Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp | Page 4

hasn't filled the hollow," cried Ruth. "Oh, Tom! we must do something."
"And I'd like to know what?" demanded that youth, in great perturbation.
The stump rested on the shore, but was half submerged in the water for most of its length. The unfortunate person imprisoned in the hollow part of the tree-trunk must be partly submerged in the water, too. Had the farther end of the stump not rested on a rock, it would have plunged to the bottom of the creek and the victim of the accident must certainly have been drowned.
"Why don't he crawl out? Why don't he crawl out?" cried Ruth, anxiously.
"How's he going to do it?" sputtered Tom.
"Can't he dive down into the water through the hole in the tree and so come up outside?" demanded the girl from the Red Mill, irritably. "I never saw such a fellow!"
Whether this referred to Tom, or to the unknown, the former did not know. But he recognized immediately the good sense in Ruth's suggestion. Tom leaped out upon the log and stamped upon it. Helen screamed:
"You'll go into the creek, too, Tom!"
"No, I won't," he replied.
"Then you'll make the stump fall in entirely and the man will be drowned."
"No, I won't do that, either," muttered Master Tom.
He stamped upon the wooden shell again. A faint halloo answered him, and the knocking on the inner side of the hollow tree was repeated.
"Come out! Come out!" shouted Tom, "Dive down through the water and get out. You'll be suffocated there."
But at first the prisoner seemed not to understand--or else was afraid to make the attempt.
"Oh, if I only had an axe!" groaned Master Tom.
"If you cut into that tree you might do some damage," said his sister, now so much interested in the prisoner that she got up and came near.
Ruth saw Helen's red cap high up on the bank and she scrambled up and got it, stuffing it under her coat again.
"We'll keep that out of sight," she said.
"If it hadn't been for that old red thing," growled Tom, "the bull wouldn't have chased us in the first place."
But all of them were thinking mainly of the person in the hollow of the old stump. How could they get this person out?
And the answer to that question was not so easily found--as Tom had observed. They could not roll the stump over; they had no means of cutting through to the prisoner. But, suddenly, that individual settled the question without their help. There was a struggle under the log, a splashing of the water, and then a figure bobbed up out of the shallows.
Ruth screamed and seized it before it fell back again. It was a boy-- a thin, miserable-looking, dripping youth, no older than Tom, and with wild, burning eyes looking out of his wet and pallid face. Had it not been for Ruth and Tom he must have fallen back into the stream again, he was so weak.
They dragged him ashore, and he fell down, shaking and chattering, on the edge of the creek. He was none too warmly dressed at the best; the water now fast congealed upon his clothing. His garments would soon be as stiff as boards.
"We've got to get him to the Mill, girls," declared Tom. "Come! get up!" he cried to the stranger. "You must get warmed and have dry clothing."
"And something hot to drink," said Ruth. "Aunt Alviry will make him something that will take the cold out of his bones."
The strange boy stared at them, unable, it seemed, to speak a word. They dragged him upright and pushed him on between them. The bull had run towards the river and had not come back; so the friends, with their strange find, hurried on to the public road and crossed the bridge at the creek, turning off into the orchard path that led up to the Red Mill.
"What's your name?" demanded Tom of the strange boy.
But all the latter could do was to chatter and shake his head. The icy water had bitten into his very bones. They fairly dragged him between them for the last few yards, and burst into Aunt Alvirah's kitchen in a manner "fit to throw one into a conniption!" as that good lady declared.
"Oh, my back, and oh, my bones!" she groaned, getting up quickly from her rocking chair by the window, where she had been knitting. "For the good land of mercy! what is this?"
All three of the friends began to tell her together. But the little old woman with the bent back and rheumatic limbs understood one thing, if she made nothing else out of the general gabble. The strange boy had been in the water, and his need was urgent.
"Bring him right in here, Tommy," she commanded, hobbling into Mr. Potter's bedroom, which was