A SURPRISING APPEARANCE
Helen was sobbing and crying as she ran. Tom kept a few feet behind
the girls, although what he could have done to defend them, had the
big bull overtaken him, it would be hard to say. And for several
moments it looked very much as though Hiram Bassett's herd-leader was
going to reach his prey.
The thunder of his hoofs was in their ears. They did not speak again
as they came to the steep bank down to the open creek. There, just
before them, was an old hollow stump, perhaps ten feet high, with the
opening on the creek side. All three of them knew it well.
As Helen went over the bank and disappeared on one side of the
stump, Tom darted around the other side. Ruth, with the red cap in
her hand, stumbled over a root and fell to her knees. She was right
beside the hollow stump, and Helen's cap caught in a twig and was
snatched from her hand.
As Ruth scrambled aside and then fairly rolled over the edge of the
bank out of sight, the cap was left dangling right in front of the
stump. The bull charged it. That flashing bit of color was what had
attracted the brute from the start.
As the three friends dived over the bank--and their haste and
heedlessness carried them pell-mell to the bottom--there sounded a
yell behind them that certainly was not emitted by the bull. Goodness
knows, he roared loudly enough! But this was no voice of a bull that
so startled the two girls and Tom Cameron--it was far too shrill.
"There's somebody in that tree!" yelled Tom.
And then the forefront of the bull collided with the rotten old
stump. Taurus smashed against it with the force of a pile-driver--
three-quarters of a ton of solid flesh and bone, going at the speed
of a fast train, carries some weight. It seemed as though a live tree
could scarcely have stood upright against that charge, let alone this
rotten stump.
Crash!
The rotten roots gave way. They were torn out of the frozen ground,
the stump toppled over, and, carrying a great ball of earth with it,
plunged down the bank of the creek.
Tom had clutched the girls by their hands again and the three were
running along the narrow shore under shelter of the bank. The bull no
longer saw them. Indeed, the shock had thrown him to the ground, and
when he scrambled up, he ran off, bellowing and tossing his head, in
an entirely different direction.
But the uprooted stump went splash! into the icy waters of the
creek, and as it plunged beneath the surface--all but its roots--the
trio of frightened friends heard that eyrie cry again.
"It's from the hollow trunk! I tell you, some body's in there!"
declared Tom.
But the uprooted stump had fallen into the water with the opening
down. If there really was anybody in it, the way in which the stump
had fallen served to hold such person prisoner.
Ruth Fielding was as quick as Tom to turn back to the spot where the
old stump had been submerged; but Helen had fallen in her tracks, and
sat there, hugging her knees and rocking her body to and fro, as she
cried:
"He'll be drowned! Don't you see, he _is_ drowned? And suppose that
bull comes back?"
"That bull won't get us down here, Nell," returned her brother,
laying hold of the roots of the hollow tree and trying to turn it over.
But although he and Ruth both exerted themselves to the utmost, they
could barely stir the stump. Suddenly they heard a struggle going on
inside the hollow shell; as well, a thumping on the thin partition of
wood and a muffled sound of shouting.
"He's alive--the water hasn't filled the hollow," cried Ruth. "Oh,
Tom! we must do something."
"And I'd like to know what?" demanded that youth, in great
perturbation.
The stump rested on the shore, but was half submerged in the water
for most of its length. The unfortunate person imprisoned in the
hollow part of the tree-trunk must be partly submerged in the water,
too. Had the farther end of the stump not rested on a rock, it would
have plunged to the bottom of the creek and the victim of the
accident must certainly have been drowned.
"Why don't he crawl out? Why don't he crawl out?" cried Ruth,
anxiously.
"How's he going to do it?" sputtered Tom.
"Can't he dive down into the water through the hole in the tree and
so come up outside?" demanded the girl from the Red Mill, irritably.
"I never saw such a fellow!"
Whether this referred to Tom, or to the unknown, the former did not
know. But he recognized immediately the good sense in Ruth's
suggestion. Tom leaped out upon the log and stamped upon it. Helen
screamed:
"You'll go into the creek, too, Tom!"
"No, I won't," he replied.
"Then you'll make the stump fall in entirely and the man will be
drowned."
"No, I won't do that, either," muttered Master Tom.
He stamped upon the wooden shell again. A faint halloo answered him,
and the knocking on the inner side of the hollow tree was repeated.
"Come out! Come out!" shouted Tom, "Dive down through the water and
get out. You'll be suffocated there."
But at first the prisoner seemed not to understand--or else was
afraid to make the attempt.
"Oh, if I only had an axe!" groaned Master Tom.
"If you cut into that tree you might do some damage," said his
sister, now so much interested in the prisoner that she got up and
came near.
Ruth saw Helen's red cap high up on the bank and she scrambled up
and got it, stuffing it under her coat again.
"We'll keep _that_ out of sight," she said.
"If it hadn't been for that old red thing," growled Tom, "the bull
wouldn't have chased us in the first place."
But all of them were thinking mainly of the person in the hollow of
the old stump. How could they get this person out?
And the answer to that question was not so easily found--as Tom had
observed. They could not roll the stump over; they had no means of
cutting through to the prisoner. But, suddenly, that individual
settled the question without their help. There was a struggle under
the log, a splashing of the water, and then a figure bobbed up out of
the shallows.
Ruth screamed and seized it before it fell back again. It was a boy--
a thin, miserable-looking, dripping youth, no older than Tom, and
with wild, burning eyes looking out of his wet and pallid face. Had
it not been for Ruth and Tom he must have fallen back into the stream
again, he was so weak.
They dragged him ashore, and he fell down, shaking and chattering,
on the edge of the creek. He was none too warmly dressed at the best;
the water now fast congealed upon his clothing. His garments would
soon be as stiff as boards.
"We've got to get him to the Mill, girls," declared Tom. "Come! get
up!" he cried to the stranger. "You must get warmed and have dry
clothing."
"And something hot to drink," said Ruth. "Aunt Alviry will make him
something that will take the cold out of his bones."
The strange boy stared at them, unable, it seemed, to speak a word.
They dragged him upright and pushed him on between them. The bull had
run towards the river and had not come back; so the friends, with
their strange find, hurried on to the public road and crossed the
bridge at the creek, turning off into the orchard path that led up to
the Red Mill.
"What's your name?" demanded Tom of the strange boy.
But all the latter could do was to chatter and shake his head. The
icy water had bitten into his very bones. They fairly dragged him
between them for the last few yards, and burst into Aunt Alvirah's
kitchen in a manner "fit to throw one into a conniption!" as that
good lady declared.
"Oh, my back, and oh, my bones!" she groaned, getting up quickly
from her rocking chair by the window, where she had been knitting.
"For the good land of mercy! what is this?"
All three of the friends began to tell her together. But the little
old woman with the bent back and rheumatic limbs understood one
thing, if she made nothing else out of the general gabble. The
strange boy had been in the water, and his need was urgent.
"Bring him right in here, Tommy," she commanded, hobbling into Mr.
Potter's bedroom, which was the nearest to the kitchen, and thereby
the warmest. "I don't know what Jabez will say, but that child's got
to git a-twixt blankets right away. It's a mercy if he ain't got his
death."
They drew off the stranger's outer clothing, and then Aunt Alviry
left Tom to help him further disrobe and roll up in the blankets on
Mr. Potter's bed. Meantime the old woman filled a stone water-bottle
with boiling water, to put at his feet, and made a great bowl of
"composition" for him to drink down as soon as it was cool enough for
him to swallow.
Ruth wrung out the boy's wet garments and hung them to dry around
the stove, where they began immediately to steam. As she had noticed
before, the stranger's clothing was well worn. He had no overcoat--
only a thick jacket. All his clothing was of the cheapest quality.
Suddenly Helen exclaimed: "What's that you've dropped out of his
vest, Ruthie? A wallet?"
It was an old leather note-case. There appeared to be little in it
when Ruth picked it up, for it was very flat. Certainly there was no
money in it. Nor did there seem to be anything in it that would
identify its owner. However, as Ruth carried it to the window she
found a newspaper clipping tucked into one compartment, and, as it
was damp, too, she took this out, unfolded it, and laid it carefully
on the window sill to dry. But when she looked further, she saw
inside the main compartment of the wallet a name and address
stenciled, It was:
JONAS HATFIELD
SCARBORO, N. Y.
"Sec, Helen," she said to her chum. "Maybe this is his name--Jonas
Hatfield."
"And Scarboro, New York!" gasped Helen, suddenly. "Why, Ruthie!"
"What's the matter?" returned Ruth, in surprise.
"What a coincidence!"
"What is a coincidence?" demanded Ruth, still greatly amazed by her
chum's excitement.
"Why this boy--if this is his wallet and that is his name and
address--comes from right about where we are going to-morrow.
Scarboro is the nearest railroad station to Snow Camp. What do you
think of that?"
Before Ruth could reply, the sound of an automobile horn was heard
outside, and both girls ran to the door. The Cameron automobile was
just coming down the hill from the direction of Cheslow, and in a
minute it stopped before the door of the Potter farmhouse.