# Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp/Chapter 20
#### CHAPTER XX
##### THE SNOW SHROUD

It was rather difficult to find trees with the new and fragrant leaves started, at this time of year; therefore Ruth and her companions went rather farther from Snow Camp than they had at first intended. But the warning flakes of snow served in no manner to startle them. The snow had been floating down, and whitening their clothing and adorning the trees with a beautiful icing, for more than half an hour, before anybody gave the coming storm a serious thought.
"Perhaps we'd better go back and not get any stuffing for the pillows to-day, Helen," said Ruth, doubtfully. "See yonder! isn't that more snow coming?'
"Bah!" exclaimed Lluella, interrupting, "What's a little snow?"
"Cautious Ruthie is usually right," said Madge Steele, frankly. "Let's go back."
"But we've scarcely got anything in the bags yet!" wailed Jennie Stone. "All this walk on these clumsy old snowshoes for nothing?"
​"Well, we'll just go as far as that grove of small trees that we found the other day, and no farther," said Helen, who naturally—being hostess—had her 'say' about it.
As yet there was no real sign of danger. At least, in the woods the girls had no means of apprehending the approach of the shroud of thick snow that was sweeping out of the northwest. They could not see far about them through the aisles of the wood.
Laughing and joking, the jolly party reached the spot of which Helen had spoken. They set to work there in good earnest to fill their bags with the pungent new growth of the trees, whose bending branches were easily within their reach.
"How this soft snow does clog the snowshoes," complained Belle Tingley, removing the racquettes to knock them free.
"But the flakes are smaller now," said Ruth. "See, girls! it's coming faster and finer. I believe we shall have to hurry back, Helen."
"Ruth is right," added Madge Steele, who, as the oldest of the party, should have used her authority before this. "Why! it's coming in a perfect sheet."
"Sheet!" repeated Jennie Stone, with scorn. "Call it rather a blanket. And a thick one."
"B-r-r-r! How cold it's grown!" cried Lluella.
​"The wind is coming with the snow, girls," shouted Helen. "Come on! let's bustle along home. This place was never meant for us to be bivouacked in. Why! we'll have Long Jerry Todd, and the boys, and the dogs, and all hands out hunting for us. Dear me! how the wind blows!"
"I can't see, girls!" wailed Belle. "Wait for me! Don't be mean!"
"And don't forget Little Eva!" begged Heavy, tramping on behind and carrying one of the bags. "I declare! I can't see Ruth and Helen."
"Don't get so far ahead, girls!' sang out Madge Steele, warningly. "We'll get separated from you."
To their surprise Ruth answered from their left hand—and not far away.
"We're not ahead, girls," said Ruth, quietly. "Only the snow is falling so thickly that you can't see us. Wait! Let us all get together and make a fresh start. It wouldn't do to get separated in such a storm."
"Oh, this won't last—it can't snow so hard for long!" cried Jennie. "But we can go on, clinging to each other's jacket-tails."
The six had come together, and Helen laughingly "counted noses." "Though we mustn't even count 'em hard," she said, briskly rubbing ​her own, "or we'll break them off. Isn't it cold?"
"It's dreadful!" wailed Lluella. "The wind cuts right through everything I've got on. I shall freeze if we stand here."
"We won't stand here. We'll hurry on to the camp."
"Which way, girls?" demanded Heavy. "I confess I have lost all the points of the compass—and I never did know them too well."
"Oh, I know the way back," said Helen, stoutly. "Don't you, Ruth?"
"I believe so," replied the girl from the Red Mill.
But when they started, Ruth was for one direction and Helen for another. The fact that they did not all think alike frightened them, and Madge called another halt.
"This will never do," she said, earnestly. "Why, we might be lost in such thick snow as this."
"I can't walk any farther with this bag and on these old snow-shoes!" cried Heavy. "Say! let's get under shelter somewhere and wait for it to hold up—or until they come and dig us out."
"We're a nice lot of 'babes in the woods,'" sniffed Belle.
"I wish we'd let the boys come with us," said Helen.
​"Won't they have the laugh on us?" observed Madge.
"I don't care if they do," mourned Lluella. "I wish they were here to help us home."
"Come, come!" said Ruth, cheerfully. "We ought to be able to help ourselves. Here is a big tree with drooping branches. Let's get under it where the snow is not so deep. It may hold up in a little while, and then we can start fresh. Come around here where the wind won't get at us."
She led the way and the other girls crowded after her. The low-branched tree broke the force of the gale. Ruth lifted the end of one sweeping branch and her friends all crawled beneath the shelter, and as she followed them Heavy squealed:
"Oh, oh, oh! suppose there should be a bear under here?"
"Nonsense! suppose there should be a griffin—or a unicorn. Don't be foolish," snapped Madge.
They at once found the retreat a perfect windbreak, and became comfortable—all hugging together "like a nestful of owlets," Helen said, and all declared themselves as "warm as toast."
But the wind howled mournfully through the wood, and the snow sifted down with a strange, ​mysterious "hush—hush—hus-s-sh" that made them feel creepy. Although it was not yet midday, the light was very dim under the thick branches of the tree. The snow became banked high behind them, and Ruth, who was in front, had to continually break away the drifting snow with her mittened hands so that they could see out.
And they could see precious little outside of their den. Just the snow drifting down, faster and faster, thicker and thicker, gathering so rapidly that they all were secretly frightened, although at first each girl tried to speak cheerfully of it.
"If we'd only thought to get Janey to put us up a luncheon," sighed Heavy, "I wouldn't have minded staying here all day. It's warm enough, that's sure."
"My feet are cold," complained Lluella. "I don't believe it will remain warm forever."
"And we couldn't make a fire," said Helen.
"I've matches in my pocket," Ruth said quietly. "I've carried them in a bottle ever since we've been in the woods."
"For pity's sake! what for?" demanded Belle.
"Well—Tom told me to. He does. Helen knows," said Ruth, hesitating.
"Goodness me! it's like being cast away on a ​desert island," cried Heavy. "Carrying matches!"
"Tom did tell us to," admitted Helen, laughing. "But I didn't pay much attention to what he said. I know he told us that we could never tell when matches would come in handy in the woods."
"But we'd set the forest afire and then see what damage would be done!" cried Belle.
"Not necessarily. Especially in this snow," returned Ruth, calmly. "If we get very cold, and are delayed for long, we can break the dry branches off underneath this tree—and others like it—and get a fire very easily. Tom told us how to do it."
"So he did!" cried Helen. "I do believe Ruth never forgets anything she is told. And we may be glad of those matches."
"Goodness me!" whined Lluella. "Don't talk so dreadfully."
"How do you mean? " queried Helen.
"As though we'd have to stay here under this old tree so long! It's got to stop snowing soon. Or else the men will come after us."
"Why, we all believe that we shall soon get home," said Madge cheerfully. "But the boys, or the men, either, couldn't find us in this storm. We will have to be patient."
Patience was hard indeed to cultivate in their ​present situation. The minutes dragged by with funereal slowness. Lluella began to sob, and the most cheerful of the party could not keep up her spirits indefinitely.
"Oh, but we'll be all right, I am sure!" quoth Madge. "Don't get down-hearted, girls."
Helen broke down next and declared that she could not remain idle any longer. "We must move out of this," she said. "We must find our way back. Why, they might come this way hunting for us and never find us—go right by the tree. We ought to get outside and shout, at least."
"Don't let's leave this warm shelter," begged Ruth. "It will be really serious if we move farther from the regular camp instead of toward it."
"But we cannot hear any rescue party shouting for us, nor can they hear us under this drift," insisted Helen.
"Then we'll go out, one at a time, and shout," declared Ruth. "Let me try."
She sprang up and pushed her way through the drift at the mouth of their burrow. Not until she was standing outside did she realize the extent of the storm. The snow was swept across the country in a thick and heavy curtain, with a wind driving it, against which she knew she could not stand.
​She could not shout into the teeth of the gale, and her cry was driven back into her own ears as weak as the mew of a kitten.
"Ho!" exclaimed Madge Steele. "They couldn't hear that if they were a stone's throw off. Let me give a warwhoop."
"We're all coming out!" cried the dissatisfied Lluella. "Let's all shout. Oh, girls! we've got to get back to the camp. We'll die here."
They scrambled out of the burrow. The wind smote full against them when once they were in the open. When they raised their voices in chorus it seemed as though there was an answering shout from a certain direction.
"Here we are! here we are! Father! Tom!" shrieked Helen, at the top of her voice.
"Don't go!" begged Ruth. "Let us stick by the tree. It will shelter us. Shout again."
But the majority of the girls were for setting off at once toward the sound they thought they had heard in the midst of the storm. Again and again they shouted. They clung to each other's hands as they ploughed through the drifts (the snowshoes were of no use to them now) but they did not hear the answering cry again.
At last they stopped, all sorely frightened, Lluella in tears. "What will we do now?" gasped Belle.
"We'd better go back to that tree. We were ​safe there," muttered Heavy, her teeth chattering.
But they had drifted with the storm, and when they turned to face it they knew at once that never could they make way against the wind and snow.
"Oh, oh, oh! " wailed Helen. "We're lost! we're lost!"
"Hold up! Be brave!" urged her chum. "We must not give up now. Some other tree will give us shelter. Cling together, girls. We must get somewhere."
But where? It was a question none of them could answer. They remained cowering in the driving snow, utterly confused as to direction, and fast becoming buried where they stood.