Produced by Avinash Kothare, Tom Allen, Charles Franks and
the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
RUTH FIELDING
AT SNOW CAMP
OR
LOST IN THE BACKWOODS
BY
ALICE B. EMERSON
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. A LIVELY TIME
II. A SURPRISING APPEARANCE
III. THE NEWSPAPER CLIPPING
IV. THE MYSTERIOUS BEHAVIOR OF FRED HATFIELD
V. OFF FOR THE BACKWOODS
VI. ON THE TRAIN
VII. A RUNAWAY IN GOOD EARNEST
VIII. FIRST AT SNOW CAMP
IX. "LONG JERRY" TODD
X. BEARS--AND OTHER THINGS
XI. THE FROST GAMES
XII. PERIL--AND A TAFFY PULL
XIII. SHELLS AND KERNELS
XIV. A TELEPHONE CHASE
XV. THE BATTLE IN THE SNOW
XVI. AN APPEARANCE AND A DISAPPEARANCE
XVII. LONG JERRY'S STORY
XVIII. "THE AMAZON MARCH"
XIX. BESIEGED BY THE STORM KING
XX. THE SNOW SHROUD
XXI. ADRIFT IN THE STORM
XXII. THE HIDEOUT
XXIII. A DOUBLE CAPTIVITY
XXIV. THE SEARCH
XXV. CERTAIN EXPLANATIONS
RUTH FIELDING
AT SNOW CAMP
CHAPTER I
A LIVELY TIME
"I don't think we'd better go home that way, Helen."
"Why not? Mr. Bassett won't care--and it's the nearest way to the
road."
"But he's got a sign up--and his cattle run in this pasture," said
Ruth Fielding, who, with her chum, Helen Cameron, and Helen's twin
brother, Tom, had been skating on the Lumano River, where the ice was
smooth below the mouth of the creek which emptied into the larger
stream near the Red Mill.
"Aw, come on, Ruthie!" cried Tom, stamping his feet to restore
circulation.
The ground was hard and the ice was thick on the river; but the
early snows that had fallen were gone. It was the day after
Christmas, and Helen and Ruth had been at home from school at
Briarwood Hall less than a week. Tom, too, who attended the Military
Academy at Seven Oaks, was home for the winter holidays. It was
snapping cold weather, but the sun had been bright this day and for
three hours or more the friends had enjoyed themselves on the ice.
"Surely Hiram Bassett hasn't turned his cows out in this weather,"
laughed Helen.
"But maybe he has turned out his bull," said Ruth. "You know how
ugly that creature is. And there's the sign."
"I declare! you do beat Peter!" ejaculated Tom, shrugging his
shoulders. "We are only going to cut across Bassett's field--it won't
take ten minutes. And it will save us half an hour in getting to the
mill. We can't go along shore, for the ice is open there at the creek."
"All right," agreed Ruth Fielding, doubtfully. She was younger than
the twins and did not mean to be a wet blanket on their fun at any
time; but admiring Helen so much, she often gave up her own
inclinations, or was won by the elder girl from a course which she
thought wise. There had been times during their first term at
Briarwood Hall, now just completed, when Ruth had been obliged to
take a different course from her chum. This occasion, however, seemed
of little moment. Hiram Bassett owned a huge red herd-leader that was
the terror of the countryside; but it was a fact, as Helen said, that
the cattle were not likely to be roaming the pasture at this time of
year.
"Come on!" said Tom, again. "The car was to go down to the Cheslow
station for father and stop at the mill for us on its return. We
don't want to keep him waiting."
"And we've got so much to do to-night, Ruthie!" cried Helen. "Have
you got your things packed?"
"Aunt Alvirah said she would look my clothes over," said Ruth, in
reply. "I don't really see as I've much to take, Helen. We only want
warm things up there in the woods."
"And plenty of 'em," advised Tom. "Bring your skates. We may get a
chance to use them if the snow isn't too heavy. But up there in the
backwoods the snow hasn't melted, you can bet, since the first fall
in November."
"We'll have just the loveliest time!" went on Helen, with her usual
enthusiasm. "Tom and I spent a week-end at Snow Camp when Mr. Parrish
owned it, and when we knew he was going to sell, we just _begged_ papa
to buy it. You never saw such a lovely old log cabin--"
"I never saw a log cabin at all," responded Ruth, laughing.
They had climbed the steep bank now and started across the pasture
in what Tom called "a catter-cornering" direction, meaning to come
out upon the main road to Osago Lake within sight of the Red Mill,
which was the property of Mr. Jabez Potter, Ruth's uncle.
Ruth Fielding, after her parents died, had come from Darrowtown to
live with her mother's uncle at the Red Mill, as was told in the
first volume of this series, entitled "Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill;
Or, Jasper Parloe's Secret." The girl had found Uncle Jabez very hard
to get along with at first, for he was a good deal of a miser, and
his finer feelings seemed to have been neglected during a long life
of hoarding and selfishness.
But through a happy turn of circumstances Ruth was enabled to get at
the heart of her crotchety uncle, and when Ruth's very dear friend,
Helen Cameron, planned to go away to school, Uncle Jabez was won over
to the idea of sending Ruth with her. The girls were now home for the
winter holidays after spending their first term at Briarwood Hall,
where they had made many friends as well as learning a good many
practical and necessary things. The fun and work of this first term
is all related in "Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall; Or, Solving the
Campus Mystery," which is the second volume of the Ruth Fielding
Series.
And now another frolic was in immediate prospect. Mr. Cameron, who
was a very wealthy dry-goods merchant, had purchased a winter camp
deep in the wilderness, up toward the Canadian line, and Christmas
itself now being over, Helen and Tom had obtained his permission to
take a party of their friends with them to the lodge in the backwoods
--Snow Camp.
It was really Helen's party. Besides Ruth, she had invited Madge
Steele, Jennie Stone, Belle Tingley, and Lluella Fairfax to be of the
party. She had invited one other girl from Briarwood, too; but Mary
Cox had refused the invitation. "The Fox," as her school-fellows
called her, had been under a cloud at the end of the term, and
perhaps she might have felt somewhat abashed had she joined the party
of her school-fellows at Snow Camp.
Tom had invited his chum at school, who was Madge Steele's brother
Bob, and another boy named Isadore Phelps. With Mr. Cameron himself
and Mrs. Murchiston, the lady who had been the twins' governess when
they were small, and several servants, the party were to take train
at Cheslow the next day for the northern wilderness.
The trio of friends, as they hurried across Hiram Bassett's pasture,
were full of happy anticipations regarding the proposed trip, and
they chatted merrily as they went on. Halfway across the field they
passed along the edge of a bush-bordered hollow. Their skating caps--
Tom's white, Ruth's blue, and Helen's of a brilliant scarlet--bobbed
up and down beside the hedge, and anybody upon the other side, in the
hollow, might have been greatly puzzled to identify the bits of color.
"For mercy's sake! what's that?" ejaculated Helen, suddenly.
The others fell silent. A sudden stamping upon the frozen ground
arose from beyond the bushes. Then came a reverberating bellow.
Tom leaped through the bushes and looked down the hill. There
sounded the thundering of pounding hoofs, and the boy sprang back to
the side of his sister and her chum with a cry.
"Run!" he gasped. "The bull is there--I declare it is! He's coming
right up the hill and will head us off. We've got to go back. He must
have seen us through the bushes."
"Oh, dear me! dear me!" cried his sister. "What will we do--"
"Run, I tell you!" repeated Tom, seizing her hand.
Ruth had already taken her other hand. With their skates rattling
over their shoulders, the trio started back across the field. The
bull parted the bushes and came thundering out upon the plain. He
swerved to follow them instantly. There could be no doubt that he had
seen them, and the bellow he repeated showed that he was very much
enraged and considered the three friends his particular enemies.
Ruth glanced back over her shoulder and saw that the angry beast was
gaining on them fast. It was indeed surprising how fast the bull
could gallop--and he was very terrible indeed to look upon.
"He will catch us! he will catch us!" moaned Helen.
"You girls run ahead," gasped Tom, letting go of his sister's hand.
"Maybe I can turn him---"
"He'll kill you!" cried Helen.
"Come this way!" commanded Ruth, suddenly turning to the left,
toward the bank of the open creek. The current of this stream was so
swift that it had not yet frozen--saving along the edges. The bank
was very steep. A few trees of good size grew along its edge.
"We can't cross the creek, Ruthie!" shrieked Helen. "He will get us,
sure."
"But we can get below the bank--out of sight!" panted her chum.
"Come, Tom! that beast will kill you if you delay."
"It's our caps he sees," declared Master Tom. "That old red cap of
Nell's is what is exciting him so."
In a flash Ruth Fielding snatched the red cap from her chum's head
and ran on with it toward the bank of the creek. The others followed
her while the big bull, swerving in his course, came bellowing on
behind.