“Tomorrow we’ll look into that place,” he reflected. “I wonder what the secret of it is, anyway? Well, I hope we’ll be lucky enough to find out. Maybe the haunt will be around tonight to look us over!”
The boys slept soundly throughout the night, and it was seven o’clock before Tim opened his eyes and looked around the unfamiliar interior of the Bronson cabin. For a moment he was unable to place himself, and then the events of the previous evening came to him. A glance at his companions showed that they were still asleep. The fire had long since gone out, and the place was cold. He struggled up into a sitting position.
“It certainly is cold in here,” he decided, slipping out of the warm bag. “I’ll get our fire going at once. And believe me, I want a more comfortable bed than that one was!”
He shivered while pulling on his clothes, and it was with satisfaction that he drew his heavy sweater down over his head. Then he looked around for water in which to wash, but the little that they had was frozen.
“No bath until after I get the fire under way and melt some snow,” he thought. “I’ll probably need a wash worse after building the fire than I do now, anyway.”
Kent woke up and looked at him sleepily. “Hello, half-size! You’re an early bird, I see!”
“Yes, I am, full-size!” Tim retorted, reaching for his ax. “I’m going out and gather worms for the rest of you lazy birds!”
“Fine!” Kent approved. “Hurry up and get a fire going, so that I can get up!”
“Anyone who isn’t up by the time I come back with wood will get a snow rub,” promised the Ford twin.
All of the wood had been used up on the previous night, and Tim was compelled to go out and hunt for a fresh supply. Accordingly he stepped out onto the hard-packed snow before the cabin, his eyes quickly taking in the lake and the surrounding country. For a moment he paused, taking in the beauty of it all, unconsciously drawing a deep breath of satisfaction.
The sun was rising over the tops of the spruce and hemlocks and striking fire on the sheet of ice. Icicles gleamed from the roof slope of the big hunting lodge. At the edge of the timber a rabbit hopped out into the clearing, looked around with a jerk of his brown head, and then streaked off into the undergrowth.
“By ginger, it’s a dandy morning. And those sleepyheads in there!”
Tim knew that it was warm and comfortable in the sleeping bags, but the beauty of the new morning was worth looking at. He started off toward the timber to get his supply of wood, and then noticed a small shack close to the cabin. Investigating this, he was delighted to find a small stack of firewood.
“Good luck! This will save me the trouble of cutting a supply right now.”
He slipped the camping ax through his belt and carried a heaping armful of wood into the cabin. By this time all of the boys were awake. Kent was dressing, and Mac and Barry still enjoyed the comfort of the bags.
“I’m glad to see that you fellows have decided to get up at last,” Tim greeted them.
“We were afraid to face your wrath if we didn’t,” Kent smiled. “You got that wood in a mighty big hurry.”
“Yes, it was ready-made. Found a small supply of it in a shack around on the other side of the cabin.” Tim heaped it into the fireplace and touched a match to the kindling. The boys watched the flame lick upward and then spread with a crackling sound to the remainder of the wood.
“That feels good,” Barry approved, getting up. “The whole outfit thanks you, Timmy boy!”
“You can express your gratitude in a more lasting and practical way,” Tim informed him. “Now that I have built the fire, suppose you fellows make the breakfast.”
“We’ll agree to that,” Kent said.
Barry began to open the package of bacon. “Tim, as long as you are dressed for the great out-of-doors, suppose you go get that long extension handle for the coffee pot from the sled.”
“All right. Where’s the sled?”
“Right outside the door,” Barry told him.
“I don’t remember seeing it there, but I suppose it is,” answered Tim, as he made for the door.
Mac rolled up the sleeping bags and put them away. “Do we have to sleep this way every night?” he asked.
“No, we’ve got to work out some plan for better beds,” Barry replied. “This floor is hard and cold.”
Tim thrust his head in the doorway. “Say, that sled isn’t here!” he called.
“Isn’t there?” Kent demanded.
“No, sir, it is not. We left it right here by the door, didn’t we?”
Barry hastened to the door, followed by the other boys. “Yes, we left it there, with the long coffee-pot handle and a roll of canvas on top of it.” He looked around the ground and off toward the timber. “It is gone, all right. I’d like to know who took it.”
Unmindful of the cold, they were all outside, standing in a group around the spot where the sled had been left the night before. The snow was too solidly packed to reveal any marks of the runners.
“Well, that means that somebody was around here last night while we were all sleeping,” Barry remarked. “When I threw some water out before I went to bed, I saw the front runner, so the sled was here at that time. Anybody hear anything?”
No one had. As if by common consent they all turned and looked at Bluff Lodge, standing solidly in the rays of the morning sun.
“When are we going to look through that place?” Mac asked.
“Sometime today,” Barry promised. “But first we want to see if we can get our sled back.” He studied the ground around the front of the cabin. “Not a mark.”
“Look here!” cried Tim, who had been doing some hunting on his own account. “Somebody looked in the window at us last night!”
He pointed to a row of fingerprints on the ledge of the window, and the boys crowded around in excitement. There were ten fingermarks in the snow that clung to the outside sill.
“I wonder if those prints were there before we came,” Mac mused. “That snow is hard.”
“They have been made by somebody who leaned down hard,” Kent decided, studying the marks. “You can see where the snow broke under his fingers. I didn’t look at this window ledge before, so I don’t know whether they were here before or not.”
None of the boys had noticed the marks, but all of them were inclined to believe that whoever had stolen the sled had peered in the window and had made the prints. They were gripped with a feeling of mystery.
“Things are starting pretty quickly,” Barry said, somewhat grimly.
Mac glanced inside the cabin door and then sprinted forward with a shout. “Hey! The coffee is boiling all over the place!”
The accident to the beverage was more of a benefit than an evil, because the boys had been standing in the cold air long enough to feel somewhat chilled. At Mac’s frantic whoop they crowded back into the building, and Kent rescued the blackened pot, scorching his hands in the act.
They lost no time now in dispatching breakfast, and during the meal they discussed the trend of events. The fact that someone had been close to them during the night put them on their guard, and they determined to make a search for the missing sled at once.
“We need that sled,” Tim declared. “When we go back to town we don’t want to have to pack all the stuff on our backs.”
“We can do it if we have to,” Barry reminded him.
“Of course, but who wants to? I’m wondering if the one or ones who took it did it for a joke or because they needed it.”
“Might have been some of Wolf’s crowd,” Mac suggested.
“We don’t even know if they are anywhere near us,” Kent protested.
“If they are, I wouldn’t put it past them,” Mac went on.
They hastily cleaned the dishes and then left the cabin, locking the door after them. Another attempt was made to pick up the trail, but there simply was no track to follow.
“Nothing doing, we’ll just have to hike along and see what we can see,” Barry decided.
The rest of the morning was spent in a fruitless tramp through the woods. They entered the timber back of the cabin and made a big circle around to the east, going along for several miles until they came out on the ice of the lake. During this time they passed only one home, where they talked for a moment with some poor children, who were the only ones home at the time. In all respects it was a deserted mountain country.
They got back to the cabin at noontime and dragged a dead limb up before the door, planning to chop some firewood a little later. Dinner consisted of a large rabbit that Mac had shot on the morning trip, and after the meal was over the mystery hunters went to work. The twins and Kent began to wash the dishes, and Barry went out to chop the tree that they had dragged in.
The plan for the afternoon was to make another search for the sled, this time on the other side of the hunting lodge. The country in this direction was much wilder than that on the side where the Bronson cabin stood, and just beyond Bluff Lodge they could see the ragged side of an old granite quarry. It was also part of the afternoon program to explore the lodge.
Barry worked on the limb with a sharp, long-handled ax, and soon the pile of stovewood mounted beside him. After a time he paused to rest, leaning on the handle of the ax. The vigorous exercise had made him feel warm. His eyes traveled over to the lodge, and he scanned the place with interest, until one fact struck him forcibly. Quickly he straightened up.
His gaze was fastened upon an upper window in the low loft space of the lodge. This window was partly open, and, as Barry looked, a certain conviction came to him.
“It’s a queer thing about that window. I’ve looked over there several times, and I can positively testify that it wasn’t open before!”
Barry lifted the ax and with a single swing of his arm imbedded it in the side of the tree limb. Then he stepped to the door of the cabin and glanced inside. Mac was stacking the dishes up, and the other two boys were just coming out of the lean-to kitchen.
“Come here a minute,” Barry called to them. Mac lingered to finish his work.
When they had joined him at the door, he pointed toward the lodge. “See anything strange about the place?” he asked.
Mac joined them in the doorway, and they gazed at the hunting lodge. “Looks the same as ever to me,” Tim said.
“No, there is a window half open,” Kent cried, pointing.
“That is just what I wanted you to see,” Barry told them. “Did any of you notice that it was open before this?”
“I’m sure that it wasn’t,” Mac said.
“We ought to have seen it before this, if it was,” Tim chimed in.
“That is exactly what I thought,” Barry replied. “I was cutting wood, and while I was resting, I turned and looked at the place. It came to me at once that all the windows were down the last time we looked that way.”
“Then somebody has been in the place while we were off hunting for the sled,” Tim observed.
“It looks that way. For some reason he opened that upstairs window and forgot to close it. Fellows, we had better go explore that lodge right now. We can look for the sled later on.”
The boys needed no further urging. They were anxious to go through the old place, and now that the window had been opened they were more than eager to enter the lodge. Sweaters and caps were hastily put on, and Barry got the keys to the big building.
“If it hadn’t been for looking around for the sled, we would have been in that place this morning,” he said.
They crossed the snow to the front porch of Bluff Lodge. This porch extended clear across the log building and gave a magnificent view up and down the lake. Twenty-five yards from the porch the bluff dropped fourteen feet straight down to the waters of Arrowtip.
“Dandy place to sit and look out over the lake on a warm summer day,” Kent commented, as Barry fitted his key to the lock.
“It certainly is,” his chum agreed. “This lodge ought to be worth quite a bit of money. It would be, too, if it weren’t getting a bad name.”
By this time Barry had turned the key, and with a grinding sound the bolt shot back. The boys crowded closer to him, anxious for their first glimpse inside the haunted lodge building. Barry swung the door open wide, and they walked in, glancing around with interest.
They found themselves in a wide hall that was square and roomy. A big fireplace took up a wide space on one side of the wall, and over it hung the head of an elk. Pictures adorned the walls, and over a door leading into the other part of the lodge hung an old flintlock gun. A flight of stairs led to the loft.
“This is a dandy place,” remarked Mac, as they stood and looked around.
“I wonder if this is the main room, where they sit around the fire?” Kent asked.
Barry moved to the door and pushed it open. “No, this seems to be the living room,” he announced, stepping through the doorway. The others followed and found themselves in a big living room, furnished with several chairs and a long couch that was placed in front of the fireplace. Shelves of books and some animal skins were to be seen in this room, and it was unmistakably the guest gathering place.
“This is more like it,” Tim remarked, as they explored the room. “That other place is just the front hall. Gosh, but it is cold in here!”
Beside the fireplace there were window seats, and Barry sat down and pulled the curtains aside. “You can see our place from here,” he said. “This certainly is a nice lodge, and I’d like to own it.”
Kent opened a door from the living room, and they continued to explore. A long hall led to the kitchen at the back of the lodge, and from this hall three bedrooms and a dining room could be reached. It was indeed an unusually large log structure.
“Wouldn’t this be a great place to have a party?” Barry exclaimed, with enthusiasm.
“Boy, it surely would!” Kent agreed. He opened a door and looked into one of the bedrooms. “Look at those nice beds, and we are sleeping on the floor over at our cabin!”
Tim called their attention to a pump on the back porch. “Here we are, melting down snow, and a good pump close to us.”
“Bet it is frozen stiff,” Barry objected.
“Even so, if some hot water were poured down it to prime it, I believe that we could use it,” Tim said.
“Well, let’s get on upstairs,” proposed Barry. “We came over here to see about that window.”
They went down the hall and through the living room to the big hall. Barry led the way up the stairs until they came to a door. This was not hard to open, and they found themselves in the attic or loft space of the hunting lodge.
It was a large open space and seemed to be almost empty. A broken bobsled was over against one slope of the roof, and two dusty saddles hung from nails. There were only two windows in the upper section of Bluff Lodge, and one of them was slightly open. Barry crossed the floor of the attic and shut the window, peering out.
“Look at those prints in the snow,” he said. “It seems as though someone may have crossed the roof and come in this window. There is enough roof for anyone to walk on.”
“Then those tracks were made some time back,” reminded Kent. “We haven’t had any snow lately. You can see how the snow melted down into the tracks.”
“Yes, no doubt of it, the tracks are old,” Barry agreed.
Two chimneys rose straight through the attic, and Mac wandered around restlessly. The chimney from the lower hall took up little space, but the living-room chimney rose several feet to push its way through the roof. Mac walked around this brick column while the others looked out of the window toward their cabin.
Then they heard him utter an exclamation. They turned to see him motioning from around the corner of the chimney.
“Come here, you fellows! Look what I’ve found!”
Filled with curiosity, they joined him behind the tall chimney and found him pointing to a small pile of half-melted snow that showed on the floor. Barry knelt and touched it with his finger.
“It is snow, all right,” he announced.
“And that means that somebody has been in the lodge within the last few minutes, possibly while we were walking around downstairs!” Mac reminded them.
Somewhat startled at Mac’s words, the others looked around the loft and then at each other. The thought that some unknown person had been in the building, perhaps at the same time that they were downstairs, was not a comforting one, and they felt the grip of excitement and uncertainty. Barry glanced up at the roof above them.
“No hole there for this snow to drop through, and we haven’t any snow on our shoes,” he murmured. “It surely looks like Mac is right.”
“If somebody was here, how did he get out?” Tim asked, peering into the dark corners of the loft. “Think he slipped down the roof?”
“It would be easy for anyone to go out the front door while we were in the kitchen,” Barry reminded them. “If anybody was hiding in the lodge, he could probably hear us talking and then sneak down into the hall and outdoors while we were in the rear.”
“That’s just what has happened,” Kent exclaimed with conviction.
Barry crushed the snow under his fingers. “It hasn’t been here very long,” he gave his opinion. “You didn’t have any of it on your shoes, did you, Mac?”
The Ford twin shook his head. “No, and I discovered it before I had walked that far. I wasn’t sure at first what it was, and I had to touch it to make sure. If that fell off of somebody’s clothes, then somebody was here just a few minutes ago.”
“Right you are,” Kent nodded. “We ought to go down and look through the house again.”
“And the sooner the better,” seconded Barry, rising from the floor. “I must let Dad know about this.”
Led by Kent, the boys went downstairs and made a hasty search through the lodge, but found nothing. It was with considerable excitement that they looked into each room, not at all certain as to what they would find, but no one was in the place. At last they gathered on the front porch and looked up and down the lake, but no one was in sight.
“Let’s take a look around the grounds,” Tim suggested, and they made a tour of the place. In the rear, back of the kitchen and in a separate building, they found a variety of garden tools and odds and ends, but the shed itself was empty of all life.
The timber came close to the back of the lodge, and if anyone had been bent on vanishing from sight in that direction, it would not have taken him long to do so. Going around on the far side of the lodge, the boys saw that it was more rugged land than that on their side. A series of ravines and gullies ran beside the lodge, and less than an eighth of mile away rose the scarred side of the old abandoned quarry.
“Pretty wild country on this side,” said Barry, as they halted under one of the bedroom windows to look around.
Tim approached the gully closest to the house and gazed down into it. “People who camp in this lodge don’t want to go walking at night,” he said. “Not in this direction, anyway. They had better——Well, I’ll be jiggered!”
“What’s the matter?” they asked him.
“Looks like our sled down there! It is!”
The others joined him at the edge of the gully. Down below them a few feet they could see the sled, partly turned over, the front runners buried under some snow-laden bushes. Tim slipped down into the depression and located the rope.
“So there is where he hid the sled!” Kent exclaimed.
“And we tramped for miles looking for it!” Barry shook his head.
Tim toiled up the slope, dragging the sled after him. “He did more than hide it there,” he informed them, handing the rope to Mac to pull. “Whoever put it there just threw it in. One front runner is broken.”
Barry helped Mac pull the sled up. It was a low flat wooden affair with steel runners. Part of the wood over the front runner had been smashed.
“Some nerve on the part of whoever did it,” growled Barry, as they examined it. “I’d like to knock the stuffing out of the man!”
“Provided a man did it,” Kent said.
“Well, somebody did it, and I suppose it is the same one who has been prowling around this lodge. I mean to find this ghost or whatever it is that is making the trouble at this place.”
“It looks as though we ought to do some watching at night,” Mac suggested, as they made their way around to the front of the lodge.
“We’ll talk it over a little later,” Barry promised, locking the front door of the lodge. “We’ve got to get our firewood in and prepare for the night. These days are short.”
Cutting wood and preparing for the night took them the rest of the brief winter afternoon, and then supper followed. The sun had gone down a dull and misty red, and the wind was moaning through the trees. There was every indication of a storm, and the boys were hoping that they would not be snowed in.
“I’ll put a splice on that broken sled runner,” Kent offered, as they sat at the supper table. He was the best carpenter of them all, and they were willing to let him do the mending.
“All right,” Barry agreed. “That will fix it so that we can use it on the way home. Whoever took our sled didn’t steal the canvas or the frying pan and the long coffee-pot handle, so he must have taken it just to scare us off.”
“He just gave the sled a polite boot into the gully,” grumbled Mac.
“Yes, and that gets under my skin,” cried Barry. “He came and stole our sled before he knew why we had come here to camp. I wouldn’t think so much of it if he had done that after we had been through the lodge, but he didn’t even give us that long. Something has got to be done, and we might just as well decide what it will be right here at this council of war.”
“Maybe we ought to take turns sitting up and looking out of the window,” Mac gave as his idea.
“A pretty cold, thankless job,” Kent shook his head. “Hang it all, we didn’t do a thing today about making better beds, and so far I haven’t enjoyed my sleep.”
“I’ll tell you what I have been thinking,” Barry said slowly. “I believe that we ought to move into the lodge.”
There was a moment of silence as the others considered his words, slightly startled at the proposition. “But your Dad told you that he wanted us to stay in this cabin,” Tim reminded.
“Yes, he did at that time,” Barry agreed. “But the whole situation has changed since then. If we are to get on the track of the mysterious spook of the lodge, we won’t do it from here. We ought to be right inside of that hunting lodge.”
Again the boys were silent, considering it. “I know that we will be a whole lot more comfortable on those beds over there than we are here,” Kent said.
“We’ll be a lot better off in several ways,” Barry pointed out. “It is a bigger place, and we’ll have more elbow room. Then we’ll be closer to the actual scene of His Majesty the Spook’s activity.”
“That spook gets snow on him, same as any human,” grinned Mac.
“Of course,” nodded Barry. “Because he is human. It’s just some mean person up to a slippery game, but who it is or why he is at it, nobody knows. And if we are going to find out, we’ll have to hustle, because our time here is going by fast.”
“Let’s move over there tonight!” Tim suggested.
For a moment they were swayed by the thought, and then Kent and Barry shook their heads together. “Too much of a job at this time of night,” Kent said.
“We haven’t much to move,” Tim protested.
“That’s true,” Barry agreed. “But the lodge is too cold. We’ll have to spend a full day warming up the place. We have only two lanterns, and while I noticed some lamps over there, I don’t know whether they have any oil in them or not. We’ll do better to wait until morning.”
“Taking it by and large, I believe it is the best thing to do,” commented Mac. “This little cabin does very well as a shelter from the storm, but it isn’t very comfortable.”
“It hasn’t been well taken care of,” answered Kent, looking around. “Some of the chinking is out between the logs, and that lets the air in. This table is thick with grease and looks like it never was cleaned.”
“Mr. Bronson has been renting it out for a long time,” explained Barry. He got up from the table. “After we have washed the dishes I’ll write a letter to my father and tell him that we have decided to move into the lodge—in fact, I’ll tell him everything. He might even run up here himself.”
“I hope we know something more definite by the time he does,” observed Mac.
Later in the evening Barry wrote a letter to his father relating events in detail and informing him of their contemplated move. While he was busily engaged at this, the other three boys were working on the broken runner board. Kent had decided to cut out a new one from a piece of board which he had found in the kitchen, and with the aid of ax and knife he managed to carve out a fair section of runner board. With the help of the twins he fitted it into place, and before long the job had been successfully completed.
Before they retired for the night Barry opened the door of the cabin and was surprised to see the soft white flakes falling. “It’s snowing,” he told his chums.
“Looks as though we are going to move into the lodge just in time,” Kent predicted.
“I hope that this doesn’t turn into a blizzard,” Barry thought.
The sight of the falling snow gave the boys a new channel for conversation, and they were slow about going to bed. They had put everything soft that they could find under their sleeping bags and looked forward to a fairly comfortable night in the log cabin. Since the snow had begun falling the air had become much warmer, and the inside of the little building was warm and inviting.
“It’s a thick, heavy snow,” Tim remarked, after peering out of the window.
“If anyone comes near the cabin tonight, we ought to see his footprints in the morning,” Mac said.
“Maybe not,” Kent denied. “If it keeps on snowing this way, any tracks would be covered up in a very short time.”
“If it kept up this way for a long time, we’d be snowed in here for a while,” Barry told them. “We might not get back to school in time.”
“That would break my heart!” Mac grinned.
“Don’t you want to know anything, you ignorant duffer?” Kent asked.
“I thought I knew about all there was to know,” Mac returned blandly.
“Then you’re smarter than most humans,” Barry retorted.
“I accept!” grinned the twin.
“We’ll ask Pa about that sometime,” said Tim, slipping inside the bag. “I bet he’ll have a different answer.”
The fire blazed up in the chimney, and the shadows leaped and darted on the walls. A split log popped, and a blazing ember shot out across the hearth and landed close to Kent’s sleeping bag. He put his arm outside of the bag and flicked it back into the fireplace.
“If any of you get hot in the night, you’ll know that a spark landed on you,” he said.
“If you know so much, what made that wood pop like that?” Barry asked Mac.
“Expansion. Heat expanded it and made it burst.”
“All right. What made that popping sound?”
“That is a secret that we scientific men keep to ourselves,” answered Mac soberly.
“I wish you’d all quit talking about such nonsense and let me go to sleep,” grumbled Kent. “I’m tired after our tramping around today.”
“Yes, let’s go to sleep,” Mac urged. “Tomorrow I’ll explain all these deep things to you!”
“Thanks!” said Barry. “We can hardly wait until we hear them!”
The others were as tired as Kent, and they were willing to drop their good-natured conversation and drift off into slumber. Nor did it take them long. They were active and healthy boys, and sleep was a thing that they needed and enjoyed. In a few moments they were all breathing deeply, and quiet settled over the Bronson cabin.
The fire continued to flare, and occasionally it popped, but no more embers left the chimney. The snow came down gently and settled on the frame of the window until the little panes became round from the clinging white flakes. The wind was rising slightly, and now and then a puff came down the chimney and caused the fire to leap and twist upward.
The slumbers of the mystery hunters were rudely broken into by a sudden medley of shots and yells. The boys woke up with a start, and as they did so two more shots rang out. Then stillness succeeded.
“What was that?” Barry asked, as they sat up in the bags and looked around in the semigloom. The fire had sunk down, and a glance at an old alarm clock that Kent had brought with him, and which stood on the stone chimneypiece, showed that it was a quarter of two.
“Shots,” was Kent’s answer, as he kicked his way out of the bag. “Several of them, and close to here, too.”
“I heard some yells,” put in Tim.
All four of them were now up and hastening into their clothes. Mac swiftly tossed some wood on the fire, and in the increasing light they hurriedly dressed. Barry peered out of the window as he pulled his sweater down.
“I don’t see anybody,” he said. “It is still snowing.”
Kent took his rifle from a nail upon which he had hung it, and handed Barry his. “I guess we had better take these with us,” he said. “No knowing who is out there, shooting around.”
“From the yells we heard, it sounds as though somebody was winged,” Mac said, as he took the shotgun that the twins shared between them. Tim placed his ax in his belt, and they were ready to go out into the night and investigate.
Barry opened the door, and they stepped out. It was still snowing, but the flakes were finer now, and there was a brisk wind that moaned through the tops of the trees and whipped the snow into whirling shapes and formations. The boys left the cabin cautiously, but no one challenged their coming, and they stood in the snow outside the door, their hands in pockets, feeling the change from the warm inside to the cold outdoors. Much snow had fallen since they had gone to bed.
For a moment they were silent, listening for any sound that might break the stillness or rise above the gusts of wind, but although they strained their powers of hearing, no sound reached them. Then a flash of light out on the lake caught their attention. It lingered only a moment and then was gone, and after a brief interval, it came again.