Produced by Avinash Kothare, Tom Allen, Charles Franks andthe 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 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.
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