  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. “Somebody is running across the ice!” Barry and Mac said in chorus. “Yes,” Kent agreed. “And they have a flashlight that they are turning on every once in a while. Wonder who they are?” “I’ll bet they are the ones that yelled,” said Tim. “Heading for Rake Island,” Barry observed. “Maybe whoever is putting on all the funny business around the lodge hides away on Rake Island,” Kent suggested. “We ought to search that place one of these days.” “We will,” Barry promised. He glanced toward the dark hunting lodge. “Which way did those shots come from?” “I’d say from just behind the lodge,” Tim answered. “Seemed that way to me,” Kent agreed. “They were mighty close to this cabin of ours.” “Let’s go over there and see if we can find anything,” Barry suggested. “I’ll get the lantern,” Mac offered. “You fellows want your hats and gloves?” They agreed heartily that they did, for the night air was penetrating, and before long the sandy-haired twin was back with the lantern and their warmer clothing. In a short time they set out across the open space toward the lodge, keeping a sharp watch on every side. The flashes no longer came from the lake. Back of the lodge they flashed the lantern around the ground, looking for footprints, but the snow had been blown around in such a way as to make it impossible for them to find any. They did not waste many minutes in the hunt, as the cold was too keen, but soon gave it up and started back to the cabin. “Nothing doing,” Barry announced. “And I’m not going to stay out here long. That wind feels like a knife. Me for the fire!” His companions were of the same mind, and they were approaching the cabin when Tim stopped and fumbled into the snow. When he straightened up he held an object in his hand, and as soon as he had wiped it off he whistled. “Hey! Look here, fellows. A rifle shell!” The boys bent over his extended hand and examined the metal cartridge with interest. Then Kent began to brush through the snow in search of others. Before long he had found three more. “This is where the fellow stood that fired those shots,” he announced. “Pretty close to our cabin,” Barry said. “These shells came out of a big rifle,” Mac observed. “Did you see that shell on the ground, Tim?” “No, my foot struck it. I felt something harder than the snow, and I reached down to see what it was. As soon as I touched it, I had an idea what it was.” Barry looked away in the direction of Rake Island, shrouded in the darkness. “It all means that somebody stood here and fired at least four shots from a rifle at someone else,” he said slowly. “The ones who were shot at scuttled away across the ice. I’d like to know what it all means.” “Let’s get in around the fire and look these shells over,” Kent urged, and they were soon back in the cabin, grouping around the warm fire and looking at the empty cartridge curiously. The ones that Kent had found were exactly the same, and there was no doubt that they had all been shot from the same gun. “It seemed to me that there were more than four shots, but perhaps I just imagined that,” Barry said, sitting down on the sleeping bag. “The whole thing was so sudden and unexpected that I hardly know what did happen,” Mac admitted. “The shots were near us, too.” “Almost outside of our window,” Kent nodded. “Gosh, that gives me something to think about, do you know it? The light of our fire would show anyone that we were here, and whoever fired the shots might have been protecting us. See what I mean?” “Do you mean that those people who ran across the ice may have been looking in at us and were scared off by the shots?” Tim asked. “Sure! Or maybe the ones who did the shooting were looking in at us and were disturbed. Of course, any way you look at it, it is all pure guesswork, and we know as much about it as we do about the whole mystery business.” “I’m glad that we are going to move over into the lodge,” declared Barry. “That’s a bigger place, and I’ll feel safer in it.” “Don’t forget, though, that the lodge is the home stamping ground for the spook,” Mac reminded him. “I know it is, but we seem to have had a lot of visitors and prowlers around here. I don’t feel quite safe any more. If we did stay in this cabin, we’d have to build some sort of a shutter to put over that window, so that people couldn’t come looking in.” “Do you believe it was any of Carter Wolf’s friends?” Tim inquired. Barry smiled. “We’re trying to hang everything against his account, just because he has no use for us. No, I hardly think so. I wonder if any of his bunch carries a rifle big enough for these shells?” “They might,” Kent said. “Some of his friends are sports and have good equipment. We know that he is somewhere near here, but I just don’t think that they had anything to do with it all.” “Well, that artillery practice was too close to suit me,” Mac declared, as he began to get ready for bed again. “I’m just wondering if anyone was hit or if they just yelled because they were scared,” murmured Barry, as the boys prepared to go to sleep again. “I suppose we should have gone on down to the lake to see if anyone was hurt or not,” admitted Tim. Mac placed fresh fuel on the fire, and they talked for another half-hour about the mysterious event of the night. The wind was rising and blowing more strongly, and the old cabin shook under the force of some of the blasts. At length the boys became quiet and sank away into deep sleep. It seemed that they had scarcely closed their eyes when there came a thunderous booming crash that jarred the cabin. Something scraped down the roof and fell to the ground back of the lean-to kitchen. At the same time some stones fell into the fire, which had sunk to red embers, scattering it to right and left. The boys bounded up from their beds with rapidly beating hearts. “What was that?” Tim shouted. “Something hit the cabin,” Barry said, as he reached for his clothes again. “Yes, and it took part of the chimney,” Mac pointed out. “I’ll get a light and we’ll see what it was.” Kent threw the remaining wood on the fire, and Mac lighted the lantern. It was just five o’clock, an hour which rather surprised the boys, as it was still pitch dark outside. They dressed as quickly as possible, waiting for further sounds, but all was still. “Do you suppose that somebody bumped against the side of the cabin?” Mac asked. “Bumped it with a battering ram if he did,” Barry retorted. “That thump was on the roof. Let’s see what it was.” He seized the lantern, and the others followed him out into the early-morning air. The blackness was growing faintly gray in the east, and before very long the sun would be up. But the boys were not interested in these things at that moment. They walked out to a place where they could look at the roof of the cabin. One glance told the story. A big limb had blown down and landed on the roof, knocking off a corner of the chimney. Part of the limb had slid down the back part of the roof, but the heaviest portion was still balanced on the peak of the roof. “A tree limb!” Kent cried. “We might have known it.” “A big one, too,” Barry observed. “We’ll have to pull it down before we leave this cabin.” “I thought the whole house was coming down when it hit,” Mac grinned. “Are you going to go back to sleep?” Tim inquired. “Sleep?” echoed Kent, in disgust. “Not for me! It’s morning, anyway. If we did go to sleep, something else would be sure to happen. I’m sleepy, but no more for me. What a fine night that turned out to be!” |
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