the forest, and it was growing dark very fast. Only the snow on the ground made it possible for the boy and girl to see objects at a distance.

Ruth was wondering what her friends would think when they missed her, and likewise how she would ever get back to the railroad. Would Mr. Cameron send back for her? What would happen to her, here in the deep woods, even when the mules stopped so that she dared leap down from the cart?

And just then--before these questions became very pertinent in her mind--she was startled by a wild scream from the bush patch beside the road. Fred cried out in new alarm, and the mules stopped dead-- for a moment. They were trembling and tossing their heads wildly. The awful, blood-chilling scream was repeated, and there was the soft thudding of cushioned paws in the bushes. Some beast had leaped down from a tree-branch to the hard snow.

"A cat-o'-mountain!" yelled Fred Hatfield, and as he shouted, the lithe cat sprang over the brush heap and landed in the road, right beside the timber cart.

Once Ruth had been into the menagerie of a traveling circus that had come to Darrowtown while her father was still alive. She had seen there a panther, and the wicked, graceful, writhing body of the beast had frightened her more than the bulk of the elephant or the roaring of the lion. This great cat, crouching close to the snow, its tail sweeping from side to side, all its muscles knotted for another spring, struck Ruth dumb and helpless.

Fortunately her gloved hands were locked about the timber on which she lay, for the next instant a third savage scream parted the bewhiskered lips of the catamount and on the heels of the cry the mules started at full gallop. The panther sprang into the air like a rubber ball. Had the mules not started the beast must have landed fairly upon the boy and the girl clinging to the reach of the timber wagon.

But providentially Ruth Fielding and her companion escaped this immediate catastrophe. The savage beast landed upon the wagon, however--far out upon the end of the timber, beyond the rear wheels. Mad with fright, the mules tore on along the wood road. There were many turns in it, and the deep ruts shook them about terrifically. Ruth and Fred barely retained their positions on the cart--nor was the catamount in better situation. It hung on with all its claws, yowling like the great Tom-cat it was.

On and on plunged the poor mules, sweating and fearful. Ruth and Fred Hatfield clung like mussels to a rock, while the panther bounded into the air, screeching and spitting, always catching the tail of the cart as it came down--afraid to leap off and likewise afraid to hang on.

The mules came to a hill. They were badly winded by now and their pace grew slower. The panther scratched along the reach nearer to the two human passengers, and Ruth saw its eyes blazing like huge carbuncles in the dusk. There was a fork of the roads at the foot of the hill. Fred Hatfield uttered a shriek of despair as the mules took the right hand road and struck into the bush itself--a narrow and treacherous track where the limbs of the trees threatened to brush all three passengers from the cart at any instant.

"Oh! oh! we're done for now!" yelled Fred. "They've taken the road to Rattlesnake Hill. We'll be killed as sure as fate!"

CHAPTER VIII

FIRST AT SNOW CAMP

Fred Hatfield's fears might have been well-founded had the mules not been so winded. They had run at least four miles from the railroad and even with the fear of the snarling panther behind them they could not continue much farther at this pace.

But over this rougher and narrower road the timber cart jounced more than ever. In all its life the panther had probably never received such a shaking-up. The mules had not gone far on what Fred called the Rattlesnake Hill Road when, with an ear-splitting cry, the huge cat leaped out from the flying wagon and landed in the bush.

"We're saved!" gasped Ruth. "That dreadful beast is gone."

Fred immediately tried to soothe the mules into a more leisurely pace; but nothing but fatigue would bring them down. Thoroughly frightened, they kept starting and running without cause, and there was no chance in this narrow road to turn them.

The fact that it ascended the side of the hill steeply did more toward abating the pace of the runaways than aught else. The track crept along the edge of several abrupt precipices, too--not more than thirty or forty feet high, but enough to wreck the wagon and kill mules and passengers had they gone over the brink.

These dangerous places in the winding road were what had so frightened young Hatfield at first. He knew this locality well. But to Ruth the place was doubly terrifying, for she was lost--completely lost.

"Oh, where are we going? What will become of us?" she murmured, still obliged to cling with both hands to the jumping, rocking reach.

The mules could gallop no longer. Fred yelled at them "Yea-a! Yea-a!" at the top of his voice. They began to pay some attention--or else were so winded that they would have halted of their own volition. And as the cart ceased its thumping and rumbling a light suddenly blazed up before them, shining through the dusk, and higher up the hill.

"What is that? A house?" cried Ruth, seizing Fred by the shoulder.

Not more than half an hour ago the girl from the Red Mill had slipped out of the private car at the Emoryville Crossing, in pursuit of the runaway youth; now they were deep in the wilderness and surrounded by such dangers as Ruth had never dreamed of before.

The baying of a hound and the angry barking of another dog was Ruth's only answer. She turned to see Fred Hatfield sliding down off the cart.

"You sha'n't leave me!" cried Ruth, jumping down after him and seizing the runaway desperately. "You sha'n't abandon me in this forest, away from everybody. You're a cruel, bad boy, Fred Hatfield; but you've just _got_ to be decent to me."

"What did you interfere for, anyway?" he demanded, snarling like a cross dog. "Lemme go!"

But if Ruth was afraid of what terrors the forest might hold, and of her general situation, she had seen enough of this boy to know that he was just a poor, miserable coward--he aroused no fear in her heart.

"I'm going to just stick to you, Freddie," she assured him. She was quite as strong as he, she knew. "You are going home. At least, you shall go back to Mr. Cameron--"

Just then the flare of light ahead broadened and a gruff voice shouted:

"Hullo! what's wanted? Down, Tiger! Behave, Rose!"

The dogs instantly stopped their clamor. The light came through the open door and the glazed window of a little hut perched on a rock overlooking the road. The mules had halted just below this eminence, and Ruth saw that there was a winding path leading up to the door of the hovel. Down this path came the huge figure of a man, with the two dogs gamboling about him in the snow. The occupant of this cabin in the wilderness carried a rifle in one hand.

"Hullo!" he said again. "That's Sim Rogers's team--I know those mules. Are you there, Sim? What's happened ye?"

"Who is it?" whispered Ruth, again, still clinging to Fred's jacket.

"It's--it's the Rattlesnake Man," returned the boy, in a shaking voice.

"Who is he?" asked Ruth, in surprise.

"He lives here alone on the hill. He's a hermit. They say he's crazy. And I guess he is," added Fred, with a shudder.

"Why do you think he's crazy?"

But before Fred could reply--if he intended to--the hermit reached the road. He was an old but very vigorous-looking man, burly and stout, with a great mat of riotous gray hair under his fur cap, and a beard of the same color that reached his breast. He seemed to have very good eyes indeed, for he immediately muttered:

"Ha! Sim's mules--been running like the very kildee! All of a sweat, I vow. Two young folks--ha! Scared. Runaway--ah! What's that?"

The dogs began to bay again. Far behind the boy and girl--down the hill road--rose the eyrie scream of the disappointed panther.

"That cat-o'-mountain chase ye, boy?" the hermit asked, sharply.

But Fred had no answer. He stood, in Ruth's sharp clutch, and hung his head without a word. The girl had to reply:

"I never was so scared. The beast jumped right on the cart and we just shook him off down the hill yonder."

"A girl," said the hermit, talking to himself, but talking aloud, in the same fashion as before. Without doubt, being so much alone in these wilds he had contracted the habit of talking to himself--or to his dogs--or to whatever creature chanced to be his company.

"A girl. Not Sim's gal. Sim ain't got nothing but louts of boys. Let me see. What boy is this?"

"He is Fred Hatfield," said Ruth, simply. Fred jumped and tried to pull away from her; but Ruth's hold was not to be so easily broken. The hermit, however, seemed to have never heard the name before. He only said, idly: