"I know that running away isn't going to help you," Ruth Fielding said, with returning gravity.
"You think that man—that Cameron man—will take me back?"
"Back where?"
"To—to Scarboro?"
"I don't know."
"I tell you I won't go," the boy cried. "I won't go."
"But we're all going up there this very day," said Ruth, slowly." Mr. Cameron, and Helen and Tom, and some other girls and boys. I'm going, too"
"Going where?" shrieked Fred Hatfield, actually shaking with terror, and as pale as a ghost.
"We're off for the backwoods—up Scarboro way. Mr. Cameron is going to take us for a fortnight to Snow Camp. And you"
With another wild cry Fred Hatfield crumpled down upon the ice and burst into a tempest of sobbing. He beat his ungloved hands upon the ice, and although Ruth could not help feeling contempt for a boy who would so give way to weakness she could not help but pity him, too.
For Ruth Fielding had more than an inkling of the trouble that so weighed Fred Hatfield down, and had made him an outcast from his home and friends.
