Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp | Page 3

across the field. The bull parted the
bushes and came thundering out upon the plain. He swerved to follow
them instantly. There could be no doubt that he had seen them, and the
bellow he repeated showed that he was very much enraged and

considered the three friends his particular enemies.
Ruth glanced back over her shoulder and saw that the angry beast was
gaining on them fast. It was indeed surprising how fast the bull could
gallop--and he was very terrible indeed to look upon.
"He will catch us! he will catch us!" moaned Helen.
"You girls run ahead," gasped Tom, letting go of his sister's hand.
"Maybe I can turn him---"
"He'll kill you!" cried Helen.
"Come this way!" commanded Ruth, suddenly turning to the left,
toward the bank of the open creek. The current of this stream was so
swift that it had not yet frozen--saving along the edges. The bank was
very steep. A few trees of good size grew along its edge.
"We can't cross the creek, Ruthie!" shrieked Helen. "He will get us,
sure."
"But we can get below the bank--out of sight!" panted her chum.
"Come, Tom! that beast will kill you if you delay."
"It's our caps he sees," declared Master Tom. "That old red cap of
Nell's is what is exciting him so."
In a flash Ruth Fielding snatched the red cap from her chum's head and
ran on with it toward the bank of the creek. The others followed her
while the big bull, swerving in his course, came bellowing on behind.
CHAPTER II
A SURPRISING APPEARANCE
Helen was sobbing and crying as she ran. Tom kept a few feet behind
the girls, although what he could have done to defend them, had the big
bull overtaken him, it would be hard to say. And for several moments it

looked very much as though Hiram Bassett's herd-leader was going to
reach his prey.
The thunder of his hoofs was in their ears. They did not speak again as
they came to the steep bank down to the open creek. There, just before
them, was an old hollow stump, perhaps ten feet high, with the opening
on the creek side. All three of them knew it well.
As Helen went over the bank and disappeared on one side of the stump,
Tom darted around the other side. Ruth, with the red cap in her hand,
stumbled over a root and fell to her knees. She was right beside the
hollow stump, and Helen's cap caught in a twig and was snatched from
her hand.
As Ruth scrambled aside and then fairly rolled over the edge of the
bank out of sight, the cap was left dangling right in front of the stump.
The bull charged it. That flashing bit of color was what had attracted
the brute from the start.
As the three friends dived over the bank--and their haste and
heedlessness carried them pell-mell to the bottom--there sounded a yell
behind them that certainly was not emitted by the bull. Goodness
knows, he roared loudly enough! But this was no voice of a bull that so
startled the two girls and Tom Cameron--it was far too shrill.
"There's somebody in that tree!" yelled Tom.
And then the forefront of the bull collided with the rotten old stump.
Taurus smashed against it with the force of a pile-driver--
three-quarters of a ton of solid flesh and bone, going at the speed of a
fast train, carries some weight. It seemed as though a live tree could
scarcely have stood upright against that charge, let alone this rotten
stump.
Crash!
The rotten roots gave way. They were torn out of the frozen ground, the
stump toppled over, and, carrying a great ball of earth with it, plunged

down the bank of the creek.
Tom had clutched the girls by their hands again and the three were
running along the narrow shore under shelter of the bank. The bull no
longer saw them. Indeed, the shock had thrown him to the ground, and
when he scrambled up, he ran off, bellowing and tossing his head, in an
entirely different direction.
But the uprooted stump went splash! into the icy waters of the creek,
and as it plunged beneath the surface--all but its roots--the trio of
frightened friends heard that eyrie cry again.
"It's from the hollow trunk! I tell you, some body's in there!" declared
Tom.
But the uprooted stump had fallen into the water with the opening
down. If there really was anybody in it, the way in which the stump had
fallen served to hold such person prisoner.
Ruth Fielding was as quick as Tom to turn back to the spot where the
old stump had been submerged; but Helen had fallen in her