"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 taste of the dough. Mary says it's 'Whangdoodle Pudding, with Lallygag Sauce'; 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 the pudding. Such a hearty appetite as everybody had! The snapping cold and the odor of balsam and pine gave a tang to the taste that none of them had ever known before. The girls were full of plans for quiet hours around the great open fires, as well as for the out-of-door fun; but Tom was leader on this first day of the vacation at Snow Camp, 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. Long Jerry came down to watch them and grinned broadly at the boys' antics on the ice. Jerry was no skater; but he was stringing snowshoes and by the morning would have enough ready for the whole party and promised to teach the young folk the art of walking on them in half a day.

That afternoon on the ice only put an edge on the appetite of the whole party for the frost games. "Plenty of time to make those pine-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'll have some fun this night."

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

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

"Oh, dear! Can't we take it easy this evening?" whined Heavy, after a mighty yawn. "I was so hungry—"

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

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

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

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

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

"Now, don't any of you back out," Tom said. "Each of us will take two 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—to the top of that slide. I never did care much for boys—they are greedy; 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 along to the top of the chute needn't expect to ride to the bottom."

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

It being a race to the hill-top, with the first two girls to take their places on the toboggan of the first boy, naturally Heavy was out of the running, and bound to be last. She came panting to the starting platform, and found Ruth waiting to share Isadore's sled with her.

Tom, with Madge and Belle, had already shot down the icy chute. Bob Steele, with Lluella and Helen before him, dropped over the verge of the platform and their toboggan began to whiz down the pathway, as Jennie plumped down upon the remaining toboggan.

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

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

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

He pushed the toboggan over the edge of the drop almost before Ruth was settled behind Jennie. He flung himself upon the sled, sitting sideways, and "kicked" them over the drop. The toboggan struck the icy 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 on either hand, and so rapidly that their eyes watered and they could not see. It seemed only a breath when the third toboggan shot onto the level at the bottom, and they passed the crew of the first sled already coming back. It was exhilarating sport—it was delightful. Yet every time they started Ruth felt as though the breath left her lungs and that she couldn't catch it again until they slowed down at the bottom of the hill.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What's the hurry?" panted Heavy.

"There's nobody paying us for this; is there? Let 'em catch up with us and then we will be—all—to—geth—er—Woof! My goodness me, I'm winded," 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 gab about it. Come along; will you?"

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

They got aboard the toboggan once more and Isadore recklessly flung himself on it, too, and pushed off. At the moment there came a shrill hail from below. Tom was sending up some word of warning—at the very top of his voice.

But the three just starting down the slide could not distinguish his words.

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



CHAPTER XII

PERIL—AND A TAFFY PULL

It seemed to Ruth Fielding, as the toboggan dashed down the chute toward that strange object in their course, as though her lips were glued 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—a quarter of a mile ahead when her stinging eyes first saw it.

Toward it the sled rushed, gathering speed every moment, and the object on the track grew in her eyes apace. When her lips parted she screamed 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 could halt them once they had started upon the icy incline. But her cry warned Isadore of the peril ahead.

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

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

It didn't seem as though such a thing could do the coming toboggan any harm; but Ruth and Isadore Phelps knew well that if it went upon the outspread coat there would be a spill. It would act like a brake to the sled, and that frail vehicle on which the three young folk rode would stop so abruptly that they would be flung off upon the icy course.

Ruth at least understood this peril only too well; but she made no further outcry. Jennie Stone's eyes were still tight shut.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Their individual shrieks were broken off suddenly by the smothering snow. Their friends, on the other side of the slide, came plunging across the course, and Bob Steele, slipping on the smooth surface, kicked up both feet high in the air, landed with a crash on the small of his back, and finished the slide to the very bottom of the chute in 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 help the girls out of the snowdrift. As for Isadore, he had to scramble out by himself—and the soft snow had got down his neck, and he had lost his hat, his ears were full of snow, and altogether he was in what Madge Steele called "a state of mind."

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

And he actually started off for the camp in a most abused state. The others could not help their laughter—the more so that what seemed for a few seconds to promise disaster had turned out to be nothing but a most amusing catastrophe.

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

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

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

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

"Isn't it just grand?" cried Belle Tingley, when the girls had retired to the big room in which Ruth Fielding had slept alone the night before. "I never did know you could have so much fun in the woods in the dead of winter. Helen! your father is just the dearest man 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. The resources of Snow Camp seemed unending. As soon as breakfast was over there was Long Jerry ready with snowshoes for all. Tom and Helen, as well as Bob Steele, were somewhat familiar with these implements. And Ruth had had one unforgettable experience with them.

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

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

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

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

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

"Or be able to keep them out of it," declared Madge Steele. "I suppose 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's nuts—half a bushel of them. The boys must crack and pick the nuts and we'll make some walnut taffy—it will be lots nicer than plain taffy."

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

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

Tom and his chums agreed to this and in a few minutes they were all three sitting gravely on the big settee by the fire, a flatiron in each boy's lap, each with a hammer and the basket of nuts in reach, and all dolefully whistling—with as much discord as possible. The whistling did certainly try the girls' nerves; but the boys were not to be trusted under any other conditions.

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

"Keep at it, Mr. Isadore Phelps!" cried Ruth, first to detect Izzy's defection. "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 and picked out, we'll spread the kernels in the dripping pans, the taffy will then be ready, we'll pour it over, and then set the candy out to cool 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 the quantity sufficient. Meanwhile, the taffy was boiling in the big kettle, and Ruth and Jennie had buttered three dripping pans. They spread the nutmeats evenly in the pans and then set the pans carefully on a snowdrift outside the back door to get thoroughly cold before the taffy was poured thinly over the nuts.

Everybody was on the qui vive about the candy then. The girls couldn't drive the boys out of the room. The bubbling molasses filled the great kitchen with a rich odor. Jennie began popping corn with which to make cornballs of the taffy that could not be run into the three 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 to pour into the pans outside. Isadora said he would help—the kettle was too heavy for the girls to carry. He was adjured to be very, very careful and the girls followed him to the door in a body when he carried 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 the mixture into the pans as he had been instructed, and even she had no complaint to make. He hurried back to the kitchen, too, poured the residue of the boiled molasses upon the popcorn and they made up the cornballs at once.

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

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

But although they were very merry around the fire, Heavy could not long be content. The popcorn balls disappeared like magic and the stout girl kept worrying the others with questions about the taffy.

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

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

Heavy sighed, but put down her work and arose. "It's always I who has 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, bringing a 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. They were 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 candy into 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 the shells in with the meat."

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

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

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 in the 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 mean boys! 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—there now! 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 first one. The nut meats had been removed and shells scattered in the pans instead. No wonder Isadore Phelps had wanted to pour the molasses taffy!

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

"It's a mean, mean trick!" gasped Helen, in a temper. "I never will forgive 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, shaking her head.

At that moment the telephone rang. Ruth was nearest and she jumped up and answered the call. At the other end of the wire an excited female 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," said Ruth. "What is the matter?"

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

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



CHAPTER XIV

A TELEPHONE CHASE

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

But just then the woman—a farmer's wife along the road—began talking to Ruth again, and the maids learned from her answers into the 'phone the cause of the excitement. Go out into the open when the catamount 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 all along the line toward Scarboro, warning each farmer of the big cat's approach.

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

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

"If the baste comes here," cried Mary, the maid, "he can jump right into 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 they are stored in one of the outbuildings, anyway."

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

"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 be more than well paid for spoiling our taffy."

"Hush, Jennie!" commanded Madge. "This is no time for joking. How are 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. The outbuildings were not far away, but not a soul appeared about them. There seemed to be a brooding silence over the whole place. The men were 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, her voice unshaken. "There are all the guns in the hall—even the little shotguns. I don't suppose the men have a gun with them, and of course the 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 equally scared—Mrs. Murchiston and all."

"Nobody will go——"

"I'm going!" declared Ruth, firmly. "If the panther is coming from that woman's house—the woman who telephoned—then the pond is in the very 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 handle guns 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 light rifle. She knew where his ammunition was, too. And she secured half a dozen cartridges and put them into the magazine, having seen Tom load the gun the day before.

"You'll shoot yourself!" murmured Helen.

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

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

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

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

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

"Not likely," declared that lady. "But she should not have gone out without my permission."

Nor was Ruth altogether as courageous as she appeared. She did not suppose that the huge cat that had so frightened her and the strange boy that Mr. Cameron had brought up from Cheslow, was very near Snow Camp as yet. Yet she glanced aside as she ran with expectation in her eyes, and when of a sudden something jumped in the bushes, she almost shrieked 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 bad dog—I thought you were the cat-o'-mountain."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But the warn Tom and his companions would not be all Ruth had started 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 meet the panther, if it so fell out. Without any weapon even the noble mastiff 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, 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.



CHAPTER XVI

AN APPEARANCE AND A DISAPPEARANCE

The dog's snapping barks and the squalling of the catamount stilled every other sound to Ruth Fielding's ears. She had fallen back to the edge of the clearing, and knew not what to do.

She feared desperately for Reno's safety; but for the moment did not know what she might do to help the faithful beast.

She tripped upon a branch and fell to her knees, and the butt of the rifle 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 would I 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, and Ruth saw that there was blood upon his jaws, and a great gash high up on one shoulder.

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

Spurred by this thought she did not rise from her knee, but threw the barrel of the gun forward. It chanced to rest in the crook of a branch—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 the hammer and tried to sight along the barrel. Suddenly she saw the tawny side of the panther directly before her—seemingly it was at the end of the rifle barrel.

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

And with this thought in her mind, Ruth steadied the rifle as best she could and pulled the trigger. The sharp explosion and the shriek of the panther seemed simultaneous. Through the little drift of smoke she saw the creature spring; but it did not spring far. One hind leg hung useless—there was a patch of crimson on the beaten snow—the huge cat, snarling and yowling, was going around and around, snapping at its own leg.

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

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

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

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

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

And Ruth realized that she was now its helpless quarry. She could neither fight nor run. She sank back into the snow and awaited the next leap of the panther.

At this very moment of despair—when death seemed inevitable—there was a crash in the bushes behind her and a figure broke through and flung 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 there were cartridges in the magazine of Tom Cameron's gun. He leaped upright and faced the crouching cat.

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

Bang!

The rifle spat a yard of fire, which almost scorched the creature's breast. The impact of the bullet really drove the cat backward—or else the agony of its death throes turned the heavy body from its victim. It threw a back somersault and landed again in the snow, tearing it up for yards around, the crimson tide from its wounds spattering everything thereabout.

"Oh, it's dead!" cried Ruth, with clasped hands, when suddenly the beast'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? for they 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 will help 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. The boys 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 sprang for 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!" returned the boy, looking back over his shoulder.

The next moment he had disappeared, and Ruth was left alone. She made a detour of the spot where the dead panther lay and called to Reno. The mastiff dragged himself from under a bush. He was badly cut up, 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 minute the 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 to examine 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 a broken leg and these cuts. He dashed right in and attacked the panther. 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, now giving some attention to the dead animal.

Ruth related the affair in a few words, while she helped Tom bind up Reno's wounds. The young master tore up his handkerchiefs to do duty as 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 fellow hadn'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 am sorry for him. He must be all alone in these woods. Something will happen to him."

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

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

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 his friends—if the Hatfields are his friends. He does not lack courage, that is sure—courage of a certain kind, anyway. I must see to his business soon. I believe the Hatfields live within twenty miles of this place, and in a day or two I will ride over and see them."

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

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

"Why, Mis' Murchiston," drawled Long Jerry, who had come into the hall 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 may not 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 is us'ally as skeery as rabbits, unless they are mighty hungry. And ye don't often meet a hungry bear this time o' year. They are mostly housed up for the winter in some warm hole."

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

"Why, this here leetle Ruth Fielding gal, she'd have pluck enough to shoot him, I reckon," chuckled Long Jerry. "And she wouldn't be the first girl that's shot a full growed b'ar right in this neighborhood."

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

"This happened some time ago, Miss," returned the woodsman. "And it happened right over yon at Bill Bennett's farm—not four mile from here. 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 make up my mind which one of the gals I should pick for my partner through life. 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 picked a feller from town. Fac' is, I was so long a-pickin' that I never got nary 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, and the party of young folk drew up chairs, before the fire. Long Jerry squatted down in his usual manner on the hearth, and the story was begun.



CHAPTER XVII

LONG JERRY'S STORY

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

"But she wasn't backwoods bred, and the other girls said she was timid and afraid of her shadder," chuckled Long Jerry. "She warn't afraid of the boys, and mebbe that's why the other gals said sharp things about her," pursued the philosophical backwoodsman. "You misses 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, that was sick, they said, and that left Miss Sally to keep house. Come the first Saturday thereafter and Bennett, he had to go to Scarboro to mill.

"You know jest how lonesome it is up here now; 'twas a whole sight wuss 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 three little 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 stumps with a pair o' steers and a tam-harrer.

"So, from the door of the cabin he'd built, Sally could see the virgin forest all about her, while she was a-movin' about the room getting dinner for the young 'uns. While she was at work the littlest feller, Johnny, who was building a cobhouse on the floor, yelps up like a terrier:

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

"Miss Sally, she turns around, an' what does she see but a big brown bear—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 was scar't, she warn't plumb stunned in her tracks—no, sir! She gave a leap for the door and she swung it shut right against Mr. B'ar's nose. And then she barred it."

"Brave girl," said Mrs. Murchiston.

"I reckon so, ma'am," agreed the guide. "And then she remembered that Tom and Charlie, the other two boys, were gone down the hill to a 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 door and 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 and run! There's a b'ar in the yard! Run! Run!'

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

"He went a-sniffin' about the yard, smellin' of everything like b'ars do when they're forragin', s'archin' for somethin' ter tempt his appetite. Suddenly he stood stock still, raised his big head, and sniffed the air keen-like. Then he growled and went straight for the pig-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, "for their next winter's meat was in that pen—a sow and five plump little porkers.

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

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

"'I'm goin' to try and shoot that b'ar, boys,' says she, jest as firm 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 felt like 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 out and mind jest what I say. If anything does happen to me, don't you dars't come out, but go in and bar the door again, and stay till your father comes back. Now, promise me!'

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

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

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

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

"Pretty near all, I reckon, Missy," he returned. "Nobody didn't never say Sally Bennett was afraid, after she'd saved Bill's meat for him. And that ol' b'ar pelt was a coverin' on her bed till she was married, I reckon. But things like that don't happen around here now-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 over the spoiled taffy; but that night, when the six friends from Briarwood Hall retired to their big sleeping room, they seriously discussed what course they should take with the three scamps who had played them so mean a trick; for even Helen admitted that one boy was probably as guilty as another.

"And that Isadore Phelps had the cheek to ask me how I liked the taffy!" 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 I proposed 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," said Belle. "She's on the watch."

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

"There now! Ruth will forgive, of course," said Helen, sharply. "But I 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. "And boys 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," added Belle.

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

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

"Perhaps girls are not as naturally inventive as boys," suggested Ruth, 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 were mean 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 the nutmeats?" wailed Heavy.

"What else was it? It was a joke to them. There was a sting to it for us. We must pay them back in like manner, but without being mean bout 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 shall not lose any sleep over it. But if you want to pay them off by showing how much we disapprove of their actions, and have nothing to do with their schemes to-morrow, I will agree."

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

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

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

"It's borne in on me, youngsters, that you'll see a bit of hard weather 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 snowstorm in the wilderness is different from a storm in more civilized communities."

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

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

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

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

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

"Aw, speak for yourself, Miss," growled her brother. Then Bob turned deliberately 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 six ignored the three boys, who went off growling among themselves.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But the girls paid no attention to his gibes and shuffled on into the 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," declared the 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 they were at first. The girls went on, laughing and chatting, with never a thought that harm could befall them through the gathering of these fleecy 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 and throwing iced snow-balls at it, that they barely noticed the first big flakes of the storm. But by and by these flakes passed and then a wind of deadly chill swept down upon the camp and with it fine pellets of snow—not larger than pin-points—but which blinded one and 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. "My goodness! did you ever see it snow harder in your life?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tom found him (he had already seized the half-blinded Bob by the arm) and the three, arm in arm, made their way cautiously to the kitchen 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't come in, by the looks of you boys, they'd better."

Tom did not stop to remove the snow, but rushed into the great central 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, comfortably reading his paper before the fire, in smoking jacket and slippers.

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

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

"I don't know that anything has happened," said Tom, swallowing a big lump in his throat, and trying to speak calmly. "The girls have not been with us. They went into the woods somewhere to get stuff for their pillows. And it is snowing harder than I ever knew it to snow before."

"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 of great boots.

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

For Tom was scared—and he showed it. He turned short around without answering Mrs. Murchiston again, and led the way to the kitchen. The other boys had shaken off the snow and were hovering over the range for warmth.

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

"No. They haven't come in," said Tom, shortly, and immediately Bob began 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 the window 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 opened the door and saw for the first time just what they had to face. "But perhaps they'll pick up the girls on their way home. Trust those woodsmen for finding their way."

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

"Merciful heavens!" groaned Mr. Cameron. "Your sister and the girls will 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; can it?"

"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 for hours. 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 the stables.

"Wait! we'll keep together," commanded Mr. Cameron. "I hope they have 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 kept shouting back and forth until they met not far beyond the outbuildings belonging to the lodge. The great pair of draught horses were ploughing through the drifts and the three men were whooping loudly beside them.

"Dangerous work this, for you, sir," cried Long Jerry. "You'd all better remained indoors. It's come a whole lot quicker than I expected. We're in for a teaser, Mr. Cameron. Couldn't scarce make out 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 them gals is out of bounds?"

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

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

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

"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 betwixt here and the Canadian line. The wind is coming now from the northwest. If they are trying to get back to the camp they'll be drifted 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 blizzard had swept down from the Lakes and the whole country might be shrouded for 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 all made 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 the storm and closed the doors against the driving snow. In five minutes, when the animals were made secure and fed, and they tried to open the doors again, the wind had heaped the snow to such a height against them that they could not get out.

Fortunately there was a small door at the other end of the barn, and by this they all got out and made their way speedily across the clearing to the house—Long Jerry leading the way. Tom and Bob realized that they might easily have become lost in that short distance had they been left to their own resources.

Mr. Cameron was very pale and his lips trembled when he stood before the 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. "You have 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 could find their way in this smother It looks like it had set in for a big blizzard. You don't know jest what that means up here in the backwoods. Logging camps will be snowed under and mules, horses and oxen will have to be shot to save them from starvation. The hunting will be mighty poor next fall, for the deer and other varmints will starve to death, too.

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

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

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

But when Mr. Cameron tried to use the 'phone he found that already there 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 most pitiless enemy. The drifting snow rose higher and higher about the lodge every hour. The day dragged on its weary length into night, and still the wind blew and the snow sifted down, until even the top panes 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 fragrant leaves started, at this time of year; therefore Ruth and her companions went rather farther from Snow Camp than they had at first intended. But the warning flakes of snow served in no manner to startle them. The snow had been floating down, and whitening their clothing and adorning the trees with a beautiful icing, for more than half an hour, before anybody gave the coming storm a serious thought.

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

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

Laughing and joking, the jolly party reached the spot of which Helen had spoken. They set to work there in good earnest to fill their bags with the pungent new growth of the trees, whose bending branches were easily within their reach.

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

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

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

"Sheet!" repeated Jennie Stone, with scorn. "Call it rather a blanket. 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 be bivouacked in. Why! we'll have Long Jerry Todd, and the boys, and the dogs, 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 and carrying 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 far away.

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

"It's dreadful!" wailed Lluella. "The wind cuts right through everything 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 the points 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 for another. 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 in such 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 wait for 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 here to help us home."

"Come, come!" said Ruth, cheerfully. "We ought to be able to help ourselves. Here is a big tree with drooping branches. Let's get under it 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't get at us."

She led the way and the other girls crowded after her. The low-branched tree broke the force of the gale. Ruth lifted the end of one sweeping branch and her friends all crawled beneath the shelter, and as 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't be foolish," snapped Madge.

They at once found the retreat a perfect windbreak, and became comfortable—all hugging together "like a nestful of owlets," Helen said, and all declared themselves as "warm as toast."

But the wind howled mournfully through the wood, and the snow sifted down with a strange, mysterious "hush—hush—hus-s-sh" that made them feel creepy. Although it was not yet midday, the light was very dim under the thick branches of the tree. The snow became banked high behind them, and Ruth, who was in front, had to continually break away the drifting snow with her mittened hands so that they could see out.

And they could see precious little outside of their den. Just the snow drifting down, faster and faster, thicker and thicker, gathering so rapidly that they all were secretly frightened, although at first each girl tried to speak cheerfully of it.

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

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

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

"I've matches in my pocket," Ruth said quietly. "I've carried them in 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," cried Heavy. "Carrying matches!"

"Tom did tell us to," admitted Helen, laughing. "But I didn't pay much attention to what he said. I know he told us that we could never tell when matches would come in handy in the woods."

"But we'd set the forest afire—and then see what damage would be done!" 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 dry branches off underneath this tree—and others like it—and get a fire very easily. Tom told us how to do it."

"So he did!" cried Helen. "I do believe Ruth never forgets anything she 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 Madge cheerfully. "But the boys, or the men, either, couldn't find us in this 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 spirits indefinitely.

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

Helen broke down next and declared that she could not remain idle any longer. "We must move out of this," she said. "We must find our way back. Why, they might come this way hunting for us and never find us—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 be really serious if we move farther from the regular camp instead of toward it"

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

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

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

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

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

"We're all coming out!" cried the dissatisfied Lluella. "Let's all shout. Oh, girls! we've got to get back to the camp. We'll die here."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Hold up! Be brave!" urged her chum. "We must not give up now. Some other tree will give us shelter. Cling together, girls. We must get somewhere."

But where? It was a question none of them could answer. They remained cowering in the driving snow, utterly confused as to direction, 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 to the truth of the statement. The six girls from Snow Camp were indeed in peril of death—and all were convinced of the fact.

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

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

It had been against her advice that they had left their temporary shelter 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 had sheltered them for more than an hour.

What next should they do?

Although unspoken, this was the question that the five silently asked of the girl of the Red Mill. She had displayed her pluck and good sense on more than one occasion, and her friends looked to her for help. Particularly did Helen cling to her in this emergency, and although Ruth was secretly as terrified as any of her mates, she could 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, speaking loud so that they could all hear her. "We mustn't give up hope. The boys, or Mr. Cameron, will find us. It can't keep on snowing forever."

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

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

"Let's keep moving!" shouted Ruth. "Take hold of hands, girls—two by 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, from behind.

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

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

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

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

For, although the sextette of girls went but a short distance, and traveled very slowly, it was indeed a fearful task for them. The storm drove them on, and suddenly, when Jennie Stone gave utterance to a wild whoop and disappeared from view, Lluella and Belle burst out 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. Ruth scrambled back to Madge, and suddenly found her own feet slipping over the brink of some steep descent. She cried out and clung to Madge. Helen took hold of Madge's other hand, and they drew Ruth back to 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 a bank and am standing on what appears to be a narrow shelf along the face of this bank, or hill. And the snow isn't drifted here. Come down."

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

"If the place will afford us any shelter from this awful wind, why not?" 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 the stout 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 a moment Ruth had slipped over the edge of the bank and had landed beside Heavy.

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

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

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

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

But although they were out of the beat of the storm, they grew no warmer. More than Madge Steele complained of the cold within the next few minutes. Ruth, indeed, felt her extremities growing numb. The terrible, biting frost was gradually overcoming them, now that they were no longer fighting the blast. Exertion had fought this deadly coldness off; but Ruth Fielding knew that their present inaction was beckoning the approach of unconsciousness.



CHAPTER XXII

THE HIDEOUT

Helen had drawn close to her chum and they sat upon the pile of leaves that had blown into this lair under the bank, with their arms about 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 searching for us right now——"

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

"Well, that they will search for us as soon as it holds up, we can be sure," Ruth rejoined.

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

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

"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 the snow."

"There's plenty of kindling right under us" declared Jennie Stone, vigorously. "And Ruth spoke about the under branches of these trees being dry——"