CHAPTER XVI

AN APPEARANCE AND A DISAPPEARANCE


The dog's snapping barks and the squalling of the catamount stilled
every other sound to Ruth Fielding's ears. She had fallen back to the
edge of the clearing, and knew not what to do.

She feared desperately for Reno's safety; but for the moment did not
know what she might do to help the faithful beast.

She tripped upon a branch and fell to her knees, and the butt of the
rifle which she had clung to, struck her sharply in the side.

"Oh! if I had only learned to use a gun!" gasped the distracted girl.
"_Could_ I shoot straight enough to do any good, if I tried? Or would
I kill the poor dog?"

At the moment Reno expressed something beside rage in his yelping.
He sprang out of the cloud of snow-spray with an agonized cry, and
Ruth saw that there was blood upon his jaws, and a great gash high up
on one shoulder.

"Oh! the poor fellow! Poor Reno!" gasped Ruth Fielding. "He will be
killed by that hateful brute."

Spurred by this thought she did not rise from her knee, but threw
the barrel of the gun forward. It chanced to rest in the crook of a
branch--the very branch over which she had tripped the moment before.