  The twins watched the departure of their chums and then turned back into the house. Mac closed the door and walked over to the fire, rubbing his hands. “It doesn’t do to get far away from the fire these days,” he grinned. “Not for long,” his brother admitted. “We had better get over to the lodge and start a fire there. That place is going to be cold.” “Yes, and it will take some time to warm it up, too. Did Barry leave the key?” Tim took it from his pocket. “Here it is. Let’s take some of the stuff and go on over there.” They put on coats and hats and, taking a few things with them, left the Bronson cabin and crossed to the lodge. Tim unlocked the front door of Bluff Lodge, and they went in. The interior of the lodge was cold, and their breath stood out in dense white clouds. Without lingering in the hall they went directly to the big living room and put their equipment on the window seats. “The first thing we had better do,” Mac suggested, “is to get the fire going. This fireplace looks like a good one, and it shouldn’t take long. Want to put paper in while I go haul a load of wood on the sled?” “We haven’t got the sled,” Tim reminded him. “Barry and Kent have it, so you’ll have to carry some over.” “That’s so, I had forgotten. They took the sled to bring home the well-known bacon.” “Or your sausage,” Tim grinned. “It won’t be mine alone. You know that you like it yourself and so do the other boys. Well, I’ll be back in a few seconds with some wood.” “We haven’t got much of it,” Tim said. “We’ll have to cut some more.” “I know it. That is the biggest job we have.” Mac left the lodge, and Tim busied himself piling some newspaper which he had brought in the fireplace. There were some ashes left from a previous fire, and he cleaned them out and carried them in a pail to the kitchen, where he unlocked the back door and took the pail out to where the bushes grew in a wild tangle. Here he dumped the ashes and then looked around. The door of the Bronson cabin was open, and he could see Mac inside. Returning to the lodge, his eyes lighted on a small shed joined to the kitchen. It was one part of the lodge that they had not inspected, and his curiosity was aroused. “Wonder what that place is. But I suppose it is locked up.” He tried the knob on the door that led to the small shed and found that it was locked. The key ring for the lodge was still in his pocket, and he took it out, examining the keys closely. “The key to this shed may be on the ring. Nothing like trying.” He fitted two keys to the lock on the shed, and the second one fitted. One turn and the lock slipped back. He pulled the door open and peered inside. Then he gave a whistle of surprise and pleasure. “Coal, by ginger! Half a shed full of coal. I must tell Mac about this.” He did not linger long out in the crisp air, but returned to the living room of the hunting lodge. Just as he reached the fireplace, Mac came in with a load of wood. “This is the last of it,” he announced. “We’ll have to cut some more before it gets dark, and we’ll have to hustle to it because it is getting darker all the time. We’re in for a storm.” “We’ll have to cut some wood,” Tim told him. “But I made a great discovery, Mac. There is a shed joined to the kitchen, and it is half filled with coal. That means an end to our wood-chopping.” “It doesn’t belong to us,” Mac interposed, practically. “I know, but if we pay for what we use, it ought to be all right. In the little time left for us to stay here we won’t use much. Come on and look at it.” He led his brother to the coal shed, and Mac inspected it. “I suppose it will be all right,” the sandy-haired twin nodded. “If it isn’t, Barry will tell us when he gets back here. At any rate, we can use it to warm up the room in there, and it will do the job quicker than wood will. Let’s take a bucket of it in the house.” “This coal explains why they use grates in the hall and the living room,” Tim said, as they filled a coal pail that hung close by. Returning to the living room of the lodge, they quickly built the fire. The flames licked their way up through the paper and over the wood, and when this had caught fire in good style they put some coal on. As the fire blazed out in a comforting manner, the brothers stood and watched it with satisfaction. “The first fire in this room for many a day,” remarked Tim. Mac grinned. “That ghost or spook must be a cold-blooded fellow, prowling around here in rooms as cold as these are.” Tim glanced out of the window. “Mac, it is snowing again, and I have a hunch that it is going to snow hard. Let’s get some more wood in before things close down.” “I guess we had better. Some of that limb over at the cabin is left, and we can get our supply off of that.” The twins took their axes and hastened to the limb before the cabin. Falling to with a will, they soon had the wood supply mounting. The storm increased as they worked, until they could scarcely see for the whirling flakes. For some time they were silent, saving their energy for the task before them, but their minds were on the same subject. Mac leaned on his ax for a breathing spell. “I’m afraid that the boys will have a hard time finding their way through this storm,” he said. Tim stopped chopping and looked anxiously toward the forest, which could barely be seen. Both boys had a goodly quantity of snow on their shoulders and hats. “I have been thinking the same thing,” he admitted. “You can hardly see the woods from here. And they don’t know the way very well.” “Maybe they can see better in the woods than we can out here in the open,” said Mac hopefully. He began to chop again with vigor. “Let’s get through here and get back in the lodge. By golly, we can hardly see anything ourselves, and we might get lost without much trouble!” They carried their wood into the lodge and then returned to the cabin for a final load of their camping equipment. Satisfied that they now had everything, Tim locked the door and trotted across the open space to the hunting lodge. He paused at the door for a final look at the white, storm-tossed world about him, and an anxious frown gathered on his forehead. “How I wish Kent and Barry were back here! I don’t see how they can possibly find their way in a storm like this one.” More troubled than he cared to admit, Tim joined his twin before the fire in the large grate. “Might as well take off our coats and make ourselves at home, hadn’t we?” he asked. “I was just thinking about priming that pump on the back porch. I’m tired of snow water.” “So am I. But I’m afraid that pump is frozen solid.” “No doubt of it, but some good hot water poured in it ought to break it loose. It is warmer today than it has been most of the time. Want to try it?” “I guess so. How will we heat water? There is nothing to hang a kettle on.” Mac examined the fireplace closely. “No, there isn’t. But we could set the kettle right on the coals. Wouldn’t hurt the kettle any.” “Let’s look in the kitchen and see what we can find there,” Tim proposed. “We could start a fire in the stove and heat our water there.” “I guess we had better not use up our wood on a kitchen fire,” Mac shook his head. “For tonight we can get along with this grate fire. We don’t know how long this storm will last, so we will have to be careful.” They traversed the long hall to the kitchen and examined the pots and pans that hung on hooks under the shelves. From the closet beside the cook range Mac brought out a curiously shaped pan. It was flat on one side and had a long handle to it. A hook curved out from the flat side, and there was a hinged cover for it. “What the dickens kind of a pot is this, Tim? I never saw one like it before.” Tim looked it over with interest. “Hanged if I know,” he began, then suddenly his face lighted up. “Why, Mac, this must be a pan to hang on the grate. This hook goes over the top grate bar, and you can heat water in it. Just the thing we need!” “That’s just exactly what it is,” Mac nodded. “I’ll get some snow, and we can melt it down and then try our luck on that pump.” They filled the grate pan with snow and then took it in and hooked it on the top bar of the grate. There was now no doubt in their minds that the utensil was meant for its present use. “While that is melting and heating, let’s get the lamps in here,” Tim suggested, and they brought the oil lamps in from the bedrooms. There was very little oil left in them, and the boys had only a scanty supply in their lanterns. “We’ll have plenty when Barry and Kent get here,” Mac remarked, looking out at the storm. But the scene that met his eye was not a reassuring one. If anything, the storm was increasing. “That snow has melted down and will soon be hot water,” Tim said, after a glance into the grate pan. “Guess we’d better get another pan of snow and keep melting it, because that pump will have to be primed more than once.” This was done, and as the water became hot the boys kept adding snow. At last the pan was filled with boiling water, and they poured it into the tea kettle, and after refilling the grate pan with snow they set off for the back porch to try their luck with the pump. Tim carefully poured the boiling fluid down the neck of the rusty iron pump shaft. Steam arose as the hot water came in contact with the ice. “If we do get this thing going, we’ll have to prime it every morning,” Mac predicted, standing first on one foot and then on the other and moving about to keep warm. “Yes, no doubt of that. Gosh, it is getting colder. Good thing this porch shelters us from some of the wind.” They poured pan after pan of boiling water down the pump shaft without attaining the end they were seeking, and were about to give it up as a bad job, when Mac felt the pump handle move with a sucking sound. He pressed harder. “I think she’s coming!” he cried. “Put another dose in.” Tim did so, and the water came pouring up, bringing with it a mixture of ice and rust flakes. The brothers worked the handle vigorously, and soon a stream of clear water flowed out. “Hurrah, we made it,” Tim exulted. “Thought we weren’t going to, though.” “So did I. That water looks good. Wait until I get a glass from the kitchen, and we can have a good drink of it.” They filled some pails with the water and then returned to the house. Darkness was beginning to settle, and their spirits became more and more depressed. It was close to five o’clock, and the blackness of night soon closed entirely over the lodge. Tim lighted a lamp, and they were comfortable as far as light and warmth were concerned. But their minds were far from easy. “No use talking, the boys have either stayed at Fox Point or they are lost,” Mac sighed, as they looked out of the window into the thick blackness. “I don’t believe they stayed,” Tim shook his head. “I’m afraid that they started on the return trip and got caught. The tough part is that if we go out to look for them, we would probably be lost in a short time, too!” |
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