Ruth Fielding

Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp or Lost in the Backwoods by Alice B. Emerson (the Stratemeyer Syndicate), 1913.

It’s shortly after Christmas, and Ruth and her friends, the Cameron twins, Helen and Tom, are home from boarding school. They’re excited because the twins’ father has purchased a snow camp, a kind of winter retreat in the woods, with a nice cabin that has enough room for the twins, Ruth, and some of their school friends. In fact, Mr. Cameron is allowing the young people to take a party of their friends there soon, before school starts again.

However, before they leave on their trip, Ruth and the twins have an unexpected confrontation with a neighbor’s bull that causes a boy hiding in a hollow log to be knocked into a freezing creek. They manage to rescue the boy and take him back to the Red Mill to warm up.

The boy reluctantly explains that he is Fred Hatfield and that he has run away from home, which is in Scarboro, New York, close to the snow camp. His father is dead, and he says that he has plenty of other siblings to help his mother at home. He is evasive about why he felt the need to run away, just saying that he was tired of where he was, and he’s sure his family won’t miss him. None of the adults are impressed by that explanation, saying that they’re sure that a mother would miss any of her children, no matter how many others she might have.

Ruth spots a newspaper clipping that Fred dropped, and when she picks it up and reads it, she realizes that Fred’s situation is more serious than anyone else thinks. At first, she doesn’t tell anyone else about the clipping, not sure how much she should reveal about what she knows (even to the readers). However, knowing that Fred might try to run away, she hides his trousers so he can’t leave in the middle of the night.

The next day, they tell Fred that the young people are going to the snow camp near Scarboro, and that Mr. Cameron will take Fred there on the train when he escorts his children and their friends there. As Ruth anticipates, Fred doesn’t want to go back to Scarboro. He tries more than once to run away, and one of his attempts to run and Ruth’s attempt to stop him cause them both to be separated from the rest of the party, lost in the winter woods. Fred isn’t happy with Ruth for tagging along with him and interfering in his business, and Ruth says that she’s not going to let him abandon her in the woods.

Together, they have a frightening encounter with a with a panther and get help from a hermit living in the woods. The hermit is a strange man who keeps rattlesnakes as pets, although the poison sacs have been removed. He teaches the Ruth and Fred to walk in snow shoes, and he helps them to reach the snow camp. They actually manage to get there before the rest of their party does, but Fred disappears just as they arrive.

When Ruth calls her friends in town to let them know that she’s all right and that she’s reached the snow camp, Mr. Cameron shocks her by telling her that the boy she’s known as Fred can’t possibly be the real Fred Hatfield. Mr. Cameron has learned from the local authorities that Fred Hatfield was killed in an apparent hunting accident months ago, although some people wonder if it was actually a murder. Fred’s half brother is being held by the authorities for Fred’s death. Did Fred just fake his death and run away? Or is the boy they know as Fred someone else entirely?

The book is now public domain and is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies) and Project Gutenberg.

My Reaction and Spoilers

When we’re first told that Fred Hatfield was supposedly killed in a hunting accident, they mention that the boy’s body apparently rolled into a river after being shot, making it seem like Fred could still be alive, but then we’re told that the boy’s body was recovered from the river. That means that either Fred is actually dead and this new runaway Fred is an imposter or some other boy has been killed and Fred is just letting everyone think that the dead boy is him. Either way, there is a runaway boy whose identity needs to be established and a dead body whose identity also needs to be confirmed, and the circumstances of that death also need to be established. What really happened during that fateful hunting trip?

I liked the premise of this book because it’s much more of a mystery than the previous two books in the series. However, as an early Stratemeyer Syndicate book, there isn’t much deliberate investigation of the mystery. Most of the story is more adventure-oriented, and the characters learn the truth of the mystery almost by accident and through Fred’s eventual confession. In between, the characters have some outdoor winter fun. The girls make some homemade candy, which the boys spoil with a prank, causing some boy/girl rivalry. The girls get lost in a bad snow storm while trying to prove that they can be as daring and innovative as the boys when it comes to having fun and end up having to rescue Fred as well, which is when the solution to the story is revealed.

The solution is pretty much what people thought it was, which is a bit of a let down. At first, I thought that there might be more of a plot twist. Even the true identity of the dead body isn’t very exciting. Fred was labeled as a bad boy in the beginning, and that turns out to be true, but his half brother also admits that he was pretty hard on Fred at home because he’s smaller and not as physically strong as his older half brothers. They criticized Fred for not keeping up with the physical work they were doing and called him lazy, but realistically, Fred can’t do all the things they do, and his half brothers realize that they have to acknowledge and accept that. They say that they’re going to try to find him a different kind of work that he can do.

It’s not a bad ending, but I’d like to see a little more deliberate investigation from Ruth Fielding. I would have liked to see Ruth Fielding talk to other members of Fred’s family and maybe have one of them produce a picture of Fred to help establish his identity. Then, I’d like to have Ruth and her friends find Fred more deliberately than accidentally. The story isn’t bad the way it is, and there’s plenty of adventure, but as a mystery fan, I usually prefer more deliberate detective work.