Warming, comforting beams of light shone from a large, low building set back from the road in a little clearing of the woods. It was too dark to see more than this—that the structure offered shelter, warmth and light. Yes, and something else, for there was borne on the wings of the wind the most delicious odor—the odor of supper.

"Pile out, folks! Pile out!" cried the genial old hunter. "Here we are! At Elk Lodge! No more storm! No more cold! Get inside to the blaze. I reckon mother's about given us up; but we're here, and we won't do a thing to her cooking! Pile out!"

It was an invitation that needed no repetition. It was greeted with a merry shout, even Mr. Sneed, the grouch, condescending to say:

"Ah, that sounds good!"

"Ha! Den if dere iss food to eat I dinks me dot I don't need to eat my pretzels. I can safe dem for annoder time!" cried Mr. Switzer, as he got out.

There was a laugh at this, and it was added to when Mr. Bunn called out in his deepest tragic voice:

"Ha! Someone has my silk hat!"

For he had persisted in wearing that in the storm, though it was most uncomfortable.

"It is gone!" he added. "Stolen, mayhap. Has anyone seen it?"

"Probably blew off," said Russ. "We'll find it—when the snow melts!"

Wellington Bunn groaned—again tragically.

"I'll get you another," offered Mr. Pertell, generously.

"Come on, folks! Pile out!" cried Mr. Macksey again.

"I'm so stiff I can hardly move!" declared Ruth.

"So am I," added Alice. "Oh, but it's good to be here!"

"I thought you liked the storm so," observed Ruth.

"I do, but I like supper too, and I think it must be ready."

Out of the sleds climbed the cold and cramped picture players, all thought of the fierce storm now forgotten.

"Go right in," invited Mr. Macksey. "Supper's waiting!"

"Welcome to Elk Lodge!" called a motherly voice, and Mrs. Macksey appeared in the open door of the main corridor. "Come right in!"

They were glad enough to do it.

"I don't know any of you, except Russ and Mr. Pertell," she said, for the manager and his helper had paid a visit to the place sometime before to make arrangements about using it.

"You'll soon know all of 'em," declared Mr. Pertell with a laugh. "I'll introduce you," which he quickly did.

"Now then, I expect you'll want to wash up," went on the hunter's wife. "I'll have the girl show you to your different rooms, and then you can come down to supper. It's been waiting. What kept you? I'll have to ask you folks because it's like pulling teeth to get any news out of my husband. What happened?"

"A breakdown," explained Ruth, who took an instant liking to motherly Mrs. Macksey. "Oh, we had such a time!"

"Such a glorious time!" supplemented Alice.

"Here's a girl who evidently likes outdoors," laughed the hunter's wife.

"Indeed I do!" cried Alice.

There was some little confusion, getting the players to their rooms, because of the lateness of the arrival, but finally each one was in his or her appointed apartment, and trying to get settled. The rooms were small but comfortable, and the hunters who had built the lodge for themselves had provided many comforts.

"There ought to be a private bath for each one," declared Miss Pennington, as she surveyed her room.

"Indeed there ought," agreed her friend Miss Dixon. "I think this place is horrid!"

"How thoughtless and selfish they are," said Ruth, who shared a room with Alice.

"Aren't they! I think it's lovely here. Oh, but I am so hungry!"

"So am I, dear."

"Glad to hear it for once, Ruth. Usually you have so little appetite that one would think you were in love."

"Silly! I'm going to eat to-night anyhow."

"Does that mean you are not in love?"

"Silly!" cried Ruth again, but that was all she answered.

What a glorious and home-like place Elk Lodge was! Yes, even better than the best home the moving picture girls had known most of their lives, for they had spent part of the time boarding, as their father traveled about with his theatrical company, and who can compare a home to a boarding house?

Down in the big living room a fire burned and crackled, and gave out spicy odors on the great hearth that took in logs six feet long. And how cheerfully and ruddily the blaze shone out! It mellowed and cheered everyone. Even Mr. Sneed smiled, and stretched out his hands to the leaping flames.

As Ruth and Alice were about to go down, having called to their father across the hall that they were ready for him, there came a knock on their door.

"Come in!" invited Ruth.

"Sorry to trouble you," spoke Miss Pennington, "but have you any cold cream and—er—powder? Our things were left in the other sled—I mean all of those things, and Laura and I can't—we simply can't get along without them."

"I have cold cream," said Alice. "But powder—that is unless it's talcum or rice——"

"That will have to do I guess," sighed the vaudeville actress. "But I did hope you had a bit of rouge, I'm so pale!"

"Never use it!" said Alice quickly. Too quickly, hospitable Ruth thought, for, though she decried the use of "paint," she would not be rude to a guest, and, under these circumstances Miss Pennington was a guest.

"You don't need it," the caller said, with a glance at Alice's glowing cheeks, to whom the wind and snow had presented two damask spots that were most becoming.

"The weather is very chapping to my face," the former vaudeville actress went on. "I really must have something," and she departed with the cold cream and some harmless rice powder, which Ruth and Alice used judiciously and sparingly, and only when needed.

The fine supper, late as it was, necessarily, was enjoyed to the utmost. It was bountiful and good, and though at first Miss Pennington and Miss Dixon were inclined to sniff at the lack of "courses," and the absence of lobster, it was noticed that they ate heartily.

"There is only one thing more I want," sighed Paul, as he leaned back in his chair.

"What, pray? It seems to me, and I have been watching you, that you have had about all that is good for you," laughed Alice. "I have seen you get three separate and distinct helpings of fried chicken."

"Oh, I didn't mean anything more to eat," he said, quickly, "and if you are going to watch me so closely I shall have to cut down my rations, I fear. What I meant was that I would like a moving picture of this supper. It has memories that long will linger, but I fain would have a souvenir of it."

"Be careful that you don't get indigestion as a souvenir," laughed Alice, as he followed her sister from the table.

The dining room opened off the great living apartment with that wonderful fire, and following the meal all the members of the company gathered about the hearth.

Outside the storm still raged, and Mr. Macksey, who came in from having with his men, put away the horses, reported that the blizzard was growing worse.

"It's a good thing we thought of changing the bobs and coming on," he said. "Otherwise we might be there yet."

"What really happened?" asked his wife. "I was telling one of the young ladies that it was like pulling teeth to get any news out of you."

"Oh, we just had a little breakdown," he said. "Now, folks, just make yourselves at home. Go to bed when you like, get up when you please. I'll try and get the rest of your baggage here some time to-morrow, if this storm lets up."

"I hope you do get it," complained Miss Pennington.

"Selfish thing!" whispered Alice. "All she wants is her paint!"

"Hush," cautioned Ruth. "She'll hear you!"

"I don't care," voiced her sister.

They talked of many things as they sat about the fire, and then Mr. Pertell said:

"We will film no dramas while the storm continues, but as soon as we can get out on the ice I want to start one."

"Is there skating about here?" asked Alice, who was very fond of the sport.

"There's a fine lake back of the lodge," replied Mr. Macksey, "and as soon as the storm lets up I'll have the men clear a place of snow, and you can have all the fun you want."

"Oh, joy!" cried Alice.

"Save me the first skate," whispered Paul to her, and she nodded acquiescence.

Mr. Pertell briefly outlined the drama he expected to film on the ice, and then, after a little more talk, every one voted that bed was the best place in the world. For the wind had made them all sleepy, and they were tired out from the storm and their long journey.

Alice and Ruth went up to their room. Alice pulled aside the curtain from the window and looked out on a scene of swirling whiteness. The flakes dashed against the pane as though knocking for admission.

"It's a terrible night," said Ruth, with a little shiver.

"Well, much as I like weather, I wouldn't want to be out in it long," Alice confessed. "Elk Lodge is a very good place in a blizzard."

"Suppose we got snowed in?" asked Ruth, apprehensively.

"Then we'll dig our way out—simple answer. Oh dear!" and Alice yawned luxuriously, if not politely, showing her pretty teeth.

In spite of the portentous nature of the storm, it was not fully borne out, and morning saw the sun shining on the piles of snow that had fallen. There had been a considerable quantity sifted down on what was already about Elk Lodge, but there was not enough to hinder traffic for the sturdy lumbermen and hunters of that region.

The wind had died down, and it was not cold, so when Mr. Macksey announced that he was going back after the broken-down sleigh, Ruth and Alice asked permission to accompany him.

Before starting off Mr. Macksey had set a gang of men, hired for the occasion, to scraping the snow off the frozen lake, and when Ruth and Alice came back they found several of the picture players skating, while Russ was getting ready to film one of the first scenes of the drama.

"You're in this, Mr. Sneed," said the manager. "You are supposed to be skating along, when you trip and fall breaking your leg——"

"Hold on—stop—break my leg! Never!" cried the grouchy actor.

"Of course you don't really injure yourself!" exclaimed the manager, testily.

"Oh, why did I ever come to this miserable place!" sighed Mr. Sneed. "I despise cold weather!"

But there was no help for it. Soon he was on the steel runners gliding about, while Russ filmed him. Mr. Sneed was a good skater, and was not averse to "showing off."

"All ready, now!" called the manager to him. "Get that fall in right there. Russ, be ready for him!"

"Oh!" groaned the actor. "Here I go!"

And, as luck would have it, he, at that moment, tripped on a stick, and fell in earnest. It was much better done than if he had simulated it.

But something else happened. He fell so heavily, and at a spot where there was a treacherous air hole, that, the next instant Mr. Sneed broke through the ice, and was floundering in the chilly water.