CHAPTER IX
"LONG JERRY" TODD
Some dogs began barking, and the hermit's hound replied by bayingwith his nose in the air--a sound to make anybody shiver! TheRattlesnake Man gave a lusty shout, and a door opened, flooding theporch of the big log cabin with lamplight.
"Hello!" came the answering shout across the clearing, and a verytall man--as thin as a lath--strode down from the porch andapproached them, after sending back the dogs--all but one. This bigcreature could not be stayed in his impetuous rush over the snow andthe next instant he sprang up and put both his forepaws on Ruth'sshoulders.
"Oh, Reno!" she cried, fondling Tom Cameron's big mastiff, that hadcome all the way from Cheslow with them in the baggage car."_You_ know me; don't you?"
"Guess that proves her right to be here," said the hermit, more tohimself than to the surprised tall man, who was the guide and keeperin charge of Snow Camp. "Your boss lose one of his party off thetrain, Long Jerry Todd?"
"So I hear. Is this here the gal?" cried the other, in immensesurprise. "I swanny!"
"Yep. She's all right. I'll go back," said the rattlesnake man,without further ado, turning in his tracks.
"Oh, sir!" cried Ruth. "I'm so much obliged to you."
But the hermit slipped away on his snowshoes and in less than aminute was out of sight. Then Ruth looked around suddenly for FredHatfield. The runaway had disappeared.
"Where's that boy?" she cried.
"What boy?" returned Long Jerry, curiously. "Didn't see no boy here."
"Why, the boy that came here with us. He left the train atEmoryville when I did--you must have seen him."
"I never did," declared the guide. "He must have slipped away. Maybehe's gone into the house. You'd better come in yourself. The womenfolks will 'tend to you. Why, Miss, you're dead beat!"
Indeed Ruth was. She could scarcely stumble with the guide's help tothe porch. She had kicked off the snowshoes and the hermit had takenthem with him. Had it not been for the hermit and Fred Hatfield, RuthFielding would never have been able to travel the distance from thehermit's cabin to Snow Camp. And the terrible shaking up she hadreceived on the timber cart made her feel like singing old AuntAlvirah's tune of "Oh, my back and oh, my bones!"
There were two maids whom Mr. Cameron had brought along and they,with two men, had come over from Scarboro (a ride of eight miles, orso) with the luggage. They welcomed Ruth and set her down before agreat fire in the dining room, and one of them removed the girl'sshoes so that her feet might be dried and warmed, while the otherhurried to make some supper for the wanderer.
But as soon as Ruth got her slippers on, and recovered a little fromthe exhaustion of her trip, two things troubled her vastly. Sheinquired for the boy again, and learned that he had not been seenabout the camp. When she and the hermit had entered the clearing,Fred had undoubtedly taken the opportunity to slip away.
"And in the night--and it so cold, too," thought Ruth. "What willMr. Cameron say?"
That question brought her to the second of her troubles. Her friendswould worry about her all night if she did not find some way ofallaying their anxiety.
"Oh, Mary!" she said to the maid. "Where's the telephone? Tom saidthere was telephone connection here."
"So there is, Miss," returned the maid. "And somebody had bettertell Mrs. Murchiston that you're safe. They're all as worried as theycan be about you, for the folks at that store by the railroad--wherethe train stopped--when _they_ was called up as soon as thetrain reached Scarboro, declared that you had got run away with by ateam of mules."
"Which was most certainly true," admitted Ruth. "I never had such adreadful time in all my life. Run away with by mules, and frightenedto death by a great big catamount----"
Mary squealed and covered her ears. "Don't tell me!" she gasped."Sure, Miss, there do bes bears, an' panthers, an' wild-cats, an'--an' I dunno what-all in these woods. Sure, me and Janey will never goout of this house whilst we stay. 'Tain't civilized hereabout."
Ruth laughed rather ruefully. "I guess you're right, Mary," shesaid. "It doesn't seem to be very civilized here in the backwoods--and such queer people live here, too. But now! let me telephone."
The maid showed her where it was and Ruth called up Scarboro and gotthe hotel where the Cameron party was stopping. Almost immediatelyshe heard Mr. Cameron's voice.
"Hullo! Snow Camp? What's wanted?" he asked, in a nervous, jerky way.
"This is me, Mr. Cameron--Ruth, you know. I am all right at SnowCamp."
"Well! That's fine! Thank goodness you're safe!" ejaculated themerchant, in an entirely different tone. "Why, Ruth, I was just aboutsending a party out from the store at Emoryville to beat up the woodsfor you. They say there is a big panther in that district."
"Oh, I know it. The beast frightened us most to death--"
"Who was with you?" interrupted Mr. Cameron.
"Why, that boy! He jumped off the train and I followed to stop him.Now he's run away again, sir."
"Oh, the boy calling himself Fred Hatfield?" ejaculated Mr. Cameron."He's left you?"
"He came here to Snow Camp and then disappeared. I am sorry--"
"You're a good little girl, Ruth. I wanted to bring him up here--andthere are people who would be glad to know who he really is."
"But don't you know? Isn't his name Fred Hatfield?" questioned Ruth,in surprise.
"That can't be. Fred Hatfield was shot here in the woods more than amonth ago. It was soon after the deer season opened, they tell me,and it is supposed to have been an accident. Young 'Lias Hatfield,half-brother of the real Fred, is in jail here, held for shooting hisbrother. Who the boy was whom we found and brought from the Red Mill,seems to be a mystery."
"Oh!" cried Ruth, but before she could say more, Mr. Cameron went on:
"We'll all be over in the morning. I hope you have not taken cold,or overtaxed your strength, I must go and tell Helen. She has beenfrightened half to death about you. Goodnight."
He hung up the receiver, leaving Ruth in rather a disturbed state ofmind. The newspaper clipping that had dropped out of the old walletthe strange boy had carried, was the account of the shooting affair.Mention was made in it about the very frequent mistakes made in thehunting season--mistakes which often end in the death of one hunterby the hand of another.
It said that 'Lias Hatfield and his younger brother, Fred, had had aquarrel and then gone hunting, each taking a different direction. Theyounger boy had ensconced himself just under the brink of a steepbank at the bottom of which was Rolling River, a swift and deepstream. His brother's story was that he had come up facing thisplace, having started a young buck not half a mile away. He thoughthe heard the buck stamping, and blowing, and then saw what he thoughtwas the animal behind a fringe of bushes at the top of this steepriver bank.
The hunter blazed away, and heard a dreadful scream, a rolling andthrashing in the brush, and a splash in the river. He ran forward andfound his brother's old gun and tippet. There was blood on thebushes. The supposition was that Fred Hatfield had been shot and hadrolled into the swift-flowing river. 'Lias had given himself up tothe authorities and there seemed some doubt in the minds of thepeople of Scarboro as to whether the shooting had been an accident.
"If there was no body found," thought Ruth, all the time she waseating the supper that Mary brought her, "how do they know FredHatfield is really dead? And if he _is_ dead, who is the boy whois traveling about the country using Fred Hatfield's name andcarrying Mr. Hatfield's old wallet? I guess Fred has run away,instead of being killed, and is staying away because he hates hisbrother 'Lias, and wishes him to get into trouble about the shooting.If that's so, isn't he just the meanest boy that ever was?"
Long Jerry Todd came in with a huge armful of wood for the fire, andRuth determined to pump him about the accident. The tall man knew allabout it, and was willing enough to talk.
He sat down beside the fire and answered Ruth's questions mostcheerfully.
"Ya-as, I knowed old man Hatfield,
" he said. "He's been dead goin'on ten year. That Fred wasn't good to his mother. His half-brothers--children of Old Man Hatfield's fust wife--is nicer to their marm thanFred was. Oh, ya-as! he was shot by 'Lias, all right. I dunno as'Lias meant to do it. Hope not. But they found Fred's body in theriver t'other day, and so they arrested 'Lias."
But Long Jerry hadn't seen any sign of the boy that had been withRuth and the hermit when they arrived at Snow Camp. Ruth did not liketo discuss the mystery with him any more; for it _was_ a mysterynow, that was sure. Fred Hatfield's body had been found in the river,yet a boy was traveling about the country bearing Fred Hatfield's name.
The guide finally unfolded himself and rose slowly to his fullheight, preparatory to going back to the kitchen regions. He wasnearly seven feet tall, and painfully thin. He grinned down upon RuthFielding as she gazed in wonder at his proportions.
"I'm some long; ain't I, Miss?" he chuckled. "But I warn't no tallerthan av'rage folks when I was a boy. You hear of some folks gettin'stunted by sickness, or fright, or the like. Wal, I reckon _I_got stretched out longer'n common by fright. Want to hear about it?"
He was so jolly and funny that Ruth was glad to hear him talk andshe encouraged him to go on. So Jerry sat down again and began hisstory.