CHAPTER II
THE PANTHER AT LARGE
"Say! let's get out of here!" exclaimed the girl from the West. "I don'twant to be eaten up by that cat--and Uncle Bill would make an awful rowover it. Come on!"
She seized Ruth's hand and, leaving Tom to drag his sister with him, setoff at full speed for the motor car, wherein Jerry Sheming, the stranger,still lay helpless.
Helen was breathless from laughter when she reached the car. Jane Ann'sdesire not to be eaten up by the panther because of what Mr. Bill Hicks,of Bullhide, Montana, would say, was so amusing that Tom's twin forgot herfright.
"Stop your fooling and get in there--quick!" commanded the anxious boy,pushing his sister into the tonneau. With the injured Jerry, the back ofthe car was well filled. Tom leaped into the front seat and tried to startthe car.
"Quick, Tom!" begged Ruth Fielding. "There's the panther."
"Panther! What panther?" demanded Jerry, starting up in his seat.
The lithe, black beast appeared just then over the brow of the hill. Themen who had started after the beast were below in the ravine, yelling, anddriving the creature toward them. The motor car was the nearest object toattract the great cat's wrath, and there is no wild beast more savage andtreacherous.
Tom was having trouble in starting the car. Besides, it was headeddirectly for the huge cat, and the latter undoubtedly had fastened itscruel gaze upon the big car and its frightened occupants.
Ruth Fielding and her friends had been in serious difficulties before.They had even (in the woods of the Northern Adirondacks and in thefoothills of the Montana Rockies) met peril in a somewhat similar form.But here, with the panther creeping toward them, foot by foot, the youngfriends had no weapon of defense.
Ruth had often proved herself both a courageous and a sensible girl.Coming from her old home where her parents had died, a year and a halfbefore, she had received shelter at the Red Mill, belonging to her greatuncle, Jabez Potter, at first as an object of charity, for Uncle Jabez wasa miserly and ill-tempered old fellow. The adventures of the first book ofthis series, entitled "Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill; Or, Jasper Parloe'sSecret," narrate how Ruth won her way--in a measure, at least--to heruncle's heart.
Ruth made friends quickly with Helen and Tom Cameron, and when, the yearprevious, Helen had gone to Briarwood Hall to school, Ruth had gone withher, and the fun, friendships, rivalries, and adventures of their firstterm at boarding school are related in "Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall;Or, Solving the Campus Mystery."
In "Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp; Or, Lost in the Backwoods," the thirdvolume of the series, are told the mid-winter sports of our heroine andher friends; and later, after the school year is concluded, we find themall at the seaside home of one of the Briarwood girls, and follow themthrough the excitement and incidents of "Ruth Fielding at LighthousePoint; Or, Nita, the Girl Castaway."
When our present story opens Ruth and the Camerons have just returned fromthe West, where they had spent a part of the summer vacation with Jane AnnHicks, and their many adventures are fully related in the fifth volume ofthe series, entitled "Ruth Fielding at Silver Ranch; Or, Schoolgirls Amongthe Cowboys."
Few perils they had faced, however, equalled this present incident. Theblack panther, its gleaming eyes fixed upon the stalled motor car and theyoung folk in it, crouched for only a moment, with lashing tail and baredfangs.
Uttering another half-stifled snarl, the beast bounded into the air. Thedistance was too great for the brute to pass immediately to the car; butit was plain that one more leap would bring her aboard.
"Start it! Quick, Tom!" gasped Helen.
"I--I can't!" groaned her brother.
"Then we must run----"
"Sit still!" commanded Jane Ann, with fire in her eye. "I'm not going torun from that cat. I hate 'em, anyway----"
"We can't leave Mr. Sheming," said Ruth, decidedly. "Try again, Tommy."
"Oh, don't bother about me," groaned the young man, who was still astranger to them. "Don't be caught here on my account."
"It will not do us any good to run," cried Ruth, sensibly. "Oh, Tommy!"
And then the engine started. The electric starter had worked at last. Tomthrew in his clutch and the car lunged ahead just as the snarling catsprang into the air again.
The cat and the car were approaching each other, head on. The creaturecould not change its course; nor could Tom Cameron veer the car very wellon this rough ground.
He had meant to turn the car in a big circle and make for the road again.But that flashing black body darting through the air was enough to shakethe nerve of anybody. The car "wabbled." It shot towards the tracks, andthen back again.
Perhaps that was a happy circumstance, after all. For as the car swerved,there was a splintering crash, and the windshield was shivered. The bodyof the panther shot to one side and the motor car escaped the full shockof the charge.
Over and over upon the ground the panther rolled; and off toward the road,in a long, sweeping curve, darted the automobile.
"Lucky escape!" Tom shouted, turning his blazing face once to look back atthe party in his car.
"Oh! More than luck, Tommy!" returned Ruth, earnestly.
"It was providential," declared Helen, shrinking into her seat again andbeginning to tremble, now that the danger was past.
"Good hunting!" exclaimed the girl from the ranch. "Think of charging awildcat with one of these smoke wagons! My! wouldn't it make Bashful Ike'seyes bulge out? I reckon he wouldn't believe we had such hunting here inthe East--eh?" and her laugh broke the spell of fear that had clutchedthem all.
"That critter beats the biggest bobcat I ever heard of," remarked JerrySheming. "Why! a catamount isn't in it with that black beast."
"Where'd it go?" asked Tom, quite taken up with the running of the car.
"Back to the ravine," said Ruth. "Oh! I hope it will do no damage beforeit is caught."
Just now the four young friends had something more immediate to thinkabout. This Jerry Sheming had been "playing 'possum." Suddenly they foundthat he lay back in the tonneau, quite insensible.
"Oh, oh!" gasped Helen. "What shall we do? He is--Oh, Ruth! he isn't_dead_?"
"Of a strained leg?" demanded Jane Ann, in some disgust.
"But he looks so white," said Helen, plaintively.
"He's just knocked out. It's hurt him lots more than he let on," declaredthe girl from Silver Ranch, who had seen many a man suffer in silenceuntil he lost the grip on himself--as this youth had.
In half an hour the car stopped before Dr. Davison's gate--the gate withthe green lamps. Jerry Sheming had come to his senses long since andseemed more troubled by the fact that he had fainted than by the injury tohis leg.
Ruth, by a few searching questions, had learned something of his story,too. He had not been a passenger on the train in which Jane Ann was ridingwhen the wreck occurred. Indeed, he hadn't owned carfare between stations,as he expressed it.
"I was hoofin' it from Cheslow to Grading. I heard of a job up atGrading--and I needed that job," Jerry had observed, drily.
This was enough to tell Ruth Fielding what was needed. When Dr. Davisonasked where the young fellow belonged, Ruth broke in with:
"He's going to the mill with me. You come after us, Doctor, if you thinkhe ought to go to bed before his leg is treated."
"What do you reckon your folks will say, Miss?" groaned the injured youth.And even Helen and Tom looked surprised.
"Aunt Alvirah will nurse you," laughed Ruth. "As for Uncle Jabez----"
"It will do Uncle Jabez good," put in Dr. Davison, confidently. "That'sright, Ruthie. You take him along to your house. I'll come right outbehind you and will be there almost before Tom, here, and your uncle's Bencan get our patient to bed."
It had already been arranged that Jane Ann should go on to Outlook, theCamerons' home. She would remain there with the twins for the few daysintervening before the young folk went back to school--the girls toBriarwood, and Tom to Seven Oaks,
the military academy he had entered whenhis sister and Ruth went to their boarding school.
"How you will ever get your baggage--and in what shape--we can onlyguess," Tom said to the Western girl, grinning over his shoulder as thecar flew on toward the Red Mill. "Guess you'll have to bid a fond farewellto all the glad rags you brought with you, and put on some of Ruth's, orHelen's."
"I'd look nice; wouldn't I?" she scoffed, tossing her head. "If I don'tget my trunks I'll sue the railroad company."
The car arrived before the gate of the cottage. There was the basket ofbeans just where Ruth and Helen had left them. And Aunt Alvirah camehobbling to the door again, murmuring, "Oh, my back! and oh, my bones!"and quite amazed when she saw Ben come running to help Tom Cameron intothe house with the youth from the railroad wreck.
"Though, landy's sake! I don't know what your Uncle Jabez will say when hecomes back from town and finds this boy in the best bed," grumbled AuntAlvirah, after a bit, when she and Ruth were left alone with JerrySheming, and the others had gone on in the car, hurrying so as not to belate for luncheon at Outlook.