"Oh, Tom! Tom! Come and help me!" replied Ruth, and in half a minute the three boys, having kicked off their skates, were in the glade.

"Merciful goodness!" gasped Bob Steele. "See what a beast that is!"

Tom, with a cry of pain, dashed forward and fell beside Ruth to examine the mastiff.

"My poor dog!" he cried. "Is he badly hurt? What's happened to him?"

"Did she shoot that panther?" demanded Isadore Phelps. "Look at it, Tom!"

"Reno isn't so badly hurt, Tom," Ruth declared. "I believe he has a broken leg and these cuts. He dashed right in and attacked the panther. What a brave dog he is!"

"But he never killed the beast," said Bob. "Who did that?"

"Who was shooting here? Where's the gun, Ruth?" Tom demanded, now giving some attention to the dead animal.

Ruth related the affair in a few words, while she helped Tom bind up Reno's wounds. The young master tore up his handkerchiefs to do duty as bandages for the wounded dog.

"We'll carry him to camp--we can do it, easily enough, old man,"

said Bob Steele.

"And what about the panther? Don't we want his pelt?" cried Isadore.

"We'll send Long Jerry after that," Tom said. "I wish that fellow hadn't run away with the rifle. But you couldn't help it, Ruth."

"He certainly is a bad boy," declared the girl. "Yet--somehow--I am sorry for him. He must be all alone in these woods. Something will happen to him."

"Never mind. We can forgive him, and hope that he'll pull through all right, after he saved you, Ruthie," Tom said. "Come on, now, Bobbins. Lend a hand with the poor dog."

Tom had removed his coat and in that, for a blanket, they carried Reno through the woods to the camp. It was a hard journey, for in places the snow had drifted and was quite soft. But in less than an hour they arrived at the lodge.

The men had come in with the wood by that time, and Mr. Cameron with them. Mrs. Murchiston and the girls were greatly worried over Ruth's absence and the absence, too, of the three boys. But the death of the catamount, and the safety of all, quickly put a better face upon the situation.

Ruth was praised a good bit for her bravery. And Mr. Cameron said:

"There's something in that poor boy whom we tried to return to his friends--if the Hatfields _are_ his friends. He does not lack courage, that is sure--courage of a certain kind, anyway. I must see to his business soon. I believe the Hatfields live within twenty miles of this place, and in a day or two I will ride over and see them."

"Oh! let us all go, father," urged Helen. "Can't we go in the sleighs we came over in from Scarboro?"

"Don't take them, sir," said Mrs. Murchiston. "I shan't feel safe for them again until we get out of these woods."

"Why, Mis' Murchiston," drawled Long Jerry, who had come into the hall with a great armful of wood, "there ain't a mite of danger now.

That panther's killed--deader'n last Thanksgivin's turkey. There may not be another around here for half a score of years."

"But they say there are bears in the woods," cried the governess.

"Aw, shucks!" returned the woodsman. "What's a b'ar? B'ar's is us'ally as skeery as rabbits, unless they are mighty hungry. And ye don't often meet a hungry bear this time o' year. They are mostly housed up for the winter in some warm hole."

"But what would these girls do if they met a bear, Mr. Todd?" asked Mr. Cameron, laughing.

"Why, this here leetle Ruth Fielding gal, _she'd_ have pluck enough to shoot him, I reckon," chuckled Long Jerry. "And she wouldn't be the first girl that's shot a full growed b'ar right in this neighborhood."

"I thought you said there wasn't any around here, Jerry?" cried Helen.

"This happened some time ago, Miss," returned the woodsman. "And it happened right over yon at Bill Bennett's farm--not four mile from here. Sally Bennett was a plucky one, now I tell ye. And pretty--wal, I was a jedge of female loveliness in them days," went on Long Jerry, with a sly grin. "Ye see, I was lookin' 'em all over, tryin' to make up my mind which one of the gals I should pick for my partner through life. And Sally was about the best of the bunch."

"Why didn't you pick her then?" asked Tom.

"She got in her hand pickin' first," chuckled Jerry. "And she picked a feller from town. Fac' is, I was so long a-pickin' that I never got nary wife at all, so have lived all my life an old bachelder."

"But let's hear about Sally and the bear," proposed Ruth, eagerly, knowing what a resourceful story-teller Long Jerry was.

"Come Jerry, sit down and let's have it," agreed Mr. Cameron, and the party of young folk drew up chairs, before the fire. Long Jerry squatted down in his usual manner on the hearth, and the story was begun.

CHAPTER XVII

LONG JERRY'S STORY

"Ol' man Bennett," began Jerry Todd, "warn't a native of this neck o' woods. He come up from Ja.r.s.ey, or some such place, and bringed his fam'bly with him, and Sally Bennett. She was his sister, and as he was a pretty upstandin' man, so was she a tall, well-built gal. She sartain made a hit up here around Scarboro and along Rollin' River.

"But she wasn't backwoods bred, and the other girls said she was timid and afraid of her shadder," chuckled Long Jerry. "She warn't afraid of the boys, and mebbe that's why the other gals said sharp things about her," pursued the philosophical backwoodsman. "You misses know more about that than I do--sure!

"Howsomever, come the second spring the Bennetts had been up here, Mis' Bennett, old Bill's wife, was called down to see her ma, that was sick, they said, and that left Miss Sally to keep house. Come the first Sat.u.r.day thereafter and Bennett, _he_ had to go to Scarboro to mill.

"You know jest how lonesome it is up here now; 'twas a whole sight wuss in them days. There warn't no telephone, and it was more than 'two hoots and a holler,' as the feller said, betwixt neighbors.

"But Old Bill's going to mill left only Miss Sally and the three little boys at home. Bennett had cleared a piece around the house, scratched him a few hills of corn betwixt the stumps the year before, and this spring was tryin' to tear out the roots and small stumps with a pair o' steers and a tam-harrer.

"So, from the door of the cabin he'd built, Sally could see the virgin forest all about her, while she was a-movin' about the room getting dinner for the young 'uns. While she was at work the littlest feller, Johnny, who was building a cobhouse on the floor, yelps up like a terrier:

"'Aunt Sally! Aunt Sally! Looker that big dog!"

"Miss Sally, she turns around, an' what does she see but a big brown bear--oh, a whackin' big feller!--with his very nose at the open door."

"Oh!" squealed Helen.

"How awful!" cried Belle Tingley.

"A mighty onexpected visitor," chuckled Jerry. "But, if she was scar't, she warn't plumb stunned in her tracks--no, sir! She gave a leap for the door and she swung it shut right against Mr. B'ar's nose. And then she barred it."

"Brave girl," said Mrs. Murchiston.

"I reckon so, ma'am," agreed the guide. "And then she remembered that Tom and Charlie, the other two boys, were gone down the hill to a spring for a bucket of fresh water.

"There were two doors to the cabin, directly opposite each other, and they'd both been open. The spring was reached from the other door and Miss Sally flew to it and saw the boys just comin' up the hill.