemed to havevery 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 thehill 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 hunghis head without a word. The girl had to reply:

"I never was so scared. The beast jumped right on the cart and wejust shook him off down the hill yonder. "

"A girl, " said the hermit, talking to himself, but talking aloud, inthe same fashion as before. Without doubt, being so much alone inthese wilds he had contracted the habit of talking to himself--or tohis 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. Letme see. What boy is this?"

"He is Fred Hatfield, " said Ruth, simply. Fred jumped and tried topull 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. Heonly 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 troubleinto 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. Hisquestions dealt with her alone:

"Where do you belong?"

"The party I was with are bound for Snow Camp. Do you know wherethat 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 andwait. This boy and I will stable the mules in my barn; it's justalong the road here. Sim will follow the beasts and find them; buthe'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 seldommore than glanced at her, his eye roving everywhere but at the personto whom he spoke. Ruth started toward the house from which the fireand 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'sall right. "

The dogs seemed to agree with him immediately. The hound sniffedonce at the hem of Ruth's frock; Rose gambolled about her and lickedher hand. Ruth now realized how cold she was, and she ran quickly upto the open door of the cabin. 

On the threshold she hesitated a moment. A great lamp with a tinshade, hanging from the rafters, illuminated all the center of theroom. At one end burned a hot log fire on the hearth; but the twofurther corners were in gloom. Ruth had said she had never seen a logcabin, and it was true. This one seemed to her to be a very cozyplace indeed, even if it was the habitation of a hermit. 

As she entered, however, she found that there was a rathersuffocating, unpleasant odor in the place. It was light, yetpenetrating enough to be distinguished clearly. In one of the darkercorners was what appeared to be a big green chest, and it had aglazed window frame for a cover. Something rustled there. 

The dogs followed her in and she sat down in an old-fashioned, benthickory chair on the hearth--perhaps the hermit himself had justrisen from it, for there was a sheepskin lying before it for a matand 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 couldrest a hand on either head, and so blinked at the flames while theywaited for the return of the hermit and the runaway boy. 

So she sat when they came into the cabin, stamping the snow fromtheir shoes. The hermit led Fred by the arm. He had not overlookedthe care with which Ruth had retained him by her side. 

"So you want to go over to Mr. Parrish's Snow Camp?" asked the oldman. 

"It belongs to Mr. Cameron, now. " said Ruth. "I know that there is atelephone there, and I can get word to Mr. Cameron and Helen and Tomat 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'llgit 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 suchthings in my life. "

"You'll learn, " said the hermit. 

He bustled about, making the tea and warming a big pancake ofcornbread which he put into an iron dripping-pan down before theglowing coals at one side. While they waited for the water to bubblefor the tea the old man went to the big chest, and began to talk andfondle something. Ruth heard the rustling again and turned around tolook. 

"Want to see my children, Young Miss?" asked the old man, whose eyesseemed as sharp as needles. 

Ruth arose in curiosity and approached. Within a yard of the old manand his chest she stopped suddenly with a gasp. The hermit stood upwith two snakes twining about his hands and wrists. The serpents rantheir tongues out like lightning, and their beady eyes glowed asthough living fire dwelt in their heads. Ruth was frightened, but shewould not scream. The hermit handled the snakes as though they wereas harmless as kittens--as probably they were, the poison sackshaving 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 itsinterior. There was a great hissing and rustling. The hermit steppedto the hanging lamp and turned the shade so as to send the radianceof it into that corner. Through the pane Ruth saw a squirming mass ofscaly bodies, mixed up with an old quilt. More than one tail, withrows of "buttons" and rattles on it, was elevated, and one angryserpent "sprung his rattle" sharply. 

"Hush, hush, my dears!" said the hermit, soothingly. "Go to sleepagain now. My children, " he said, nodding at Ruth. "Pretty dears!"

To tell the truth, the girl from the Red Mill wanted to scream; butshe held herself down, clenching her hands, and saying nothing. Thekettle began to sing and she was glad to go back to the chair by thefire and afterward to sip the tin cup of hot tea that their host gaveher, and eat with gocd 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 thongsto them. The pair he selected for Ruth looked to the girl to be sobig that she never could take a step in them; but he seemed to expecther to try. 

They went out of the cabin as the moon was rising. It came up as redand fiery as the sun had gone down. Long shadows of the tall treeswere flung across the snow. The hermit commanded Rose, the setter, toguard the hut, while he allowed the hound to follow at heel. Hecarried 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 lastwinter. Neighbors will have to get up a hunt for this one thattroubled you, Young Miss, 'fore it does more damage. "

At the top of the ascent they stopped and the old man put on Ruth'ssnowshoes for her. Fred, always without a word and looking mightysullen (but evidently afraid of the rattlesnake man) tied his own inplace 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 impressionupon the well-packed snow. There was no wind and, although the airwas very keen (the thermometer probably being almost to the zeromark) it was easy for her to move over the drifts. With some littleinstruction from the rattlesnake man, and after several tumbles--which were of little moment because he and Fred held her up--Ruth wasable to put one foot before the other and shuffle over the snow at afairly good pace. 

The moonlight made the unbroken track as plain as noonday. To Ruthit seemed almost impossible that the hermit could find his waythrough a forest which showed no mark of any former traveler; but hewent on as though it was a turnpike. 

Two hours and a half were they on the way, and Ruth had begun to beboth tired and cold when they crossed a road on which there weretelegraph, or telephone poles and then--a little farther into the BigWoods--they struck a well-defined private track over which sleds hadrecently 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 toSnow Camp--and there is the light from the windows!"

Ruth saw several points of light directly ahead. They quicklyreached a good-sized clearing, in the middle of which stood a two-storylog cabin, with a balcony built all around it at the height of thesecond floor. Sleigh bells jingled as the horses stamped in theyard. The heavy sledges with the luggage and the serving people hadjust arrived. Ruth Fielding was the first of the pleasure party toarrive at Snow Camp. 

CHAPTER IX

"LONG JERRY" TODD

Some dogs began barking, and the hermit's hound replied by bayingwith his nose in the air--a sound to make anybody shiver! TheRattlesnake Man gave a lusty shout, and a door opened, flooding theporch of the big log cabin with lamplight. 

"Hello!" came the answering shout across the clearing, and a verytall man--as thin as a lath--strode down from the porch andapproached them, after sending back the dogs--all but one. This bigcreature could not be stayed in his impetuous rush over the snow andthe next instant he sprang up and put both his forepaws on Ruth'sshoulders. 

"Oh, Reno!" she cried, fondling Tom Cameron's big mastiff, that hadcome 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 tohimself than to the surprised tall man, who was the guide and keeperin charge of Snow Camp. "Your boss lose one of his party off thetrain, Long Jerry Todd?"

"So I hear. Is this here the gal?" cried the other, in immensesurprise. "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 aminute was out of sight. Then Ruth looked around suddenly for FredHatfield. 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 atEmoryville when I did--you must have seen him. "

"I never did, " declared the guide. "He must have slipped away. Maybehe's gone into the house. You'd better come in yourself. The womenfolks will 'tend to you. Why, Miss, you're dead beat!"

Indeed Ruth was. She could scarcely stumble with the guide's help tothe porch. She had kicked off the snowshoes and the hermit had takenthem with him. Had it not been for the hermit and Fred Hatfield, RuthFielding would never have been able to travel the distance from thehermit's cabin to Snow Camp. And the terrible shaking up she hadreceived on the timber cart made her feel like singing old AuntAlvirah'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, orso) with the luggage. They welcomed Ruth and set her down before agreat fire in the dining room, and one of them removed the girl'sshoes so that her feet might be dried and warmed, while the otherhurried to make some supper for the wanderer. 

But as soon as Ruth got her slippers on, and recovered a little fromthe exhaustion of her trip, two things troubled her vastly. Sheinquired for the boy again, and learned that he had not been seenabout 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 willMr. Cameron say?"

That question brought her to the second of her troubles. Her friendswould worry about her all night if she did not find some way ofallaying their anxiety. 

"Oh, Mary!" she said to the maid. "Where's the telephone? Tom saidthere was telephone connection here. "

"So there is, Miss, " returned the maid. "And somebody had bettertell Mrs. Murchiston that you're safe. They're all as worried as theycan be about you, for the folks at that store by the railroad--wherethe train stopped--when _they_ was called up as soon as thetrain reached Scarboro, declared that you had got run away with by ateam of mules. "

"Which was most certainly true, " admitted Ruth. "I never had such adreadful time in all my life. Run away with by mules, and frightenedto 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 goout of this house whilst we stay. 'Tain't civilized hereabout. "

Ruth laughed rather ruefully. "I guess you're right, Mary, " shesaid. "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 gotthe hotel where the Cameron party was stopping. Almost immediatelyshe 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 SnowCamp. "

"Well! That's fine! Thank goodness you're safe!" ejaculated themerchant, in an entirely different tone. "Why, Ruth, I was just aboutsending a party out from the store at Emoryville to beat up the woodsfor 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--andthere 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 amonth 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 hisbrother. 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 beenfrightened half to death about you. Goodnight. "

He hung up the receiver, leaving Ruth in rather a disturbed state ofmind. The newspaper clipping that had dropped out of the old walletthe strange boy had carried, was the account of the shooting affair. Mention was made in it about the very frequent mistakes made in thehunting season--mistakes which often end in the death of one hunterby the hand of another. 

It said that 'Lias Hatfield and his younger brother, Fred, had had aquarrel and then gone hunting, each taking a different direction. Theyounger boy had ensconced himself just under the brink of a steepbank at the bottom of which was Rolling River, a swift and deepstream. His brother's story was that he had come up facing thisplace, having started a young buck not half a mile away. He thoughthe heard the buck stamping, and blowing, and then saw what he thoughtwas the animal behind a fringe of bushes at the top of this steepriver bank. 

The hunter blazed away, and heard a dreadful scream, a rolling andthrashing in the brush, and a splash in the river. He ran forward andfound his brother's old gun and tippet. There was blood on thebushes. The supposition was that Fred Hatfield had been shot and hadrolled into the swift-flowing river. 'Lias had given himself up tothe authorities and there seemed some doubt in the minds of thepeople of Scarboro as to whether the shooting had been an accident. 

"If there was no body found, " thought Ruth, all the time she waseating the supper that Mary brought her, "how do they know FredHatfield is really dead? And if he _is_ dead, who is the boy whois traveling about the country using Fred Hatfield's name andcarrying Mr. Hatfield's old wallet? I guess Fred has run away, instead of being killed, and is staying away because he hates hisbrother '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, andRuth determined to pump him about the accident. The tall man knew allabout it, and was willing enough to talk. 

He sat down beside the fire and answered Ruth's questions mostcheerfully. 

"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 thanFred 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 theriver t'other day, and so they arrested 'Lias. "

But Long Jerry hadn't seen any sign of the boy that had been withRuth and the hermit when they arrived at Snow Camp. Ruth did not liketo discuss the mystery with him any more; for it _was_ a mysterynow, 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 fullheight, preparatory to going back to the kitchen regions. He wasnearly seven feet tall, and painfully thin. He grinned down upon RuthFielding as she gazed in wonder at his proportions. 

"I'm some long; ain't I, Miss?" he chuckled. "But I warn't no tallerthan 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 andshe encouraged him to go on. So Jerry sat down again and began hisstory. 

CHAPTER X

BEARS--AND OTHER THINGS

"Ye see, " drawled Jerry, "my marm was alive in them days--bless herheart! Dad was killed on the boom down Rolling River when I was alittle shaver; but marm hung on till I got growed. Ya-as! I mean tillI got clean through growin' and that was long after I voted fusttime, " and he chuckled and wagged his head. 

"Wal, mebbe I was sixteen; mebbe seventeen. Boys up here in thewoods have to cut their own vittles pretty airly. I was doin' a man'slabor 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 bigbundle of aperns marm had sewed for Mis' Juneberry that kep' store atDrownville. She got two bits a dozen for makin' them aperns, Iremember. Wal, it was a wilder country then than it is now, and Inever see a soul, nor heard the sound of an axe in walking fourmiles. Just at the end o' them four miles, " continued Long Jerry, hiseyes twinkling, "there was a turn in the road. I swung around it--Iwas travelin' at a good clip--and come facin' up an old she b'arwhich 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, "bythe smile on thet thar b'ar's face and the way she spread her armswide 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 themdays than I be now. Hadn't seen so much of the world. And sure hadn'tseen so much o' b'ars, " cackled Jerry. "Not bein' used to b'arsassiety I natcherly balked when that ol' she b'ar appeared solovin'. I had pretty nigh walked right into her arms and there wasn'tmuch chance to make any particular preparations. Fact was, I didn'thave nothin' with me more dangerous than a broken jack-knife, and Idon't know how it might strike you, Miss, but to me that didn't seemto 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 pitchedthat 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'ddo to me if she got me, so I left them parts, an' left 'em quick! Istarted off through the woods, hittin' only the high spots, andfancied 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 fourfeet, 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 mewithin thirty yards. An' I knew if I climbed a big tree she'd race meto the top of it and get me, too. Ye see, a small-round tree was myonly 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 comecavortin' an' growlin' along, and it did seem to me as though she'dhave a chunk out o' me afore I could climb out o' reach. It was jestabout then, I reckon, " pursued Long Jerry, chuckling again, "when Ibelieve I began to grow tall!

"I stretched my arms up as fur as I could, an' the way I shinnied upthat sapling was a caution to cats, now I tell ye! She riz up theminute 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 itoff of a college perfesser what come up here, and he said he got itstraight-away out of the dictionary. "

"It's a good word, Mr. Todd, " laughed Ruth, highly delighted at theman and his story. 

"Wal!" chuckled Jerry, "we'll say she missed me. I was so scar'tthat I didn't know then whether she had missed me or was chawin' ofme. I felt I was pretty numb like below my waist. And how I didstretch up that tree! No wonder I growed tall after that day, " saidJerry, 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 melike the Mr. Bashan's Bull that they tell about, and scratchin' thebark off'n that tree in great strips. She cleaned the pole, as far upas she could reach, as clean as a bald man's head. She jumped as faras she could, gnashed her teeth, and tried her best to climb thatsapling. Every time she made a jump, or howled, I tried to climbhigher. An', Miss, that was the time I got stretched out so tall, forsure. 

"The bear, with wide-open mouth, kept on a-jumpin' an' ev'ry timeshe jumped I clumb a little higher, I was so busy lookin' down at herthat 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 mean' sumpin' snapped. 'Twarn't my galluses, neither!" crowed LongJerry, very much delighted by his own tale. "I knowed that, allright. 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. Therewas 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. Ibelieve it. Sure I do. 'Twarn't twenty feet from the top o' that treeto the ground, but I even remembered how I stole my sister Jane's ragbaby when I couldn't more'n toddle around marm's shanty--that'sright!--an' berried of it in the hog-pen. Every sin that wasregistered to my account come up before me as plain as the wart onJim 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 methan 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 landsquare on her back--I swanny! that was a crack. Purty nigh drove myspine 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 kitedout o' that as though she'd been sent for in a hurry! I swanny! Inever did see a b'ar run so fast, " and Long Jerry burst into anuproarious laugh. 

"But that, I reckon, is the time I got so stretched out an' begun togrow so tall, Miss, " he added. "Stretchin' an' strainin' to git awayfrom that ol' she b'ar was what done it. "

Ruth was delighted with the guide; but she was very tired, too, andwhen the maids came in she was only too glad to fall in with thesuggestion of bed. She was put to sleep in a great, plainly furnishedroom, where there were three other beds--a regular dormitory. It waslike one of the Prime sleeping rooms at Briarwood Hall. 

And how Ruth did sleep that night after her adventurous day! The sunshone broadly on the clearing about the camp when she first openedher eyes. Mary put her head in at the door and said:

"Your breakfast will be spoilt, Miss Ruth, or I wouldn't disturbyou. 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. Cameronjust 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 stiffand lame; the jouncing she had received while riding with the boycalling himself Fred Hatfield, and the catamount, on the timber cart, and later her first long walk on snow-shoes, had together strainedher muscles and lamed her limbs to a degree. Old Aunt Alvirah'soft-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 hisfriends, too--and the fun in store for them all at Snow Camp, soonmade Ruth Fielding forget small troubles. Besides, the muscles ofyouth are elastic and the weariness soon went out of her bones. Before the party arrived from Scarboro she had opportunity of goingall about the great log lodge, and getting acquainted with all itheld and all that surrounded it. 

The great hall on the lower floor was arranged so as to have a broadopen fireplace at either end. These fires were kept burning day andnight and the great heaps of glowing logs made the hall, and most ofthe upper rooms, very comfortable indeed. The walls of this hall werehung with snowshoes, Canadian toboggans--so light, apparently, thatthey would not hold one man, let alone four, but very, very stronglybuilt--guns, Indian bows and sheaf of arrows, fish-spears, and aconglomeration of hunting gear for much of which Ruth Fielding didnot even know the names, let alone their uses. 

Outside the snow had been cleared away immediately around the greatlog house and a wide path was cut through the drifts down to a smalllake, or pond. In coming from Rattlesnake Hill the night before withthe old hermit, and the boy who called himself Fred Hatfield, theyhad come down a long incline in sight of the camp. Now, Ruth saw thata course had been made level upon that hillside, banked up on eitherside with dykes of snow, and water poured over the whole to make aperfect slide. There was a starting platform at the top and thecourse was more than half a mile in length, Long Jerry told her. 

But when she had seen all these things sleigh bells were heard andRuth ran out to welcome her friends. 

CHAPTER XI

THE FROST GAMES

The big sleigh in which were Helen and the other girls swept intothe clearing in advance and Ruth's chum led the chorus addressedvociferously 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, theheavyweight. "I was so worried I was actually sick. "

"And that is positively 'no error, '" laughed Belle Tingley. "Foronce Heavy was so troubled that she couldn't eat. "

Helen was out of the sleigh at once and hugged Ruth hard. "Youblessed girl!" she cried. "I was _so_ afraid something dreadfulhad happened to you. "

"And what became of that horrid boy Mr. Cameron tried to take toScarboro?" demanded Madge Steele. 

The boys piled out of their sledge before Ruth could answer thesequestions, and she was unable to give a very vivid explanation of allthat had happened to her since leaving the train, until the wholeparty was gathered before one of the open fires in the hall, waitingfor dinner. Before this hour came, however, and while the rest of theyoung folks were getting acquainted with the possibilities of SnowCamp, Ruth had a serious talk with Mr. Cameron regarding themysterious boy who had disappeared on the verge of the Snow Campreservation. 

"I don't know how he escaped us. He sped away through the woods withthe old hermit's snowshoes--I am sure of that. And that oldRattlesnake Man didn't seem to be bothered at all by his loss, " Ruthsaid. 

"Perhaps that hermit knows something about the fellow. We'll lookinto that, " said the merchant, gravely. "However, Ruth, you did whatyou thought was right. It was reckless. I cannot commend you forleaving the train, child. Something dreadful might have happened toyou. "

"I thought something dreadful _did_ happen to me, " said Ruth, with ashudder, "when those mules ran away and that catamount leaped up onthe timber cart. "

"I believe you! And your going to the cabin of that rattlesnakecatcher. They say he is mad, and he handles the serpents just asthough 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. Butthe snakes--oh! they did frighten me dreadfully. "

"From what I hear of this young man, 'Lias Hatfield, who is in jailat Scarboro, he is a decent lad and has worked hard for hisstepmother. The half-brother he shot was about the age of this boy wefound down home. But _his_ body was recovered from the riveronly the other day when they arrested 'Lias. I shall make it mybusiness to see the Hatfields personally and learn, if possible, howa stranger like that boy who came here with you, Ruth, could haveobtained 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 clippingthat had dropped out of the old wallet when she had undertaken to drythe boy's clothing at the Red Mill. 

Meanwhile, the other young folks were highly delighted over thepossibilities for fun at Snow Camp. Tom and his friends did not paymuch attention to what was inside the great log house; but beforenoon they knew all that was to be done outside and were unhappy onlybecause they did not know which to do first. In addition, Busy Izzyhad exhausted himself and every man about the place, askingquestions; and finally Tom and Bob gagged him with his ownhandkerchief and threatened to tie him up and not give him any dinnerif 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 tasteof the dough. Mary says it's 'Whangdoodle Pudding, with LallygagSauce'; 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 thepudding. Such a hearty appetite as everybody had! The snapping coldand the odor of balsam and pine gave a tang to the taste that none ofthem had ever known before. The girls were full of plans for quiethours around the great open fires, as well as for the out-of-doorfun; but Tom was leader on this first day of the vacation at SnowCamp, 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. LongJerry came down to watch them and grinned broadly at the boys' anticson the ice. Jerry was no skater; but he was stringing snowshoes andby the morning would have enough ready for the whole party andpromised to teach the young folk the art of walking on them in half aday. 

That afternoon on the ice only put an edge on the appetite of thewhole party for the frost games. "Plenty of time to make thosepine-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'llhave some fun this night. "

"What now?" demanded Madge Steele. "I see the boys have stolen outafter supper. A sleigh ride?"

"No; although that would be fun, " said Helen. 

"Oh, dear! Can't we take it easy this evening?" whined Heavy, aftera mighty yawn. "I _was_ so hungry--"

"You shouldn't give way to that dreadful appetite of yours, JennieStone!" cried Belle Tingley. "If there's any fun afoot I want to bein it. "

"Come on! All ready!" shouted the boys outside the house, and thesextette of girls ran to get on their wraps. 

They bundled out of the house to find Tom, Bob and Isadore eachdrawing a long, flat, narrow toboggan. Helen clapped her hands andshouted:

"Fine! fine! See these sleds, girls. "

"We're going to shoot the chutes, Heavy, " sang out Madge. "Do youthink you can stand it?"

"Now, don't any of you back out, " Tom said. "Each of us will taketwo 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--tothe top of that slide. I never did care much for boys--they aregreedy; 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 alongto the top of the chute needn't expect to ride to the bottom. "

They all hurried off, laughing and shouting. It was a most beautifulmoonlight night. Save their own voices, only the distant barking of afox broke the great silence that wrapped the snow-clad country about. None of the grown folk followed them. The party had the hill tothemselves. 

It being a race to the hill-top, with the first two girls to taketheir places on the toboggan of the first boy, naturally Heavy wasout of the running, and bound to be last. She came panting to thestarting platform, and found Ruth waiting to share Isadore's sledwith her. 

Tom, with Madge and Belle, had already shot down the icy chute. BobSteele, with Lluella and Helen before him, dropped over the verge ofthe platform and their toboggan began to whiz down the pathway, asJennie plumped down upon the remaining toboggan. 

"Come on, Ruthie! You're a good little thing to wait for me--and Iguess Tom Cameron didn't like it much, either? He wanted you. "

"Nonsense, Jennie, " returned Ruth, with a laugh. "What does itmatter? As long as we all get a slide--"

"Hurry up, now, " cried Busy Izzy, troubled because he was behind hiscomrades, if the girls were not. "Sit tight. "

He pushed the toboggan over the edge of the drop almost before Ruthwas settled behind Jennie. He flung himself upon the sled, sittingsideways, and "kicked" them over the drop. The toboggan struck theicy 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 oneither hand, and so rapidly that their eyes watered and they couldnot see. It seemed only a breath when the third toboggan shot ontothe level at the bottom, and they passed the crew of the first sledalready coming back. It was exhilarating sport--it was delightful. Yet every time they started Ruth felt as though the breath left herlungs and that she couldn't catch it again until they slowed down atthe bottom of the hill. 

She would have felt safer with one of the other boys, too. IsadorePhelps was none too careful, and once the toboggan ran up one of theside dykes and almost spilled them on the course. 

"Do look out what you are about, Isadore, " Ruth begged, when theyreached the bottom of the slide that time. "If we should have a spill----"

"Great would be the fall thereof!" grinned Isadore, looking atHeavy, puffing up the hill beside them. 

"You take care now, and don't spatter me all over the slide, " saidthe cheerful stout girl, whose doll-like face was almost alwayswreathed in smiles. 

But Isadore was really becoming reckless. To tell the truth, Bob andTom were laughing at him. He had been the last to get away each timefrom the starting platform, and he could not catch up with theothers. Perhaps that was the stout girl's fault; but Ruth would climbthe hill no faster than Jennie, and so the third toboggan continuedfar behind the others. As they panted up the hill Tom and his twocompanions shot past and waved their hands at them; then followed BobSteele's crew and Helen shouted some laughing gibe at them. Isadore'sface grew black. 

"I declare! I wish you girls would stir yourselves. Hurry up!" hegrowled quite ungallantly. 

"What's the hurry?" panted Heavy. 

"There's nobody paying us for this; is there? Let 'em catch up withus and then we will be--all--to--geth--er--Woof! My goodness me, I'mwinded, " 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 gababout it. Come along; will you?"

"Don't you mind him, Jennie, " whispered Ruth. "I don't think he'svery nice. "

They got aboard the toboggan once more and Isadore recklessly flunghimself on it, too, and pushed off. At the moment there came a shrillhail from below. Tom was sending up some word of warning--at the verytop of his voice. 

But the three just starting down the slide could not distinguish hiswords. 

Jennie shut her eyes tight the moment the toboggan lurched forward, so she could not possibly see anything that lay before them. Ruthpeered over the stout girl's shoulder, the wind half blinding hereyes with tears. But the moonlight lay so brilliantly upon the trackthat it was revealed like midday. Something lay prone and black uponthe icy surface of the slide. 

CHAPTER XII

PERIL--AND A TAFFY PULL

It seemed to Ruth Fielding, as the toboggan dashed down the chutetoward that strange object in their course, as though her lips wereglued 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--aquarter of a mile ahead when her stinging eyes first saw it. 

Toward it the sled rushed, gathering speed every moment, and theobject on the track grew in her eyes apace. When her lips parted shescreamed 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 couldhalt them once they had started upon the icy incline. But her crywarned Isadore of the peril ahead. 

He echoed her cry, and was as panic-stricken as the girl herself. Atfirst, the thing looked like somebody lying across the slide. Had oneof their friends fallen off either of the other toboggans, and beentoo hurt to rise? Then, the next instant, both Isadore and Ruth knewthat the thing was too small for that. 

It was really a jacket that Bob Steele had tied about his neck bythe arms. On the way down the sleeves had become untied and thejacket had spread itself out upon the slide to its full breadth. 

It didn't seem as though such a thing could do the coming tobogganany harm; but Ruth and Isadore Phelps knew well that if it went uponthe outspread coat there would be a spill. It would act like a braketo the sled, and that frail vehicle on which the three young folkrode would stop so abruptly that they would be flung off upon the icycourse. 

Ruth at least understood this peril only too well; but she made nofurther outcry. Jennie Stone's eyes were still tight shut. 

One moment the outspread jacket lay far before them, across thepath. The next instant--or so it seemed--they were right upon it. 

"Hang on!" yelled Isadore, and shot his boot-heel into the icysurface of the slide. 

The toboggan swerved. Jennie uttered a cry. The sled went up theleft hand dyke like a bolting horse climbing a roadside wall or aside hill. 

In Ruth's ears rang the shouts of their friends, who were cominghastily up the hillside. They could do nothing to help the endangeredcrew, nor could the latter help themselves. 

Up the toboggan shot into the air. It leaped the shoulder of thedyke and--crew and all--darted out into space. 

That was certainly an awful moment for Ruth Fielding and her twocompanions. Jennie's intermittent squeal turned into a sudden shriek--as keen and nerve-racking as the whistle of a locomotive. IsadorePhelps "blew up" with a muffled roar as he turned half a somersaultin the air and landed headfirst in a huge snowdrift. 

That is how the girls landed, too. At least, if they didn't diveheadfirst into the drift, they were pretty well swallowed up in it. And it was providential that they all did find such a soft cushionwhen they landed. 

Their individual shrieks were broken off suddenly by the smotheringsnow. Their friends, on the other side of the slide, came plungingacross the course, and Bob Steele, slipping on the smooth surface, kicked up both feet high in the air, landed with a crash on the smallof his back, and finished the slide to the very bottom of the chutein 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 helpthe girls out of the snowdrift. As for Isadore, he had to scrambleout by himself--and the soft snow had got down his neck, and he hadlost his hat, his ears were full of snow, and altogether he was inwhat Madge Steele called "a state of mind. "

"Huh!" Izzy growled, "you all can laugh. Wait! I'll get square withyou girls, now, you better believe that. "

And he actually started off for the camp in a most abused state. Theothers could not help their laughter--the more so that what seemedfor a few seconds to promise disaster had turned out to be nothingbut a most amusing catastrophe. 

This ended the coasting for this particular evening, however. JennieStone was pried out of the snowdrift last of all, and they all wentto the bottom of the hill where Bob Steele sat with his back againsta tree trunk, waiting, as he said, for the "world to stop turningaround so fast. " His swift descent had made him dizzy. 

They all ran back to Snow Camp, catching up with Isadore before hegot there with his grouch, and Tom and Bob fell upon the grouch anddumped it into another snowbank--boy and all--and managed in thescuffle to bring Busy Izzy into a better state of mind. 

"Just the same, " he declared, "I'll get square with those girls forlaughing at me--you see if I don't!"

"A lot of good that'll do you, " returned Tom Cameron. "And whyshouldn't they laugh? Do you suppose that the sight of you on yourhead in a snowbank with your legs waving in the wind was something tomake 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 andpopping it, turning the fluffy, snow-white kernels into big bowls, over which thick cream was poured, and, as Jennie declared, "they atetill they couldn't eat another crumb!"

"Isn't it just grand?" cried Belle Tingley, when the girls hadretired to the big room in which Ruth Fielding had slept alone thenight before. "I never did know you could have so much fun in thewoods in the dead of winter. Helen! your father is just the dearestman 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. Theresources of Snow Camp seemed unending. As soon as breakfast was overthere was Long Jerry ready with snowshoes for all. Tom and Helen, aswell as Bob Steele, were somewhat familiar with these implements. AndRuth had had one unforgettable experience with them. 

But at first there were a good many tumbles, and none of the partywent far from the big lodge on this occasion. They came into the mid-daydinner pretty well tired, but oh, how hungry!

"I declare, eating never seemed so good before, " Bob Steelemurmured. "I really wish I could eat more; but room I have not!"

Heavy went to sleep before the fire directly after the meal, but wasawakened when the girls all trooped out to the kitchen to makemolasses taffy. The boys had gone with Long Jerry to try to shootsquirrels; but they came back without having any luck before thegirls were fairly in possession of Janey's kitchen. 

"Let us help--aw, do!" cried Tom, smelling the molasses boiling onthe range and leading the way into the kitchen. 

"You can't cook anything good to eat when there are boys within amile, and they not know it, " sighed Jennie Stone. 

"Or be able to keep them out of it, " declared Madge Steele. "Isuppose 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'snuts--half a bushel of them. The boys must crack and pick the nutsand we'll make some walnut taffy--it will be lots nicer than plaintaffy. "

"Oh, well, that _does_ put another face upon the matter, "laughed Lluella Fairfax. 

"But they must all three whistle while they're picking out thenuts, " cried Heavy. "I know them! The nut meats will never go intothe taffy pan if they don't whistle. "

Tom and his chums agreed to this and in a few minutes they were allthree sitting gravely on the big settee by the fire, a flatiron ineach boy's lap, each with a hammer and the basket of nuts in reach, and all dolefully whistling--with as much discord as possible. Thewhistling did certainly try the girls' nerves; but the boys were notto be trusted under any other conditions. 

Busy Izzy, however--that arch schemer--had not forgiven the girlsfor laughing at his overset on the toboggan slide the night before. And as he sat whistling "Good Night, Ladies" in a dreadful minor, heevolved such a plan for reprisal in his fertile mind that his eyesbegan to snap and he could hardly whistle for the grin that wreathedhis lips. 

"Keep at it, Mr. Isadore Phelps!" cried Ruth, first to detect Izzy'sdefection. "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 andpicked out, we'll spread the kernels in the dripping pans, the taffywill then be ready, we'll pour it over, and then set the candy out tocool 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 thequantity sufficient. Meanwhile, the taffy was boiling in the bigkettle, and Ruth and Jennie had buttered three dripping pans. Theyspread the nutmeats evenly in the pans and then set the panscarefully on a snowdrift outside the back door to get thoroughly coldbefore the taffy was poured thinly over the nuts. 

Everybody was on the _qui vive_ about the candy then. The girlscouldn't drive the boys out of the room. The bubbling molasses filledthe great kitchen with a rich odor. Jennie began popping corn withwhich to make cornballs of the taffy that could not be run into thethree 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 topour into the pans outside. Isadora said he would help--the kettlewas too heavy for the girls to carry. He was adjured to be very, verycareful and the girls followed him to the door in a body when hecarried 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 themixture into the pans as he had been instructed, and even she had nocomplaint to make. He hurried back to the kitchen, too, poured theresidue of the boiled molasses upon the popcorn and they made up thecornballs at once. 

"Come on, now, " said Izzy, in a great hurry. "Give us fellows ourshare of the cornballs and we'll beat it. We're going skating. We'llhelp 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 forlaughter; and he carried a good sized paper bag besides his share ofthe popcorn balls. 

The girls "cleaned up"--for that had been the agreement with Janeywhen she let them have her kitchen--and then sat down before the hallfire to make pine pillows, of which they were determined to take anumber to Briarwood to give to their friends. Helen had bought a lotof denim covers stamped and lettered with mottoes, including theever-favorite "I Pine for Thee and Likewise Balsam. "

But although they were very merry around the fire, Heavy could notlong be content. The popcorn balls disappeared like magic and thestout girl kept worrying the others with questions about the taffy. 

"Don't you suppose that candy's cool? I declare! those boys mightplay a joke on us--they might creep back and steal all three pans. "

"Dear me, Jennie!" cried Ruth Fielding. "If you are so anxious, whydon't you run and bring a pan in? We'll see if it's brittle enough tobreak up. "

Heavy sighed, but put down her work and arose. "It's always I whohas 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, bringinga 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. Theywere 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 candyinto 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 theshells in with the meat. "

"We should have expected it, " Belle cried. "They never should havebeen trusted to crack the nuts. "

"Oh, girls!" gasped Ruth, who had quickly examined the candy in thepan. 

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 inthe 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 meanboys! 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--therenow! 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 firstone. The nut meats had been removed and shells scattered in the pansinstead. No wonder Isadore Phelps had wanted to pour the molassestaffy!

"And they've got all the meats, " said Belle Tingley. "They areeating them and chuckling over the trick right now, I wager. "

"It's a mean, mean trick!" gasped Helen, in a temper. "I never willforgive 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, shakingher head. 

At that moment the telephone rang. Ruth was nearest and she jumpedup and answered the call. At the other end of the wire an excitedfemale 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, " saidRuth. "What is the matter?"

"I want to warn you all to look out for the panther. It is supposedto be coming your way--towards Snow Camp. The beast has just killed apig for us, and was frightened away. It's done other damage to-dayamong the neighbors' cattle. Do you hear me?"

"Oh, I hear you!" cried Ruth, and then held her hand over themouthpiece and spoke to the other girls: "That panther--thatcatamount!" she cried. "It is supposed to be coming this way. Whereis your father, Helen? And Long Jerry Todd?"

CHAPTER XIV

A TELEPHONE CHASE

The excited screaming of the other girls brought Mrs. Murchiston tothe hall in a hurry. When she heard what had caused the excitementshe called the maids, intending to send one of them for Mr. Cameron. 

But just then the woman--a farmer's wife along the road--begantalking to Ruth again, and the maids learned from her answers intothe 'phone the cause of the excitement. Go out into the open when thecatamount 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 allalong the line toward Scarboro, warning each farmer of the big cat'sapproach. 

"But if it keeps on in the same direction it was going when we sawit last, the creature will strike Snow Camp first, " declared theexcited lady. "You must get your men out with guns and dogs to stopthe beast if you can. It's mad with hunger and it will do somedreadful damage if it is not killed. "

Ruth repeated this to her friends, and asked Mrs. Murchiston whatthey should do. 

"If the baste comes here, " cried Mary, the maid, "he can jump rightinto 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 theyare stored in one of the outbuildings, anyway. "

"Why, I wouldn't go out of doors for a fortune!" cried LluellaFairfax. 

"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 bemore than well paid for spoiling our taffy. "

"Hush, Jennie!" commanded Madge. "This is no time for joking. Howare 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. Theoutbuildings were not far away, but not a soul appeared about them. There seemed to be a brooding silence over the whole place. The menwere 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, hervoice unshaken. "There are all the guns in the hall--even the littleshotguns. I don't suppose the men have a gun with them, and of coursethe 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 equallyscared--Mrs. Murchiston and all. "

"Nobody will go----"

"I'm going!" declared Ruth, firmly. "If the panther is coming fromthat woman's house--the woman who telephoned--then the pond is in thevery 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 handleguns 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 lightrifle. She knew where his ammunition was, too. And she secured half adozen cartridges and put them into the magazine, having seen Tom loadthe gun the day before. 

"You'll shoot yourself!" murmured Helen. 

"I hope not, " returned Ruth, shaking her head. "But I hope I won'thave a chance to shoot the panther. I don't want to see that awfulbeast again. "

"I don't see how you dare, Ruth Fielding!" cried Helen. 

"Huh! It isn't because I'm not afraid, " admitted her chum. "Butsomebody must tell those boys, dear. "

Ruth had already seized her coat and cap. She shrugged herself intothe former, pulled the other down upon her ears, and catching up theloaded gun ran out of the kitchen just before Mrs. Murchiston, whohad suddenly suspected what she was about, came to forbid theventure. Ruth, however, was out of the house and winging her way downthe cleared path toward the pond, before the governess could call toher. 

"Oh, she will be killed, Mrs. Murchiston!" cried Helen, in tears. 

"Not likely, " declared that lady. "But she should not have gone outwithout my permission. "

Nor was Ruth altogether as courageous as she appeared. She did notsuppose that the huge cat that had so frightened her and the strangeboy that Mr. Cameron had brought up from Cheslow, was very near SnowCamp as yet. Yet she glanced aside as she ran with expectation in hereyes, and when of a sudden something jumped in the bushes, she almostshrieked 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 baddog--I thought you were the cat-o'-mountain. "

But immediately she felt that her fear was gone. Here was Tom'sfaithful mastiff, whose tried courage she knew, and which she knewwould not fail her if they came face to face with the panther. 

She hurried on, nevertheless, to the pond, to warn the boys; but toher surprise, as she approached the ice, she heard nothing of thetruants. There was no ring of steel on the ice, nor were their voicesaudible. 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 lookingsharply on either side into the snow-mantled woods. Reno remained byher and she had a hand upon his collar. Should she shout? Should shecall for Tom Cameron and his mates? If she called, and the terriblecat was within earshot, it might be attracted to her by the sound. 

"Baby!" she finally apostrophized herself. "I don't suppose thatbeast is anywhere near. Here goes!" and she raised her clear voice ina lusty shout. 

There came, however, no reply. She shouted again and again, with alike result. 

"Where under the sun could those boys have gone?" was her unspokenquestion. "Could they have returned to the house by some other path?"

But she did not believe this was so. Rather, she was inclined tothink Tom and his comrades had gone farther than the pond. There wasa good-sized stream through which the waters of this pond emptiedinto Rolling River. That outlet was frozen over, too, and it would bejust like the three boys to explore the frozen stream. 

Ruth wished that she had brought her skates instead of the gun withher. She felt now that the boys should indeed be warned of theroaming panther, as they had gone so far from the lodge. Here wasReno, too. If she told the mastiff to find Tom, he would doubtless doso. She could even send some written word to the boys by the dog--hadshe a pencil and paper. It would not be the first time that Reno hadplayed message-bearer. 

But the warn Tom and his companions would not be all Ruth hadstarted 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 meetthe panther, if it so fell out. Without any weapon even the noblemastiff 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, justas fast as she could go, and from there send Reno out to find hisyoung master. Whether the dog could have traced Tom on the ice, however, is a question, for Ruth did not yield to this cowardlysuggestion. She had come out with the gun to find the boys, and herhesitation at the edge of the pond was only momentary. 

She started down the pond toward the stream, seeing the scratches ofthe boys' skates leading in that direction. There could be no doubtas to where they had gone. Ruth only wished that she had brought herskates when she ran so hastily from Snow Camp. 

Not a sound reached her ears, save the sharp twitter of a sparrownow and then, the patter of Reno's feet on the ice, and the rattle ofthe loaded rifle against the buttons of her sweater-coat. The forestthat surrounded the pond seemed uninhabited. The axes of the woodsmendid not echo here, and the boys must indeed be a great way off, forshe could distinguish no sound whatever from them. 

Yet she had no doubt that she was following their trail--not evenwhen she came down to the outlet of the pond. The strokes of theskates upon the ice were still visible. The three boys had certainlygone down the frozen stream. 

"Come on, Reno!" she exclaimed aloud, encouraging herself in herduty. "We'll find them yet. They certainly could not have gone clearto Rolling River--that's ten miles away!"

The stream was not ten yards across--nothing more than a creek. Thewoods and underbrush shut it in closely. There was not a mark in thesnow on either hand of footsteps--not that Ruth could see. And howheavy the afternoon silence was!

Ruth had recovered in a measure from the first fear she had felt ofthe marauding panther. The beast, had he traveled toward Snow Camp, was likely miles away from the spot. She had determined to go on andfind Tom and the others, more that they might be warned of peril onapproaching Snow Camp, than for any other reason. 

And she did wish, now, that Tom and the other boys would appear. Shewas more than a mile--quite two miles, indeed--from the lodge. 

"I guess Mr. Cameron will call me reckless again. He suggested thatI was that when I followed Fred Hatfield--or whatever his name was--from the cars at Emoryville. He'll surely scold me for this, " thoughtRuth. 

She kept on down the stream, however, and at last began to shout forher boy friends. Her clear voice rang from wall to wall of theforest; but it could not have been heard far into the snowy depths oneither hand. Suddenly Reno growled a little, sniffed, and the hairupon his neck began to rise. 

"Now, there's no use your doing that, boy, " Ruth declared, clutchingthe mastiff tight by the collar with her left hand, while shebalanced the rifle in her right. "If you hear them, bark! Tom willknow 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, stillair. It seemed as though he scented danger, but did not know for surefrom which direction it was coming. 

"You're scaring me, acting so, Reno!" exclaimed Ruth. "I wish youwouldn't. I can't help feeling that the panther is right behind mesomewhere. Oh!"

The end of her soliloquy was a shriek. Something flashed through thebrush clump on her left hand. Reno broke into a savage barking andsprang 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 andthe way to the camp, had she been so foolish as to try to reach thehouse directly through the woods. But she did face up stream again, and had Reno been willing to accompany her she would have run as hardas 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 hardpacked snow crunched under him. There sounded a scream from the brush--a sound that Ruth knew well. The catamount was really at hand--therecould be no mistaking that awful cry, once having heard it. 

The dog burst through the bushes with such a savage clamor that Ruthwas indeed terrified. She sprang after him, however, hoping to draghim back from any affray with the panther. What would Tom Cameron sayif anything happened to his brave and beautiful Reno?

It was past the girl's power, however, to stay the mastiff. Withangry barks he broke through the barrier and entered a small gladenot a stone's throw from the bank of the stream. Before Ruth reachedthis cleared place she saw the tracks of the beast which had sostartled her. There could be no mistaking the round impressions ofthe 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 itsprey. 

And now, when Reno burst into the open, the panther uttered anotherfierce and blood-chilling scream. Ruth noted the flash of the great, lithe body as the beast sprang into the air. Startled for the momentby the on-rush and savage baying of the dog, the panther had leapedinto a low-branching cedar. The tree shook to its very tip, and tothe 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 rideon the timber cart with the so-called Fred Hatfield, it displayed atemper and ferocity that was not to be mistaken. Reno's suddenonslaught was all that had driven it to leap into the tree. But thereit crouched, squalling and tearing the hard wood into splinters withits 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 outof the tree directly upon Tom Cameron's faithful companion. Reno wastoo sharp to be easily caught, however; he leaped aside and the sabre-likeclaws of the panther missed him. Nor was the dog unwise enoughto meet the panther face to face. 

He sprang in and bit the cat shrewdly, and then got away before thebeast wheeled, yelling, to strike him. Round and round in the snowthey went, so fast that it was impossible for Ruth to see which wasdog and which was cat, their paws throwing up a cloud of snow-dustthat almost hid the combatants. 

"Ah!" cried Ruth, aloud. "I've missed my chance, I should have triedto shoot the creature while it was in the tree. "

And that seemed true enough. For had she been the best of shots withthe rifle, it looked now as though she was as likely to shoot Reno asthe 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 stilledevery other sound to Ruth Fielding's ears. She had fallen back to theedge of the clearing, and knew not what to do. 

She feared desperately for Reno's safety; but for the moment did notknow what she might do to help the faithful beast. 

She tripped upon a branch and fell to her knees, and the butt of therifle 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 wouldI 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, andRuth saw that there was blood upon his jaws, and a great gash high upon one shoulder. 

"Oh! the poor fellow! Poor Reno!" gasped Ruth Fielding. "He will bekilled by that hateful brute. "

Spurred by this thought she did not rise from her knee, but threwthe barrel of the gun forward. It chanced to rest in the crook of abranch--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 thehammer and tried to sight along the barrel. Suddenly she saw thetawny side of the panther directly before her--seemingly it was atthe end of the rifle barrel. 

The beast was crouching to leap. Ruth did not know where Reno thenwas; but she could hear him whimpering. The mastiff had been sorelyhurt and the panther was about to finish him. 

And with this thought in her mind, Ruth steadied the rifle as bestshe could and pulled the trigger. The sharp explosion and the shriekof the panther seemed simultaneous. Through the little drift of smokeshe saw the creature spring; but it did not spring far. One hind leghung useless--there was a patch of crimson on the beaten snow--thehuge cat, snarling and yowling, was going around and around, snappingat its own leg. 

But that flurry was past in a moment. The snow-dust subsided. Ruthhad sprung to her feet, dropping the rifle, delighted for the momentthat she should have shot the panther. 

But she little knew the nature and courage of the beast. On threelegs only the huge cat writhed across the clearing, having spied thegirl; and now, with a fierce scream of anger, it crouched to springupon Ruth. She seemed devoted to the panther's revenge, for she wassmitten with that terror which shackles voice and limb. 

"Oh, Reno! Reno!" she whispered; but the sound did not pass her ownlips. The dog was not in sight He lay somewhere in the bushes, licking his wounds. The fierce panther had bested him, and nowcrouched, ready to spring upon the helpless girl. 

With a snarl of pain and rage the beast leaped at her. Its brokenleg caused it to fall short by several yards, and the pain of theinjured limb, when it landed, caused the catamount to howl again andtear up the snow in its agony. 

Ruth could not run; she was rooted to the spot. She had bravely shotat the creature once. Better had it been for her had she not used therifle at all. She had only turned the wrath of the savage cat fromReno to herself. 

And Ruth realized that she was now its helpless quarry. She couldneither fight nor run. She sank back into the snow and awaited thenext leap of the panther. 

At this very moment of despair--when death seemed inevitable--therewas a crash in the bushes behind her and a figure broke through andflung 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 therewere cartridges in the magazine of Tom Cameron's gun. He leapedupright and faced the crouching cat. 

The panther, with a fearful snarl, had to change the direction ofits leap. It sprang into the air, all four paws spread and itsterrible claws unsheathed. But its breast was displayed, too, to thenew victim of its rage. 

Bang!

The rifle spat a yard of fire, which almost scorched the creature'sbreast. The impact of the bullet really drove the cat backward--orelse the agony of its death throes turned the heavy body from itsvictim. It threw a back somersault and landed again in the snow, tearing it up for yards around, the crimson tide from its woundsspattering everything thereabout. 

"Oh, it's dead!" cried Ruth, with clasped hands, when suddenly thebeast'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? forthey 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 willhelp 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. Theboys 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 sprangfor 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!" returnedthe boy, looking back over his shoulder. 

The next moment he had disappeared, and Ruth was left alone. Shemade a detour of the spot where the dead panther lay and called toReno. The mastiff dragged himself from under a bush. He was badly cutup, 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 minutethe 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 toexamine 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 abroken leg and these cuts. He dashed right in and attacked thepanther. 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, nowgiving some attention to the dead animal. 

Ruth related the affair in a few words, while she helped Tom bind upReno's wounds. The young master tore up his handkerchiefs to do dutyas 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 fellowhadn't run away with tiy rifle. But you couldn't help it, Ruth. "

"He certainly is a bad boy, " declared the girl. "Yet--somehow--I amsorry for him. He must be all alone in these woods. Something willhappen to him. "

"Never mind. We can forgive him, and hope that he'll pull throughall 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 carriedReno through the woods to the camp. It was a hard journey, for inplaces the snow had drifted and was quite soft. But in less than anhour they arrived at the lodge. 

The men had come in with the wood by that time, and Mr. Cameron withthem. Mrs. Murchiston and the girls were greatly worried over Ruth'sabsence and the absence, too, of the three boys. But the death of thecatamount, and the safety of all, quickly put a better face upon thesituation. 

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 hisfriends--if the Hatfields _are_ his friends. He does not lackcourage, that is sure--courage of a certain kind, anyway. I must seeto his business soon. I believe the Hatfields live within twentymiles of this place, and in a day or two I will ride over and seethem. "

"Oh! let us all go, father, " urged Helen. "Can't we go in thesleighs we came over in from Scarboro?"

"Don't take them, sir, " said Mrs. Murchiston. "I shan't feel safefor them again until we get out of these woods. "

"Why, Mis' Murchiston, " drawled Long Jerry, who had come into thehall 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 maynot 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 isus'ally as skeery as rabbits, unless they are mighty hungry. And yedon't often meet a hungry bear this time o' year. They are mostlyhoused up for the winter in some warm hole. "

"But what would these girls do if they met a bear, Mr. Todd?" askedMr. Cameron, laughing. 

"Why, this here leetle Ruth Fielding gal, _she'd_ have pluckenough to shoot him, I reckon, " chuckled Long Jerry. "And shewouldn't be the first girl that's shot a full growed b'ar right inthis neighborhood. "

"I thought you said there wasn't any around here, Jerry?" cried Helen. 

"This happened some time ago, Miss, " returned the woodsman. "And ithappened right over yon at Bill Bennett's farm--not four mile fromhere. 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 makeup my mind which one of the gals I should pick for my partner throughlife. 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 pickeda feller from town. Fac' is, I was so long a-pickin' that I never gotnary 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, andthe party of young folk drew up chairs, before the fire. Long Jerrysquatted down in his usual manner on the hearth, and the story wasbegun. 

CHAPTER XVII

LONG JERRY'S STORY

"Ol' man Bennett, " began Jerry Todd, "warn't a native of this necko' woods. He come up from Jarsey, or some such place, and bringed hisfam'bly with him, and Sally Bennett. She was his sister, and as hewas a pretty upstandin' man, so was she a tall, well-built gal. Shesartain made a hit up here around Scarboro and along Rollin' River. 

"But she wasn't backwoods bred, and the other girls said she wastimid and afraid of her shadder, " chuckled Long Jerry. "She warn'tafraid of the boys, and mebbe that's why the other gals said sharpthings about her, " pursued the philosophical backwoodsman. "Youmisses 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, thatwas sick, they said, and that left Miss Sally to keep house. Come thefirst Saturday thereafter and Bennett, _he_ had to go to Scarboroto mill. 

"You know jest how lonesome it is up here now; 'twas a whole sightwuss 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 threelittle 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 stumpswith a pair o' steers and a tam-harrer. 

"So, from the door of the cabin he'd built, Sally could see thevirgin forest all about her, while she was a-movin' about the roomgetting dinner for the young 'uns. While she was at work the littlestfeller, Johnny, who was building a cobhouse on the floor, yelps uplike a terrier:

"'Aunt Sally! Aunt Sally! Looker that big dog!"

"Miss Sally, she turns around, an' what does she see but a big brownbear--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 wasscar't, she warn't plumb stunned in her tracks--no, sir! She gave aleap for the door and she swung it shut right against Mr. B'ar'snose. And then she barred it. "

"Brave girl, " said Mrs. Murchiston. 

"I reckon so, ma'am, " agreed the guide. "And then she rememberedthat Tom and Charlie, the other two boys, were gone down the hill toa 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 doorand 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 andrun! There's a b'ar in the yard! Run! Run!'

"And them boys _did_ run, but they held fast to their bucketand brought most of the water inter the house with 'em. Then MissSally barred that door, too, and they all went to the winder andpeeped out. There was Mister B'ar snoopin' about the yard, andlookin' almost as big as one of the steers. 

"He went a-sniffin' about the yard, smellin' of everything likeb'ars do when they're forragin', s'archin' for somethin' ter tempthis appetite. Suddenly he stood stock still, raised his big head, andsniffed the air keen-like. Then he growled and went straight for thepig-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, "fortheir next winter's meat was in that pen--a sow and five plump littleporkers. 

"'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 tragedyto them. You folks livin' in town don't understand what it means fora farmer to lose his pigs. Old Bennett warn't no hunter, and wildmeat ain't like hog-meat, anyway. If the b'ar got those porkers themyoung 'uns would go mighty hungry the next winter. 

"Miss Sally, she knew that, all right, and when the boy says: 'Whatshall 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 riflethat hung over the other door. 

"'I'm goin' to try and shoot that b'ar, boys, ' says she, jest asfirm 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 feltlike 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 outand mind jest what I say. If anything _does_ happen to me, don'tyou dars't come out, but go in and bar the door again, and stay tillyour father comes back. Now, promise me!'

"She made 'em promise before she ventured out of the door, and thenshe left 'em at the open door, jest about breathless with suspenseand 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 andgot into the pen. The old sow was singin' out like all Kildee, andthe little fellers was a-squealin' to the top o' their bent. The b'arsmacked one o' the juicy little fellers and begun to lunch off'n himjest as Miss Sally come to the other end o' the pen. 

"His back was towards her and he didn't notice nothin' but his porkvittles, " pursued Long Jerry. "She crept up beside him, poked thebarrel of the Winchester through the bars of the pen, rested it onone bar, and pulled the trigger. The ball went clear through the oldfeller's head!

"But it takes more'n one lucky shot to kill a full grown brownb'ar, " Jerry said, shaking his head. "He turned like a flash, andwith a horrid roar, made at her, dropping the pig. His huge carcasssmashing against the pen fence, snapped a white-oak post right off atthe ground, and felled two lengths of the fence. 

"But Miss Sally didn't give up. She backed away, but she keptshootin' until she had put three more balls into his big carcass. Hesprung through the broke-down fence to get at her; but jest as he gotoutside, 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?" sheadded, as the long guide rose up to go. 

"Pretty near all, I reckon, Missy, " he returned. "Nobody didn'tnever say Sally Bennett was afraid, after she'd saved Bill's meat forhim. And that ol' b'ar pelt was a coverin' on her bed till she wasmarried, I reckon. But things like that don't happen around herenow-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 overthe spoiled taffy; but that night, when the six friends fromBriarwood Hall retired to their big sleeping room, they seriouslydiscussed what course they should take with the three scamps who hadplayed them so mean a trick; for even Helen admitted that one boy wasprobably as guilty as another. 

"And that Isadore Phelps had the cheek to ask me how I liked thetaffy!" 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 Iproposed 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, " saidBelle. "She's on the watch. "

"I expect she would object if we tried anything very 'brash, '" saidHeavy. "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, thatI had all but forgotten the trick. "

"There now! Ruth will forgive, of course, " said Helen, sharply. "ButI 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. "Andboys 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, " addedBelle. 

"Well, don't they?" demanded the unabashed stout girl. 

"Then it's because we girls don't put ourselves out to think up newand nice things to do, " proclaimed Madge Steele. 

"Perhaps girls are not as naturally inventive as boys, " suggestedRuth, 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 weremean 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 thenutmeats?" wailed Heavy. 

"What else was it? It was a joke to them. There was a sting to itfor us. We must pay them back in like manner, but without being meanbout 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 shallnot lose any sleep over it. But if you want to pay them off byshowing how much we disapprove of their actions, and have nothing todo with their schemes to-morrow, I will agree. "

"We'll begin that way, " said Madge Steele, promptly. "Treat them ina dignified manner and refuse to join in any games with them. That iswhat we _can_ do. "

"Oh, well, " sighed the irrepressible Heavy. "We're bound to have adreadfully slow day, then. Good-night!"

It began by being a gray day, too. The sun hidden and the windsighed mournfully in the pines. Long Jerry cocked his head knowinglyand said:

"It's borne in on me, youngsters, that you'll see a bit of hardweather 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 snowstormin the wilderness is different from a storm in more civilizedcommunities. "

"And you're a good guesser, " grunted Long Jerry. "Anyhow, unless I'mmuch mistook, you'll have means of knowin' afore long. "

"Then, " said Helen, to Ruth, "we must get the balsam to-day for ourpillows. It won't snow yet awhile, will it, Jerry?"

"May not snow at all to-day, " replied the guide. "This weather we'vehad 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 seenby the way the girls acted that there was "something in the wind. "

The girls ignored Tom, Bob and Isadore as they chatted at thebreakfast 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 Tomsang out: "Who'll go sliding? There's a big bob-sled in the barn andwe fixed it up yesterday morning. It will hold the whole crowd. Howlong will it take you girls to get ready?"

Helen turned her back on him. Ruth looked doubtful, and flushed; butMadge Steele exclaimed: "You can go sliding alone, little boy. Wecertainly sha'n't accompany you. "

"Aw, speak for yourself, Miss, " growled her brother. Then Bob turneddeliberately 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 sixignored the three boys, who went off growling among themselves. 

"Just for a little old mess of candy, " snorted Isadore, who was thelast 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 themhelp us get the pine-needles. "

"I believe you are too soft-hearted, Ruth Fielding, " declared BelleTingley. 

"It's because she likes Tom so well, " said Lluella, slily. 

"Well, Tom never did so mean a thing before yesterday, " said Tom'ssister, 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 theboys down--that's the only way to manage them. "

"My, my!" chuckled Jennie Stone, the stout girl. "Madge is going tobe a regular suffragette; isn't she?"

"Well, I guess girls can flock by themselves and have just as goodtimes without their brothers, as with them. "

But Ruth and Helen looked more than doubtful at this point. Theyknew that Tom Cameron, at least, had been a loyal friend and mate onmany a day of pleasure. They couldn't bear to hear him abused. 

But the girls felt that they really had reason for showing the boysthey were offended. Soon after the departure of Tom and his friendsthe 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, bythis time, they were all able to use with some proficiency. The threeboys, snowballing behind the barn, espied them. 

"Hullo!" bawled Busy Izzy. "Here come the Amazons. They're going ontheir own hook now--haven't any use for boys at all. "

He threw a snowball; but Tom tripped him into a bank of snow andspoiled his aim. "None o' that, Izzy!" he commanded. 

"Let 'em alone, " growled Bob Steele. "If they want to flock bythemselves, who cares?"

"Not I!" declared Izzy. "Look at the Amazon March. My, my! if theyshould see a squirrel, or a rabbit, they'd come running back in ahurry. They'd think it was another panther. Oh, my!"

But the girls paid no attention to his gibes and shuffled on intothe 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, " declaredthe 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 theywere at first. The girls went on, laughing and chatting, with never athought that harm could befall them through the gathering of thesefleecy 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 andthrowing iced snow-balls at it, that they barely noticed the firstbig flakes of the storm. But by and by these flakes passed and then awind of deadly chill swept down upon the camp and with it finepellets of snow--not larger than pin-points--but which blinded oneand 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. "Mygoodness! did you ever see it snow harder in your life?"

"That I never did, " admitted Tom. "I wonder if the girls have comeback?"

"If they haven't, " said Bob, "they'd better wait where they areuntil this flurry is over. "

"I hope they have returned, " muttered Tom, as they made their waytoward the rear of Snow Camp. 

The snow came faster and faster, and thicker and thicker. Bob bumpedsquare into the side of one of the out-sheds, and roared because hefound blood flowing from his nose. 

"What do you say about this?" he bellowed. "How do we know we'regoing right?"

"Here!" cried Isadore. "Where are you fellows? I don't want to getlost in the back yard. "

Tom found him (he had already seized the half-blinded Bob by thearm) and the three, arm in arm, made their way cautiously to thekitchen 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'tcome in, by the looks of you boys, they'd better. "

Tom did not stop to remove the snow, but rushed into the greatcentral 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, comfortablyreading his paper before the fire, in smoking jacket and slippers. 

"Is it snowing?" queried Mrs. Murchiston, from the warmest nookbeside the hearth. "Aren't the girls out with you, Tom?"

"What's the matter, my son?" demanded his father, getting upquickly. "What has happened?"

"I don't know that anything has happened, " said Tom, swallowing abig lump in his throat, and trying to speak calmly. "The girls havenot been with us. They went into the woods somewhere to get stuff fortheir pillows. And it is snowing harder than I ever knew it to snowbefore. "

"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 ofgreat boots. 

"Is it snowing very hard, Tom?" queried the lady, anxiously. "Whatmakes you look so?"

For Tom was scared--and he showed it. He turned short around withoutanswering Mrs. Murchiston again, and led the way to the kitchen. Theother boys had shaken off the snow and were hovering over the rangefor warmth. 

"Found 'em all right; didn't you?" demanded Bob Steele. 

"No. They haven't come in, " said Tom, shortly, and immediately Bobbegan 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 thewindow 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 openedthe door and saw for the first time just what they had to face. "Butperhaps they'll pick up the girls on their way home. Trust thosewoodsmen for finding their way. "

Tom and Bob followed him out of the house. They faced a wall offalling snow so thick that every object beyond arm's length from themwas blotted out. 

"Merciful heavens!" groaned Mr. Cameron. "Your sister and the girlswill 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; canit?"

"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 forhours. 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 thestables. 

"Wait! we'll keep together, " commanded Mr. Cameron. "I hope theyhave 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 keptshouting back and forth until they met not far beyond theoutbuildings belonging to the lodge. The great pair of draught horseswere ploughing through the drifts and the three men were whoopingloudly beside them. 

"Dangerous work this, for you, sir, " cried Long Jerry. "You'd allbetter remained indoors. It's come a whole lot quicker than Iexpected. We're in for a teaser, Mr. Cameron. Couldn't scarce makeout 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 themgals is out of bounds?"

"All six of them went into the woods--toward the north--about twohours ago. They went on snowshoes, " said Tom. 

The three woodsmen said never a word, but standing there in thedriving snow, at the heads of the horses, they looked at each otherfor some moments. 

"Well, " said Jerry, at last, and without commenting further on Tom'sstatement; "we'd best put up the horses and then see what's to bedone. "

"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 betwixthere and the Canadian line. The wind is coming now from thenorthwest. If they are trying to get back to the camp they'll bedrifted 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 blizzardhad swept down from the Lakes and the whole country might be shroudedfor 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 allmade 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 thestorm and closed the doors against the driving snow. In five minutes, when the animals were made secure and fed, and they tried to open thedoors again, the wind had heaped the snow to such a height againstthem that they could not get out. 

Fortunately there was a small door at the other end of the barn, andby this they all got out and made their way speedily across theclearing to the house--Long Jerry leading the way. Tom and Bobrealized that they might easily have become lost in that shortdistance had they been left to their own resources. 

Mr. Cameron was very pale and his lips trembled when he stood beforethe 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. "Youhave 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 couldfind their way in this smother It looks like it had set in for a bigblizzard. You don't know jest what that means up here in thebackwoods. Logging camps will be snowed under and mules, horses andoxen will have to be shot to save them from starvation. The huntingwill be mighty poor next fall, for the deer and other varmints willstarve to death, too. 

"If poor people in the woods don't starve after this storm, it willbe lucky. Why, the last big one we had the Octohac Company had a gangof fifty men shoveling out a road for twenty miles so as to get toteteams through with provisions for their camp. And then men had todrag the tote teams instead of horses, the critters were so nearstarved. Ain't that so, Ben?"

"Surest thing you know, " agreed one of the other hands. "I rememberthat time well. I was working for the Goodwin & Manse Company. Therewas nigh a hundred of us on snow-shoes that dragged fodder from thefarmers along Rolling River to feed our stock on, and we didn't getout enough logs that winter to pay the company for keeping the campopen. "

"That's the way on it, Mr. Cameron, " said Long Jerry. "We got to sitdown and wait for a hold-up. Nothing else to do. You kin trytelephoning up and down the line to see if the girls changed theirroute and got to any house. "

But when Mr. Cameron tried to use the 'phone he found that alreadythere 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 mostpitiless enemy. The drifting snow rose higher and higher about thelodge every hour. The day dragged on its weary length into night, andstill the wind blew and the snow sifted down, until even the toppanes 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 fragrantleaves started, at this time of year; therefore Ruth and hercompanions went rather farther from Snow Camp than they had at firstintended. But the warning flakes of snow served in no manner tostartle them. The snow had been floating down, and whitening theirclothing and adorning the trees with a beautiful icing, for more thanhalf an hour, before anybody gave the coming storm a serious thought. 

"Perhaps we'd better go back and not get any stuffing for thepillows to-day, Helen, " said Ruth, doubtfully. "See yonder! isn'tthat 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 JennieStone. "All this walk on these clumsy old snowshoes for nothing?"

"Well, we'll just go as far as that grove of small trees that wefound 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 thegirls had no means of apprehending the approach of the shroud ofthick snow that was sweeping out of the northwest. They could not seefar about them through the aisles of the wood. 

Laughing and joking, the jolly party reached the spot of which Helenhad spoken. They set to work there in good earnest to fill their bagswith the pungent new growth of the trees, whose bending branches wereeasily within their reach. 

"How this soft snow does clog the snow-shoes, " complained BelleTingley, removing the racquettes to knock them free. 

"But the flakes are smaller now, " said Ruth. "See, girls! it'scoming faster and finer. I believe we shall have to hurry back, Helen. "

"Ruth is right, " added Madge Steele, who, as the oldest of theparty, should have used her authority before this. "Why! it's comingin a perfect sheet. "

"Sheet!" repeated Jennie Stone, with scorn. "Call it rather ablanket. 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 bebivouacked in. Why! we'll have Long Jerry Todd, and the boys, and thedogs, 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 andcarrying 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 faraway. 

"We're not ahead, girls, " said Ruth, quietly. "Only the snow isfalling so thickly that you can't see us. Wait! Let us all gettogether and make a fresh start. It wouldn't do to get separated insuch 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, brisklyrubbing her own, "or we'll break them off. Isn't it cold?"

"It's dreadful!" wailed Lluella. "The wind cuts right througheverything 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 thepoints 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 foranother. 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 insuch 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 waitfor 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 hereto help us home. "

"Come, come!" said Ruth, cheerfully. "We ought to be able to helpourselves. Here is a big tree with drooping branches. Let's get underit 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'tget at us. "

She led the way and the other girls crowded after her. The low-branchedtree broke the force of the gale. Ruth lifted the end of onesweeping branch and her friends all crawled beneath the shelter, andas 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'tbe foolish, " snapped Madge. 

They at once found the retreat a perfect windbreak, and becamecomfortable--all hugging together "like a nestful of owlets, " Helensaid, and all declared themselves as "warm as toast. "

But the wind howled mournfully through the wood, and the snow sifteddown with a strange, mysterious "hush--hush--hus-s-sh" that made themfeel creepy. Although it was not yet midday, the light was very dimunder the thick branches of the tree. The snow became banked highbehind them, and Ruth, who was in front, had to continually breakaway the drifting snow with her mittened hands so that they could seeout. 

And they could see precious little outside of their den. Just thesnow drifting down, faster and faster, thicker and thicker, gatheringso rapidly that they all were secretly frightened, although at firsteach girl tried to speak cheerfully of it. 

"If we'd only thought to get Janey to put us up a luncheon, " sighedHeavy, "I wouldn't have minded staying here all day. It's warmenough, that's sure. "

"My feet are cold, " complained Lluella. "I don't believe it willremain warm forever. "

"And we couldn't make a fire, " said Helen. 

"I've matches in my pocket, " Ruth said quietly. "I've carried themin 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, " criedHeavy. "Carrying matches!"

"Tom _did_ tell us to, " admitted Helen, laughing. "But I didn'tpay much attention to what he said. I know he told us that we couldnever tell when matches would come in handy in the woods. "

"But we'd set the forest afire--and then see what damage would bedone!" 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 drybranches off underneath this tree--and others like it--and get a firevery easily. Tom told us how to do it. "

"So he did!" cried Helen. "I do believe Ruth never forgets anythingshe 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 Madgecheerfully. "But the boys, or the men, either, couldn't find us inthis 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 spiritsindefinitely. 

"Oh, but we'll be all right, I am sure!" quoth Madge. "Don't getdown-hearted, girls. "

Helen broke down next and declared that she could not remain idleany longer. "We must move out of this, " she said. "We must find ourway back. Why, they might come this way hunting for us and never findus--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 bereally serious if we move farther from the regular camp instead oftoward it"

"But we cannot hear any rescue party shouting for us, nor can theyhear us under this drift, " insisted Helen. 

"Then we'll go out, one at a time, and shout, " declared Ruth. "Letme try. "

She sprang up and pushed her way through the drift at the mouth oftheir burrow. Not until she was standing outside did she realize theextent of the storm. The snow was swept across the country in a thickand heavy curtain, with a wind driving it, against which she knew shecould not stand. 

She could not shout into the teeth of the gale, and her cry wasdriven back into her own ears as weak as the mew of a kitten. 

"Ho!" exclaimed Madge Steele. "They couldn't hear that if they werea stone's throw off. Let _me_ give a warwhoop. "

"We're all coming out!" cried the dissatisfied Lluella. "Let's allshout. Oh, girls! we've _got_ to get back to the camp. We'll diehere. "

They scrambled out of the burrow. The wind smote full against themwhen once they were in the open. When they raised their voices inchorus it seemed as though there was an answering shout from acertain direction. 

"Here we are! here we are! Father! Tom!" shrieked Helen, at the topof her voice. 

"Don't go!" begged Ruth. "Let us stick by the tree. It will shelterus. Shout again. "

But the majority of the girls were for setting off at once towardthe sound they thought they had heard in the midst of the storm. Again and again they shouted. They clung to each other's hands asthey ploughed through the drifts (the snowshoes were of no use tothem now) but they did not hear the answering cry again. 

At last they stopped, all sorely frightened, Lluella in tears. "Whatwill we do now?" gasped Belle. 

"We'd better go back to that tree. We were safe there, " mutteredHeavy, her teeth chattering. 

But they had drifted with the storm, and when they turned to face itthey knew at once that never could they make way against the wind andsnow. 

"Oh, oh, oh!" wailed Helen. "We're lost! we're lost!"

"Hold up! Be brave!" urged her chum. "We must not give up now. Someother tree will give us shelter. Cling together, girls. We _must_ getsomewhere. "

But where? It was a question none of them could answer. Theyremained cowering in the driving snow, utterly confused as todirection, 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 tothe truth of the statement. The six girls from Snow Camp were indeedin peril of death--and all were convinced of the fact. 

Lluella Fairfax was in tears, and her chum, Belle Tingley, was onthe verge of weeping, too. Helen Cameron had hard work to keep backher own sobs; even Jennie Stone, the stout girl, was past turning thematter into a joke. And Madge Steele was unable to suggest a singlecheerful portent. 

As they clung to each other in the driving snow they seemed, intuitively, to turn to Ruth Fielding. She was the youngest of thesix girls; but she was at this moment the more assertive and heldherself better under control than her mates. 

It had been against her advice that they had left their temporaryshelter 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 hadsheltered them for more than an hour. 

What next should they do?

Although unspoken, this was the question that the five silentlyasked of the girl of the Red Mill. She had displayed her pluck andgood sense on more than one occasion, and her friends looked to herfor help. Particularly did Helen cling to her in this emergency, andalthough Ruth was secretly as terrified as any of her mates, shecould 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, speakingloud so that they could all hear her. "We mustn't give up hope. Theboys, or Mr. Cameron, will find us. It can't keep on snowing forever. "

"But we're freezing to death!" said Belle, and broke out sobbinglike her chum. 

"Stop, you silly thing!" cried Madge, trying to shake her. But shewas really so cold herself that she could not do this. Indeed, thekeen wind would soon make movement impossible if they stood still forlong. 

"Let's keep moving!" shouted Ruth. "Take hold of hands, girls--twoby 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, frombehind. 

"But where shall we march to?" Belle queried. 

"We'll keep going until we find some shelter. That's the best we cando. Indeed, it is all we _can_ do, " replied Ruth. 

It was impossible to do more than drift before the gale. Ruth knewthis, and likewise she was confident that they were by no meansgetting nearer to the camp when they followed such a course. But shehoped to find some shelter before the weakest of the girls gave out. 

This was Lluella Fairfax. She was delicately built, and unused tomuscular exertion of any kind. She seldom took up any gym work atBriarwood, Ruth knew; therefore it was not strange that she should bethe first to give out. 

For, although the sextette of girls went but a short distance, andtraveled very slowly, it was indeed a fearful task for them. Thestorm drove them on, and suddenly, when Jennie Stone gave utteranceto a wild whoop and disappeared from view, Lluella and Belle burstout 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. Ruthscrambled back to Madge, and suddenly found her own feet slippingover the brink of some steep descent. She cried out and clung toMadge. Helen took hold of Madge's other hand, and they drew Ruth backto 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 abank and am standing on what appears to be a narrow shelf along theface of this bank, or hill. And the snow isn't drifted here. Comedown. "

"Oh, I wouldn't dare!" cried Lluella. 

"If the place will afford us any shelter from this awful wind, whynot?" 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 thestout 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 amoment Ruth had slipped over the edge of the bank and had landedbeside Heavy. 

"It's all right, girls!" shouted Ruth at once. She could see thatthe shelf widened a little way beyond, and was overhung by a hugeboulder in the bank, making a really admirable shelter--not exactly acave, but a large-sized cavity. 

After some urging, Lluella and Belle allowed themselves to belowered by Madge and Helen over the brink of the bank. Then Helenherself slid down, and then the oldest girl. When Miss Steele landedupon the shelf beside them, she cried:

"This is just a mercy! Another five minutes up there in the wind andsnow, and I don't believe I could have walked at all. My, my! ain't Icold!"

The six girls cowered together under the overhanging rock. The snowblew in a thick cloud over their heads and they heard it sifting downthrough the trees below them. They were upon a steep side-hill--thewall of a steep gully, perhaps. How deep it was they had no means ofknowing; but several good-sized trees sprouted out of the hill neartheir refuge. They could see the dim forms of these now and then asthe snow-cloud changed. 

But although they were out of the beat of the storm, they grew nowarmer. More than Madge Steele complained of the cold within the nextfew minutes. Ruth, indeed, felt her extremities growing numb. Theterrible, biting frost was gradually overcoming them, now that theywere no longer fighting the blast. Exertion had fought this deadlycoldness off; but Ruth Fielding knew that their present inaction wasbeckoning the approach of unconsciousness. 

CHAPTER XXII

THE HIDEOUT

Helen had drawn close to her chum and they sat upon the pile ofleaves that had blown into this lair under the bank, with their armsabout 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 searchingfor us right now----"

"In this dreadful storm? Impossible!" declared Helen. 

"Well, that they _will_ search for us as soon as it holds up, we canbe sure, " Ruth rejoined. 

"But, in the meantime? They may be hours finding us. And I am sure Iwould 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 LluellaFairfax. "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. "Ihaven't any feet at all now. They've frozen and dropped off!"

"Don't talk so terribly!" wailed Belle. "We are freezing to deathhere. I am sleepy. I've read that when folks get drowsy out in astorm like this they are soon done for. Now, isn't that a fact, MadgeSteele?"

"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 thesnow. "

"There's plenty of kindling right under _us_" declared Jennie Stone, vigorously. "And Ruth spoke about the under branches of these treesbeing dry----"

"And so they are, " declared Ruth, struggling to her feet. "We mustdo something. A rousing fire against this rock will keep us warm. Wecan heat the rock and then draw the fire out and get behind it. Itwill be fine!"

"Oh, I can't move!" wailed Lluella. 

"Luella doesn't want to work, " said Madge. "But you get up and doyour share, Miss! If you freeze to death here your mother will neverforgive me. "

Of course, it would be Heavy that got into trouble. She made amisstep off the platform and sunk to her arm-pits in a soft bank ofsnow, and it was all the others could do to pull her out. But thiswarmed 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. "Nowtake care. "

They had all abandoned their snowshoes long since, and theracquettes would have been of no use to them in the presentemergency, anyway. But Ruth and Madge got to the nearest tree, andfortunately it was half dead. They could break off many of thesmaller branches, and soon brought to the platform a great armful ofthe brush. 

Ruth's matches were dry and they heaped up the leaves and rubbishand started a blaze. The other girls brought more fuel and soon a hotfire was leaping against the side of the rock and its circle ofwarmth cheered them. They got green branches of spruce and pine andbrushed away the snow and banked it up in a wall all about theplatform, which served them for a camp. Then they scraped the fireout from the rock, threw on more branches (for the green ones wouldburn now that the fire was so hot) and crowded in between the blazeand 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 toldstories, 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 nointention of ever stopping. The hours dragged by toward dark--and anearly dark it would be on this stormy day. 

"Oh, if we only had something to eat!" groaned Heavy. "Wish I'dsaved my snow-shoes. "

"What for?" demanded Bell. "What possible good could they have beento you, silly?"

"They were strung with deer-hide, and I have heard that whencastaway sailors get very, very hungry, they always chew their boots. I can't spare my boots, " quoth Jennie Stone, trying to joke to thebitter end. 

The wind wheezed above them, the darkness fell with the snow. Beyondthe glow of the pile of coals on the rocky ledge, the curtain of snowlooked gray--then drab--then actually black. Moon and stars were far, far away; none of their light percolated through the mass of cloudsand falling snow that mantled these big wastes of the backwoods. 

"Oh! I never realized anything could be so lonely, " whispered Helenin Ruth's ear. 

"And how worried your father and Mrs. Murchiston will be, " returnedher 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, " saidHelen. 

"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 firstwatch--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 shallkill and eat him. "

She nodded off the next moment and Helen followed her example. Madgeand Ruth talked to keep each other awake. Occasionally they foughttheir way to the half-dead tree and brought back armfuls of itssmaller branches. 

"It's a shame, " declared Miss Steele, "that girls don't carryknives, and such useful things. Did you ever know a girl to haveanything in her pocket that was worth carrying--if she chanced bygood luck to have a pocket at all? Now, with a knife, we could getsome better wood. "

"I know, " Ruth admitted. "I know more about camping out than ever Idid before. Next time, I'm going to carry things. You never know whatis going to happen. "

As the evening advanced the cold became more biting. They stirred upthe fire with a long stick and the glowing coals threw out increasedwarmth. The four sleeping girls stirred uneasily, and Madge, puttingher hand against the back wall of rock, found that it had cooled. 

"When it comes ten o'clock, " she said, consulting the watch shecarried, "we'll wake them up, make them stir around a bit, and we'lldrag all these coals over against the rock again. Then we'll heap onthe rubbish and heat up the stones once more. We ought to keep warmafter 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'vegot on than run the risk of freezing, " declared Madge, with conviction. 

They did what they could to keep the other girls warm; but beforethe hour Madge had proposed to awaken them, Lluella roused and crieda little because she was so chilly. 

"My goodness me, Lu!" yawned Heavy, who was awakened, too, "you arejust the _leakiest_ person that I ever saw! You must have beenborn 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 thegirls willingly bestirred themselves and helped in the moving of thefire and the gathering of more fuel. 

"Of course we can't expect any help to-night, " said Helen. "But Iknow that they'll start out hunting for us at daybreak, no matterwhether 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. "Itjust about saved our lives. "

"But I guess we would have been a whole lot better off if we hadn'tmoved from the first big tree Ruth got us to creep under, " Helensaid, thoughtfully. "We couldn't have been more than two miles fromSnow 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 thatit will stay warm all night. It will be like sleeping as the Russianpeasants do--on top of their stoves. "

They had piled the brush on the coals, after scraping the coals backupon the ledge, and the firelight was dancing far up the rock, andshining out into the steadily drifting snow, when suddenly Helenseized her chum's hand and cried:

"Listen! what's that?"

The girls grew silent instantly--and showing no little fear. Fromsomewhere 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 theyall distinguished it. And they knew that their first hope wasquenched. It was no sound of a rescuing party searching for them inthe 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 awaydown 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 spiritmight 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. "Thatwas 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 hewants 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!" criedRuth, and that time they sent their halloo out into the storm withmore vigor and unanimity. Once more, after they had waited a fullminute, 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'tgo out of earshot, " promised Ruth. 

"Don't do it, Ruthie! You'll be lost, " cried Helen. "Then whatevershould we do?"

"I won't get lost--not if you girls continue to shout, " returned herchum. 

She had buttoned her coat about her and pulled the skating cap shewore down over her ears, yet not too low to muffle them. Again thecry came wandering through the storm. Ruth started down the bank ofthe gully; the cry came from the other side of the hollow, she wassure--almost directly opposite the ledge on which they had takenshelter. 

When she plunged off the ledge she at once entered the wall ofdriving, smothering snow. It almost took her breath, it was so deepunder her feet and shrouded her about so much like a mantle. Had sheventured this way when first she and her friends had descended to theledge, Ruth must have actually sunk out of sight in the soft drifts. 

But the sifting snow had packed harder and harder as the stormincreased. After all, she sank only to her knees and soon found thatshe was plunging over rather than through the great drifts thatfilled the gully. How broad this gully was--or how deep when the snowwas out of it--she could not imagine. Nor did she give a thought tothese things now. 

Again she heard the muffled cry for help; but it sounded louder. Shehad made no mistake in the direction she had taken. The personneeding succor was directly in front of the ledge, but could not getover to the fire. 

She glanced back over her shoulder. The leaping flames she could notsee; but their glow made a round spot of rosy light against thescreen of the falling snow. The mystery of the sight terrified herfor a moment. Would she ever be able to fight her way back to thatledge?

"Our Father, help me!" was her unspoken prayer, and then she plungedon. 

She heard the shrill cries of her friends behind; ahead the lost oneshouted out once more. 

"Here! here! This way! Help!"

"I'm coming!" responded Ruth Fielding and, beaten as she was by thegale behind, kept steadily on. 

The way began to rise before her. She was ascending the other bankof the gully. Suddenly through the snow-wreath that surrounded hershe 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 ashrill, terrified voice. "Who are you? Help me! I am freezing. Can't walk--"

"Fred Hatfield!" gasped the amazed girl. "Is it you? What is thematter?"

"Take me to that house. I see the light, but I cannot reach it Helpme, for God's sake!" cried the boy. 

She could see his white, pinched face as he lay there more than halfburied in the snow. His eyes were feverish and wild and he certainlydid 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 heldthe boy in the drift, as Ruth very soon found out when she laid holdof his shoulders and exerted her strength. In a few moments, whatwith 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 intohis belt was stuck a knife and a camp hatchet. 

"Why, how did you get here in this storm?" demanded Ruth, as he laypanting at her feet. 

"I got lost--from my--my camp, " he responded. "I'm frozen! I can'tfeel my feet at all--"

"Come across to the fire, " urged Ruth. "We girls are lost from SnowCamp. But we're all right so far. My! how the snow blows. "

Facing the storm they could hardly make headway at all. Indeed, theyouth fell within a few yards and Ruth was obliged to drag himthrough the drifts. 

Her friends continued to shout, and occasionally she stood upright, made a megaphone of her hands, and returned their hail. But herstrength--all of it--finally had to be given to the boy. She seizedhim by the shoulders and fairly dragged him toward the other side ofthe gully, thus walking against the wind, backwards. Occasionally shethrew a glance over her shoulder to make sure that she was makingstraight for the campfire. 

The girls' voices drew nearer and finally, at the foot of the slopeleading 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! Hecan't help himself. Come quick!"

The girls were only a few yards away, but so fiercely did the windblow that Ruth had to repeat her call for help before Madge Steeleunderstood. Then the big girl dropped down off the ledge and plowedher way toward Ruth and her burden. 

"The poor fellow! who is he?" gasped Madge, as together they raisedthe 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 cheeksshowed frostbitten spots, and Jennie began to rub them with snow. "That's the way to treat frostbite, " she declared. "Take off hisboots. If his feet _are_ frosted we'll have to treat them thesame way. "

Helen and Belle obeyed Heavy, who seemed quite practical in thisemergency. Ruth had no strength, or breath, for the time being, butlay Reside die fire herself. Meanwhile Madge and Lluella scrapped thered coals out from the rock and swept the platform clean with greenbranches. Ruth and the runaway boy were drawn into this cozy retreatand soon the boy began to weep and cry out as the heat got into hisfeet. It was very painful to have the frost drawn out in this manner. 

It was now after midnight and the storm still raged. Madge andJennie floundered out for more fuel. The hatchet the boy carried wasof great aid to them in this work and soon they had piled on theledge sufficient wood to keep the blaze alive until dawn. 

By this time the strange youth had been thawed lout and was droppingasleep against the warm rock. Helen and Belle agreed to stand thenext watch, and to feed the fire. Both Ruth and Madge needed sleep, the former aching in every muscle from her fight to bring the rescuedone in, "We're doubly captives now, " the girl of the Red Mill whispered toMadge before she dropped asleep. "If it should stop snowing wecouldn't try to get back to camp and leave this chap here. And it iscertain sure that he could not travel himself, nor could we carry him. "

"You are right, Ruth, " returned Madge. "This addition to our partymakes 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 suchtrying circumstances. 

CHAPTER XXIV

THE SEARCH

It was a most anxious night for everybody at Snow Camp. The thoughtof the six girls adrift in the blizzard kept most of the householdawake, Long Jerry Todd, the guide, remained in the kitchen, on thewatch for the first break in the storm. The others retired, all butMr. 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 thecold. 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 hisjoking, " and he told Mr. Cameron about the spoiled taffy. "If wehadn't done that to them of course they wouldn't have gone into thewoods without us--"

"But I am afraid you lads would have been no more cautious than thegirls, " interposed Mr. Cameron. "This storm would have taken you bysurprise 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--andMadge Steele is to be trusted, " said his father. "Don't blameyourself, boy. It was something entirely unforeseen. "

Several times during the night Mr. Cameron tried to communicate withthe neighbors over the telephone; but some disaster had overtaken theline and it probably could not be repaired until after the storm. 

About five o'clock Long Jerry came into the room. He had been outinto 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'vebeen feeding the cattle and I've got the other men up. If it breaksat all, we three'll start for the neighbors and rouse a gang to helpbeat the woods. "

"But hadn't we better try to find the girls at once, Jerry?" queriedTom. 

"We'll need a large party, Master Tom, " said the guide. "We mustcover a deal of ground, and the more men we have who are used to thetrail, the better. If it stops snowing we can get around to theneighbors on snowshoes easier than any other way. The drifts arepacked hard. I had to tunnel out of the kitchen door. The snow hasbanked 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 galswas 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. Thestorm broke. Tom had aroused his friends and the three boys hadenlarged the tunnel through the snow from the back porch into theyard, and were shoveling a passageway to the stables. The last flakesof the blizzard fluttered down upon them, and the tail of the galeblew the clouds to tatters and revealed the almost black sky with thestars sparkling like points of living fire. 

"Hurrah!" cried Bob Steele. "It's over!"

The guide and the two other men were already getting on theirsnowshoes, having eaten hurriedly by the kitchen fire. They startedout at once to rouse the neighbors. By sunrise the sky was entirelyclear and the visitors to the backwoods could climb to the secondfloor gallery of the lodge and look out over the great drifts. Inplaces the snow was heaped fifteen feet high; but the men shuffledoff over these drifts and back again as easily as they would havewalked on six inches of snow. 

They brought with them six other men, who also sat down to breakfastin the big kitchen, while Mr. Cameron and the boys and Mrs. Murchiston finished their meal in the dining-room. To the surprise ofthe visitors to the camp, one of the men whom Long Jerry had broughtin to help find the girls was the Rattlesnake Man, as he was called. 

"We found him poking about the woods by himself, sir, " said LongJerry, privately, to Mr. Cameron. "He says there's been a boy stayingwith him for a while back, and that he started out hunting justbefore the storm. The old hermit was looking for him. By what hesays, I believe it's the same boy you folks was bringing up here-theone 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 onsnowshoes, the boys dragging their toboggans and the men carryingfood and hot coffee in vacuum bottles. They separated into fourparties; the three boys and Jerry Todd kept together. Jerry believedthat the girls would have drifted some with the storm and thereforehe struck off due east from the house. 

In an hour they came back to the bank of the stream near where Ruthand Reno had their adventure with the panther. 

"If old Reno had been well enough to come with us, he would havescented them in a hurry, " declared Tom. "See the creek! it'scompletely smothered in snow. "

They followed the course of the stream for some distance and foundthe banks growing more steep. Suddenly Jerry began to sniff the keenair, and in a moment he cried:

"There's a fire near, boys. Somebody is burning pine boughs--andthere isn't any house near, that I can swear to!"

They hurried on. Inside of half a mile Isadore descried a column ofblue smoke ahead. They began to shout at once, and it was not longbefore answering cries delighted them. 

"That's Madge yelling, " declared Bob. "I'd know her warwhoopanywhere. "

Tom had set out as fast as he could travel, the toboggan jumpingafter him over the drifts. Even Busy Izzy grew excited, and yelledlike a good fellow as he joined in the chase. They all ran down thebed of the stream and reached a deep cut where the banks were veryhigh on either hand. 

Up the white slope of the left hand bank was a small plateau onwhich the fire was burning. Some sort of a camp had been established, surrounded by an embankment of tramped snow. Over this fortress theheads of all six of the girls became visible, all crying out to theirrescuers in such a medley of exclamations that no one wasunderstandable. 

"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 uphere, for we've turned cannibals and we're just about to cast lots tosee who should first be sacrificed to the general good!"

But there was more than laughter to season this rescue. Some tearsof relief were shed, and even Isadore Phelps showed some shame-facedjoy that the catastrophe had resulted in no worse hardships for thegirls. He said to Heavy:

"I'm sorry I spoiled that old taffy. If you'd eaten your full shareof _that_ the other day, I expect you wouldn't have suffered sofrom hunger. "

The only person who was seriously troubled by the adventure was thestrange boy. He had suffered severely In the storm and now he couldscarcely move for pains in his back and legs. Otherwise it isdoubtful if he would not have run when he heard Long Jerry's voiceamong 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 arealive, 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, FredHatfield!"

But Ruth would not let the guide scold the boy any more. "He's verysick, Mr. Todd, " she said. "He'll have to be carried to the lodge. Ibelieve 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 betempted 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 foodthat had been brought. Jerry signaled with his rifle and brought thewhole party to the spot within the hour, including the RattlesnakeMan. But when the old hermit saw that the boy was found he would stopno longer. 

"Let his folks look after him. I gave him shelter; but he's a badboy, I reckon. And he doesn't like my children. I don't want anybodyabout my place that doesn't like my children. Now, that little girl, "he added, pointing to Ruth, "_she_ wasn't afraid of them; wasyou?"

"Not much, " returned Ruth, bravely. "And I'm coming to see youagain, sir, if I can. "

"You may come at any time, and welcome, " answered the RattlesnakeMan, with a low bow. "Maybe you would like to learn how to handle mypets, " 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-andthey get to be as friendly as kittens, " returned the hermit. "I havea 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 tookhis departure. 

Fred Hatfield and the girls were all packed upon the sleds and drawnover the snow to the camp, where the rescued and rescuers arrived insafety before noon. But the girls had been through such anexperience, and were so exhausted, that as soon as dinner was overthey were commanded to go to bed, while one of the men started totown 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. Andif his folks want him, they can come here to Snow Camp and take himhome, " added the merchant, in some disgust. "I must say that it seemsas 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 thetime. Before night, when the doctor arrived (walking over on snow-shoeswith the guide) Fred was in a high fever and was rambling in hisspeech. None of the girls was seriously injured by the adventurein the snow; but the doctor shook his head over Hatfield. 

Mrs. Murchiston gave the youth good attention, however, and thedoctor promised to come again as soon as a horse could get throughthe roads. Two days passed before anybody got to Snow Camp saving onsnowshoes. The governess was so kind to the sick boy that he brokedown and confessed all his wretched story to her. 

His home life had not been very happy since his father's death. Hisbrother 'Lias, and the other big boys, were hard-working woodsmen andthought Fred ought to work hard, too, in the woods and on their poorlittle farm. He had finally had a fierce quarrel with 'Lias and theolder boy had thrashed him. 

"I only meant to scare him, " Fred confessed, "when he shot at me andthought it was a deer. The bullet whistled right by my head. When Ijumped I dislodged a stone in the bank, and that rolled down the hilland 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 inthe hunting reason, and 'Lias is real careless with a gun. So Istayed hid. Then I heard two men talking at night and they said theyguessed 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. Ididn't know 'Lias had been arrested until Mr. Cameron brought me backup 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. Somebodyelse was drowned in Rolling River. There's been a little FrenchCanadian feller missing since last fall and he was supposed to havebeen drowned. It was his body they found, I reckon. The man told methe body was so broken and disfigured that nobody could recognize thefeatures--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 ofhis big half-brothers than anything else. 

But the first sled to get through to Snow Camp brought, besides thedoctor, the boy's mother and 'Lias Hatfield himself. The backwoodswoman showed considerable tenderness when she met her lost boy, andthe young fellow who had suffered in jail for some weeks held noanger against his brother because of it. 

"Why, Mr. Cam'ron, " he said to the merchant, "I reckon it sarved meout right. I _was_ purty ha'sh with the boy. He ain't naught buta weakling, after all. Marm, she does her best by us all, and westick to her; but if Fred ain't fitten to work in the woods, or onthe farm, we'll find him something to do in town--if he likes itbetter. I don't hold no grudge. "

Two days later the boy was well enough to move, and they all wentaway from Snow Camp; but! Mr. Cameron had agreed, before they went, to give Fred Hatfield a chance in his store in the city, if theywould send him down there in the spring. 

"He's not fit for the rough life up here, " he told Tom and Helen andRuth, 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 helpedthose people in the world who really _deserved_ helping, wewouldn't boost many folks. "

Meanwhile the girls had all recovered from their adventure in theblizzard, and the entire party of young folk found plenty ofamusement in the snow-bound camp. In one monstrous heap in the yardthe boys excavated a good-sized cavern--big enough so that all thegirls as well as the boys could enter it at once; and they lit it upat night with candles and held a "party" there, at which plenty ofwalnut 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 standit. "

"If you girls had been right smart, " drawled Bob Steele, "when youwere lost the other day, you'd have scooped you out a hole like thisin a snowbank and hived up as snug as a bug in a rug till the stormwas 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 anysuch 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 atLighthouse Point for two weeks next summer, " cried Heavy. "Iguarantee you won't be lost in the snow down there. "

"Not at that time of year, that's sure, " laughed Ruth. "But we don'tknow yet, Jennie, that we _can_ go with you. "

However, it is safe to state here that Ruth, at least, was able toaccept the stout girl's invitation, for we shall meet her next in astory entitled: "Ruth Fielding at Lighthouse Point; Or, Nita, theGirl Castaway. "

There was plenty of fun around Snow Camp for the remainder of theten days they spent there, and when the time came to go back tocivilization both girls and boys assured good Mr. Cameron that theyhad had a most delightful time. They traveled as far as Cheslowtogether, where Heavy and Belle and Lluella went to their homes for aday or two, to finish out the tag-end of the vacation, while theSteeles and Isadore went home with the Camerons, and Ruth returned tothe Red Mill. 

And how glad Aunt Alvirah was to see Ruth! Uncle Jabez didn'tdisplay his feelings so openly; but Ruth had learned how to take themiller, and how to understand him. She helped him with his accounts, made out his bills for the year, and otherwise made herself of use tohim. 

"You just wait, Uncle Jabez, " she told him, earnestly. "I'm going tomake your investment in my schooling at Briarwood pay you the biggestdividend of anything you ever speculated in--you see. "

"I'm sure I hope so, Niece Ruth, " he grumbled. "I don't much expectit, though. They teach you too many folderols up there. What's_this_ now?" he asked, pointing his stubbed forefinger to thelittle 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 BriarwoodHall. And you wait! we're going to be the most popular club in theschool before long. We've had Mrs. Tellingham, the Preceptress, atone of our meetings. "

"What good is that?" he demanded, shaking his grizzled head. 

"Fraternity--fellowship--helpfulness--hope--oh! it stands for lotsof 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 stowedaway 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 muchbrighter, gayer, pleasanter place while she was in it. Hercheerfulness and sweetness were contagious. Aunt Alvirah complainedless frequently of her back and bones when Ruth was about, and inspite of himself, the old miller's step grew lighter. 

"Ah, Jabez, " Aunt Alvirah said, as they watched Ruth get into theCameron automobile to be whisked away to the station, and so toBriarwood 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 yourcold old heart!"

But this last was said so low that Jabez Potter did not hear it ashe stumped away toward the Red Mill. 

In the automobile the young folks were having a gay time. Helen waswith 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 totry for a marksmanship badge!"

"And wasn't it fine how it came out about Fred, " said Ruth, her facebeaming with satisfaction. "I am so glad to know he is no longer ahomeless 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