THE BATTLE IN THE SNOW
It was a fact that Ruth was tempted to run back to the house, just
as fast as she could go, and from there send Reno out to find his
young master. Whether the dog could have traced Tom on the ice,
however, is a question, for Ruth did not yield to this cowardly
suggestion. She had come out with the gun to find the boys, and her
hesitation at the edge of the pond was only momentary.
She started down the pond toward the stream, seeing the scratches of
the boys' skates leading in that direction. There could be no doubt
as to where they had gone. Ruth only wished that she had brought her
skates when she ran so hastily from Snow Camp.
Not a sound reached her ears, save the sharp twitter of a sparrow
now and then, the patter of Reno's feet on the ice, and the rattle of
the loaded rifle against the buttons of her sweater-coat. The forest
that surrounded the pond seemed uninhabited. The axes of the woodsmen
did not echo here, and the boys must indeed be a great way off, for
she could distinguish no sound whatever from them.
Yet she had no doubt that she was following their trail--not even
when she came down to the outlet of the pond. The strokes of the
skates upon the ice were still visible. The three boys had certainly
gone down the frozen stream.
"Come on, Reno!" she exclaimed aloud, encouraging herself in her
duty. "We'll find them yet. They certainly could not have gone clear
to Rolling River--that's ten miles away!"
The stream was not ten yards across--nothing more than a creek. The
woods and underbrush shut it in closely. There was not a mark in the
snow on either hand of footsteps--not that Ruth could see. And how
heavy the afternoon silence was!
Ruth had recovered in a measure from the first fear she had felt of
the marauding panther. The beast, had he traveled toward Snow Camp,
was likely miles away from the spot. She had determined to go on and
find Tom and the others, more that they might be warned of peril on
approaching Snow Camp, than for any other reason.
And she did wish, now, that Tom and the other boys would appear. She
was more than a mile--quite two miles, indeed--from the lodge.
"I guess Mr. Cameron will call me reckless again. He suggested that
I was that when I followed Fred Hatfield--or whatever his name was--
from the cars at Emoryville. He'll surely scold me for this," thought
Ruth.
She kept on down the stream, however, and at last began to shout for
her boy friends. Her clear voice rang from wall to wall of the
forest; but it could not have been heard far into the snowy depths on
either hand. Suddenly Reno growled a little, sniffed, and the hair
upon his neck began to rise.
"Now, there's no use your doing that, boy," Ruth declared, clutching
the mastiff tight by the collar with her left hand, while she
balanced the rifle in her right. "If you hear them, bark! Tom will
know it's you, then, and your bark will carry farther than my voice,
I do believe."
Reno whined, and looked from side to side, sniffing the keen, still
air. It seemed as though he scented danger, but did not know for sure
from which direction it was coming.
"You're scaring me, acting so, Reno!" exclaimed Ruth. "I wish you
wouldn't. I can't help feeling that the panther is right behind me
somewhere. Oh!"
The end of her soliloquy was a shriek. Something flashed through the
brush clump on her left hand. Reno broke into a savage barking and
sprang toward the bank. But Ruth did not lose her grip on his collar,
and her hand restrained him.
"Oh, Tom! Tom!" the girl cried.
There was another movement in the bushes. It was between Ruth and
the way to the camp, had she been so foolish as to try to reach the
house directly through the woods. But she did face up stream again,
and had Reno been willing to accompany her she would have run as hard
as ever she could in that direction.
"Come, Reno! Come, good dog!" she gasped, tugging at his collar.
"Let it alone--we must go back----"
Reno uttered another savage growl and sprang upon the bank. The hard
packed snow crunched under him. There sounded a scream from the brush
--a sound that Ruth knew well. The catamount was really at hand--there
could be no mistaking that awful cry, once having heard it.
The dog burst through the bushes with such a savage clamor that Ruth
was indeed terrified. She sprang after him, however, hoping to drag
him back from any affray with the panther. What would Tom Cameron say
if anything happened to his brave and beautiful Reno?
It was past the girl's power, however, to stay the mastiff. With
angry barks he broke through the barrier and entered a small glade
not a stone's throw from the bank of the stream. Before Ruth reached
this cleared place she saw the tracks of the beast which had so
startled her. There could be no mistaking the round impressions of
the great, padded paws. Unlike the print of the bear, or the dog,
that of the cat shows no marks of claws unless it be springing at its
prey.
And now, when Reno burst into the open, the panther uttered another
fierce and blood-chilling scream. Ruth noted the flash of the great,
lithe body as the beast sprang into the air. Startled for the moment
by the on-rush and savage baying of the dog, the panther had leaped
into a low-branching cedar. The tree shook to its very tip, and to
the ends of its great limbs. There the panther crouched upon a limb,
its eyes balefully glaring down upon the leaping, growling mastiff.
As Ruth remembered the creature from the time of her dreadful ride
on the timber cart with the so-called Fred Hatfield, it displayed a
temper and ferocity that was not to be mistaken. Reno's sudden
onslaught was all that had driven it to leap into the tree. But there
it crouched, squalling and tearing the hard wood into splinters with
its unsheathed claws. In a moment it would leap down upon the dog,
and Ruth was horror-stricken.
"Oh, Reno! Good dog!" she moaned. "Come back! come back!"
The mastiff would not obey and in a moment the huge cat sprang out
of the tree directly upon Tom Cameron's faithful companion. Reno was
too sharp to be easily caught, however; he leaped aside and the sabre-like
claws of the panther missed him. Nor was the dog unwise enough
to meet the panther face to face.
He sprang in and bit the cat shrewdly, and then got away before the
beast wheeled, yelling, to strike him. Round and round in the snow
they went, so fast that it was impossible for Ruth to see which was
dog and which was cat, their paws throwing up a cloud of snow-dust
that almost hid the combatants.
"Ah!" cried Ruth, aloud. "I've missed my chance, I should have tried
to shoot the creature while it was in the tree."
And that seemed true enough. For had she been the best of shots with
the rifle, it looked now as though she was as likely to shoot Reno as
the panther whilst they battled in the snow.