The next moment she seized somebody"s gloved hand. "Oh, oh!" cried a shrill, terrified voice. "Who are you? Help me! I am freezing.
can"t walk--"
"Fred Hatfield!" gasped the amazed girl. "Is it you? What is the matter?"
"Take me to that house. I see the light, but I cannot reach it Help me, for G.o.d"s sake!" cried the boy.
She could see his white, pinched face as he lay there more than half buried in the snow. His eyes were feverish and wild and he certainly did not know Ruth.
"Help me out! help me out!" he continued to beg. "My leg is caught."
But it was more weakness and exhaustion than aught else that held the boy in the drift, as Ruth very soon found out when she laid hold of his shoulders and exerted her strength. In a few moments, what with her pulling and his scrambling, the boy was out of the drift.
He had clung to the rifle--Tom Cameron"s weapon, of course--and into his belt was stuck a knife and a camp hatchet.
"Why, how did you get here in this storm?" demanded Ruth, as he lay panting at her feet.
"I got lost--from my--my camp," he responded. "I"m frozen! I can"t feel my feet at all--"
"Come across to the fire," urged Ruth. "We girls are lost from Snow Camp. But we"re all right so far. My! how the snow blows."
Facing the storm they could hardly make headway at all. Indeed, the youth fell within a few yards and Ruth was obliged to drag him through the drifts.
Her friends continued to shout, and occasionally she stood upright, made a megaphone of her hands, and returned their hail. But her strength--all of it--finally had to be given to the boy. She seized him by the shoulders and fairly dragged him toward the other side of the gully, thus walking against the wind, backwards. Occasionally she threw a glance over her shoulder to make sure that she was making straight for the campfire.
The girls" voices drew nearer and finally, at the foot of the slope leading up to the camp, she was forced to halt and drop her burden.
"Come down and help me, Madge!" she cried. "It"s a boy--a boy! He can"t help himself. Come quick!"
The girls were only a few yards away, but so fiercely did the wind blow that Ruth had to repeat her call for help before Madge Steele understood. Then the big girl dropped down off the ledge and plowed her way toward Ruth and her burden.
"The poor fellow! who is he?" gasped Madge, as together they raised the strange boy and started up the sharp ascent.
"Not Tom! Oh! it"s never Tom?" shrieked Helen at the top of the hill.
"No, no!" gasped Ruth. "It"s--the--boy--that--ran away."
They got him upon the dry ledge of rock before the fire. His cheeks showed frostbitten spots, and Jennie began to rub them with snow.
"That"s the way to treat frostbite," she declared. "Take off his boots. If his feet _are_ frosted we"ll have to treat them the same way."
Helen and Belle obeyed Heavy, who seemed quite practical in this emergency. Ruth had no strength, or breath, for the time being, but lay beside the fire herself. Meanwhile Madge and Lluella sc.r.a.pped the red coals out from the rock and swept the platform clean with green branches. Ruth and the runaway boy were drawn into this cozy retreat and soon the boy began to weep and cry out as the heat got into his feet. It was very painful to have the frost drawn out in this manner.
It was now after midnight and the storm still raged. Madge and Jennie floundered out for more fuel. The hatchet the boy carried was of great aid to them in this work and soon they had piled on the ledge sufficient wood to keep the blaze alive until dawn.
By this time the strange youth had been thawed out and was dropping asleep against the warm rock. Helen and Belle agreed to stand the next watch, and to feed the fire. Both Ruth and Madge needed sleep, the former aching in every muscle from her fight to bring the rescued one in.
"We"re doubly captives now," the girl of the Red Mill whispered to Madge before she dropped asleep. "If it should stop snowing we couldn"t try to get back to camp and leave this chap here. And it is certain sure that he could not travel himself, nor could we carry him."
"You are right, Ruth," returned Madge. "This addition to our party makes our situation worse instead of better."
"But maybe it will all come out right in the end, dear."
"Let us hope so."
"What a boy of mystery he is!"
"Yes."
"Do you think we"ll ever get to the bottom of his trouble?"
"Let us hope so."
Then both girls turned over, to get what sleep they could under such trying circ.u.mstances.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE SEARCH
It was a most anxious night for everybody at Snow Camp. The thought of the six girls adrift in the blizzard kept most of the household awake, Long Jerry Todd, the guide, remained in the kitchen, on the watch for the first break in the storm. The others retired, all but Mr. Cameron and Tom, who sat before the fire in the living hall.
"I couldn"t sleep anyway," said Tom, "with Helen and Ruth out in the cold. It"s dreadful, Dad. I feel that we boys are partly to blame, too."
"How"s that?" his father asked him.
"Why, the girls were mad with us. I let Isadore go too far with his joking," and he told Mr. Cameron about the spoiled taffy. "If we hadn"t done that to them of course they wouldn"t have gone into the woods without us--"
"But I am afraid you lads would have been no more cautious than the girls," interposed Mr. Cameron. "This storm would have taken you by surprise just the same."
"But we could have been with them and helped them."
"I have great faith in that little Fielding girl"s good sense--and Madge Steele is to be trusted," said his father. "Don"t blame yourself, boy. It was something entirely unforeseen."
Several times during the night Mr. Cameron tried to communicate with the neighbors over the telephone; but some disaster had overtaken the line and it probably could not be repaired until after the storm.
About five o"clock Long Jerry came into the room. He had been out into the storm, for he was covered with snow.
"How does it look?" asked Mr. Cameron, earnestly.
"She"s going to break with sun-up," prophesied the woodsman. "I"ve been feeding the cattle and I"ve got the other men up. If it breaks at all, we three"ll start for the neighbors and rouse a gang to help beat the woods."
"But hadn"t we better try to find the girls at once, Jerry?" queried Tom.
"We"ll need a large party, Master Tom," said the guide. "We must cover a deal of ground, and the more men we have who are used to the trail, the better. If it stops snowing we can get around to the neighbors on snowshoes easier than any other way. The drifts are packed hard. I had to tunnel out of the kitchen door. The snow has banked up to the second story gallery."
"They"ll be buried yards under this snow," groaned Tom.