CHAPTER XXIII
A DOUBLE CAPTIVITY
"It's a ghost!" gasped Belle as the voice out of the storm died awaydown the wind.
"So are you!" snapped Madge. "What would a ghost want any help for?Ridiculous!"
"Goodness me!" drawled Heavy. "Seems to me even a disembodied spiritmight feel the need of help if it was out in such a gale as this."
"I mean that we only thought we heard the voice," chattered Belle.
"Funny we should all think with such unanimity," scoffed Ruth. "Thatwas certainly a very able-bodied spirit--There!"
Again the cry came brokenly through the storm.
"Somebody lost like ourselves," said Lluella, with a shiver.
"And he sees the light of our fire," Jennie Stone urged.
"We must help, whoever it is," Ruth cried. "Shout, girls! Maybe hewants to know the way--"
"The fire will show him," said Madge, quickly.
"Perhaps he is hurt!" said Helen.
"Shout!" commanded Ruth.
They raised their voices in a ragged chorus of cries. "Again!" criedRuth, and that time they sent their halloo out into the storm withmore vigor and unanimity. Once more, after they had waited a fullminute, they could plainly distinguish the word "Help!"
"This won't do," said Ruth, briskly. "Whoever it is cannot get to us."
"And we can't get to him!" cried Lluella.
"I am going to try. I'll go alone. You girls keep hollering. I won'tgo out of earshot," promised Ruth.
"Don't do it, Ruthie! You'll be lost," cried Helen. "Then whatevershould we do?"
"I won't get lost--not if you girls continue to shout," returned herchum.
She had buttoned her coat about her and pulled the skating cap shewore down over her ears, yet not too low to muffle them. Again thecry came wandering through the storm. Ruth started down the bank ofthe gully; the cry came from the other side of the hollow, she wassure--almost directly opposite the ledge on which they had takenshelter.
When she plunged off the ledge she at once entered the wall ofdriving, smothering snow. It almost took her breath, it was so deepunder her feet and shrouded her about so much like a mantle. Had sheventured this way when first she and her friends had descended to theledge, Ruth must have actually sunk out of sight in the soft drifts.
But the sifting snow had packed harder and harder as the stormincreased. After all, she sank only to her knees and soon found thatshe was plunging over rather than through the great drifts thatfilled the gully. How broad this gully was--or how deep when the snowwas out of it--she could not imagine. Nor did she give a thought tothese things now.
Again she heard the muffled cry for help; but it sounded louder. Shehad made no mistake in the direction she had taken. The personneeding succor was directly in front of the ledge, but could not getover to the fire.
She glanced back over her shoulder. The leaping flames she could notsee; but their glow made a round spot of rosy light against thescreen of the falling snow. The mystery of the sight terrified herfor a moment. Would she ever be able to fight her way back to thatledge?
"Our Father, help me!" was her unspoken prayer, and then she plungedon.
She heard the shrill cries of her friends behind; ahead the lost oneshouted out once more.
"Here! here! This way! Help!"
"I'm coming!" responded Ruth Fielding and, beaten as she was by thegale behind, kept steadily on.
The way began to rise before her. She was ascending the other bankof the gully. Suddenly through the snow-wreath that surrounded hershe saw something waving. She sprang forward with renewed courage,crying again:
"I'm coming!"
The next moment she seized somebody's gloved hand. "Oh, oh!" cried ashrill, terrified voice. "Who are you? Help me! I am freezing.can't walk--"
"Fred Hatfield!" gasped the amazed girl. "Is it you? What is thematter?"
"Take me to that house. I see the light, but I cannot reach it Helpme, for God's sake!" cried the boy.
She could see his white, pinched face as he lay there more than halfburied in the snow. His eyes were feverish and wild and he certainlydid 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 heldthe boy in the drift, as Ruth very soon found out when she laid holdof his shoulders and exerted her strength. In a few moments, whatwith 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 intohis belt was stuck a knife and a camp hatchet.
"Why, how did you get here in this storm?" demanded Ruth, as he laypanting at her feet.
"I got lost--from my--my camp," he responded. "I'm frozen! I can'tfeel my feet at all--"
"Come across to the fire," urged Ruth. "We girls are lost from SnowCamp. But we're all right so far. My! how the snow blows."
Facing the storm they could hardly make headway at all. Indeed, theyouth fell within a few yards and Ruth was obliged to drag himthrough the drifts.
Her friends continued to shout, and occasionally she stood upright,made a megaphone of her hands, and returned their hail. But herstrength--all of it--finally had to be given to the boy. She seizedhim by the shoulders and fairly dragged him toward the other side ofthe gully, thus walking against the wind, backwards. Occasionally shethrew a glance over her shoulder to make sure that she was makingstraight for the campfire.
The girls' voices drew nearer and finally, at the foot of the slopeleading 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! Hecan't help himself. Come quick!"
The girls were only a few yards away, but so fiercely did the windblow that Ruth had to repeat her call for help before Madge Steeleunderstood. Then the big girl dropped down off the ledge and plowedher way toward Ruth and her burden.
"The poor fellow! who is he?" gasped Madge, as together they raisedthe 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 cheeksshowed frostbitten spots, and Jennie began to rub them with snow."That's the way to treat frostbite," she declared. "Take off hisboots. If his feet _are_ frosted we'll have to treat them thesame way."
Helen and Belle obeyed Heavy, who seemed quite practical in thisemergency. Ruth had no strength, or breath, for the time being, butlay beside the fire herself. Meanwhile Madge and Lluella scrapped thered coals out from the rock and swept the platform clean with greenbranches. Ruth and the runaway boy were drawn into this cozy retreatand soon the boy began to weep and cry out as the heat got into hisfeet. It was very painful to have the frost drawn out in this manner.
It was now after midnight and the storm still raged. Madge andJennie floundered out for more fuel. The hatchet the boy carried wasof great aid to them in this work and soon they had piled on theledge sufficient wood to keep the blaze alive until dawn.
By this time the strange youth had been thawed out and was droppingasleep against the warm rock. Helen and Belle agreed to stand thenext watch, and to feed the fire. Both Ruth and Madge needed sleep,the former aching in every muscle from her fight to bring the rescuedone in.
"We're doubly captives now," the girl of the Red Mill whispered toMadge before she dropped asleep. "If it should stop snowing wecouldn't try to get back to camp and leave this chap here. And it iscertain sure that he could not travel himself, nor could we carry him."
"You are right, Ruth," returned Madge. "This addition to our partymakes 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 suchtrying circumstances.