At the top of the ascent they stopped and the old man put on Ruth's
snowshoes for her. Fred, always without a word and looking mighty
sullen (but evidently afraid of the rattlesnake man) tied his own in
place and the hermit slipped into his and they each gave Ruth a hand.

She stood up and found that her weight made little or no impression
upon the well-packed snow. There was no wind and, although the air
was very keen (the thermometer probably being almost to the zero
mark) it was easy for her to move over the drifts. With some little
instruction from the rattlesnake man, and after several tumbles--
which were of little moment because he and Fred held her up--Ruth was
able to put one foot before the other and shuffle over the snow at a
fairly good pace.

The moonlight made the unbroken track as plain as noonday. To Ruth
it seemed almost impossible that the hermit could find his way
through a forest which showed no mark of any former traveler; but he
went on as though it was a turnpike.

Two hours and a half were they on the way, and Ruth had begun to be
both tired and cold when they crossed a road on which there were
telegraph, or telephone poles and then--a little farther into the Big
Woods--they struck a well-defined private track over which sleds had
recently traveled.

"You say some of your party and the baggage were coming over to-night,"
said the hermit to Ruth. "They have been along. This is the road to
Snow Camp--and there is the light from the windows!"