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+Project Gutenberg's The Corner House Girls Snowbound, by Grace Brooks Hill
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Corner House Girls Snowbound
+
+Author: Grace Brooks Hill
+
+Illustrator: Thelma Gooch
+
+Release Date: December 28, 2011 [EBook #38431]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS SNOWBOUND ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "The bobsled bumped over these hammocks, gathering
+speed."]
+
+
+
+
+THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS SNOWBOUND
+
+  HOW THEY WENT AWAY
+  WHAT THEY DISCOVERED
+  AND HOW IT ENDED
+
+BY GRACE BROOKS HILL
+
+  Author of "The Corner House Girls," "The Corner
+  House Girls on a Tour," Etc.
+
+_ILLUSTRATED BY THELMA GOOCH_
+
+NEW YORK
+
+BARSE & HOPKINS
+
+PUBLISHERS
+
+
+
+
+BOOKS FOR GIRLS
+
+By Grace Brooks Hill
+
+The Corner House Girls Series
+
+_12mo. Cloth. Illustrated._
+
+  THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS
+  THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS AT SCHOOL
+  THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS UNDER CANVAS
+  THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS IN A PLAY
+  THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS' ODD FIND
+  THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS ON A TOUR
+  THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS GROWING UP
+  THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS SNOWBOUND
+
+BARSE & HOPKINS
+
+PUBLISHERS--NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+Copyright, 1919, by Barse & Hopkins
+
+_The Corner House Girls Snowbound_
+
+Printed in U. S. A.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+  I--A Ghost and a Goat
+  II--The Straw Ride
+  III--Twins--And Trouble
+  IV--Anticipations
+  V--Merry Times
+  VI--On the Wings of the Wind
+  VII--The Scooter
+  VIII--The Village on the Ice
+  IX--A Cold Scent
+  X--Into the Wilderness
+  XI--Embers in the Grate
+  XII--Mystery and Fun
+  XIII--The Timber Cruiser
+  XIV--By the Light of the Moon
+  XV--A Variety of Happenings
+  XVI--The Key
+  XVII--All Down Hill
+  XVIII--Figure It Out
+  XIX--Sammy Takes the Bit in His Teeth
+  XX--Following Another Trail
+  XXI--Rowdy
+  XXII--In the Cave
+  XXIII--Anxiety
+  XXIV--Rafe Is Cross
+  XXV--Holidays--Conclusion
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+  The bobsled bumped over these hummocks, gathering speed
+  Even Ruth could scarcely keep a sober face
+  He fairly dragged her from under the flapping sail
+  The housekeeping arrangements of the cave were primitive
+
+
+
+
+THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS SNOWBOUND
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+A GHOST AND A GOAT
+
+
+There was a vast amount of tramping up and down stairs, and little
+feet, well shod, are noisy. This padding up and down was by the two
+flights of back stairs from the entry off the kitchen porch to the big
+heated room that was called by the older folks who lived in the old
+Corner House, "the nursery."
+
+"But it isn't a nursery," objected Dot Kenway, who really was not yet
+big enough to fit the name of "Dorothy." "We never had a nurse, did
+we, Tess? Ruthie helped bring us up after our own truly mamma died.
+And, then, 'nursery' sounds so _little_."
+
+"Just as though you were kids," put in Master Sammy Pinkney, who lived
+in the house across the street, and nearest, on Willow Street, from
+the Kenway sisters' beautiful home in Milton, but who felt that he,
+too, "belonged" in the old Corner House.
+
+"No. It should be called 'the playroom,'" agreed Tess, who was older
+than Dot, and considerably bigger, yet who no more fitted the name she
+was christened with than the fairylike Dot fitted hers. Nobody but
+Aunt Sarah Maltby--and she only when she was in a most severe
+mood--called the next-to-the-youngest Corner House girl "Theresa."
+
+It was Saturday morning, and it had begun to snow; at first in a
+desultory fashion before Tess and Dot--or even Sammy Pinkney--were out
+of bed. Of course, they had hailed the fleecy, drifting snow with
+delight; it looked to be the first real snowstorm of the season.
+
+But by the time breakfast was well over (and breakfast on Saturday
+morning at the old Corner House was a "movable feast," for the Kenway
+sisters did not all get up so promptly as they did on school days)
+Sammy Pinkney waded almost to the top of his rubber boots in coming
+from his house to play with the two younger Kenway sisters.
+
+Of course, Sammy had picked out the deepest places to wade in; but the
+snow really was gathering very fast. Mrs. MacCall, the Kenways' dear
+friend and housekeeper, declared that it was gathering and drifting as
+fast as ever she had seen it as a child "at home in the Hielands," as
+she expressed it.
+
+"'Tis stay-in-the-hoose weather," the old Scotch woman declared.
+"Roughs and toughs, like this Sammy Pinkney boy, can roll in the snow
+like porpoises in the sea; but little girls would much better stay
+indoor and dance 'Katie Beardie.'"
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Mac!" cried Dot, "what is 'dancing Katie Beardie'?"
+
+So the housekeeper stopped long enough in her oversight of Linda, the
+Finnish girl, to repeat the old rhyme one hears to this day amid the
+clatter of little clogs upon the pavements of Edinburgh.
+
+  "'Katie Beardie had a grice,
+  It could skate upon the ice;
+  Wasna that a dainty grice?
+    Dance, Katie Beardie!
+
+  Katie Beardie had a hen,
+  Cackled but and cackled ben;
+  Wasna that a dainty hen?
+    Dance, Katie Beardie!'
+
+And you little ones have been 'cackling but and cackling ben' ever
+since breakfast time. Do, children, go upstairs, like good bairns, and
+stay awhile."
+
+Tess and Dot understood a good deal of Mrs. MacCall's Scotch, for they
+heard it daily. But now she had to explain that a "grice" was a pig
+and that "but" and "ben" meant in and out. But even Sammy knew how to
+"count out" in Scotch, for they had long since learned Mrs. MacCall's
+doggerel for games.
+
+Now they played hide and seek, using one of the counting-out rhymes
+the housekeeper had taught them:
+
+  Eenerty, feenerty, fickerty, faig,
+  Ell, dell, domen, aig.
+  Irky, birky, story, rock,
+  Ann, tan, touzelt Jock.
+
+And then Sammy disappeared! It was Dot's turn to be "it," and she
+counted one hundred five times by the method approved, saying very
+rapidly: "Ten, ten, double-ten, forty-five and fifteen!" Then she
+began to hunt.
+
+She found Tess in the wardrobe in the hall which led to the other ell
+of the big house. But Sammy! Why, it was just as though he had flown
+right out of existence!
+
+Tess was soon curious, too, and aided her sister in the search, and
+they hunted the three floors of the old Corner House, and it did not
+seem as though any small boy could be small enough to hide in half the
+places into which the girls looked for Sammy Pinkney!
+
+Dot was a persistent and faithful searcher after more things than one.
+If there was anything she really wanted, or wanted to know, she always
+stuck to it until she had accomplished her end--or driven everybody
+else in the house, as Agnes said, into spasms.
+
+With her Alice-doll hugged in the crook of one arm--the Alice-doll was
+her chiefest treasure--Dot hunted high and low for the elusive Sammy
+Pinkney. Of course, occasional household happenings interfered with
+the search; but Dot took up the quest again as soon as these little
+happenings were over, for Sammy still remained in hiding.
+
+For instance, Alfredia Blossom and one of her brothers came with the
+family wash in a big basket with which they had struggled through the
+snowdrifts. Of course they had to be taken into the kitchen and warmed
+and fed on seed cookies. The little boy began to play with Mainsheet,
+one of the cats, but Alfredia, the little girls took upstairs with
+them in their continued hunt for Sammy.
+
+"Wha' fur all dis traipsin' an' traipsin' up dese stairs?" demanded a
+deep and unctuous voice from the dark end of the hall where the
+uncarpeted stairs rose to the garret landing.
+
+"Oh, Uncle Rufus!" chorused the little white girls, and:
+
+"Howdy, Gran'pop?" said Alfredia, her face one broad grin.
+
+"Well, if dat ain' de beatenes'!" declared the aged negro who was the
+Kenways' man-of-all-work. "Heah you chillen is behin' me, an' I sho'
+thought yo' all mus' be on ahaid of me. I sho' did!"
+
+"Why, no, Uncle Rufus; _here_ we are," said Dot.
+
+"I see yo' is, honey. I see yo'," he returned, chuckling gleefully.
+"How's Pechunia, Alfredia? Spry?"
+
+"Yes, sir," said his grandchild, bobbing her head on which the tightly
+braided "pigtails" stood out like the rays of a very black sun.
+"Mammy's all right."
+
+"But who's been trackin' up all dese stairs, if 'twasn't yo' chillen?"
+demanded the negro, returning to the source of his complaint. "Snow
+jes' eberywhere! Wha's dat Sam Pinkney?" he added suddenly.
+
+"We don't know, Uncle Rufus," said Tess slowly.
+
+"Sammy went and hid from us, and we can't find him," explained Dot.
+
+Uncle Rufus pointed a gnarled finger dramatically at a blob of snow on
+the carpet at the foot of the garret stairs.
+
+"Dah he is!" he exclaimed.
+
+"Oh!" gasped Tess.
+
+"Where, Uncle Rufus?" begged Dorothy, somewhat startled.
+
+"Fo' de lan's sake!" murmured Alfredia, her eyes shining. "He mus' a
+done melted most away."
+
+"Dah's his feetsteps, chillen," declared the old man. "An' dey come
+all de way up de two flights from de back do'. I been gadderin' up
+lumps o' snow in dis here shovel--"
+
+He halted with a sharp intake of breath, and raised his head to look
+up the garret stairs. It was very dark up there, for the door that
+opened into the great, open room extending the full width of the main
+part of the old Corner House was closed. In winter the children seldom
+went up there to play; and Uncle Rufus never mounted to the garret at
+all if he could help it.
+
+"What's dat?" he suddenly whispered.
+
+"Tap, tap, tap; tap, tap, tap!" went the sound that had caught the old
+man's attention. It receded, then drew nearer, then receded. Uncle
+Rufus turned a face that had suddenly become gray toward the three
+little girls.
+
+"Dat's--dat's de same noise used to be up in dat garret befo' your
+Unc' Stower die, chillen. Ma mercy me!"
+
+"Oh!" squealed Alfredia, turning to run. "Dat's de garret ghos'! I's
+heard ma mammy tell 'bout dat ol' ha'nt."
+
+But Tess seized her and would not let her go.
+
+"That is perfect nonsense, Alfredia!" she said very sternly. "There is
+no such thing as a ghost."
+
+"Don' you be too uppity, chile!" murmured Uncle Rufus.
+
+"A ghost!" cried Dot, coming nearer to the attic stairs. "Oh, my! What
+I thought was a goat when I was a very little girl? I remember!"
+
+"Dat's jest de same noise," murmured Uncle Rufus, as the tapping sound
+was repeated.
+
+"But Ruthie laid that old ghost," said Tess with scorn. "And it wasn't
+anything--much. But this--"
+
+Dot, who had examined the wet marks and lumps of snow on the lower
+treads of the garret stairs, suddenly squealed:
+
+"Oh, looky here! 'Tisn't a ghost, but 'tis a goat! Those are Billy
+Bumps' footsteps! Of course they are!"
+
+"Sammy Pinkney!" was the chorus of voices, even Uncle Rufus joining
+in. Then he added:
+
+"Dat boy is de beatenes'! How come he make dat goat climb all dese
+stairs?"
+
+"Why," said Dot, "Billy Bumps can climb right up on the roof of the
+hen houses. He can climb just like a--a--well, just like a goat!
+Coming upstairs isn't anything hard for Billy Bumps."
+
+"Sammy Pinkney, you come down from there with that goat!" commanded
+Tess sternly. "What do you suppose Ruthie or Mrs. MacCall will say?"
+
+The door swung open above, and the wan daylight which entered by the
+small garret windows revealed Sammy Pinkney, plump, sturdy and
+freckled, stooping to look down at the startled group at the top of
+the stairs.
+
+"I spy Sammy!" cried Dot shrilly, just remembering that they were
+playing hide and seek--or had been.
+
+But somebody else spied Sammy at that moment, too. The mischievous boy
+had led Billy Bumps, the goat, up three long flights of stairs and
+turned him loose to go tap, tap, tapping about the bare attic floor on
+his hard little hoofs.
+
+Billy spied Sammy as the youth stooped to grin down the stairs at
+Uncle Rufus and the little girls. Billy had a hair-trigger temper. He
+did not recognize Sammy from the rear, and he instantly charged.
+
+Just as Sammy was going to tell those below how happy he was because
+he had startled them, Billy Bumps dashed out of the garret and butted
+the unsuspicious boy. Sammy sailed right into the air, arms and legs
+spread like a jumping frog, and dived down the stairway, while Billy
+stood blatting and shaking his horns at the head of the flight.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE STRAW RIDE
+
+
+Uncle Rufus and Alfredia had fallen back from the foot of the stairs
+under the impression that it was the garret ghost, rather than the
+garret goat, that was charging the mischievous Sammy Pinkney. And the
+two smallest Corner House girls were much too small to catch Sammy in
+full flight.
+
+So it certainly would have gone hard with that youngster had not other
+and more able hands intervened. There was a shout from behind Uncle
+Rufus, an echoing bark, and a lean boy with a big dog dashed into the
+forefront of this exciting adventure.
+
+The boy, if tall and slender, was muscular enough. Indeed, Neale
+O'Neil was a trained athlete, having begun his training very young
+indeed with his uncle, Mr. William Sorber, of Twomley and Sorber's
+Herculean Circus and Menagerie. As the big Newfoundland dog charged
+upstairs to hold back the goat, Neale, with outspread arms, met Sammy
+in mid-air.
+
+Neale staggered back, clutching the small boy, and finally tripped and
+fell on the carpet of the hall. But he was not hurt, nor was Sammy.
+
+"Fo' de good lan' sake!" gasped Uncle Rufus, "what is we a-comin' to?
+A goat in de attic, an'--Tessie! yo' call off dat dog or he'll eat
+Billy Bumps, complete an' a-plenty!"
+
+The big dog was barking vociferously, while the goat stamped his hoofs
+and shook his horns threateningly at the head of the flight of stairs.
+Tom Jonah and Billy Bumps never had been friends.
+
+Tess called the old dog down while Sammy and Neale O'Neil scrambled up
+from the hall floor. Two older girls appeared, running from the front
+of the house--a blonde beauty with fluffy, braided hair, and a more
+sedate brunette who was older than her sister by two years or more.
+
+"What _is_ the matter?" demanded the blonde girl. "If this Corner
+House isn't the noisiest place in Milton--Ruth, see that goat!"
+
+"Well, Sammy!" exclaimed Ruth Kenway, severely, "why didn't you bring
+Scalawag, the pony, into the house as well? That goat!"
+
+"I was goin' to," confessed the rather abashed Sammy. "But I didn't
+have time."
+
+"Don't you ever do such a thing again, Sammy Pinkney!" ordered Ruth,
+severely.
+
+She had to be severe. Otherwise the younger ones would have completely
+overrun the old Corner House and made it unlivable for more sedate and
+quiet folk.
+
+The responsibility for the welfare of her three sisters and that of
+Aunt Sarah Maltby, who lived with them, had early fallen on Ruth
+Kenway's shoulders. In a much larger city than Milton the Kenways had
+lived in a very poor tenement and had had a hard struggle to get along
+on a small pension, their mother and father both being dead, until Mr.
+Howbridge, administrator of Uncle Peter Stower's estate, had looked
+the sisters up.
+
+At that time there was some uncertainty as to whom the old Corner
+House, standing opposite the Parade Ground in Milton, and the rest of
+the Stower property belonged; for Uncle Peter Stower had died, and his
+will could not be found. That there was a will, Mr. Howbridge knew,
+for he had drawn it for the miserly old man who had lived alone with
+his colored servant, Uncle Rufus, in the old Corner House for so long.
+
+The surrogate, however, finally allowed the guardian of the Kenway
+sisters to place them in the roomy old house, with their aunt and with
+Mrs. MacCall as housekeeper, while the court tangle was straightened
+out. This last was satisfactorily arranged, as related in the first
+book of this series, entitled "The Corner House Girls."
+
+[Illustration: "Even Ruth could scarcely keep a sober face."]
+
+In successive volumes are related in detail the adventures of the four
+sisters and their friends since their establishment in the old Corner
+House, telling of their adventures at school, in a summer camp at the
+seashore, of their taking part in a school play, of the odd find made
+in the old Corner House garret, and on an automobile tour through the
+State.
+
+In that sixth volume of the series the Kenways met Luke and Cecile
+Shepard, brother and sister, who prove to be delightful friends,
+especially to Ruth. Agnes, the second Kenway, already had a faithful
+chum and companion in Neale O'Neil. But in Luke, Ruth found a most
+charming acquaintance, and in the seventh book, "The Corner House
+Girls Growing Up," the friendship of Ruth and Luke is cemented by a
+series of incidents that try both of their characters.
+
+Of course, each month saw the four sisters that many days older. They
+were actually growing up--"growing out of aye ken!" Mrs. MacCall often
+said. Just the same, they still liked fun and frolic and, especially
+the younger ones, were just as likely to play pranks as ever.
+
+Even Ruth could scarcely keep a sober face when she looked now from
+Sammy Pinkney's rueful countenance to the goat shaking his head at the
+top of the garret stairs.
+
+"Now," she said as severely as possible, "I would like to know how you
+intend to get him down again."
+
+"More than that, Sam," said Neale: "How did you ever get him up
+there?"
+
+"Oh, that was easy!" declared the small boy, his confident grin
+returning to his freckled face. "I got a stick and tied to it one of
+those old cabbages that Uncle Rufus has got packed away under the
+shed. Then," went on the inventive genius, "I went behind Billy and
+pushed, holding the cabbage ahead of his nose. Say, that goat would
+walk up the side of a house, let alone three flights of stairs, for a
+cabbage!"
+
+"Can you beat him?" murmured Neale, vastly delighted by this
+confession.
+
+"I feel sometimes as though I would like to beat him," answered Ruth.
+"See if you can get Billy Bumps out to his proper quarters, Neale."
+
+But that was not easy, and it took an hour's work and finally the
+tying of Billy Bumps "hand and foot" before the sturdy goat was
+overcome and returned to his pen.
+
+By this time, however, the snow had stopped. Lunch was served in the
+big Corner House dining-room, Neale and Sammy being guests.
+
+It was an hilarious meal, of course. With such a crowd of young folks
+about the table--and on Saturday, too!--a sedate time was not
+possible. But Ruth tried to keep the younger ones from talking too
+loud or being too careless in their table manners.
+
+Aunt Sarah Maltby, sitting at one end of the table, shook her head
+solemnly about midway of the meal at Sammy Pinkney.
+
+"Young man," she said in her severest way, "what do you suppose will
+become of you? You are the most mischievous boy I have ever seen--and
+I have seen a good many in my time."
+
+"Yes'm," said Sammy, hanging his head, for he was afraid of Aunt
+Sarah.
+
+"You should think of the future," admonished the old lady. "There is
+something besides fun in this world."
+
+"Yes'm," again came from the abashed, if not repentant, Sammy.
+
+"Think what you might make of yourself, young man, if you desired. Do
+you realize that every boy born in this country has a chance to be
+president?"
+
+"Huh!" ejaculated Sammy, suddenly looking up. "Be president, Miss
+Maltby? Huh! I tell you what: I'll sell you my chance for a quarter."
+
+The irrepressible laugh from the other young folks that followed might
+have offended Aunt Sarah had not the front door bell rung at that very
+moment. Agnes, who was nearest, and much quicker than rheumatic Uncle
+Rufus, ran to answer the summons.
+
+"Oh, Ruthie!" her clear voice instantly sounded as far as the
+dining-room, "here's Mr. Howbridge's man, and he's got a great big
+sleigh at the gate, and--Why, there's Mr. Howbridge himself!"
+
+Not only the oldest Kenway ran to join her sister at the door, but all
+the other young folks trooped out. They forgot their plates at the
+announcement of the appearance of the girls' guardian.
+
+"Did you e'er see such bairns before?" demanded the housekeeper of
+Aunt Sarah. "They have neither appetite nor manners on a Saturday!"
+
+In the big front hall the girls and boys were delightedly greeting Mr.
+Howbridge, while the coach-man plowed back to the gate through the
+snow to hold the frisky pair of bay horses harnessed to the big pung.
+Bits of straw clung to the lawyer's clothing, and he was rosy and
+smiling.
+
+"I did not know but what you would already be out, young folks," Mr.
+Howbridge announced. "Although I had John harness up just as soon as
+the weather broke."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Howbridge," Ruth said, remembering her "manners" after all,
+"won't you come in?"
+
+"Won't you come out, Miss Ruth?" responded the man, laughing.
+
+"Oh! _Oh!_ OH!" cried Tess, in crescendo, peering out of the open
+door. "That sleigh of Mr. Howbridge's is full of straw."
+
+"A straw-ride!" gasped Agnes, clasping her hands. "Oh, Mr. Howbridge!
+have you come to take us out?"
+
+"Of course. All of you. The more the merrier," said their guardian,
+who was very fond indeed of his wards and their young friends, and
+missed no chance to give them pleasure.
+
+At that statement there was a perfect rout while the young people ran
+for their wraps and overshoes. The dessert was forgotten, although it
+was Mrs. MacCall's famous "whangdoodle pudding and lallygag sauce."
+
+"Never mind the eats now, Mrs. Mac!" cried Agnes, struggling into her
+warm coat. "Have an extra big dinner. We'll come home tonight as
+hungry as crows--see if we don't!"
+
+In ten minutes the whole party, the four Kenway sisters, Neale, and
+Sammy, and Tom Jonah, had tumbled into the body of the big sleigh
+which was so heaped with clean straw that they burrowed right into it
+just like mice! The big bay horses were eager to start, and tossed
+their heads and made the little silver bells on the harness jingle to
+a merry tune indeed.
+
+Mr. Howbridge and Ruth sat up on the wide front seat--the only
+seat--with the driver, John. The guardian wished to talk in private
+with the oldest Kenway girl. He considered her a very bright girl,
+with a very well-balanced mind.
+
+While the younger folks shouted and joked and snowballed each other as
+the horses sped along the almost unbroken track, Ruth and her guardian
+were quite seriously engaged in conversation.
+
+"I want to get some good advice from you, Miss Ruth Kenway," said the
+lawyer, smiling sideways at her. "I know that you have an abundant
+supply."
+
+"You are a flatterer," declared the girl, her eyes sparkling
+nevertheless. She was always proud to be taken into his confidence.
+"Is it something about the estate?"
+
+"No, my dear. Nothing about the Stower estate."
+
+"I was afraid we might be spending too much money," said the girl,
+laughing. "You know, I do think we are extravagant."
+
+"Not in your personal expenditures," answered their guardian. "Only in
+the Kenways' charities do I sometimes feel like putting on the brake.
+But this," he added, "is something different."
+
+"What is it, Mr. Howbridge? I am sure I shall be glad to help you if I
+can," Ruth said earnestly.
+
+"Well, now, Miss Ruth," said the lawyer, a quizzical smile wreathing
+his lips. "What would you do, for instance, if a pair of twins had
+been left to you?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+TWINS--AND TROUBLE
+
+
+Sometimes Mr. Howbridge called her "Martha," because she was so
+cumbered with family cares. Sometimes he called her "Minerva," and
+acclaimed her to be wise. He so frequently joked with her in this way
+that Ruth Kenway was not at all sure the lawyer was in earnest on this
+occasion.
+
+"Twins?" she repeated, smiling up at him over the top of her muff.
+"Twin _what_? Twin puppies, or kittens, or even fish? I suppose there
+are twin fish?"
+
+"You joke me, and I am serious," he said, while the younger ones
+shouted and sang amid the straw behind. "I really have had a pair of
+twins given to me. I am their guardian, the administrator of their
+estate, just as I was made administrator of the Stower estate and
+guardian of you girls. It is no joke, I assure you," and he finished
+rather ruefully.
+
+"Goodness me! you don't mean it?" cried Ruth.
+
+"Yes, I do. I mean it very much. I do, indeed, think it rather mean.
+If all my friends who die and go to a better world leave me their
+children to take care of, I shall be in a worse pickle than the Little
+Old Woman Who Lived in the Shoe."
+
+"Like old Mrs. Bobster at Pleasant Cove," laughed Ruth. "But even she
+did not have twins. And if your new family is as troublesome as the
+Corner House crowd, what will you ever do?"
+
+"That is what I am asking you, Minerva," he said seriously. "What
+would you do if you had had twins left to you?"
+
+"What are they, Mr. Howbridge? Boys or girls?"
+
+"Both."
+
+"Both? Oh! You mean one is a boy and one is a girl."
+
+"Ralph and Rowena Birdsall."
+
+"That is better than having two of either sex, I should say," Ruth
+observed with more gravity. "They sort of--sort of balance each
+other."
+
+"I guess they are 'some kids,' as our friend Neale would say,"
+suddenly laughed Mr. Howbridge. "I knew Birdsall very well. I might
+say we were very close friends, both socially and in business. Poor
+fellow! The last two years of his life were very sad indeed."
+
+"Has he left plenty for the twins?" asked Ruth.
+
+"More than 'plenty,'" said Mr. Howbridge. "He was very, very wealthy.
+Ralph and Rowena will come into very large fortunes when they are of
+age. The money is well invested."
+
+"Then you need not worry about that," Ruth said sedately.
+
+"No? The more money, the more worry for the administrator and
+guardian," Mr. Howbridge said succinctly. "I can assure you that is
+true. But it is what to do for, and with, the twins themselves that
+bothers me most just at first."
+
+"How old are they?"
+
+"About twelve. Nice age! All legs and arms and imagination."
+
+"Dear me! Do you know them well?"
+
+"Haven't seen them since they were two little red mites in their
+cradle."
+
+"Then you merely imagine they are so very terrible."
+
+"I heard enough about them from Frank, Frank Birdsall. That was their
+father's name. He used to be very fond of talking about them. Proud as
+Lucifer, he was, of Ralph and Rowena. And his wife--"
+
+"Oh! Of course, the mother is dead, too."
+
+"That was what killed Frank, I verily believe," said Mr. Howbridge
+gravely. "She died two years ago at a camp he owned up near the
+Canadian border. Red Deer Lodge it is called. Mrs. Birdsall was flung
+from her horse.
+
+"It crushed her husband. He brought the children away from there (they
+had spent much of their time up in the wilderness, for they loved it)
+and never went back again.
+
+"That's another piece of work he's left me. Because he did not want
+ever to see the Lodge again, I have to go up there--now, in
+mid-winter--and attend to something that's been hanging fire too long
+already. It is a nuisance."
+
+"A camp in the woods in mid-winter must be an enjoyable place," Ruth
+said thoughtfully. "You can take your guns; and you can snowshoe; can
+skate; maybe--"
+
+"And, as our good Mrs. Mac would say, eat fried snowballs and icicle
+soup!" finished Mr. Howbridge. "Ugh! It's a fine place, Red Deer
+Lodge, but I shall take only my man and we'll have to depend on some
+old guide or trapper to do for us. No, I look forward to no pleasant
+time at Red Deer Lodge, I assure you."
+
+This conversation was not carried on in sequence. The party in the
+body of the sleigh frequently interrupted. Sammy managed to dance all
+over the sleigh, and half a dozen times he was on the point of
+pitching out into the drifts.
+
+"Let him!" snapped Agnes at last. "Let him be buried in the snow, and
+we won't stop for him--not until we come back."
+
+"The poor kid would be an icicle then," objected Neale O'Neil.
+
+"And he'd miss the nice hot chocolate and buns Mr. Howbridge says we
+are to have at Crowder's Inn," put in Tess, the thoughtful.
+
+Dot squeezed her Alice-doll close to her little bosom and made up her
+mind that that precious possession should not pop out by accident into
+a drift and be left behind.
+
+"I don't suppose I should have brought her," Dot confessed to Tess. "I
+should have given the sailor-boy baby an airing instead."
+
+"Oh, yes! Nosmo King Kenway," murmured her sister.
+
+Dot hurried on, ignoring the suggestive name of the sailor-boy baby
+who had been inadvertently christened after a sign on a barn door.
+
+"You know," the smallest Corner House girl said, "Alice's complexion
+is so delicate. Of course, Neale had her all made over in the doll's
+hospital; but I am always afraid that the wind will crack it."
+
+"I wouldn't worry so about her, Dot," advised Tess.
+
+"You would if Alice were your baby," declared Dot. "And you know she
+is delicate. She's never been the same since Lillie Treble buried her
+with the dried apples in our back yard."
+
+Meanwhile Neale O'Neil had caught a sentence or two flung back by the
+wind from the high front seat. He bobbed up between Mr. Howbridge and
+Ruth.
+
+"What's all this about red deer, and snowshoes, and eating icicle
+soup?" he asked. "Sounds awfully interesting. Are you planning to go
+hunting, Mr. Howbridge?"
+
+"I've got to go to a hunting lodge, clear up state, my boy," said the
+lawyer. "And I dread it just as much as you young folks would enjoy
+it."
+
+"It would be fine, I think," murmured Ruth.
+
+"Oh, bully!" shouted Agnes, suddenly standing up in the straw and
+clinging to Neale for support. "To a regular, sure-enough winter camp?
+Then Carrie and Lucy Poole, and Trix Severn can't crow over us any
+more! They went, last year, to Letterbeg Camp, up beyond Hoosac."
+
+"But, goodness, Agnes, wait till we are asked, do!" admonished Ruth.
+"I never saw or heard of such precipitate young ones."
+
+"Young one yourself!" grumbled Agnes.
+
+"It's my fault," said the good-natured Neale. "Aggie misunderstood
+what I said."
+
+"No need to worry about it," said Mr. Howbridge cheerfully. "If you
+young folks really want to come with me--"
+
+"Oh, Mr. Howbridge!" exclaimed Ruth, in a tone that showed she,
+herself, had been much taken with the idea.
+
+"Why, I hate to go alone. I can send up some servants to open the
+Lodge. Frank was always begging me to make use of it. After Mrs.
+Birdsall was killed he never would go near the place, as I said.
+Though I believe the twins, Ralph and Rowena, have been up there with
+a caretaker and a governess, or somebody to look out for them."
+
+"Where are they now?" asked Ruth.
+
+"The Birdsall place in Arlington was closed soon after Frank died,
+three months ago. His old butler and his wife live in a nice home near
+by, and they have the children and their governess with them."
+
+"With just servants?" murmured Ruth.
+
+"They are very suitable people," declared Mr. Howbridge, as though he
+felt the faint criticism in the girl's words. "I went myself and saw
+Rodgers and Mrs. Rodgers. The governess and the twins were out for a
+drive, so I did not see them."
+
+"The poor things!" sighed Ruth.
+
+"My!" exclaimed Agnes, "those children are worse off than we Kenways
+were. They haven't got anybody like Ruth, Mr. Howbridge."
+
+"That is true," agreed the lawyer. "But what am I to do? Separate
+them? Send them to boarding school--the boy one way and the girl
+another?"
+
+"Gee! that would be tough, Mr. Howbridge," declared Neale O'Neil, with
+considerable feeling for the unfortunate twins.
+
+"I don't see what I'm to do," complained the lawyer.
+
+"They should have a real home," Ruth stated, with some severity.
+"Sending them to boarding school is dodging the issue. So is leaving
+them wholly in the care of servants."
+
+"Who would take in two tearing and wearing children, twelve years
+old?" demanded Mr. Howbridge, on the defensive.
+
+"Perhaps the fault does go back to the parents--to the father, at
+least," admitted Ruth. "He should have made provision for his children
+before he died."
+
+"I suppose you think the duty devolves upon me," said Mr. Howbridge,
+rather grumpily. "Should I take them into my house? Should I break up
+the habits of years for two half-wild children?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know that," Ruth told him brightly. "It's one of those
+things one must decide for oneself, isn't it?"
+
+There was not much more said after that during the ride about the
+twins, Ralph and Rowena Birdsall. But Red Deer Lodge!
+
+The idea of going to a real camp in winter was taken up by everybody
+in the party, for even Tom Jonah barked. In the depths of the
+wilderness, with wild woods, and wild animals, and perhaps wild men!
+(this in Sammy's mind) all about the Lodge! The freckled boy
+considered the idea even superior to his long cherished desire to run
+away to be a pirate.
+
+"I'll get me a bow-arrer and learn to shoot before we start," Sammy
+declared, deluding himself, as he always did, with the idea that he
+was to be a member of the party in any case.
+
+"But you don't even know if your mother'll let you go, Sammy Pinkney!"
+cried Tess.
+
+"She'll let me go if Aggie says I may," declared Sammy. "I can, can't
+I, Aggie?" grabbing her by her plaid skirt and almost pulling her over
+backwards.
+
+"Stop! You can can that!" declared the next-to-the-oldest Corner House
+girl slangily. "What do you think I am--a bell rope, that you yank me
+that way?"
+
+"I can go to that Red Deer Lodge, can't I?" insisted the youngster.
+
+"You can start right now, for all I care," said Agnes, rather
+grumpily, and giving Sammy no further attention.
+
+But that was enough for Sammy Pinkney. He considered that he had a
+particular invitation to accompany the party into the woods, and he
+would tell his mother so when he reached home.
+
+But Dot began to be worried.
+
+"Just see here, Tess Kenway!" she exclaimed suddenly. "Do you suppose
+my Alice-doll--or any of the other dollies--can stand it?"
+
+"Stand what?" her sister, quite excited, asked.
+
+"Living in tents in winter?"
+
+"In what tents?" asked the amazed Tess.
+
+"Up there at Red Darling Camp--"
+
+"Red _Deer_!"
+
+"Well, I knew it was some nice word," Dot, undisturbed, said. "But
+Alice is so delicate."
+
+"Why, Dot Kenway! we won't have to live in tents," said Tess.
+
+"We did in that other camp we went to," said the smaller girl. "Don't
+you 'member? And the tent 'most blowed over one night, and you and I
+and Tom Jonah went sailing in a boat? And that clam man--"
+
+"But, Dot!" cried Tess, "that was a summer camp. This is a winter one.
+And it's all made of logs, and there are doors and windows and
+fireplaces and--and everything!"
+
+"Oh!" murmured Dot. "I wondered how they'd keep Jack Frost out. And
+he's stinging my ears right now, Tess Kenway."
+
+The roadside inn was in sight now, and presently the big sleigh pulled
+up before it with the bells jangling and the horses steaming, as Dot
+remarked, "just as though they had boiling water in 'em and the smoke
+was leaking out."
+
+The whole party ran into the grillroom and chased Jack Frost away with
+hot chocolate and cakes. There the idea of going to Red Deer Lodge for
+the Christmas holidays was well thrashed out.
+
+"Of course, I will send up my own servants and supplies. Being
+administrator of the estate, there will be no question of my using the
+Lodge as I see fit," Mr. Howbridge said cheerfully. "And I shall be
+delighted to have you young folks with me.
+
+"I am really going to confer with an old timber cruiser about the
+standing timber contracted for by the Neven Lumber Company before
+Frank Birdsall died. This timber cruiser--"
+
+"It sounds like a sea-story!" interrupted Agnes, roguishly.
+
+"What is a timber cruiser?" demanded Ruth, quite as puzzled as her
+sister.
+
+"It is not a 'what' but a 'who,'" laughed Mr. Howbridge. "In his way,
+Ike M'Graw is quite a famous character up there. A timber cruiser is a
+man who knows timber so well that just by walking through a wood lot
+and looking he can number and mark down the trees that are sound and
+will make good timber.
+
+"Ike has written me through a friend (for the old man cannot use a pen
+himself, save to make his cross) that he has been over the entire
+Birdsall estate and that his figures and the figures of the Nevens
+people are too far apart. I fear that the lumber company is trying to
+put something over on me, and as administrator of the estate I must
+look out for the twins' interests."
+
+"You are more careful of their money, Mr. Howbridge, than you are of
+the twins themselves, are you not?" Ruth suggested, in a low voice.
+
+"Now, don't tell me that!" he cried. "I really cannot take those
+children into my house."
+
+"Well, you know," she told him, smiling, "you brought this on yourself
+by asking my advice. And you intend to fill that Lodge up there with
+us 'young ones.'"
+
+"But I shall have you to manage for me, Miss Ruth," declared the
+lawyer. "That is different."
+
+"Perhaps we might take the twins along with us, and you'd get used to
+them," Ruth said. "You say they like it up there in the wilderness."
+
+"Frank said they were crazy about it."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"You don't know what you are letting yourselves in for. Ralph and
+Rowena are young savages."
+
+"Can't be much worse than Sammy, yonder," chuckled Neale, who, with
+Agnes, was much interested in this part of the planning.
+
+"Oh, Ruthie!" exclaimed the second Kenway sister suddenly, clasping
+her hands. "There's Cecile and Luke!"
+
+"Where--what--?"
+
+"I mean we invited them to come to the Corner House for the holidays."
+
+"Ah-ha!" exclaimed Mr. Howbridge promptly. "The Shepards? Of course! I
+had already included them--in my mind."
+
+"Mr. Howbridge! It will be more than a party. It will be a
+convention," gasped Ruth.
+
+"It's such a lonely place that we'll need a big crowd to make it worth
+while going at all," the lawyer laughed. "Yes. Cecile and Luke are
+invited. I will have them written to at once--in addition to your own
+invitation to them, Miss Ruth."
+
+"Dear me! you are just the best guardian, Mr. Howbridge," sighed Agnes
+ecstatically.
+
+"And I think," Ruth added, "that you ought to think seriously of
+taking the Birdsall twins with us."
+
+That was not decided at that time, however. And when the party got
+back to the old Corner House, just across from the Parade Ground at
+the head of Main Street, Mr. Howbridge was met with a piece of news
+that shocked him much more than had the thought of the twins making
+their home with him in his quiet bachelor residence.
+
+A clerk from the lawyer's office awaited Mr. Howbridge. There was a
+telegram from Rodgers, the Birdsalls' ex-butler. It read:
+
+  "Ralph and Rowena away since yesterday noon. Hospitals searched.
+  Cannot have pond dragged. Two feet of ice. Wire instructions.
+                                                     --Rodgers."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+ANTICIPATIONS
+
+
+Mr. Howbridge, before he hurried away to his office, asked Ruth:
+
+"What do you think of that? And you suggest my keeping those
+twins--those two wild youngsters--in my home!"
+
+"I will tell you what I think of that telegram," said the oldest
+Kenway girl, handing the yellow sheet of paper back to him. "I think
+that man Rodgers is not a fit person to have charge of the boy and
+girl."
+
+"Why not?" he asked in surprise.
+
+"Imagine thinking of dragging a pond in mid-winter--or at any other
+time of the year--for two healthy children! First idea the man seems
+to have. I guess the twins had reason for running away."
+
+"Hear! Hear!" cried Agnes, who deliberately listened.
+
+"Why, they have known Rodgers all their lives!"
+
+"Perhaps that is why they have run away," said Ruth, smiling. "Rodgers
+sounds to me--from his telegram--as though he had one awful lack."
+
+"You frighten me. What lack?"
+
+"Lack of a sense of humor. And that is fatal in the character of
+anybody who has a pair of twins on his hands."
+
+Mr. Howbridge threw up his own hands in amazement. "I must lack that
+myself," he said. "I see nothing funny, at least, in the idea of
+having Ralph and Rowena Birdsall in my house."
+
+"It helps," said Ruth. "A sense of humor is what has kept me going all
+these years," she added demurely. "If you think a pair of twins can be
+compared to Tess and Dot and Sammy Pinkney--to say nothing of Aggie
+and Neale--"
+
+"Oh! Oh!" shouted the two latter in chorus.
+
+"You have a mean mind, Ruthie Kenway," declared the blonde beauty.
+
+"I knew I wasn't much liked," admitted Neale O'Neil. "But that is the
+unkindest cut of all."
+
+"You have had experience, I grant you," said Mr. Howbridge, about to
+take his departure. "But I foresee much trouble in the case of these
+Birdsall twins."
+
+And he was a true prophet there. The twins had utterly disappeared.
+The Arlington police--indeed, all the county officers together--could
+find no trace of the orphaned brother and sister.
+
+Mr. Howbridge put private detectives on the case. The twins seemed to
+have disappeared as utterly as though they really were under the two
+feet of ice on Arlington Pond.
+
+The lawyer searched personally, advertised in the newspapers, and even
+offered a reward for the apprehension of the children. A fortnight
+passed without success.
+
+The governess, Miss Mason, was discharged, for it seemed unnecessary
+to pay her salary when there were no children for her to teach.
+Rodgers and his wife could give no aid in the search. They were rather
+relieved, if the truth were told, to be free of the twins.
+
+"Master Ralph was hard enough to get along with," the ex-butler
+admitted. "But Miss Rowena was worse. They wanted to go back into
+their own house to live. They could not understand why it was shut up,
+sir," and the old serving man shook his head.
+
+"They seemed to have taken a dislike to you, sir," he added to Mr.
+Howbridge. "They said you 'hadn't any right to boss.' That is the way
+they put it."
+
+"But I never even saw them," returned the lawyer. "I didn't try 'to
+boss' them."
+
+"Well, you know, sir," Rodgers explained, "I had to give 'em reasons
+for things. You have to with children like Master Ralph and Miss
+Rowena. So I had to tell 'em you said they were to do this and that."
+
+"Oh! Ah! I see!" muttered the guardian.
+
+He began to believe that perhaps Ruth Kenway was right. He should have
+taken more of a personal interest in Ralph and Rowena. They had
+evidently gained from the ex-butler an entirely wrong impression of
+what a guardian was.
+
+But the disappearance of the Birdsall twins did not make any change in
+the plans for the mid-winter visit to Red Deer Lodge. Mr. Howbridge
+had to go there in any case, and he would not disappoint the Kenways
+and their friends.
+
+As it chanced, full three weeks were given the Milton schools at the
+Christmas Holiday time. There were repairs to make in the heating
+arrangements of both high and grammar school buildings. The schools
+would close the week before Christmas and not open again until the
+week following New Year's Day.
+
+If Sammy Pinkney had had his way, the schools would never have opened
+again!
+
+"I don't see what they have to learn you things for, anyway,"
+complained the youngster. "You can find things out for yourself."
+
+"That's rather an expensive way to learn, I've always heard," said
+Ruth, admonishingly.
+
+"Huh!" grumbled Sammy, "teachers don't know much, anyway. Look!
+There's what Miss Grimsby told us in physics the other day--all about
+what you're made of, and how you're made, and the names you can call
+yourself--if you want to.
+
+"You know: Your legs and arms are _limbs_--and all that. She told us
+the middle part of our bodies is the _trunk_, and she asked us all if
+we understood that. Some said 'yes,' and some didn't say nothing,"
+went on the excited boy.
+
+"'Don't you know the middle of the body is the trunk?' she asked Patsy
+Roach. And what do you suppose he told Miss Grimsby?"
+
+"I can't imagine," said Agnes, for this was in the evening and the
+young people were gathered about the sitting-room table with their
+lesson books.
+
+"He told her: 'You ought to go to the circus, Miss Grimsby, and see
+the elephant,'" giggled Sammy. "And I guess Patsy was right. Huh!
+_Trunk!_" he added with scorn.
+
+"Association of ideas," chuckled Neale O'Neil, who was likewise
+present as usual during home study hour. "I heard that one of the kids
+in Dot's grade gave Miss Andrews an extremely bright answer the other
+day."
+
+"What was that, Neale?" asked Agnes, who would rather talk than study
+at any time.
+
+"History. Miss Andrews asked one little girl who discovered America,
+and the answer was, 'Ohio'!"
+
+"Oh! Oh!" murmured Agnes, while even Ruth smiled.
+
+"Yes," chuckled Neale. "Miss Andrews said, 'No; Columbus discovered
+America,' and the kid said: 'Yes'm. That was his first name.'"
+
+"She got her geography and history mixed," said Ruth, smiling.
+
+"That was Sadie Goronofsky's half-sister, Becky," explained Dot. "She
+isn't very bright."
+
+"You bet she isn't bright!" snorted Sammy Pinkney. "Her pop's got a
+little tailor shop with another man down on Meadow Street, and they
+are always fighting."
+
+"Who are always fighting?" asked Neale quizzically. "Becky and her
+father or Becky and her father's partner?"
+
+"Smartie! Becky's pop and the other man," answered Sammy. "And their
+landlord was putting in a new store-front, and Becky's father put out
+a sign telling folks they were still working--_you_ know. Becky said
+it read: 'Business going on during altercations,' instead of
+'alterations.' And 'altercations' means fights," concluded the wise
+Sammy.
+
+"Just see," remarked Ruth quietly, "how satisfied you children should
+be that you know so much more than your little mates. You so
+frequently bring home tales about them."
+
+"Aw, now, Ruth," mumbled Sammy, who was bright enough to note her
+characteristic criticism.
+
+"I would try," the oldest Kenway said admonishingly, "to bring home
+only the pleasant stories about my little school friends."
+
+"Oh! _I_ know a nice story about Allie Newman's little brother,"
+declared Dot eagerly.
+
+"That little terror!" murmured Agnes.
+
+"He is one tough little kid," admitted Neale O'Neil, in an undertone.
+
+"What about the little Newman boy?" asked Ruth indulgently. "And then
+we must all study."
+
+"Why," said Dot, big-eyed and very much in earnest, "you know Robbie
+Newman doesn't go to school yet; and he's an awful trial to his
+mother."
+
+"That is gossip, Dot," Tess interposed severely.
+
+But the smallest Corner House girl was not to be derailed from the
+main line of her story, and went right on:
+
+"He was naughty the other day and his mamma told him she'd shut him up
+somewhere all by himself. 'If you do, Mamma,' he said, 'I'll just
+smash ev'rything in the room.'"
+
+"Oh-oo!" gasped Tess, proving herself to be quite as much interested
+in the "gossip" as the others around the evening lamp. "What a wicked
+boy!"
+
+"But he didn't smash anything," Dot was quick to explain. "For his
+mother put him right out in the henhouse."
+
+"The henhouse! Fancy!" said Agnes.
+
+"There wasn't anything for him to smash there," said Dot. "But when
+she had locked him in, Robbie put his head out of the little door
+where the hens go in and out, and he called after her:
+
+"'Mamma, you can lock me in here all you want to; but I won't lay any
+eggs!'"
+
+"I am not sure that it isn't gossip," chuckled Agnes, when the general
+laugh had subsided.
+
+"That will be all now," Ruth said with severity. "Study time is here."
+
+But there was another and more important subject in all their minds
+than either school happenings, the eccentricities of their friends, or
+the lesson books themselves.
+
+The holidays! The thought of going to Red Deer Lodge! A winter
+vacation in the deep woods, and to live in "picnic" fashion, as they
+supposed, lent a charm to the plan that delighted every member of the
+Corner House party.
+
+Ruth and Agnes wrote to the Shepards--to Cecile at home with her Aunt
+Lorena, and to Luke at college--and they were immediately enamored of
+the plan and returned enthusiastic acceptances of the invitation,
+thanking Mr. Howbridge, of course, as well.
+
+The lawyer was having a great deal to do at this time, and he came to
+the old Corner House more than once to talk about the Birdsall twins
+to Ruth and the others. As he said, it gave him comfort to talk over
+something he did not know anything about with the oldest Corner House
+sister.
+
+He sat one stormy day in the cozy sitting-room, with Dot and the
+Alice-doll on one knee and Tess and Almira, who was now a quite
+grown-up cat and had kittens of her own, on his other knee. All the
+Corner House cats were pets, no matter how grown-up they were.
+
+"It is worrying me a great deal, Ruthie," he said to the sympathetic
+girl. "Look at a day like this. We don't know where those poor
+children are. Rodgers says they could have had but little money. In
+fact, they scarcely knew what money was for, having always had
+everything needful supplied them."
+
+"Twelve-year-old children nowadays, Mr. Howbridge," said Ruth, "are
+usually quite capable of looking after themselves."
+
+"You think so?" queried the worried guardian.
+
+"You remember what Agnes was at twelve. And look at our Tess."
+
+The lawyer pinched Tess' cheek. "I see what she is. And she is going
+to be twelve some day, I suppose," he agreed. "But what would she
+and--say--Sammy Pinkney do, turned out alone into the world?"
+
+"Oh!" cried Dot, the little pitcher with the big ears, "Sammy and I
+went off alone to be pirates. And I'm younger than Tess."
+
+"I hope I shouldn't run away with Sammy!" said Tess, in some disdain.
+
+"Why," Dot put in, "suppose Sammy was your brother? I felt quite
+sisterly to him that time we were hid in the canalboat."
+
+"I guess that we all feel 'sisterly' to Sammy," laughed Ruth. "And I
+am sure, Tess, you would know what to do if you were away from home
+with him."
+
+"I guess I would," agreed Tess severely. "I'd march him right back
+again."
+
+The lawyer joined in the laugh. But he was none the less anxious about
+Ralph and Rowena Birdsall. There was an undercurrent of feeling in his
+mind, too, that he had been derelict in his duty toward his wards.
+
+"Three months after their father died, and I had not seen them," he
+said more than once. "I blame myself. As you say, Ruth, I should have
+won their confidence in that time."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Howbridge, you are not to blame for that! You are unused to
+children, anyway."
+
+"But it was selfishness on my part--arrant selfishness, Frank's
+children should have been my personal care. But, twins!" and he
+groaned.
+
+One might have been amused by his bachelor horror of the thought of
+two children in his quiet home; only the situation was really too
+serious to breed laughter. Two twelve-year-old children striking out
+into the world for themselves might get into all sorts of mischief and
+trouble.
+
+The lawyer had done all he could, however, toward recovering the
+runaways. The police of two States were on the watch for them, and
+private detectives were likewise hunting for them. The advertisements
+Mr. Howbridge put in the papers brought no helpful replies. There
+seemed to be many children wandering about the country, singly and in
+pairs, but none of them answered at all the description of the
+Birdsall twins.
+
+Meanwhile the Christmas holidays were approaching. Cecile Shepard
+arrived at the old Corner House a week ahead of the date set for the
+closing of school. Luke, however, would join the party at Culberton,
+at the foot of Long Lake, nearly at the far end of which, and deep in
+the woods, was Red Deer Lodge.
+
+Cecile was a very pretty girl, as dark as Agnes was light. She went to
+school every day with Agnes and sat beside her as a "visitor" during
+the remainder of the term.
+
+Of course, there was much to do to prepare for this mid-winter venture
+into the woods. And, too, there were certain plans for Christmas to be
+carried out by the Corner House girls, whether they were to be at home
+on Christmas Day or not.
+
+The Stower estate tenants on Meadow Street must not be forgotten.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+MERRY TIMES
+
+
+Uncle Peter Stower, in dying and leaving his four grandnieces the
+Milton property, had left them, in addition (or so Ruth Kenway and her
+sisters concluded), the duty of overlooking the welfare of certain
+poor people who occupied the Stower tenements on Meadow Street, over
+toward the canal.
+
+These tenants were mostly poor people; but Mrs. Kranz, who kept a
+delicatessen store and grocery, and Joe Maroni, whom Dot said was
+"both an ice man and a nice man" were two of the tenants who were
+well-to-do.
+
+Joe Maroni, whose family lived in the corner cellar under Mrs. Kranz's
+store, sold coal and wood, as well as ice, and had a vegetable and
+fruit stand on the sidewalk. Mrs. Kranz, the large German woman, was
+one of the Kenway girls' staunchest friends. Both these shopkeepers
+were sure to aid the Corner House sisters in their plans for
+Christmas.
+
+The year before the children of the Stower estate tenants had appeared
+under the bedroom windows of the old Corner House early on Christmas
+morning and sung Christmas chants.
+
+"Agnes said, just as though it was in old fuel times," Dot eagerly
+told Cecile Shepard. "And Aggie wanted to throw large yeast cakes
+among 'em. You know, like Lady Bountiful did, and--"
+
+"Oh! _Oh!_ OH!" gasped Tess, in horror and amazement. "Why will you,
+Dot, mix up your words so? It wasn't fuel times, it was feudal times."
+
+"And why throw away the yeast cakes?" demanded Cecile, in amused
+wonder.
+
+"Dear me!" exclaimed Tess, with vast disdain. "She means _largess_.
+That means gifts. Dot thought it was 'large yeast.' I never did hear
+of such a child!"
+
+"Well, I don't care!" wailed Dot, who did not like to be taken to task
+for mispronouncing words, or for other mistakes in English. "I don't
+think you are at all polite, Tessie Kenway, and I'm going to tell
+Ruth--so now!"
+
+Which proved that even the little Corner House girls had their little
+spats. Everything did not always go smoothly.
+
+However, the plans for the entertainment of the Meadow Street families
+were made without any trouble. It was decided to have a great tree for
+the whole crowd, and to set it up in a small hall on Meadow Street,
+where certain lodges held their meetings, the date set for the
+entertainment being a week in advance of Christmas Eve--the night
+before the Corner House party was to start for Red Deer Lodge.
+
+Mrs. Kranz took charge of the dressing of the tree, for when she was a
+child in the old country a Christmas tree was the great annual feast.
+Not a child among those belonging in the Stower tenements was
+forgotten--nor the grown folk, either, for that matter.
+
+Tess and Dot did their share in the purchasing of the presents and
+preparing them for the tree. They both delighted in shopping, and
+their favorite mart of trade was the five and ten cent store on Main
+Street.
+
+Such a jumble of things as they bought! The beauty of buying in the
+five and ten cent store is (or so the children declared) that one can
+get so much for a dollar.
+
+Every afternoon for a week before the day set for the pre-Christmas
+celebration, the little folks trudged down to their favorite emporium
+and came back with their arms laden with a variety of articles to
+delight the hearts and eyes of the Meadow Street children.
+
+Dolls and dolls' toys were of course Dot's favorite purchases. Tess
+went in for the more practical things--some to be hung on the tree
+marked with her own private card for the grown-up members of the
+expected audience.
+
+In any case, and altogether, there was gathered at the old Corner
+House to be hung on the Christmas tree for the Meadow Street people a
+two-bushel basket of little packages, mostly from the five and ten
+cent store.
+
+Ruth and Agnes saw to it that there were plenty of practical things
+for the poor children, too: warm coats, caps, leggings, shoes,
+mittens--a dozen other useful things which would be needed by the
+younger Goronofskys, the Pedermans, the O'Harras, and all the rest of
+the conglomerate crew occupying the Stower tenements.
+
+And they had _four_ "Santa Clauses"! Although, more properly speaking,
+they were "the Misses Santa Claus." The Kenway sisters, in the
+prescribed uniforms of the good St. Nicholas, presided over the
+distribution of the presents from the illuminated tree.
+
+Dot had every faith in the reality of Santa Claus, nor would her
+sisters disabuse her of that cheerful belief.
+
+"But, of course," the smallest Corner House girl said, "I know Santa
+can't be everywhere at once. And this is a week too early for him,
+anyway. And on Christmas Eve he does have to rush around so to get to
+everybody's house!
+
+"We're just going to make believe be Santa, Sammy," she explained to
+that small boy. "And we're not going to be like you were last
+Christmas, Sammy, and fall down the chimney and frighten everybody
+so."
+
+"Huh!" grumbled Sammy, to whom his fiasco as a Santa Claus in the old
+Corner House chimney was a sore subject. "If that old brick hadn't
+fallen I wouldn't have come down so sudden. And my mom burned my Santa
+Claus suit up in the furnace because it was all over soot."
+
+This night in the Meadow Street hall was long to be remembered. Mr.
+Howbridge made a speech. It was a winter when work was hard to get,
+and at Ruth's personal request he announced that a dollar a month
+would be taken off every tenant's rent during the "hard times."
+
+Mrs. Kranz and Joe Maroni, being in so much better circumstances than
+the majority of the Stower estate tenants, gave many things for the
+Christmas tree, too. There was candy, and cakes, and popcorn, and nuts
+for the little folk, and hot drinks and cake and sandwiches for the
+adults.
+
+Altogether it was a night long to be remembered by the Corner House
+girls. Even the little ones had begun to understand their duty toward
+these poor people who helped swell the Kenway family bank account. The
+estate might not now draw down the fifteen per cent. that Uncle Peter
+Stower always demanded; but the income from the Meadow Street
+tenements was considerable, and the tenants were now happier and more
+content.
+
+"It must be lovely," Cecile Shepard confessed to Ruth and Agnes, "to
+have so many folks to look out for, and be kind to, and who like you.
+And Ruthie has such a way with her. I can see the women all admire
+her."
+
+Agnes began to giggle. "Who wouldn't admire her?" she said. "Ruth
+believes in helping folks just the way they want to be helped. She
+doesn't furnish only flannels and cough sirup to the poor. Oh, no!"
+
+"Now, Agnes!" admonished the older girl, blushing.
+
+"I don't care! It's too good a joke, and it shows just why those
+people over on Meadow Street worship Ruth," went on the younger
+sister. "Did you see that biggest Pederman girl? Olga, the one with
+the white eyebrows and no lashes?"
+
+"Yes," said Cecile. "Her face looks almost like a blank wall."
+
+"And a white-washed wall at that," went on Agnes. "She's a grown
+woman, but she hasn't any too much intelligence. She was awfully sick
+with diphtheria last spring, and Ruth went to see her--carrying gifts,
+of course."
+
+"Things to eat don't much appeal to you when you have diphtheria and
+can't swallow," put in Ruth.
+
+"I know that," chuckled Agnes. "And what do you think, Cecile? Ruthie
+asked Olga what she would like to have--if she could get her anything
+special?
+
+"'Yes, Miss Wuth,' she croaked. Olga can't pronounce her 'R's' very
+well. 'Yes, Miss Wuth, I've been wantin' a pair of them dangly jet
+eawin's for so long!' And what do you suppose?" Agnes exploded in
+conclusion. "Ruth went and bought them for her! She had them on
+tonight."
+
+"I don't care," Ruth said, with conviction. "The earrings came nearer
+to curing Olga than all Dr. Forsyth's medicine. He said so himself."
+
+"What do you think of that?" giggled Agnes.
+
+"I think it was awfully sweet of our Ruth," declared Cecile, hugging
+the oldest Kenway sister.
+
+Mrs. MacCall, for her part, was not at all sure that the Kenway
+sisters did not "encourage pauperism" in thus helping their tenants.
+Mrs. MacCall was conservative in the extreme.
+
+"No," Ruth said earnestly, "the dear little babies, and the little
+folks with empty 'tummies,' are not paupers, Mrs. MacCall. Nor are
+their parents such. We haven't a lazy tenant family in the Stower
+houses."
+
+"That may be as may be," said the housekeeper, shaking her head. "But
+they are too frequently out o' work to suit me. And guidness knows
+there's plenty to do in the world."
+
+"They're just unfortunate," reiterated Ruth. "We have been lucky. We
+never did a thing, we Kenways, to get Uncle Peter's wealth. We've had
+better luck than the Pedermans and Goronofskys."
+
+"Hush, my lassie! If you undertake to level things in this world for
+all, you've a big job cut out for you. Nae doot of that."
+
+Although the housekeeper was often opposed both in opinion and
+practice to Ruth and her sisters, the latter were eager to have Mrs.
+MacCall go with the vacation party as chaperone and manager. And,
+indeed, had Mrs. MacCall not agreed, it is doubtful if Ruth would have
+accepted Mr. Howbridge's invitation to go into the North Woods to Red
+Deer Lodge.
+
+Mrs. MacCall sacrificed her own desires and some comfort to accompany
+the young folks; but she did it cheerfully because of her love for the
+Corner House girls.
+
+Aunt Sarah Maltby would remain at home to oversee things at the Corner
+House; and of course Linda and Uncle Rufus would be with her.
+
+Trunks had been packed the day before the early celebration of
+Christmas in the Meadow Street lodge room, and had been sent on by
+train with the serving people that Hedden, Mr. Howbridge's butler and
+factotum, had engaged to go ahead of the vacation party and prepare
+Red Deer Lodge for occupancy over the holidays.
+
+Of course, Neale O'Neil and the older girls had their bags to carry
+with them, and Sammy Pinkney came over to the old Corner House bright
+and early on the morning of departure, lugging his bulging suitcase.
+
+"And I hope," Agnes said with severity, "that you haven't worms in
+that suitcase, with a lot of other worthless truck, as you had when
+you went on our automobile tour, Sammy."
+
+"Huh! where'd I dig fishworms this time of year?" responded the boy
+with scorn. "Besides, mom packed this bag, and she's left out a whole
+lot of things I'll need up there in the woods. She won't even let me
+take my bow-arrer and a steel trap I got down at the blacksmith shop
+by the canal. Of course, the latch of the trap was broke, but we might
+have fixed it and used it to catch wolves with."
+
+"Oh, my!" squealed Dot. "_Wolves?_ Why, they are savage!"
+
+"Course they are savage," said Sammy.
+
+"But--but Mr. Howbridge, our guardian, wouldn't let any wolves stay
+around that Darling Lodge. They might eat my Alice-doll!"
+
+"Sure," agreed the boy, as Agnes was not within hearing. "Like enough
+the wolf pack will chase us when we are sleighing, and you'll have to
+throw that doll over to pacificate 'em so we can escape with our
+lives. They do that in Russia. Throw the babies away to save folks'
+lives."
+
+"Well!" exclaimed Tess, half doubting this bold statement. "Babies
+must be awful cheap in Russia. Cheaper than they are here. You know we
+can't get a baby in this house, and we all would like to have one."
+
+But Dot had been stricken dumb by Sammy's wild statement. She hugged
+the Alice-doll to her breast, and her eyes were wide with fear.
+
+"Do you suppose that may happen, Tess?" she whispered.
+
+"What may happen?"
+
+"That we get chased by wolfs and--and have to throw somebody overboard
+to 'em?"
+
+"I don't believe so," said Tess, after all somewhat impressed by
+Sammy's assurance.
+
+"Well, anyway," said Dot, "I was only going to take Alice up there to
+that Lodge; but I'll take the sailor-doll, too. He can stand being
+thrown to the wolves better than Alice. He's tougher."
+
+If it had not already been decided to take Tom Jonah, the big
+Newfoundland, along on this winter trip, Dot might really have balked
+at going.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+ON THE WINGS OF THE WIND
+
+
+However, aside from Dot's disturbance of mind over the trip into the
+deep woods where, on occasion, babies had to be flung to wolves, there
+was something that disturbed Ruth on this morning which almost made
+her doubt the advisability of starting for Red Deer Lodge.
+
+Ruth had been up as early as Linda, the Finnish maid. There was still
+much to do, and the sleigh would be at the door at eight-thirty. When
+Linda came down, however, she stopped at Ruth's door and said she had
+heard Uncle Rufus groaning most of the night. The old colored man was
+undoubtedly suffering from one of his recurrent rheumatic attacks.
+
+Ruth hurried up to the third story of the house and to Uncle Rufus'
+room.
+
+"Yes'm, Missie Ruth," groaned the old man. "Ah's jes' knocked right
+down ag'in. Ah don' believe Ah's goin' to be able to git up a-tall to
+see yo' off dis mawnin'."
+
+"Poor Uncle Rufus!" said the oldest Corner House girl,
+commiseratingly. "I believe I'd better telephone to Dr. Forsyth and
+let him come--"
+
+"No'm. Ah don' want dat Dr. Forsyth to come a-near me, Missie Ruth,"
+interrupted Uncle Rufus.
+
+"Why, of course you do," said the girl. "He gave you something before
+that helped you. Don't you remember?"
+
+"Ah don' say he don' know he's business, Missie Ruth," said the old
+man, shaking his head. "Mebbe his med'cine's jest as good as de nex'
+doctor's med'cine. But Ah don' want Dr. Forsyth no mo'."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Dr. Forsyth done insulted me," said the old man, with rising
+indignation. "He done talk about me."
+
+"Why, Uncle Rufus!"
+
+"Sho' has!" repeated the black man. "An' Ah nebber did him a mite o'
+harm. He done say things about me dat I can't nebber overlook--no,
+ma'am!"
+
+"Why, Uncle Rufus!" murmured the worried Ruth, "I think you must be
+mistaken. I can't imagine Dr. Forsyth being unkind, or saying unkind
+things about one."
+
+"He sho' did," declared the obstinate old man. "And he done put it in
+writin'. You jes' reach me ma best coat, Missie Ruth. It's all set
+down dar on ma burial papers."
+
+Of course, Uncle Rufus, like most frugal colored people, belonged to a
+"burial association"--an insurance scheme by which one must die to
+win.
+
+"What could Dr. Forsyth have said about you that you think is unkind,
+Uncle Rufus?" repeated Ruth, as she came into the room to get the
+coat.
+
+"Ah tell yo' what he done said!" exclaimed the old man, indignantly.
+"Dr. Forsyth say Ah was a drunkard an' a joy-rider! Dat's what he say!
+An' de goodness know, Missie Ruth, I ain't tetch a drap of gin fo'
+many a long year, and I ain't nebber step foot in even your
+automobile. No'm! He done insulted me befo' de members of ma burial
+lodge, an' I don' want nothin' mo' to do wid dat white man--no'm!"
+
+He spread out the insurance policy with a flourish and pointed to the
+examining doctor's notation regarding Uncle Rufus' former illness:
+"Autotoxication."
+
+"Ah's a respectable man," urged Uncle Rufus, evidently hurt to the
+quick by what he thought was Dr. Forsyth's uncalled-for criticism. "Ah
+don't get drunk in no auto--no'm! An' I don't go scootin' roun' de
+country in one o' dem 'bominations. Dere is niggers w'at owns one o'
+dem flivvers an' drinks gin wid it. But not Unc' Rufus--no'm!"
+
+"I never would accuse you of such reprehensible habits," Ruth assured
+him, having considerable difficulty in suppressing after all a desire
+to laugh. "Nor does Dr. Forsyth mean anything like that."
+
+She explained carefully to the old negro that "autotoxication" meant
+"self-poisoning"--the poisoning of the body by unexpelled organic
+matter. This poison, in the form of an acid in the blood, was the
+cause of Uncle Rufus' pains and aches.
+
+"Fo' de lan's sake!" murmured Uncle Rufus. "Is dat sho' 'nough so,
+Missie Ruth?"
+
+"You know I would not mislead you, Uncle Rufus."
+
+"Dat's right. You would not," agreed the old man. "An' is dat what dat
+fool white doctor mean? Ah jes' got rheumatics, like Ah always has?"
+
+"Yes, Uncle Rufus."
+
+"Tell me, Missie Ruth," he asked, "what do dem doctors want to use
+sech wo'ds fo', when dere is common wo'ds to use dat a pusson kin
+understan'?"
+
+"Just for that reason, I fancy," laughed Ruth. "So the patient cannot
+understand. The doctors think it isn't well for the patient to know
+too much about what ails him, so they call ordinary illnesses by hard
+names."
+
+"Ain't it a fac'? Ain't it a fac'?" repeated Uncle Rufus, shaking his
+head. "Ah reckon if we knowed too much, we wouldn't want doctors
+a-tall, eh? Well, now, Missie Ruth, you let dat Lindy gal git ma'
+medicine bottle filled down to de drug store, and Ah'll dose up like
+Ah done befo'. If dat white doctor's medicine was good fo' one time,
+it ought to be good fo' another time."
+
+Uncle Rufus remained in bed, however, and the little girls and Sammy,
+as well as Neale and Agnes, trooped up to say good-bye to him before
+they started for the railway station.
+
+The north-bound express train halted at Milton at three minutes past
+nine, and the Corner House party were in good season for it. Mr.
+Howbridge joined them on the station platform. Hedden, the lawyer's
+man, having gone ahead to make the path smooth for his employer and
+his friends, Mr. Howbridge and Neale attended to getting the tickets
+and to the light baggage; and they made the three older girls, Mrs.
+MacCall, and the children comfortable in the chair car. Tom Jonah, of
+course, rode in the baggage car.
+
+It was two hundred miles and more to Culberton, at the foot of Long
+Lake. The train made very good time, but it was past one o'clock when
+they alighted at the lake city. There was a narrow gauge road here
+that followed the line of the lake in a northerly direction; but it
+was little more than a logging road and the trains were so slow, and
+the schedule so poor, that Mr. Howbridge had planned for other and
+more novel means of transportation up the lake to the small town from
+which they would have to strike back into the wilderness by
+"tote-road" to Red Deer Lodge. But this new means of transportation,
+he told the young people, depended entirely upon the wind.
+
+"Goodness!" gasped Agnes, "are we going up the lake by kite?"
+
+"In a balloon, maybe?" Cecile laughed.
+
+"Oh!" murmured Tess, who was much interested in air traffic, "I hope
+it's a big aeroplane."
+
+"Nothing like that," Neale assured her. "But if we have a good wind
+you'll think we're flying, Tess."
+
+Mr. Howbridge had taken the ex-circus boy into his confidence; but the
+rest of the party were so busy greeting Luke Shepard, who was waiting
+for them at this point, that they did not consider much how they were
+to get up the lake. There was no train leaving Culberton over the Lake
+Branch until evening. Neale disappeared immediately after greeting
+Luke, and took Tom Jonah with him.
+
+In a few minutes Neale returned to the waiting room of the Culberton
+railroad station, and said to Mr. Howbridge:
+
+"They are about ready. Man says the wind is good, and likely to be
+fresher, if anything. Favorable time. He's making 'em ready."
+
+"What's going on?" asked Luke, who was a handsome young collegian
+particularly interested in Ruth Kenway, and not too serious to be
+enthusiastic over the secret the lawyer and Neale had between them.
+
+"Come on and we'll show you," Neale said, grinning.
+
+"No, no!" exclaimed Mr. Howbridge. "Let us have lunch first. We have a
+long, cold ride before us."
+
+"In what?" Agnes asked. "We don't take to the sleigh yet, do we?"
+
+"Aren't the cars on the branch line heated?" Ruth asked. "You know, we
+must not let the children get cold--and Mrs. MacCall."
+
+"Don't mind about me, lassie," returned the Scotchwoman. "I'll trust
+myself to Mr. Howbridge."
+
+"We'll go to the hotel first of all," said the lawyer. "Hedden will
+have arranged for our comfort there--and other things, as well. Do not
+be afraid for the children, Martha."
+
+But "Martha" could not help being a bit worried, even if Mrs. MacCall
+was along. And Neale's grin was too impish to be comforting.
+
+"I know you men folks are cooking up something," she sighed. "And I am
+not at all sure, Mr. Howbridge, that you consider the needs of small
+children like Tess and Dot and Sammy."
+
+"Huh!" grunted Sammy, who overheard this.
+
+"I suppose if I had taken my twins home three months ago when Frank
+Birdsall died, you think I would have learned something about the
+needs and care of young persons by this time?" suggested the lawyer.
+
+"Oh, I am sure you would have learned a great deal," agreed Ruth,
+unable to suppress a smile.
+
+"I wish I had!" groaned Mr. Howbridge.
+
+The mystery of the disappearance of Ralph and Rowena Birdsall weighed
+on Mr. Howbridge's mind continually. He did not often let the trouble
+come to the surface, however, being desirous of giving the young
+people with him a good time.
+
+The surprise in store for them added zest to the enjoyment of the nice
+luncheon at the Culberton hotel. At half past two they all trooped out
+of the hotel, bags in hand, and instead of returning to the railway
+station, set off down the hill toward the docks.
+
+"Are we going by steamer?" Agnes wanted to know. "Is there a channel
+open through the ice? I never _did_!"
+
+"If there were two feet of ice on the Arlington Pond so that they
+could not drag it for the poor Birdsall twins," Ruth said, "surely
+this lake must be frozen quite as thick."
+
+"But there's a sailboat! I see one!" cried Tess, pointing between the
+buildings as they approached the waterfront.
+
+"And there's another," said Sammy. "Oh, Je-ru-sa-_lem_! Looky, Aggie!
+That boat's sailing on the ice!"
+
+"Oh-ee!" squealed Agnes, clasping her hands and letting her bag fall
+to the ground. "Ice-boats! Neale! Are they really ice-boats?"
+
+"And are we going to sail on them?" murmured Ruth.
+
+"For mercy's sake!" gasped the housekeeper. "Here's a fine thing! Have
+you gone daft, Mr. Howbridge?"
+
+"It will be a new experience for you and me, Mrs. MacCall," said the
+lawyer calmly. "But they tell me it is very invigorating."
+
+"It's the nearest thing to flying, as far as the sensation goes, that
+there is, I guess," Luke Shepard put in.
+
+"I used to have a scooter when we were in winter quarters," said Neale
+O'Neil to Agnes. "Don't be afraid, Aggie."
+
+"Oh, I won't be afraid if you are along, Neale," promptly declared the
+little beauty. "I know you will take care of me."
+
+"You bet!" responded Neale, his eyes shining.
+
+As they came down to the big wharf the party got a better view of the
+lake front. There were at least a dozen ice-boats, large and small, in
+motion. Those farthest out from the shore had caught the full sweep of
+the wind and were darting about, as Mrs. MacCall said, like water-bugs
+on the surface of a pond.
+
+Ruth looked around keenly as they came out on the wharf.
+
+"Why!" she said to Mr. Howbridge, "this is the lumber company's wharf.
+The company you said had bought the timber on the Birdsall Estate."
+
+"It is the Neven Lumber Company, as you can see by the sign over the
+offices yonder," agreed their guardian. "And here comes Neven
+himself."
+
+A red-faced man with a red vest on which were small yellow dots and
+some grease spots, and who chewed a big and black cigar and wore his
+hard hat on one side of his head, approached the group as Mr.
+Howbridge spoke. He hailed the latter jovially.
+
+"Hey, Howbridge! Glad to see you. So these are your folks, are they?
+Hope you'll have a merry Christmas up there in the woods. Nice place,
+Birdsall's Lodge."
+
+"Thank you," said the lawyer quietly.
+
+"Which of 'em's Birdsall's young ones?" continued the lumber dealer,
+staring about with very bold eyes, and especially at Ruth Kenway and
+Cecile Shepard.
+
+"I am sorry to say, Mr. Neven," said the lawyer, "that the Birdsall
+twins are not with us. The children have run away from their home--a
+home with people who have known them since they were born. It is a
+very strange affair, and is causing me much worry."
+
+"You don't say!" exclaimed Neven. "Too bad! Too bad! But they'll turn
+up. Young 'uns always do. I ran away myself when I was a kid; and look
+at me now," and the lumberman puffed out his chest proudly, as though
+satisfied that Lem Neven was a good deal of a man.
+
+"I reckon," pursued the lumberman, "that you think it's your duty to
+go up to the Birdsall place and look over the piece I've got stumpage
+on. But you don't re'lly need to. My men are scientific, I tell you. I
+don't hire no old has-beens like Ike M'Graw. Those old timber cruisers
+are a hundred years behind the times."
+
+"They have one very good attribute. At least, Ike has," Mr. Howbridge
+said quietly.
+
+"What's that?" asked Neven.
+
+"He is perfectly honest," was the dry response. "I shall base my
+demands for the Birdsall estate on Ike's report. I assure you of that
+now, Mr. Neven, so that you need build no false hopes upon the reports
+of your own cruisers. As the contract stands we can close it out and
+deal with another company if it seems best to do so. And some
+company--either yours or another----will go in there right after New
+Year's and begin to cut."
+
+He turned promptly away from the red-faced man and followed his party
+along the wharf to its end. Here lay two large ice-boats. There was a
+boxlike cockpit on each that would hold four passengers comfortably,
+besides the tiller men and the boy who "trimmed ship." A crew of two
+went with each boat.
+
+"How will the other two of our party travel?" asked Ruth, when these
+arrangements were explained.
+
+Already Neale O'Neil had beckoned Agnes to one side. There lay behind
+the two big boats a skeleton-like arrangement, with a seat at the
+stern no wider than a bobsled, and another on the "outrigger," or
+crossbeam. This scooter carried a huge boom for a leg-o'-mutton sail,
+and it was a type of the very fastest ice-boats on the lake.
+
+Neale helped the eager Agnes down a rude ladder to the ice. She was
+just reckless enough to desire to try the new means of locomotion. Her
+exclamations of delight drew Ruth to the edge of the wharf over their
+heads.
+
+"What are you two doing down there?" asked the older girl.
+
+"Oh, now, Ruthie!" murmured Agnes, "do let me go with Neale in this
+pretty boat. There isn't room for us in the bigger boats. Do!"
+
+Ruth knew very little about racing ice-boats. The scooter looked no
+more dangerous to her than did the lumbering craft that Hedden had
+engaged for the rest of the party.
+
+These bigger boats, furnished with square sails rather than the
+leg-o'-muttons they now flaunted, were commonly used to transfer
+merchandise, or even logs up and down the lake. They were lumbering
+and slow.
+
+"Well, if Mr. Howbridge says you can," the oldest Corner House girl
+agreed, still somewhat doubtful.
+
+Neale had already begged permission of Mr. Howbridge. The lawyer was
+quite as ignorant regarding ice-boating as Ruth herself. Neither of
+them considered that any real harm could come to Neale and Agnes in
+the smaller craft.
+
+The crews of the larger ice-boats were experienced boatmen. They got
+their lumbering craft under way just as soon as the passengers were
+settled with their light baggage in the cockpits. There were bear
+robes and blankets in profusion. Although the wind was keen, the party
+did not expect that Jack Frost would trouble them.
+
+"Isn't this great?" cried Cecile, who was in one of the boats with
+Ruth, her brother, and Sammy Pinkney. "My! we always manage to have
+such very nice times when we are with you Corner House girls, Ruthie."
+
+"This is all new to me," admitted her friend. "I hope nothing will
+happen to wreck us."
+
+"Wreck us! Fancy!" laughed Cecile.
+
+"This wind is very strong, just the same," said Ruth.
+
+"Hold hard!" cried Luke, laughing. "Low bridge!"
+
+The boom swung over, and they all stooped quickly to avoid it. The
+next moment the big sail filled, bulging with the force of the wind.
+The heavy runners began to whine over the powdered ice, and they went
+swiftly onward toward the middle of the lake.
+
+"On the wings of the wind! How delightful!" cried Cecile. Then she
+said again: "Isn't this great?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE SCOOTER
+
+
+Sammy Pinkney had desired greatly to go with Neale and Agnes on the
+smaller ice-boat; but they would not hear to the proposal. He struck
+up an acquaintance with the "crew" of the big boat to which he was
+assigned, and gave Ruth and Luke Shepard no trouble.
+
+In the other large boat Mr. Howbridge, Mrs. MacCall and the two
+smallest Corner House girls, as well as Tom Jonah, were very cozily
+ensconced. Dot clutched the Alice-doll very tightly and Tom Jonah
+barked loudly when the barge slithered out upon the lake and began to
+gather speed as the fresh wind filled the big sail.
+
+Mrs. MacCall continued to have her doubts regarding the safety of this
+strange means of locomotion.
+
+"There's one good thing about it," she chattered, as the sledge jarred
+over a few hummocks. "There's nae so far to fall if we do fall out."
+
+"It's perfectly safe, they tell me," Mr. Howbridge assured her.
+
+"Aye. It may look so," the good woman admitted. "But 'tis like Tam
+Taggart goin' to London."
+
+"How was that?" the lawyer asked, smiling.
+
+"Tam was one o' these canny Highlanders, and he made up his mind after
+muckle thought to spend a week in London. He went to 'broaden his
+mind,' as they call it. Truly, to prove to himself that London and the
+English were quite as bad as he'd believed all his life.
+
+"So he goes to London, and he comes home again--very solemn like.
+Nobody could get a word out of him at first," pursued Mrs. MacCall.
+"Finally the folks, they gathered around him at the post-office and
+one says:
+
+"'What ails ye, Tam? Ye've no told us anything aboot Lunnon. Is it nae
+the fine place they'd have us believe?'
+
+"'Oo, aye, 'tis nae so bad,' says Tam. 'But they are nae honest up
+there.'
+
+"'Whit way air they no honest, Tam?' asks his friends.
+
+"'Weel,' says Tam, 'I aye had my doots all the time; but I made sure
+the day I bought me a penny-packet of needles. On the outside o' it,
+it said there was one thousand needles inside.'
+
+"'Oh, aye?'
+
+"'I coonted 'em,' says Tam, 'an'--wad ye believe it?--there was only
+nine hundred and ninety-three!' And this boat-sliding may look all
+right," concluded the Corner House housekeeper, "but, like Tam, 'I
+have me doots!'"
+
+As the boat gathered speed, following the one on which Ruth and her
+companions sailed out into the open lake, the little girls squealed
+their delight. Even Dot forgot her fears. And Tom Jonah "smiled" just
+as broadly as he could.
+
+"Oh, Tessie!" Dot gasped. "It _is_ like flying! My breath's too big
+for my mouth--just like I was in a swing."
+
+"I guess you must feel like poor Sandyface did when Sammy sent her
+with her kittens from our house to his in the fly-a-majig. You
+remember?" said Tess.
+
+"I should say I did!" agreed Dot in her old-fashioned way. "What an
+awful time that was, wasn't it? And Sammy got spanked."
+
+"Sammy's always getting spanked," Tess said coolly.
+
+"Ye-as. He is. But I guess he's never got used to it yet," responded
+the smallest Corner House girl thoughtfully.
+
+The wind, when they faced forward, almost took their breath. The
+little girls cowered down under the warm robes, looking astern. So
+their bright eyes were the first to catch sight of the scooter
+shooting out into the lake behind them.
+
+The wharves and dun-colored houses of Culberton were already far
+astern. And how fast the town was receding!
+
+The smaller ice-boat, however, overtook the big boats almost as though
+the latter were standing still! The others caught sight of the
+careening ice-racer soon after Dot and Tess first shouted. But neither
+of the little girls nor the other members of the party realized that
+Neale and Agnes were aboard the craft that came, meteor-like, up the
+lake.
+
+They had started sedately enough, Neale O'Neil at the stern with the
+tiller ropes in his mittened hands and Agnes strapped into the seat on
+the outrigger, with the bight of the running sheet in her charge.
+
+Neale had told her plainly what to do ordinarily, and had instructed
+her to look to him for orders in any emergency. It looked to be very
+simple, this working out an ice-scooter that had in it the possibility
+of sailing at any speed up to a hundred miles an hour!
+
+Somebody had started the creaking boat with the purchase of a pike
+pole at the rear. The peavy bit into the ice, and the scooter rocked
+out from the wharf. The big sail was already spread. They had wabbled
+out of the confinement of the dock slowly and sedately enough.
+
+Suddenly the wind puffed into the sail and bellied it. The stick bent
+and groaned. It seemed as though the runners stuck to the surface of
+the ice and the mast would be torn from the framework of the craft.
+
+Then she really started!
+
+The powerful on-thrust of the wind in the sail shot the scooter away
+from the shore. She swooped like a gull across the ice. The whining of
+steel on ice rose to a painful shriek in Agnes' ears.
+
+She was scared. Oh, yes, she was scared! But she would not admit
+it--not for worlds! Faster and faster the scooter moved. The girl
+looked back once at Neale and caught a glimpse of his confident smile.
+It heartened her wonderfully.
+
+"Hold hard, Aggie!" his strong voice shouted, and she nodded, blinking
+the water out of her eyes.
+
+They had headed up Long Lake as they left the shore, and they could
+travel on the wind, and without tacking, for a long way. They
+overhauled the two big barges in which the rest of the party sailed,
+in a way that fairly made Agnes gasp. She had never traveled so fast
+before in all her life.
+
+The scooter struck a hummock in the ice. It was not six inches above
+the general level of the crystal surface of the lake. But the impetus
+it gave the ice-boat sent that seemingly fragile craft up into the
+air! She left the ice for a long, breathtaking, humming jump. It
+seemed to Agnes as though they were going right up into the air, very
+much as an aeroplane soars from the earth.
+
+Indeed, had the ice-boat a movable tail like an aeroplane, surely it
+would completely take to the air. Next to piloting an aeroplane,
+ice-boat racing is the greatest sport in the world.
+
+Spang! The scooter took to the ice again and ran like a scared rabbit.
+The stays sang a new tune. Had the sheet not had a simple cast about a
+peg beside her, Agnes would surely have lost the bight of it.
+
+But Neale had told her certain things to do, and she would not fail
+him. Through half-blinded eyes she cast another glance at him over her
+shoulder. The boy showed no evidence of panic, and Agnes was ashamed
+to display her own inner feelings.
+
+When Neale said, "You're a regular little sport, Aggie!" it was the
+finest tribute to character that Agnes Kenway knew anything about. She
+was determined to win his approval now, if never before.
+
+Ruth saw them coming, but had no idea at first that the careening
+ice-racer was the small boat that Neale and her sister had engaged for
+the run up the lake. The schooner came on like, and with, the wind!
+
+"See that boat, Cecile!" cried the oldest Corner House girl. "How
+reckless it is to ride so fast. Suppose the mast should snap or a
+skate should break? My!"
+
+"But look how they fly!" agreed her friend.
+
+"Hey!" exclaimed Luke. "That's Neale O'Neil steering that thing."
+
+"Oh! Mercy! _Agnes!_" shrieked Ruth, her eyes suddenly opened to the
+identity of the two on the scooter.
+
+"Hoorah!" yelled Luke. "What speed!"
+
+The party on the other big boat had recognized the two on the scooter.
+The fur-trimmed coat and brilliant-hued hood Agnes wore could not be
+mistaken.
+
+"Stop them! Stop them!" moaned Ruth, really alarmed.
+
+It seemed to her that the boat she was riding in was going much too
+fast for safety; but the scooter flew up the lake at a pace that made
+the big boats seem to stand still.
+
+Neale plainly knew how to handle the racer. He passed the two barges
+and then tacked, aiming to cross the bows of the bigger craft.
+
+Instantly, as the boom swung around, Agnes' end of the crossbeam went
+into the air! They saw her sail upward, the flashing steel runners at
+least four feet above the ice!
+
+The girl's wind-whipped face was still smiling. Indeed, that smile
+seemed frozen on. As the racer rushed by Agnes looked down upon her
+sisters and other friends and waved one hand to them.
+
+Then, like a huge kite, the big-bellied sail raced off across the
+lake, taking the reckless pair almost instantly out of earshot.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE VILLAGE ON THE ICE
+
+
+The wild plunge of the scooter across the lake carried it, before a
+wind-squall, far out of hearing of Ruth Kenway's voice. Yet she
+shouted long and loud after her sister. Luke pulled her back into her
+seat when she would have stood up to watch the careening scooter.
+
+"They are in no danger," he urged. "Take it easy, Ruth."
+
+"Why, they must be in peril! Did you see her--Agnes--up in the air?"
+
+"Well, she's down again all right now, Ruthie," said Cecile Shepard
+soothingly.
+
+"Oh, if I had only known!"
+
+"Known what?" asked Luke, inclined to grin if the truth was told.
+
+"That the small boat would sail like that. Why, it is worse than a
+racing automobile!"
+
+"Faster, I guess. Almost as fast as a motorcycle," Luke agreed. "But
+Neale's managed one of those things before. He told me all about it."
+
+"But why didn't somebody tell me about it?" demanded Ruth rather
+stormily.
+
+"Tell you about what?" asked Cecile.
+
+"About how fast that reckless thing would sail? Why! I'd never have
+allowed Aggie to ride on it in this world."
+
+In the other big ice-boat there was much anxiety as well. Mr.
+Howbridge and Mrs. MacCall would have stopped the reckless ones could
+they have done so, and Tom Jonah was barking his head off. He, too,
+had recognized Agnes and Neale and believed that all was not right
+with them.
+
+The scooter, however, was clear across the lake again; they saw it
+tack once more, and this time, because of the favoring breeze, Neale
+headed her directly up the lake. Every minute he and Agnes on their
+racer were leaving the rest of the party behind.
+
+These scooters cannot be sailed at a slow pace. The skeleton craft is
+so light, and the sail so big, that the least puff of breeze drives it
+ahead at railroad speed.
+
+Now with a pretty steady breeze behind them, the scooter was bound to
+"show off." Nor did the young people realize just how fast they
+sailed, or how perilous their course looked to their friends.
+
+"We're running away from them!" Agnes managed to throw back over her
+shoulder at Neale.
+
+"Can't help it!" he cried in return. "This old scooter has taken the
+bit in its teeth."
+
+Agnes had begun to enjoy the speed to the full now. Why! this was
+better than motoring over the finest kind of oiled road. And the young
+girl did like to travel fast.
+
+She began to see that the farther they went up Long Lake the wilder
+the shores appeared to be and the fewer houses there were visible.
+Here and there was a little village, with a white-steepled church
+pointing heavenward among the almost black spruce and pine. Again, a
+cleared farm showed forth, its fields sheeted with snow.
+
+The lake was quite ten miles broad in most places, and occasionally it
+spread to a width of more than twice that number of miles. Then they
+could barely see the hazy shoreline at all.
+
+"We could not be lonesomer," thought Agnes, "if we were sailing on the
+ocean!"
+
+The sails behind them had all disappeared. Once a squad of timber
+barges with square sails was passed. The barges were going up empty to
+the head of the lake there to be loaded and await a favoring breeze to
+bring them back to Culberton again. It was much cheaper for the lumber
+concerns to sail the logs down the lake if they could, than to load
+them on the narrow gauge railroad and pay freight to Culberton. The
+sticks had to be handled at the foot of the lake, anyway.
+
+The scooter went past these slowly sailing barges almost as rapidly as
+they had passed the two boats in which sailed the remainder of the
+Corner House party. The stays creaked and the steel whined on the ice,
+while the wind boomed in the big sail like a muffled drum.
+
+The sun, hazy and red like the face of a haymaker in harvest time, was
+going westward and would soon disappear behind the mountain ridge
+which followed the shoreline of the lake, but at a distance. It was up
+in the foothills of those mountains that Red Deer Lodge was located.
+
+After passing the empty barges the boy and girl on the scooter saw no
+other sail nor anything which excited their attention until Agnes
+suddenly beheld a group of objects on the ice near the western shore
+of the lake, not many miles ahead.
+
+She began almost immediately to wonder what these things could be, but
+she could not make Neale O'Neil understand the question she shouted to
+him. By and by, however, she saw for herself that the objects were a
+number of little huts, and that they really were built upon the frozen
+surface of the lake.
+
+Agnes was naturally very much interested in this strange sight. A
+village on the ice was something quite novel to her mind. She desired
+very much to ask questions of Neale, but the wind was too great and
+they were sailing too fast for her to make her desire known to her boy
+friend.
+
+So she just used her eyes (when they did not water too much) and
+stared at the strange collection of huts and its vicinity with all her
+might. Why! from lengths of stove pipe through some of the slanting
+roofs, smoke was climbing into the hazy atmosphere.
+
+Back of the ice-village, on the steep western shore of the lake, was
+built a regular town of slab shanties, with a slab church, stores, and
+the like. Quite a village, this, and when Agnes looked back at Neale
+questioningly and pointed to them, he shouted: "Coxford." So she knew
+it was their destination.
+
+Mr. Howbridge had said they would disembark from the ice-boats at
+Coxford, and there would take sledges into the woods. It was fast
+growing toward evening, however, and Agnes knew it would be too late
+when they landed to continue the journey to Red Deer Lodge before the
+next morning.
+
+The ice-village was about two miles out from the shore. There were
+half a hundred huts, some a dozen feet square. But for the most part
+they were much smaller. They had doors, but no windows, and, as the
+scooter drew swiftly nearer, Agnes could see that the structures were
+little more than wind-breaks.
+
+There were a number of people moving about the settlement of huts,
+however, and not a few children among them, as well as dogs. As the
+scooter drew near she saw, too, a team of horses drawing a sledge.
+This sledge was being loaded with boxes, or crates; and what those
+boxes could contain began to puzzle Agnes as much as anything else she
+saw about the queer village.
+
+Neale steered outside the line of the ice settlement; but once beyond
+it he brought the scooter up into the wind and yelled at Agnes to let
+go the sheet and falls. She loosened the lines from the pegs and
+allowed them to slip. Down came the shaking canvas, the wooden hoops
+clattering together as they slid down the greased mast. In a moment
+the speed of the scooter was lost and they were all but smothered in
+the fallen canvas.
+
+"Get out from under!" Neale's voice shouted.
+
+He dropped off at the stern and ran to the girl's aid. He unbuckled
+the belt that had secured Agnes to her seat on the outrigger all this
+while, and fairly dragged her from under the flapping sail.
+
+"Fine work!" Neale shouted, his voice full of laughter. "We made
+record time. But I'll let somebody else furl that sail."
+
+"Oh, Neale!" gasped the girl, hobbling like a cripple. "I ca--can't
+walk. I'm frozen stiff!"
+
+"Come on to the shanties. We'll get warm. Take hold here, Aggie.
+You'll be all right in a few minutes."
+
+"Oh, dear!" she said. "I did not know I was so cold. But what a race
+it was, Neale! Ruth will give us fits."
+
+"Won't she?" chuckled Neale.
+
+"But what is this place, Neale?" Agnes went on. "What are these people
+doing here?"
+
+"Fishing. Those are frozen fish they are loading on that sledge. Oh!
+There it goes! We can't get ashore on that, after all."
+
+"'Fishing'?" repeated the amazed girl. "How do they fish through the
+ice? I don't see any holes."
+
+[Illustration: "He fairly dragged her from under the flapping sail."]
+
+"No. The holes wouldn't stay open long, as cold as it is out here.
+It's about twenty below zero right now, my lady, and I'm keeping a
+sharp eye on your nose."
+
+"Oh! Oh!" gasped Agnes, putting her mittened hand tentatively to her
+nose. "Is that why you told me to keep my collar up over my mouth and
+nose?"
+
+"It is!" declared the boy, rubbing his own face vigorously. "If you
+see any white spot on anybody's face up here in this weather, grab a
+handful of snow and begin rubbing the spot."
+
+"Mercy!" Agnes murmured, with a gay little laugh. "Lucky Trix Severn
+doesn't come up here. She uses rice powder dreadfully, and folks would
+think she was being frost-bitten."
+
+"Uh-huh!" agreed Neale.
+
+"But you haven't told me how they fish," said the girl, as they
+approached nearer to the huts and she was able to walk better.
+
+"Through the ice of course," he laughed. "Only you don't see the
+holes. They are inside the huts."
+
+"You don't mean it, Neale?"
+
+"To be sure I mean it! Some of those big shanties house whole
+families. You see there are children and dogs. They have pot stoves
+which warm the huts to a certain degree, and on which they cook. And
+they have bunks built against the walls, with plenty of bedding."
+
+"Why, I should think they would get their death of cold!" gasped the
+girl.
+
+"That's just what they don't get," Neale rejoined. "You can bet there
+are no 'white plague' patients here. This atmosphere will kill
+tubercular germs like a hammer kills a flea."
+
+"Goodness, Neale!" giggled Agnes. "Did you ever kill a flea with a
+hammer?"
+
+"Yep. Sand-flea," he assured her, grinning. "Oh! I'm one quick lad,
+Aggie."
+
+She really thought he was joking, however, until she had looked into
+two or three of the huts. People really did live in them, as she saw.
+In the middle of the plank floors was a well, with open water kept
+clear of frost. The set-lines were fastened to pegs in the planks and
+the "flags" announced when a fish was on the hook.
+
+A smiling woman, done up like an Eskimo, invited them into one shack.
+She had evidently not seen the scooter arrive from down the lake and
+thought the boy and girl had walked out from Coxford.
+
+"Hello!" she said. "Goin' to try your hands at fishin'? You're town
+folks, ain't you?"
+
+"Yes," said Agnes, politely. "We come from Milton."
+
+"Lawsy! That's a fur ways," said the woman. She was peeling potatoes,
+and a kettle was boiling on the stove at one side. The visitors knew
+by the odor that there was corned beef in the pot. "You goin' to try
+your hands?" the woman repeated.
+
+"No," said Neale. "We are with a party that is going up to Red Deer
+Lodge."
+
+"Oh! That's the Birdsall place. You can't git up there tonight. It's
+too fur."
+
+"I guess we shall stay in Coxford," admitted Neale.
+
+"Didn't know but you an' your sister wanted to fish. Old Manny Cox got
+ketched with rheumatics so that he had to give up fishin' this season.
+I can hire you his shanty."
+
+"No, thank you!" murmured Agnes, her eyes round with interest.
+
+"I let it for a week or more to two gals," said the woman
+complacently. "Got five dollars out of 'em for Manny. He'll be needin'
+the money. Better stay awhile and try the fishin'."
+
+"Goodness! Two girls alone?" asked Agnes.
+
+"Yes. Younger'n you are, too. But they knowed their way around, I
+guess," said the woman. "Good lookin' gals. Nice clo'es. Town folks, I
+guess. Mebbe they wasn't older'n my Bob, and he's just turned twelve."
+
+"Twelve years old! And two girls alone?" murmured Agnes.
+
+"Oh, there ain't nobody to hurt you here. We don't never need no
+constable out here on the ice. There's plenty of women folks--Miz'
+Ashtable, and Hank Crummet's wife, and Mary Boley and her boys. Oh,
+lots o' women here. We can help make money in the winter.
+
+"There! See that set-line bob?"
+
+She dropped the potato she was paring and crossed to the well. One of
+the flags had dipped. With a strong hand she reeled in the wet line.
+At its end was a big pickerel--the biggest pickerel the visitors had
+ever seen.
+
+"There!" exclaimed the woman. "Sorry I didn't git that before Joe
+Jagson went with his load of fish. That's four pound if it weighs an
+ounce."
+
+She shook the flopping fish off the hook into a basket and then hung
+the basket outside the door. In the frosty air the fish did not need
+to be packed in ice. It would literally be ice within a very few
+minutes.
+
+"Got to hang 'em up to keep the dogs from gettin' them," said the
+woman, rebaiting the hook and then returning to her potato paring.
+"Can't leave 'em in a creel in the water, neither; pike would come
+along an' eat 'em clean to the bone."
+
+"Oh!" gasped Agnes.
+
+"Yes. Regular cannibals, them pike," said the woman. "But all big fish
+will eat little ones."
+
+"What kind of fish do you catch?" Neale asked.
+
+"Pickerel and pike, whitebait (we calls 'em that), perch, some lake
+bass and once in a while a lake trout. Trout's out o' season. We don't
+durst sell 'em. But we eat 'em. They ain't no 'season,' I tell 'em,
+for a boy's appetite; and I got three boys and my man to feed."
+
+At that moment there was a great shouting and barking of dogs outside,
+and Neale and Agnes went out of the hut to learn what it meant. The
+Corner House girl whispered to the boy:
+
+"What do you think about those two twelve year old girls coming here
+to stay and fish through the ice?"
+
+"Great little sports," commented Neale.
+
+"Well," exclaimed Agnes, "that's being too much of a sport, if you ask
+me!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+A COLD SCENT
+
+
+The barking of the dogs was in answer to the booming note that Tom
+Jonah sent echoing across the ice. Agnes and Neale found that the two
+big ice-boats were near at hand.
+
+As one of the crew of Mr. Howbridge's boat owned the scooter that
+Neale and Agnes had come up the lake on, that owner wished to recover
+his abandoned ice-boat. Besides, it was not more than two miles over
+the ice to Coxford, and the wind was going down with the sun. The big
+boats would have made slow work of it beating in to the slab-town on
+the western shore of the lake.
+
+Neale and Agnes ran out across the ice to meet their friends. Most of
+the party were glad indeed to get on their feet, for the ride up the
+lake had been a cold one.
+
+In fact, Tess could scarcely walk when she got out of her seat, and
+Dot tumbled right down on the ice, almost weeping.
+
+"I--I guess I haven't got any feet," the smallest Corner House girl
+half sobbed. "I can't feel 'em."
+
+"Course you've got feet, Dot," said Sammy, staggering a good deal
+himself when he walked toward her. "Just you jump up and down like
+this," and he proceeded to follow his own advice.
+
+"But won't we break through the ice?" murmured the smallest Corner
+House girl.
+
+"Why, Dot! do you s'pose," demanded Tess, "that you can jump hard
+enough to break through two feet of ice?"
+
+"Well, I never tried it before, did I?" demanded Dot. "How should _I_
+know what might happen to the old ice?"
+
+Agnes hurried the little ones over to the shanty of the friendly
+fisher-woman, where they could get warm and be sheltered from the raw
+wind that still puffed down in gusts from the hills.
+
+Tom Jonah had jumped out of the cockpit of the ice-boat and found
+himself immediately in the middle of what Luke Shepard called "a fine
+ruction."
+
+"Canines to right of him, canines to left of him, volleyed and
+thundered!" laughed the college youth. "Hey! call off your
+fish-hounds, or Tom Jonah will eat them up."
+
+One cur was already running away yelping and limping; the others took
+notice that the old dog had powerful jaws. But Ruth insisted that Tom
+Jonah be put on a leash, and Luke meekly obeyed. Indeed, he was likely
+to do almost anything that the oldest Corner House girl told him to
+do, "right up to jumping through the ring of a doughnut!" his sister
+whispered to Mrs. MacCall in great glee.
+
+"Well, my lassie," was the housekeeper's comment, "he might be mindin'
+a much worse mistress than our Ruthie."
+
+Nothing that Ruth could or did do in most matters was wrong in Mrs.
+MacCall's opinion, even if she did criticize the Kenways' charity. If
+Luke Shepard some day expected to get Ruth for his wife, the
+housekeeper considered that it was only right he should first learn to
+obey Ruth's behests in all things.
+
+Ruth had a word to say to Neale and Agnes at this time. She pointed
+out to those two restless and reckless younger ones that there must be
+no such venturesome escapades during the remainder of this winter
+vacation as that connected with the ice-scooter.
+
+"If you have no respect for your own bones, think of our feelings,"
+she concluded. "Why! I almost had heart disease when I saw that horrid
+scooter fly past with Agnes up in the air as though she were on a
+flying trapeze."
+
+"Shucks, Ruth!" said Neale, "you know I wouldn't let any harm come to
+Aggie."
+
+"Now, Neale," returned the older girl, "how would you keep her from
+getting hurt if that ice-boat broke in two, for instance?"
+
+"Oh, well--"
+
+"That's what I thought!" snapped Ruth. "You had not thought of that."
+
+"Don't scold him! Don't scold Neale!" begged Agnes. "He's all right."
+
+"Oh, no, he isn't," said Ruth grimly. "One side of him is left! And
+you will promise to be good or I'll make Mr. Howbridge send Neale
+home, right from here."
+
+"Oh!" cried her sister. "You would not be so mean, Ruthie Kenway."
+
+"I don't know but I would," Ruth rejoined. "I don't think so much of
+boys, anyway--"
+
+"Not until they get to be collegians," whispered Neale shrilly from
+behind his hand.
+
+Ruth's eyes snapped at that, and she marched away without another
+word. Mr. Howbridge refrained from commenting upon the incident, for
+he saw that Ruth had said quite all that was necessary.
+
+Neale and Agnes were much abashed. They followed the others slowly
+toward the village on the ice. Neale said:
+
+"Well, if she says I can't go any farther I'll stay right here and
+fish until you come back, Aggie."
+
+"Oh, Neale! You wouldn't!"
+
+"Why not? Maybe I'd make a little money. If two twelve year old girls
+could stand it for a week here, I don't see why I couldn't stand it
+for three weeks."
+
+"I've been thinking about those two girls that woman told us about,"
+said Agnes with sudden eagerness.
+
+"What about 'em?"
+
+"Do you s'pose they were girls, Neale O'Neil?"
+
+"Why! what do you mean? How do I know? The woman said they were."
+
+"But two _girls_--and only twelve! It doesn't seem probable. I should
+think the police--"
+
+"Didn't you hear that woman say there were no constables out here on
+the ice?" said Neale.
+
+"I don't care! I'm suspicious," declared Agnes.
+
+"Not of that fisher-woman?" asked the boy, puzzled indeed.
+
+"No, no! But no two girls in this world would ever have considered
+coming out here on the ice to fish. How ridiculous!"
+
+"Say! what are you trying to get at, Agnes Kenway?" demanded her
+friend. "You do have the craziest ideas!"
+
+"Do I, Mr. Smartie?" she returned. "At least they are ideas. You never
+seem to suspect a living thing, Neale O'Neil."
+
+"Oh! I give it up," he groaned. "You are too much for me. I'm lashed
+to the post and you have left me behind."
+
+"Oh, do come on!" exclaimed Agnes, hastily dragging at his jacket
+sleeve. "If you don't know what I'm about, just keep still and
+listen."
+
+"Oh, I'll do that little thing for you," returned Neale. "I can be as
+dumb as a mute quahog with the lockjaw--just watch me!"
+
+He tagged on behind Agnes with much interest. The girl hurried to the
+shack into which the little folks had been taken for warmth. Mrs.
+MacCall was there with them, talking with the genial fisher-woman.
+
+"Hech!" exclaimed the housekeeper, warming her blue hands, "but this
+is a strange way to live. 'Tis worse than sheep herding in the
+Highlands. 'Tis so!"
+
+"'Tain't so bad," said the woman. "And there's good money in the fish.
+We are mostly all Coxford people here--or folks from back in the
+hills. Few stragglers come here to bother us."
+
+"But you said two strangers had been here this winter," Agnes
+interposed, eagerly.
+
+"I said so," the woman agreed. "Two stragglers. Two girls," and she
+laughed. "But they didn't stay long. They kept to themselves like, and
+never did us any harm."
+
+"Say, Maw!" The voice came out of a shadowy corner. It was gloomy in
+the shack, for the sun had now dipped below the hills and twilight had
+come.
+
+"That's my Bob," said the woman. "He's about the age of them two
+gals."
+
+"They wasn't two gals, Maw," said Bob from the darkness.
+
+"What d'you mean?"
+
+"One was a boy. Yes, she was--a boy! We kids found it out, and that's
+why them two lit out over night."
+
+"Good gracious, Bob! What are you sayin'?"
+
+"That's right," said the voice from the dark corner, stubbornly. "They
+was brother and sister. They owned up. Run away from somewhere, I
+guess. And then they run away from here."
+
+Agnes pinched Neale's arm. "What did I tell you?" she whispered.
+
+"Ouch! I don't know. You've told me so many things, Aggie," he
+complained.
+
+"Don't you remember what Mr. Howbridge told us about the Birdsall
+twins and the picture he sent out to the police? He showed us that,
+too."
+
+"Jumping Jupiter!" gasped the amazed Neale. "Why--why, _she_,"
+pointing to the fisher-woman, "didn't say anything about the twins."
+
+"Listen!" exclaimed Agnes again; and as Mrs. MacCall had taken the
+three younger children out of the shack, Agnes began to interrogate
+the woman as to the appearance of the strange girls who had remained
+for a week at the village on the ice.
+
+Yes, they were both slim, and dark, and looked boyish enough--both of
+them. They seemed well behaved. She didn't believe Bob--
+
+"I tell you I know," put in Bob from his corner. "One was a boy. He
+called the other by a girl name all right. Rowly--or Rowny--or
+sumpin'--"
+
+"Rowena!" cried Agnes.
+
+"Mebbe," admitted Bob.
+
+"For the land of liberty's sake!" exclaimed his mother suddenly, "I'd
+like to know how you are so sure 'bout one bein' a boy?"
+
+"Well, I'll tell you," grumbled Bob. "'Cause he licked me! Yes, he
+did. Licked me good and proper. No girl could ha' done that, you bet!"
+said the disgruntled Bob.
+
+"Now, Bob! I am ashamed of you!" said his mother.
+
+"You needn't be. He could fight, that fellow!"
+
+"But did you think they were both girls till you got into this fight?"
+Neale asked, now becoming interested.
+
+"Bet you. We thought we could get some of their lines. They had more'n
+enough. We went over there to Manny Cox's shack, and she that was a
+girl was alone. So we took the lines."
+
+"Now, Bob!" murmured his mother.
+
+"Guess a constable here wouldn't be a bad thing after all," chuckled
+Neale.
+
+"Go on," ordered Agnes.
+
+"Why, that girl just cried and scolded. But the other one came back
+before me and Hank and Buddie got away."
+
+"The one you think was a boy?" asked Agnes.
+
+"One I know was a boy--since he fought me. He didn't do no cryin'. He
+squared right off, skirts an' all, and jest lambasted me. And when
+Hank tried to put in an oar, he lambasted him. Buddie run, or he'd 've
+been licked, too, I guess."
+
+"Well!" exclaimed Bob's mother. "I never did! And you never said a
+word about it!"
+
+"What was the use?" asked her son. "We was licked. And the next
+morning that boy-girl and his sister was gone. We didn't see 'em no
+more."
+
+"That is right," said the woman thoughtfully. "They got away jest like
+that. I never did know what become of 'em or what they went for."
+
+Agnes dragged Neale out of the shack. She was excited.
+
+"Let's find Mr. Howbridge!" she cried. "He ought to know about this. I
+just feel sure those twins have been here in this fisher-town."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+INTO THE WILDERNESS
+
+
+But the lawyer and guardian of the runaway Birdsall twins was not so
+easily convinced that Agnes had found the trail of the lost Ralph and
+Rowena. It seemed preposterous that the twins should have joined these
+rough fisherfolk and lived with them in the ice-village.
+
+The party from Milton waited at the village for an hour while the
+lawyer cross-questioned the inhabitants. It was not that any of these
+people wished to hobble Mr. Howbridge's curiosity regarding the
+"stragglers," as they called the strangers who sometimes joined the
+community; but nobody had considered it his or her business to
+question or examine in any way the two unknown girls (if they were
+girls) who had occupied Manny Cox's shack for a week.
+
+After all, the boy, Bob, and his mates, gave the most convincing
+testimony regarding the strangers. He was positive that one of the
+stragglers had been a boy--a very sturdy and pugilistic one for a
+twelve-year-old lad.
+
+"And that might fit young Ralph Birdsall's reputation, as I got it
+from Rodgers, the butler," said Mr. Howbridge. "Ralph has to be
+stirred by Rowena to fight; but, once stirred, Rodgers says he can
+fight like a wildcat."
+
+"Why, what a horrid boy!" murmured Tess, who heard this. "I guess I'm
+glad those twins didn't come with us after all."
+
+"But, Mr. Howbridge," asked Ruth, "does it seem possible that they
+could get away up here alone?"
+
+"That is difficult to say. Nobody knows how much money they had when
+they left Arlington. They might have come as far as this. If they had
+wished to, I mean."
+
+It was getting quite dark, now, and the children were tired and
+hungry. The party could spend no more time at the fishing village.
+They set out across the ice for Coxford.
+
+Neale took Dot pick-a-pack and Luke shouldered Tess, although the
+latter felt much embarrassed by this proceeding. Ruth had to urge her
+to remain upon the collegian's shoulder.
+
+"Really, I'm quite too big to play this way," she objected.
+
+But she was tired--she had to admit that. Sammy made no complaint; but
+his short legs were weary enough before they reached the shore.
+
+Oil lamps on posts lit the few streets of Coxford. Most of the slab
+houses looked as though the wind, with a good puff, could blow them
+down. The forest came down to the edge of the village. If there should
+be a forest fire on this side of the mountain range, the slab-town
+would surely be destroyed.
+
+Hedden, Mr. Howbridge's man, had prepared things here for the party,
+as well as at Culberton. On the main street of the little town was
+what passed for a hotel. At this time of year it was but little
+patronized.
+
+Therefore the lawyer's man had chartered the house, as well as the
+family that owned it, to make the holiday vacation party comfortable
+over one night.
+
+Roaring fires, hot supper, feather beds, and plenty of woolen blankets
+awaited the crowd from Milton at this backwoods hostelry. Mr. Dan
+Durkin, who was the proprietor of the Coxford Hotel, and his
+hospitable wife and daughters, could not do too much for the comfort
+of Mr. Howbridge and his friends.
+
+"We don't have enough strangers here in winter time to keep us in mind
+of what city folks are like," the hotel-keeper declared. "When Miz'
+Birdsall was alive, she and her man and the kids used to come through
+here three-four times 'twixt the first snow flurries an' the spring
+break-up. They liked to see their camp up there in the hills durin'
+the winter. But after Miz' Birdsall died, he never came."
+
+"And the children?" asked Mr. Howbridge, thoughtfully.
+
+"They did come in summer," said Durkin; "but not in the winter."
+
+"You haven't seen them of late, have you?" questioned the lawyer.
+
+"Them twins? No. Nary hide nor hair of 'em. I tell you, ain't
+nobody--scurcely--gets up here this time' o' year. 'Ceptin' a few
+stragglers for the fishin', perhaps. But we don't see them here at the
+hotel. We don't take in stragglers."
+
+But he and his family, as has been said, did their very best for the
+party from Milton. The young folks slept soundly, and warmly, as well,
+and were really sorry to crawl out of the feather beds at seven
+o'clock the next morning when they were called to get ready for
+breakfast.
+
+The cold and the long ride of the day before seemed to have done
+nobody any harm. The balsam-laden air, when they went to the hotel
+porch for a breath of it before breakfast, seemed to search right down
+to the bottom of their lungs and invigorate them all. Surely, as Neale
+had told Agnes, no tubercular germ could live in such an atmosphere.
+
+"Just the same," said Ruth, wisely, when Agnes mentioned this
+scientific statement fathered by the ex-circus boy, "you children keep
+well wrapped up. What is one man's medicine is another man's poison,
+Mrs. Mac often says. And it is so with germs, I guess. What will kill
+one germ, another germ thrives on. A bad cold up here will be almost
+sure to turn into pneumonia. So beware!"
+
+"Don't keep talking about being sick," cried Cecile. "You are almost
+as bad as Neighbor." "Neighbor" Henry Northrup lived next door to the
+Shepards and their Aunt Lorena, and was Luke's very good friend.
+"Neighbor is forever talking about symptoms and diseases. After a half
+hour visit with him I always go home feeling as though I needed to
+call the doctor for some complaint."
+
+They made a hearty and hilarious breakfast of country fare--fried pork
+and johnnycakes, with eggs and baked beans for "fillers." Mrs. MacCall
+should not have tried to eat the crisply fried "crackling" as the
+farmers call the pork-rind; but she did. And one of the teeth on her
+upper plate snapped right off!
+
+"Oh, dear me, Mrs. Mac!" gasped Agnes. "And not a dentist for miles
+and miles, I suppose!"
+
+"Oh, well, I can get along without that one tooth."
+
+"My pop's got a new set of false teeth," Sammy said soberly. "He's
+just got 'em--all new and shiny."
+
+"What did he do with the old ones he had?" asked Tess, interested.
+
+"Huh! I dunno. Throwed 'em away, I hope. Anyway," said Sammy, who had
+had much experience in wearing made over clothing, "mom can't cut them
+down and make me wear 'em!"
+
+The jangling of sleighbells hurried the party through breakfast. The
+little folks were first out upon the porch to look at the two pungs,
+filled with straw, and each drawn by a pair of heavy horses. The
+latter did not promise from their appearance a swift trip to Red Deer
+Lodge; but they were undoubtedly able to draw a heavy load through the
+deepest drifts in the forest.
+
+They set out very gayly from the little lakeside town. It was not a
+brilliantly sunshiny day, for a haze wrapped the mountain tops about
+and was creeping down toward the ice-covered lake.
+
+"There's a storm gathering," declared one of the men engaged to drive
+the Milton party into the woods. "I reckon you folks will git about
+all the snow you want for Christmas."
+
+"At any rate, it won't be a green Christmas up here," Agnes said to
+Neale, who sat beside her in the second sled. "I don't think it is
+nice at all not to have plenty of snow over Christmas and New Year's."
+
+"I'm with you there," agreed the boy. "But I'm glad I haven't got to
+shovel paths through these drifts," he added, with a quick grin.
+
+They found the tote-road, as the path was called, quite filled with
+snow in some places. There were only the marks of the sleds that had
+gone up two days before with the servants and baggage and
+returned--these same two pungs in which the party now rode.
+
+The drifts were packed so hard that the horses drew the sleds right
+over the drifts, without breaking through more than an inch or two
+with their big hoofs. In some places they could trot heavily, jerking
+the sleds along at rather a good pace; but for most of the way the
+road was uphill, and the horses plodded slowly.
+
+The boys got out now and then to stretch their legs. Agnes, too,
+demanded this privilege, and tramped along beside Neale after the
+sleds on the uphill grades. Mainly the party was warm and comfortable,
+and cheerful voices, laughter, and song rang through the spruce woods
+as they traversed the forest-clad hills.
+
+Red Deer Lodge, it proved, was a long day's journey from the lakeside
+into the wilderness. Never before had the Corner House girls and their
+friends visited so wild a place. But they foresaw no trouble in store
+for them--not even from the gathering storm.
+
+"Of course," Agnes said, when she was tramping on one occasion with
+the boys behind the second sled, "there must be bears, and wolves, and
+catamounts, and all those, in these woods in summer. But they are all
+hidden away for the winter now, aren't they, Neale?"
+
+"The bears are holed up," he granted. "But the other varmints--"
+
+"What are those?"
+
+"That is what Uncle Bill Sorber calls most carnivorous animals,"
+laughed Neale. "Creatures that prey--"
+
+"Je-ru-sa-_lem_!" ejaculated the wide-eared Sammy. "You don't mean to
+say wild animals pray, do you? I never knew they were that religious!"
+
+"Good-_night_!" laughed Neale. "I mean those that prey on other
+animals--live on 'em, you know. _Prey_ on 'em."
+
+"Je-ru-sa-_lem_!" murmured Sammy. "Just like the fleas on my bulldog,
+Buster?"
+
+"That's enough! That's enough!" groaned Neale. "No use trying to teach
+this boy anything."
+
+"Huh!" grumbled Sammy Pinkney. "They make me learn enough in school.
+Don't you begin to pick on me out here in the woods, Neale O'Neil."
+
+Just then Tom Jonah, who, his tongue hanging out, had been padding on
+ahead, suddenly uttered a loud bark and leaped out of the path. He
+went tearing away across the tops of the drifts and through the open
+wood through which the tote-road then passed.
+
+Out of a close-branched spruce just ahead of the big dog shot a
+tawny-gray body, and a fearsome yowl drowned the barking of the dog.
+But the creature that had created Tom Jonah's excitement was running
+away.
+
+"Call off that dog!" shouted the head driver. "Want him all chawed
+up?"
+
+Tess stood up and began to scream for Tom Jonah to return. The old dog
+would obey her voice if no other.
+
+"Oh! What _is_ that?" cried Ruth.
+
+"Link," said the driver, succinctly, as the beast uttered another
+angry howl which made the returning Tom Jonah turn to snarl in the
+stranger's direction.
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"He means _lynx_," said Mr. Howbridge.
+
+"Don't, nuther," snorted the driver. "There's only one of him, so he's
+a link. If they was two or more they'd be links."
+
+"Oh! Ah!" chuckled Luke Shepard. "And that one is now the 'missing
+link.' He was making tracks for the port of 'missing links' when he
+disappeared."
+
+"He's goin' some. That dog give him a scare," admitted the driver, as
+a third and more distant yowl floated back to them from the depths of
+the forest.
+
+The whole party, however, was impressed by the incident. More than Dot
+were disturbed by the thought of danger.
+
+"Just the same," the smallest Corner House girl murmured in Tess' ear.
+"I'm _not_ going to throw my Alice-doll overboard, either for wolfs or
+linkses--so there!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+EMBERS IN THE GRATE
+
+
+Mr. Durkin of the Coxford Hotel had furnished the party with a hearty
+lunch to eat while they were en route to Red Deer Lodge, and Ruth had
+brought two big thermos bottles of hot tea, likewise prepared at the
+hotel. The drivers had their own lunches, and at noon the party halted
+in the shelter of a windbreak to breathe the horses and allow them to
+eat their oats.
+
+Mrs. MacCall and the older girls complained of stiffness from sitting
+so long in the sledges. Riding so far in the cold was not altogether
+pleasant; there was no sunshine at all now. The gathering storm had
+overcast the entire sky, and as they went on after lunch a rising wind
+began moaning through the forest.
+
+"I don't see why the trees have to make such a meachin' noise," sighed
+Dot, as they climbed a steep hill so slowly that the rueful sound of
+the rising gale was quite audible.
+
+"Where did you get such a word, Dot?" demanded Ruth, smiling at her.
+
+"It is a good word. Uncle Rufus uses it," declared the smallest Corner
+House girl. "And Uncle Rufus never uses bad words."
+
+"Granted," Ruth said. "But what does 'meachin' mean?"
+
+"Why, just as though the wind felt bad and was whimpering about it,"
+said Dot, with assurance. "It makes you all shivery to listen to it.
+And after we heard that link, and know that there are bears and wolfs
+about--O-o-oh! what's that, Ruthie?"
+
+Something white had flashed right up in front of the noses of the
+first team of horses, and with great leaps broke away from the road.
+Tom Jonah was at the rear of the procession and did not at first see
+this bounding shape.
+
+Neale stood up in the second sleigh and clapped his hands sharply
+together. The white ball stopped--halting right in a snow-patch; being
+so much like the snow itself in color that those in the sledges could
+scarcely see it. The sharp crack of Neale's ungloved palms seemed to
+make the creature cower in the snow. It halted for a moment only,
+however.
+
+"Oh! The bunny!" gasped Tess, standing up to see.
+
+"A big white hare," Mr. Howbridge said. "I had no idea there were such
+big ones around here."
+
+The hare burst into high speed again and disappeared, almost before
+Tom Jonah set out for him.
+
+"Come back, Tom Jonah!" shouted Tess. "Why, you couldn't catch that
+bunny if you had started ahead of him."
+
+"Wow! that's a good one," said Neale O'Neil. "Tell you what, Aggie,
+those small sisters of yours are right full of new ideas."
+
+"That is what teacher says is the matter with Robbie Foote," remarked
+Sammy, thoughtfully.
+
+"How is that?" asked Agnes, expecting some illuminating information
+from the standpoint of a lower grade pupil.
+
+"Why," Sammy explained, "teacher asked Rob what was the plural of man.
+Rob told her 'men.' Then, of course, she had to keep right on at it.
+If you do answer her right she goes right at you again," scoffed
+Sammy. "That's why I don't often answer her right if I can help it. It
+only makes you trouble."
+
+"Oh! Oh!" chuckled Neale. "A Daniel come to judgment."
+
+"Wait. Let's hear the rest of Sam's story," begged Agnes. "What was
+Robbie Foote's idea?"
+
+"That's what teacher said--he was full of ideas, only they were
+silly," went on Sammy. "When he'd told her 'men' was the plural of
+'man,' she said: 'What is the plural of child?' He told her 'twins.'
+What d'you know about that? She said his ideas were silly."
+
+"I'm not so sure he was silly," laughed Neale.
+
+"I wonder what has become of those Birdsall twins," Agnes said
+thoughtfully. "Up here in this wild country--"
+
+"Nonsense!" exclaimed Neale. "You don't know anything of the kind.
+Those two girls that fisher-woman spoke about--"
+
+"One of them was a boy."
+
+"Well, that doesn't prove anything. We don't even know that the two at
+the fisher-village were twins."
+
+"But they were brother and sister roaming about--runaways and alone."
+
+"Oh, Aggie!" he cried, "don't make up your mind a thing is so without
+getting some real evidence first. Mr. Howbridge asked, and he is not
+at all sure those stragglers were the twins."
+
+"Somehow I just feel that they were," sighed the second Corner House
+girl, with a confidence that Neale saw it was useless to try to shake.
+
+When Agnes Kenway made up her mind to a thing Neale wagged his head
+and gave it up.
+
+The party was quite too jolly, however, to bother much about the lost
+Birdsall twins just then. Even Mr. Howbridge had said nothing about
+them since his cross-examination of the hotel-keeper back at Coxford.
+
+If the twins had come this way, for instance, attempting to reach Red
+Deer Lodge, surely some of the people of Coxford or the woodsmen going
+back and forth on the tote-road would have met and recognized them.
+And if Ralph was dressed in some of his sister's clothing, they would
+have been the more surely marked.
+
+Two girls of twelve or so traveling into the woods? It seemed quite
+ridiculous.
+
+For this was indeed a wild country through which the tote-road ran.
+The fact of its being a wilderness was marked even to the eyes of
+those so unfamiliar with such scenes.
+
+Now and then a fox barked from the brakes in the lowland. Jays in
+droves winged across the clearings with raucous cries. More than one
+trampled place beside the thickets of edible brush showed where the
+deer herd had browsed within stone's throw of the tote-road.
+
+And then, as the party came closer to the ridge on which Red Deer
+Lodge was built, and the twilight began to gather, the big white owls
+of these northern forests went flapping through the tree-lanes,
+skimming the snowcrust for the rabbits and other small animals that
+might be afoot even this early in the evening.
+
+The spread of the wings of the first of these monster owls that they
+saw was quite six feet from tip to tip, and it almost scared Dot
+Kenway. With an eerie "Hoo! Hoo! Hoo-oo!" and a swish of wings it
+crossed the road just ahead of the horses, and made even those
+plodding beasts toss their heads and prick up their ears.
+
+"Oh, look at that 'normous great white chicken!" shouted Dot. "Did you
+ever?"
+
+"It is an owl, child," said Tess.
+
+"An owl as big as _that_?" gasped the smaller girl. "Why--why--it
+could carry you right off like the eagle that Mr. Lycurgus Billet set
+his Sue for bait! Don't you 'member?"
+
+"I guess I do remember!" Tess declared. "But an owl isn't like an
+eagle. It isn't so savage."
+
+The party had come a long way, and the steaming horses were now weary.
+As evening approached the cold increased in intensity, while the
+mournfully sounding wind promised stern weather. The members of the
+party from Milton began to congratulate each other that they were
+arriving at the Lodge before a big storm should sweep over this
+northern country.
+
+"And suppose we get snowed in and aren't able to get out of the woods
+till spring?" suggested Cecile, not without some small fear that such
+might be a possibility.
+
+"There goes little Miss Fidget!" cried her brother. "Always worrying
+over the worst that may happen."
+
+"But I suppose we could be snowbound up here?" suggested Ruth,
+although scarcely with anxiety.
+
+"Yes!" agreed Luke, laughing. "And pigs might fly. But they tell me
+they are awful uncertain birds."
+
+"Don't listen to him, Ruthie," said Cecile. "We may have to stay here
+all winter long."
+
+"Then I only hope Mr. Howbridge sent up grub enough to see us through
+till spring," put in the collegian gayly. "For I can foresee right now
+that this keen air is going to give me the appetite of an Eskimo."
+
+It was a long climb to the top of the ridge on which the Birdsalls had
+built their rustic home. When the party came in sight of it the lamps
+were already lighted and these beckoned cheerfully to the arrivals
+while they were still a long way off.
+
+The private road which had branched off from the regular tote-road at
+the foot of the ridge was easy to ascend beside some of the hills they
+had climbed. The teams, however, were not to be urged out of a walk.
+
+There was a sudden flare of sulphurous light over the wooded caps of
+the mountains to the west of the ridge; but this lasted only a few
+minutes. The sun was then smothered in the mists as it sank to rest.
+Dusk almost at once filled the aisles of the forest.
+
+On the summit of the ridge about the big, sprawling, rustic house only
+shade trees had been allowed to stand. The land was cleared and tilled
+to some extent. At least, there was plenty of open space around the
+Lodge and the log barns and the outbuildings.
+
+Somebody was on watch, for the big entrance door opened before the
+sleds reached the steps, and yellow lamplight shone out across the
+porch. Hedden stood in the doorway, while another man ran down to
+assist with the bags and bundles.
+
+"Oh, what a homelike looking place!" Ruth cried, quite as amazed as
+the other visitors by the appearance of the Lodge.
+
+Aside from the fact that the house was built of round logs with the
+bark peeled off, it did not seem to be at all rough or of crude
+construction. There were two floors and a garret. The entrance hall
+seemed as big as a barn.
+
+It was cozy and warm, however, despite its size. There was a gallery
+all around this hall at the level of the second floor, and a stairway
+went up on either side. At the rear was a huge fireplace, and this was
+heaped with logs which gave off both light and heat. There was a
+chandelier dropped from the ceiling, however, and acetylene gas flared
+from the burners of this fixture.
+
+The whole party crowded to the hearth where benches and chairs were
+drawn up in a wide circle before the flames. The maids relieved Mrs.
+MacCall and the girls of their outer wraps and overshoes. The boys had
+been shown where they were to leave their caps and coats.
+
+Such a hilarious crowd as they were! Jokes and cheerful gossip were
+the order of this hour of rest. With all but one member of the party!
+There was one very serious face, and this was the countenance of the
+youngest of the four Kenway sisters.
+
+"Dorothy Kenway! what is the matter with you?" demanded Tess, at last
+seeing the expression on the face of her little sister.
+
+Dot had been gazing all about the room with amazed eyes until this
+question came. Then with gravity she asked:
+
+"Tessie! didn't Mr. Howbridge say this was a lodge?"
+
+"Why, yes; this is Red Deer Lodge, child," rejoined Tess.
+
+"But--but, Tess! you know it isn't a lodge, nor a room where they have
+lodges! Now, is it?!"
+
+"Why--why--"
+
+"It can't be!" went on the smaller girl with great insistence. "You
+know that was a lodge where we went night before last to have our
+Christmas tree on Meadow Street."
+
+"A _lodge_?" gasped Tess.
+
+"Yes. You know it was. And there was a pulpit and chairs on a platform
+at both ends of the lodge. And lodges are held there. I know, 'cause
+Becky Goronofsky's father belongs to one that meets there. She said
+so. And he wears a little white apron with a blue border and a sash
+over his shoulder.
+
+"Now," said the earnest Dot, "there's nothing like that here, so it's
+not a lodge at all. I don't see why they call it a red lodge for
+deers."
+
+Tess would have been tempted to call on Mr. Howbridge himself for an
+explanation of this seeming mystery had the lawyer not been just then
+in conference with Hedden in a corner of the room. The butler had
+beckoned his employer away from the others.
+
+"What is it, Hedden?" asked the lawyer. "Has something gone wrong?"
+
+"Not with the arrangements for the comfort of your party, Mr.
+Howbridge," the man assured him. "But when we came in here yesterday
+(and I unlocked the door myself with the key you gave me) I found that
+somebody had recently occupied the Lodge."
+
+"You don't mean it! Somebody broken in! Some thief?"
+
+"No, sir. I went around to all the windows and doors. Nobody had
+broken in. Whoever it was must have had a key, too."
+
+"But who was it? What did the intruder do?"
+
+"I find nothing disturbed, sir. Nothing of importance. But one room,
+at least, had been used recently. It is a sitting-room upstairs--right
+near this main hall. There had been a fire in the grate up there. When
+we came in yesterday the embers were still glowing. But I could find
+no intruder anywhere about the Lodge, sir."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+MYSTERY AND FUN
+
+
+Mr. Howbridge was evidently somewhat impressed by Hedden's report. He
+stared gravely for a minute at his grizzled butler. Then he nodded.
+
+"Take me upstairs and show me which room you mean, Hedden," he said.
+
+"Yes, sir. This way, sir."
+
+He led the lawyer toward the nearest stairway. They mounted to the
+gallery. Then the man led his employer down a passage and turned short
+into a doorway. The room they entered was really on the other side of
+the chimney from the big entrance hall.
+
+It was a small, cozy den. Mr. Howbridge looked the place over keenly,
+scrutinizing the furnishings before he glanced at the open coal grate
+to which Hedden sought to draw his attention first of all.
+
+"Ah. Yes," said the lawyer, thoughtfully. "A work-basket. Low rocker.
+A dressing table. Couch. This, Hedden, was Mrs. Birdsall's private
+sitting-room when she was alive. I never saw the house before, but I
+have heard Birdsall describe it."
+
+"Yes, sir?"
+
+"Mrs. Birdsall spent a good deal of her time indoors in this room, and
+the children with her. So he said. And you found live embers in the
+grate there?"
+
+"Yes, sir," said the butler, his own eyes big with wonder.
+
+"No other signs of anybody having been here?"
+
+"Not that I could see," said Hedden.
+
+"Strange--if anybody had been in here who had a key. Have you seen Ike
+M'Graw?"
+
+"No, sir. The men who brought us up here said the man had gone
+away--had been away for a week, sir--but would return tonight."
+
+"Then he was not the person who built the fire the embers of which you
+found. The coals would not have burned for a week. He is the person
+who has a key to the Lodge, and nobody else."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Whoever got in here, of course, either departed when you came,
+Hedden, or before. Did you notice any tracks about the house?"
+
+"Plenty, sir. But only of beasts and birds."
+
+"Ah-ha! Are the animals as tame as that up here?"
+
+"There were footprints that the men from town assured me were those of
+a big cat of some kind, and there were dog footprints; only the men
+said they were those of wolves. They say the beasts are getting hungry
+early in the season, because of the deep and early snow, sir."
+
+"Humph! Better say nothing to the children about that," said Mr.
+Howbridge. "Of course, this party's being here will keep any marauding
+animals at a distance. We won't care for that sort of visitor."
+
+"I think there is no danger, sir. I will tell the chef to throw out no
+table-scraps, and to feed that big dog we have brought in the back
+kitchen. Then there will be nothing to attract the wild creatures to
+the door."
+
+"Good idea," Mr. Howbridge said. "And I will warn them all tomorrow
+not to leave the vicinity of the Lodge alone. When Ike M'Graw arrives
+we shall be all right. This vicinity is his natural habitat, and he
+will know all that's right to do, and what not to do."
+
+Mr. Howbridge still looked about the room. The thing that interested
+him most was the mystery of the intruder who had built the fire in the
+grate. Mrs. Birdsall's sitting-room! And the lawyer knew from hearing
+the story repeated again and again by the sorrowing widower, that the
+woman had been brought in here after her fall from the horse and had
+died upon the couch in the corner of the room.
+
+He wondered.
+
+Meanwhile the crowd of young people below were comforted with tea and
+crackers before they went to their bedrooms to change their clothes
+for dinner. Mr. Howbridge had brought the customs of his own formal
+household to Red Deer Lodge, and, knowing how particular the lawyer
+was, Ruth Kenway had warned the others to come prepared to dress for
+dinner.
+
+Mrs. MacCall, after drinking her third cup of tea, went off with the
+chief maid to view the house and learn something about it. The Scotch
+woman was very capable and had governed Mr. Howbridge's own home
+before she went to the old Corner House to keep straight the household
+lines there for the Kenways.
+
+Her situation here at the Lodge was one between the serving people and
+the family; but the latter, especially the smaller girls, would have
+been woeful indeed had Mrs. MacCall not sat at the table with them and
+been one of the family as she was at home in Milton.
+
+The girls were shown to their two big rooms on the second floor, and
+found them warm and cozy. They were heated by wood fires in
+drum-stoves. Ike M'Graw, general caretaker of the Lodge, had long
+since piled each wood box in the house full with billets of hard wood.
+
+Neale and Luke and Sammy were given another room off the gallery above
+the main hall. There they washed, and freshened up their apparel, and
+otherwise made themselves more presentable. Even Sammy looked a little
+less grubby than usual when they came down to the big fire again.
+
+It was black dark outside by this time. The wind was still moaning in
+the forest, and when they went to the door the fugitive snowflakes
+drifted against one's cheek.
+
+"Going to be a bad night, I guess," Neale said, coming back from an
+observation, just as the girls came down the stairway. "Oh, look! see
+'em all fussed up!"
+
+The girls had shaken out their furbelows, and now came down smiling
+and preening not a little. Mr. Howbridge appeared in a Tuxedo coat.
+
+"Wish I'd brought my 'soup to nuts,'" admitted Luke Shepard. "This is
+going to be a dress-up affair. I thought we were coming into the
+wilderness to rough it."
+
+"All the roughing it will be done outside the house, young man," said
+Cecile to her brother. "You must be on your very best behavior
+inside."
+
+Hedden's assistant announced dinner, and Mr. Howbridge offered his arm
+to Mrs. MacCall, who had just descended the stairway in old-fashioned
+rustling black silk.
+
+Immediately Luke joined the procession with Ruth on his arm, and Neale
+followed with Agnes, giggling of course. Cecile made Sammy walk beside
+her, and he was really proud to do this, only he would not admit it.
+At the end of the procession came the two little girls.
+
+They had not seen the dining-room before. It was big enough for a
+banquet hall, and the table without being extended would have seated a
+dozen. There was an open fireplace on either side of this room. The
+acetylene lamps gave plenty of light. There were favors at each plate.
+There were even flowers on the table. Aside from the unplastered walls
+and raftered ceiling, one might have thought this dinner served in Mr.
+Howbridge's own home.
+
+They all (the older ones at least) began to realize how great a cross
+it would have been for the lawyer to take into his home in Milton two
+harum-scarum children like the Birdsall twins. If all tales about them
+were true, they were what Neale O'Neil called "terrors."
+
+Such children would surely break every rule of the lawyer's
+well-ordered existence. And bachelors of Mr. Howbridge's age do not
+take kindly to changes.
+
+"Think of bringing the refinements of his own establishment away up
+here into the woods for a three weeks' vacation!" gasped Cecile
+afterwards to Ruth.
+
+To-night at dinner every rule of a well-furnished and well-governed
+household was followed. Hedden and his assistant served. The food was
+deliciously cooked and the sauce of a good appetite aided all to enjoy
+the meal.
+
+And the fun and laughter! Mr. Howbridge and Mrs. MacCall enjoyed the
+jokes and chatter as much as the younger people themselves. Dot's
+discovery that this was not at all like the lodge room on Meadow
+Street delighted everybody.
+
+"If you think that red deer ever held lodge meetings in this house,
+you are much mistaken, honey," Agnes told the smallest Corner House
+girl.
+
+Tom Jonah was allowed to come in and "sit up" at table. The old dog
+was so well trained that his table manners (and this was Ruth's
+declaration) were far superior to those of Sammy Pinkney. But Sammy
+was on his best behavior this evening. The grandeur of the table
+service quite overpowered him.
+
+When they all filed back into the hall, which was really the
+living-room and reception hall combined, Tom Jonah went with them and
+curled down on a warm spot on the hearth. One of the men staggered in
+with a great armful of chunks for the evening fire. Hedden found a
+popper and popcorn. There was a basket of shiny apples, and even a jug
+of sweet cider appeared, to be set down near the fire to take the
+chill off it.
+
+"Now, this," said Mr. Howbridge, sitting in a great chair with his
+slippered feet outstretched toward the fire, "is what I call country
+comfort."
+
+"Whist, man!" exclaimed Mrs. MacCall. "'Tis plain to be seen you ken
+little about country comforts, or discomforts either. You were born in
+the city, Mr. Howbridge, and you have lived in the city most of your
+days. 'Tis little you know what it means to live away from towns and
+from luxuries."
+
+"Why," laughed the lawyer, "I always go away for a vacation in the
+summer, and I usually choose some rustic neighborhood."
+
+"Aye. Where they have piped water in the house, and electricity, an'
+hair mattresses. Aye. I know your kind of 'country,' too, Mr.
+Howbridge. But when I was a child at home we lived in the real
+country--only two farms in the vale and the shepherds' cots. My
+feyther was a shepherd, you know."
+
+"You must be some relation of ours, then, Mrs. MacCall," Luke said,
+smiling.
+
+"Oh, aye. By Adam," said the housekeeper coolly. "I've nae doot we
+sprang from the same stock the Bible speaks of."
+
+"Now will you be good?" cried Cecile, shaking a finger at her brother.
+"Go on, Mrs. MacCall. Tell us about your Highland home."
+
+"Hech! There's very little to tell," said the housekeeper, shaking her
+head, "save that 'twas a very lonely vale we lived in, and forbye in
+winter. Then we'd not see a strange body from end to end of the snows.
+And the snow came early and went late.
+
+"If we had not a grand oat bin and a cow in the stable we bairns would
+oft go hungry. Why, our mother would sometimes keep us abed in stormy
+weather to save turf. A fire like yon," she added, nodding toward the
+blazing pile in the chimney, "would have been counted a sin even in a
+laird's house."
+
+"Ah, Mrs. MacCall," said the lawyer, "we're all lairds over here."
+
+"Aye, that can pay the price can have the luxuries. 'Tis so. But
+luxuries we knew naught about where I was born and bred."
+
+"I suppose the people right around us here--the residents of this
+neighborhood--have few luxuries," Ruth said thoughtfully.
+
+"There aren't many neighbors, I guess," said Neale, laughing.
+
+"But those people living in that fishing village--and even at
+Coxford--never saw a tenth of the things which we consider necessary
+at home," Ruth pursued.
+
+"Suppose!" exclaimed Cecile eagerly. "Just suppose we were snowed in
+up here and could not get out for weeks, and nobody could get to us. I
+guess we would have to learn to go without luxuries! Maybe without
+food."
+
+"Oh, don't suggest such a thing," begged Agnes. "And this cold air
+gives one such an appetite!"
+
+"Don't mention a shortage of food," put in Neale, chuckling, "or Aggie
+will be getting up in the night and coming down to rob the pantry."
+
+There might have been a squabble right then and there had not Hedden
+appeared, and, in his grave way, announced:
+
+"Mr. M'Graw has arrived, sir. Shall I bring him in here?"
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed the lawyer, waking up from a brown study. "Ike M'Graw?
+I understood from Birdsall that he is a character. Has he had supper,
+Hedden?"
+
+"Yes, sir. I knew that you would wish him served. He has been eating
+in the servants' dining-room, sir."
+
+"Send him in," the lawyer said. "Now, young folks, here is the man who
+can tell us more about Red Deer Lodge and the country hereabout, and
+all that goes on in it, than anybody else. Here--"
+
+The door opened again. Hedden announced gravely:
+
+"Mr. Ike M'Graw, sir."
+
+There strode over the threshold one of the tallest men the young
+people, at least, had ever seen. And he was so lean that his height
+seemed more than it really was.
+
+"Why," gasped Neale to Agnes, "he's so thin he doesn't cast a shadow,
+I bet!"
+
+"Sh!" advised the girl warningly.
+
+They were all vastly interested in the appearance of Mr. Ike M'Graw.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE TIMBER CRUISER
+
+
+Mr. Howbridge got up from his chair and advanced to meet the
+backwoodsman with hospitable hand. The roughly dressed, bewhiskered
+forester did not impress the young folks at first as being different
+from the men who had driven the sledges to the camp or those who had
+brought the party up Long Lake in the ice-boats.
+
+Ike M'Graw had an enormous moustache ("like that of a walrus," Cecile
+whispered), but his iron-gray beard was cropped close. His face was
+long and solemn of expression, but his gray eyes, surrounded by
+innumerable wrinkles, had a humorous cast, and were as bright as the
+eyes of a much younger person.
+
+He seized Mr. Howbridge's hand and pumped it warmly. His grip was
+strong, and Mr. Howbridge winced, but he continued to smile upon the
+old man.
+
+"Mr. Birdsall told me that if I wanted to know anything up here, or
+wanted anything done, to look to you, Mr. M'Graw," said the lawyer, as
+their hands fell apart.
+
+"I bet he didn't say it jest that way, Mr. Howbridge," chuckled the
+man. "No. I reckon he jest called me 'Ike.' Now, didn't he? And 'Old
+Ike,' at that!"
+
+Mr. Howbridge laughed. "Well, he did speak of you in that way, yes,"
+he admitted.
+
+"I reckoned so," M'Graw said. "Yep, I'm 'Old Ike' to my friends, and
+what my enemies call me don't matter at all--not at all."
+
+"I fancy you don't make many enemies up here in the woods, M'Graw,"
+said Mr. Howbridge, waving the visitor to a comfortable seat before
+the fire.
+
+"Nor friends, nuther," chuckled the man. "No, sir, there ain't sech a
+slather of folks up here to mix in with, by any count."
+
+Before the woodsman took his seat the lawyer introduced him to Mrs.
+MacCall and to Ruth, individually, and to the rest of the group in
+general.
+
+"Hi gorry!" exclaimed Ike M'Graw, "you've got a right big fam'ly,
+haven't you? You won't be lonesome up here--no, you won't be
+lonesome."
+
+"And that is what I should think you would be," Mr. Howbridge said.
+"Lonesome. If you get snowed in you don't see anybody for weeks, I
+suppose?"
+
+"Better say 'months,' Mister," declared M'Graw. "I've been snowed into
+my cabin back yonder in the valley from the day before Christmas till
+come St. Patrick's Day. That's right."
+
+"I understood you lived near the Lodge, here, Ike?" said the lawyer.
+
+"Oh, I do in winter, since Mr. Birdsall asked me to," the man said.
+"But sometimes--'specially when there was visitors up here--the
+population of this here ridge got too thick for Old Ike. Then I'd hike
+out for my old cabin in the valley."
+
+Quickly Mr. Howbridge put in a query that had formed in his mind early
+in the evening:
+
+"Have you been troubled with visitors up here this winter?"
+
+"No, sir! It's been right quiet here, you might say."
+
+"Nobody here at all until my party came yesterday?"
+
+"Well, not many. Some timbermen went through for Neven. His company's
+got a camp over beyond the Birdsall line. Yes, sir."
+
+"Strangers have not been here, then?"
+
+"Why, no. Not to my knowledge," said M'Graw, with a keener look at the
+lawyer. "You wasn't meanin' nothin' special, was you? I've been away
+over to Ebettsville for a week. Nothin' stirring here before I went."
+
+The conversation had become general again among the main party. Mr.
+Howbridge drew his chair nearer to the old man's ear.
+
+"Listen," he said. "When my men came up yesterday and opened the house
+with the key I had given them, they found somebody had been in here
+not many hours before they arrived."
+
+"How'd they know?"
+
+"The fire had scarcely died out in one of the grates upstairs."
+
+"Hum! Fire, eh? And I hadn't been inside this Lodge since b'fore
+Thanksgiving. Kinder funny, heh?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Anything stole?"
+
+"Not a thing touched as far as we know. No other traces but the embers
+in that grate--"
+
+"Hold on, Mister!" exclaimed M'Graw, but in a low voice. "What grate
+are you referrin' to? Which room was this fire in?"
+
+Mr. Howbridge told him. The old man's face was curious to look upon.
+His brows drew down into a frown. His sharp eyes lost their humorous
+cast. Of a sudden he was very serious indeed.
+
+"That thar room," he said slowly, and at length, "was Miz'
+Birdsall's."
+
+"So I believed from the way it was furnished and from what Frank had
+told me of the house."
+
+"Yes, Mister. That was her room. She thought a heap of sittin' in that
+room; 'specially in stormy weather. And the little shavers used to
+play there with her, too."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Them little shavers thought a sight of their mom," pursued M'Graw.
+
+"I gathered as much from what Frank told me," Mr. Howbridge said
+seriously.
+
+"By the way, Mr. Howbridge," said M'Graw in a different tone, "where
+are the little shavers?"
+
+"You mean the twins, of course? Ralph and Rowena?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+The guardian of the Birdsall twins rather hesitatingly told the old
+man just why he had not brought Ralph and Rowena to Red Deer Lodge at
+this time.
+
+"Ran away? Now listen to that!" murmured the old man. "That don't
+sound right. Wasn't they with folks able to take keer of 'em?"
+
+"I thought they were," said Mr. Howbridge. "Rodgers, the butler, and
+his wife."
+
+"Whoof!" exclaimed the backwoodsman, expelling his breath in a great
+snort of disgust. "That butler! Wal, what for a man wants to buttle
+for, I don't know. I never could make it out that it was a real man's
+job, anyway. And that Rodgers was one useless critter. I don't blame
+them little shavers for runnin' away from Rodgers an' that sour-apple
+wife of his. I know 'em both."
+
+"If that is the case," said the lawyer sadly, "I wish I had known them
+as well as you appear to. Then I should have made other provision for
+the twins right at the start."
+
+"But shucks!" said M'Graw, suddenly grinning. "Them two little shavers
+will turn up all right. Ralph and Roweny are right smart kids."
+
+"That may be. But we don't know where they have gone to. Of course,
+Ike, they couldn't have got up here to Red Deer Lodge, could they?"
+
+"I don't know 'bout that," said the old man. "I reckon they could have
+got here if they'd wanted to. But I know well 'nough they didn't--not
+before I went away to Ebettsville a week ago."
+
+"Of course not! Somebody would have seen them at Coxford. And then, if
+they had come here, where are they now?"
+
+"That's right, Mister," agreed Ike M'Graw. "But--but who started that
+fire in the grate?"
+
+"If it had been the children wouldn't they have been found here?"
+
+"Mebbe. Tell you the truth"--and the old man's weather-beaten face
+reddened a little. "Well, to tell you the truth, when you spoke of the
+fire in the grate, I was some took aback. Miz' Birdsall bein' killed
+here. And she likin' that room so. And she finally dyin' in it--well,
+I don't know--"
+
+"Ike! you are superstitious, I do believe," said the lawyer.
+
+"Mebbe. But that never killed nobody," said the man. "And funny things
+do happen. Howsomever--Say!" he exclaimed suddenly, "how'd these folks
+that made the fire get into the house and out again?"
+
+"Hedden, my man, says he found nothing broken or burst open. It must
+have been by the use of a key. And the only key I knew of up here was
+yours, Ike."
+
+"That's right," said the backwoodsman, nodding. "Mine's the only key
+up here."
+
+"But the intruders couldn't have used that."
+
+"Yes, they could, too! I didn't take it with me when I went away from
+here."
+
+"Who would know where it was?"
+
+"Anybody might have seen it that looked into my shack," admitted the
+old man. "I ain't in the habit of hidin' things. We don't have
+burglars up here, Mister. That key, and others, hung right on a nail
+beside my chimley-place. Yes, sir!"
+
+"Then any person passing by could have found the key and entered the
+Lodge?" asked Mr. Howbridge.
+
+"Only we don't have many folks passin' by," returned Ike thoughtfully.
+
+"I can't understand it."
+
+"It is a puzzle," admitted M'Graw. "Hi gorry! I ain't been to my shack
+yet since comin' back from Ebettsville. Mebbe the key ain't thar no
+more."
+
+"To what door was it?" asked the lawyer.
+
+"This here," replied M'Graw, jerking a thumb toward the main entrance.
+"Padlock on the outside of the door. All the other doors was barred on
+the inside. Oh, she was locked up hard and fast!"
+
+"I don't understand it," said the lawyer. "You look when you go home
+and see if the key is hanging where you left it."
+
+"Hi gorry! I will," promised the backwoodsman. "I'd better bring the
+key over here tomorrow, anyway. And I reckon you want them figgers on
+the timber Neven wants to cut?"
+
+"Yes. Of course, Ike, you have made no mistake in cruising the
+timberland?"
+
+"I never make mistakes, Mister," said the old man. "That wouldn't do
+in the woods. The man that's brought up, as I was, with wildcats an'
+bears an' sech, can't afford to make mistakes. This was a lots wilder
+country when I was a boy from what 'tis now."
+
+"I find that Neven's figures are very different from yours."
+
+"Likely. And I reckon they're in his favor, ain't they?" and M'Graw
+chuckled. "Ye-as? I thought so. Well, you take it from me, Mister: I'm
+working for Birdsall's youngsters, not for Neven."
+
+"I believe that to be a fact," the lawyer agreed warmly. "I have
+already told Neven that there are other companies that will make a
+contract with us if he doesn't care to accept your report."
+
+"I b'lieve I know this Birdsall strip a leetle better'n any other
+feller in these parts. I've lived on it twenty year, and knowed it
+well before that time. I've seen some o' this timber grow. Reckon I
+ain't fooled myself none."
+
+After that Mr. Howbridge drew the old into the general conversation.
+Ike approved vastly of the young people, it was evident. Agnes and the
+smaller children were popping corn. There were apples roasting on the
+hearth. The cider was handed about in glasses which one of the
+servants brought.
+
+"We shall look to you for help in amusing these young people, Ike,"
+Mr. Howbridge said. "Is it going to snow enough tonight to keep them
+indoors tomorrow?"
+
+"No, no," the old woodsman assured them. "It's snowing some, but not
+much yet awhile. This here storm that's comin' has got to gather fust.
+We'll get a heavy fall, I don't doubt, in the end; but not yet. Like
+enough, 'twill be purty fair tomorrow."
+
+Reassured by this prophecy, the little folks soon after went to bed.
+Nor were the older members of the party long behind them. They had had
+a long and wearying day, and the beds beckoned them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+BY THE LIGHT OF THE MOON
+
+
+Ike M'Graw, the timber cruiser, was an excellent weather prophet; and
+this was proved to be a fact before all of those at Red Deer Lodge had
+gone to bed on this first night.
+
+Neale O'Neil chanced to raise the shade of one of the windows in the
+boys' room before undressing, and exclaimed to Luke:
+
+"Hey! who said it snowed? Look at that moon up there!"
+
+Luke Shepard joined him and looked out, too, at the rather misty orb
+of night that peered through the breaking clouds. But little snow had
+fallen during the evening.
+
+"Going to be a good day, just as that old codger said it would,"
+agreed Luke. "My, how white everything is--really, silver! And a
+lonely place, isn't it?"
+
+"You said it," agreed Neale. He was feeling in his pockets, and
+suddenly added: "Crackey! I've lost my knife."
+
+"You had it down there peeling apples for the girls," said Luke, who
+was beginning to undress.
+
+Sammy was already in bed and sound asleep. Neale started for the door.
+
+"I don't want to lose that knife," he said. "I am going to run down
+and get it."
+
+The serving people had gone to bed, but there were dim lights on the
+gallery and one below in the big hall. Neale ran lightly down the
+carpeted stairs on his side of the house. The light was so dim that he
+fumbled around a good while hunting for the missing knife.
+
+Suddenly something clattered about his ears--some missiles that came
+from above, but were not much heavier than snowflakes, it would seem.
+Neale jumped, and then stared around.
+
+He could not see a thing moving or hear anything. Where the white
+objects had come from he could not understand. Finally he found one
+that had rolled on the floor.
+
+"Popcorn! Say! it's not snowing popcorn in here--not by any natural
+means," the boy told himself, immediately suspicious.
+
+Suddenly he spied his knife, and he pocketed that. As he did so there
+came another baptism of popcorn. He dropped down below the edge of a
+table which stood in the middle of the room under the chandelier. All
+the light came from above, and there was not much of that; so it was
+dark under the table.
+
+He heard a faint giggle. "Ah-ha!" thought Neale. "I smell a mouse!
+That is a girl's giggle."
+
+He saw that the way to the foot of the stairs that were nearest the
+girls' rooms, was quite dark. He ran out from under the table, but
+softly and on his hands and knees, and reached the stairway without
+making a sound.
+
+The popcorn rattled again upon the table top, and once more he heard
+the giggle. He wormed his way up the stairs in the shadow and reached
+the gallery. Here a jet of gas from the side wall gave some light. He
+saw the robed figure hanging over the bannister and in the act of
+throwing another handful of popcorn at the spot where the boy was
+supposed to be crouching.
+
+Neale O'Neil crept forward from the top of the stairs, still on his
+hands and knees. He was likewise in the shadow, although he could see
+the figure ahead of him plainly.
+
+"Meow!" crooned the boy, imitating a cat with remarkable ingenuity.
+"Meow!"
+
+"Oh, mercy!" hissed a startled voice.
+
+"Ma-ro-o-ow!" urged Neale O'Neil, repeating his feline success.
+
+"Mercy!" ejaculated the whisperer. "That's a strange cat."
+
+"Ma-row-ro-o-ow!" continued Neale, with a lingering wail.
+
+"Here, kitty! kitty! kitty!" murmured the girl crouching by the
+bannister. "Oh, where are you? Poor kitty!"
+
+Immediately Neale changed his tone and produced a growl that not only
+sounded savage but seemed so near that the startled girl jumped up
+with a cry:
+
+"Oh! Oh! Neale!"
+
+"Ma-row-ro-o-ow! Ssst!" continued what purported to be a cat, and one
+that was very much annoyed.
+
+"Oh! _Oh!_ OH!" shrieked Agnes, springing up and leaning over the
+railing. "Neale! Come quick!"
+
+And there Neale was right beside her! He appeared so suddenly that she
+would have shrieked again, and perhaps brought half the household to
+the spot, had not the boy grabbed her quickly and placed a hand over
+her mouth, stifling the cry about to burst forth.
+
+"Hush!" he commanded. "Want to get Mrs. Mac or Mr. Howbridge out here
+to see what is the matter?"
+
+"Oh, Neale!" sputtered Agnes. "I thought you were a cat."
+
+"And I thought you were a hailstorm of popcorn."
+
+"You horrid boy! To scare me so!"
+
+"You horrid girl! To shower me with popcorn!"
+
+"I don't care--"
+
+"Neither do I."
+
+Agnes began to giggle. "What were you doing down there?" she asked.
+
+"I was looking for my pocketknife. Wouldn't lose it for a farm Down
+East with a pig on it!" declared the boy. "What are you doing out
+here?"
+
+"I went to Mrs. Mac's room to give her her nightcap. It was in my bag.
+Oh, Neale! do you suppose it will be clear by morning, as that funny
+old man says?"
+
+"It's clear now."
+
+"You don't mean it?"
+
+"Come along here to the window and look for yourself," the boy said,
+and led her toward the front of the house along the gallery.
+
+There was a broad and deep-silled window over the front door of the
+Lodge. Neale drew back the hangings. They could see out into the night
+which was now all black and silver.
+
+The forest that edged the clearing in which stood the Lodge was as
+black as ever an evergreen forest could be. The tops of the trees were
+silvered by the moonbeams, but the shadows at the foot of the trees
+were like ink.
+
+In the open the new-fallen snow glittered as though the moonlight fell
+on precious stones. It was so beautiful a scene that for a moment
+Agnes could only grip Neale O'Neil's arm and utter an ecstatic sigh.
+
+"Scrumptious, isn't it?" said the boy, understanding her mood.
+
+"Lovely!" sighed Agnes. "Ruth and Cecile ought to see this."
+
+"Hold on!" warned the boy. "Get them out here and we'll both be sent
+to bed in a hurry. Ruth's got her bossing clothes on--has had 'em on
+ever since we left Milton."
+
+"Te-he!" giggled Agnes suddenly. "She feels her responsibility."
+
+"Guess she does," chuckled Neale. "But there's no need to add to her
+troubles. Believe me! the less I am bossed around by her the better I
+like it."
+
+"Oh, Neale," said Agnes, "she only does it for your good."
+
+"Don't you fret," returned the boy, with a sniff. "I can get along
+without Ruth or anybody else worrying about whether I'm good, or not.
+Believe me!"
+
+"Oh!" squealed Agnes suddenly. "What's that?"
+
+"Huh! Seen a rat? Scared to death?" scoffed Neale O'Neil.
+
+"Look at that thing out there! It's no rat," declared the girl
+eagerly.
+
+Neale then looked in the direction she pointed. Not twenty yards from
+the house, and sitting on its haunches in the snow, was an object that
+at first Neale thought was a dog. The shadow it cast upon the moon-lit
+snow showed pointed ears, however, and a bushy tail.
+
+"Crackey, Aggie!" gasped Neale, "that's a fox."
+
+"A fox? Right here near the house? Just like that?" gasped the girl.
+"Why--why, he must be wild!"
+
+"Crackey!" returned Neale, smothering his laughter, "you didn't
+suppose he was tame, did you?"
+
+"But--but," stammered the girl, "if a wild fox comes so near the
+house, one of those dreadful lynxes may come--or a bear. I never! Why,
+we might be besieged by wolves and bears and wildcats. Did you ever?"
+
+"No, I never was," scoffed Neale. "Not yet. But, really, I am willing
+to be. I'll try anything--once."
+
+"I guess you wouldn't be so smart, young man, if the animals really
+did come here and serenade us. Why--"
+
+"Listen! That fellow is serenading us now," declared Neale, much
+amused.
+
+The sharp, shrill yap of the fox reached their ears. Then, from the
+rear of the house where Tom Jonah was confined in the back kitchen,
+the roar of the old dog's bark answered the fox's yapping.
+
+And then from somewhere--was it from above and inside the house, or
+outside and in the black woods?--there sounded a sharp explosion.
+Agnes flashed a questioning glance at Neale; but the boy pointed,
+crying:
+
+"Quick! Look! The fox!"
+
+The little animal with the bushy tail that had raised its pointed nose
+to yap mournfully at the moon, had suddenly sprung straight up into
+the air. It cleared the snow at least four feet. One convulsive
+wriggle it gave with its whole body, and fell back, a black heap, on
+the snow.
+
+"Oh, Neale! what happened to it?" gasped Agnes, amazed.
+
+"Shot," said the youth, a curious note in his voice.
+
+"Oh, who shot it?"
+
+"Ask me an easier one."
+
+"Why--what--I think that was sort of cruel, after all," sighed the
+girl. "He wasn't really doing any harm."
+
+"I thought you were afraid he might eat us all up," said Neale,
+dropping the curtain which he had been holding back, and turning away
+from the window.
+
+"Oh--but--I am serious now," she said. "Who do you suppose shot him?"
+
+"I could not say."
+
+"That old woodsman, perhaps? There is none of our party out there with
+a gun, of course. Oh, dear! I hope I don't dream of it. I don't like
+to see things killed."
+
+But the thought of dreaming about seeing the fox shot did not trouble
+Neale O'Neil when he parted with Agnes and went back to his room. Nor
+was it anything about the death of the creature that absorbed his
+attention.
+
+It was who the huntsman was and from where the shot was fired that
+puzzled Neale O 'Neil. Had the shot been made from outside or inside
+the house?
+
+For it seemed to the boy that the explosion had been above their
+heads; and he chanced to know that none of the party from Milton--not
+even the servants--were quartered on the third floor of Red Deer
+Lodge.
+
+Who, then, could be up there shooting out of one of the small windows
+at the yapping fox? He said nothing about this to Agnes; but he
+determined to make inquiry regarding it the first thing in the
+morning.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+A VARIETY OF HAPPENINGS
+
+
+They were near the shortest day of the year and the sun rose very late
+indeed; so nobody at Red Deer Lodge got up early, unless it was the
+kitchen man who had to light the fires and bring in much wood. He
+tramped paths through the new-fallen snow to the outbuildings before
+sunrise. By the time Neale O'Neil, his head filled with the puzzling
+thoughts of the night before, reached the rear premises, the yard of
+the Lodge was marked and re-marked with footsteps.
+
+He sought Hedden, however, having seen that the snow in front of the
+Lodge showed no footprint. The fox lay just where it had been shot.
+
+"Does any of our party sleep in the garret, Hedden?" Neale asked the
+butler.
+
+"No, young man. We all have rooms at the back of the house."
+
+The boy told the man about the shooting of the fox. "Of course, one of
+the men was not out with a small rifle, and plugged old Reynard when
+he was howling at the moon, was he?"
+
+"No," replied the butler. "Neither John nor Lawrence knows how to use
+a gun, I'm sure. Perhaps it was that tall man, Ike M'Graw."
+
+"Well, seems to me he ought to have come and got the pelt," said
+Neale, ruminatingly. "It's worth something all right, when furs are so
+high. Say, Hedden, how do you get upstairs into the garret?"
+
+Hedden told him, presuming that it was merely a boy's curiosity that
+caused him to ask. But Neale had a deeper reason than that for wishing
+to find the way upstairs.
+
+He could not understand from what angle the fox had been shot while he
+and Agnes were looking out of the window, if the hunter had been in
+the wood. There had been no flash or sign of smoke from the edge of
+the forest, and Neale's vision swept the line of black shadow for
+hundreds of yards at the moment of the report.
+
+"Smokeless powder is all right," muttered the boy. "But they can't
+overcome the flash of the exploding shell in the dark. No, sir! That
+marksman was not in the wood. And the report sounded right over our
+heads!"
+
+He said nothing more to Hedden, but found the upper stairs at the rear
+of the house. At the top was a heavy door, but it was not locked. He
+thrust it open rather gingerly, and looked into the great, raftered
+loft.
+
+The sun was above the treetops now and shone redly into the front
+windows. There was light enough for him to see that as far as human
+occupants went, the garret of the Lodge was empty.
+
+There was not much up here, anyway. Several boxes, some lumber, and a
+heap of rubbish in one corner.
+
+Neale O'Neil stepped into the place and walked to the front of the
+building. The windows were square and swung inward on hinges. He knew
+that this row of front windows was directly over that at which he and
+Agnes stood looking out upon the moon-lit lawn at bedtime.
+
+The windows were all fastened with buttons. As far as he could see
+none gave evidence--at least on the inside--of having been recently
+opened. Neale shivered in the chill, dead air of the loft.
+
+If the marksman that had shot the fox was up here, from which window
+did he shoot? Neale could not find any mark along the window sill or
+on the floor.
+
+Suddenly the boy began opening the windows, one after the other. Some
+of them stuck, but he persisted until each one swung open. Outside the
+snow that had fallen the evening before lay in a fluffy layer on the
+window sill.
+
+At the third window he halted. In this layer of light snow was a mark.
+Neale uttered a satisfied exclamation.
+
+It was the matrix of a round tube--the barrel of the gun that had
+fired the shot which had finished Reynard, the fox!
+
+"Can't be anything else," thought the boy. "He knelt right here and
+rested his gun across the sill. Yes! it points downward--pressed
+heavier at the outer end than near the window. Yes!"
+
+The boy got down and squinted along the mark in the snow. His keen eye
+easily brought the huddled, sandy object on the snow down below into
+range.
+
+"Now, what do you know about that?" Neale O'Neil asked aloud. "Who was
+up here with a gun last night and popped over that fox? I wonder if I
+ought to tell Mr. Howbridge."
+
+Had he done so the lawyer would quickly have pieced together what
+Hedden had told him about the live embers in the grate and Neale's
+discovery. Whether he would have arrived at a correct conclusion in
+the matter, was another thing.
+
+However that might be, Neale O'Neil was sure that somebody had access
+to the garret and had shot the fox therefrom. After the rear premises
+of the Lodge had been tracked up so before daylight, half a dozen
+people might have left the house by the rear door without their
+footprints being seen. If the marksman had no business in the Lodge he
+could easily have got away.
+
+Puzzling over these thoughts, Neale descended to find most of the
+party before the fire in the living-room, waiting for breakfast. Agnes
+was eagerly telling of the fox she had seen shot at bedtime.
+
+Neale added no details to her story, save that the fox still lay on
+the snow outside.
+
+"Whoever hit him didn't care for the pelt," said the boy. "Now that it
+is frozen, it will be hard to skin. A fox hide is worth something. I'm
+going to thaw out the body and try to save the skin--for Aggie, of
+course."
+
+"Oh, my!" cried the beauty, "won't it be fine to have a collar or a
+muff made out of a fox that I saw shot with my own eyes?"
+
+"Odd about that," said Mr. Howbridge thoughtfully. "I wonder who could
+have been so near the Lodge last evening. And then, to have left the
+fox there!"
+
+The breakfast call interrupted him. Neale said nothing further about
+it. After the meal, however, the young people all got into their warm
+wraps and overshoes and went out of doors.
+
+Tom Jonah was turned loose, and he almost at once dashed around the
+house to the spot where the body of the fox lay. The children gathered
+around the fuzzy animal in great excitement.
+
+"Oh, it looks like Mrs. Allen's spitz dog--only this is reddish and
+Sambo, the spitz, is white," Tess said. "The poor--little--thing!"
+
+"This is no 'expectorates' dog," chuckled Neale, grabbing the creature
+by the tail. "'Expectorates' is a much better word than 'spits,' Tess.
+Now, I am going to take this fellow and hang him up in the back
+kitchen where he will thaw out. No, Tom Jonah! you are not going to
+worry him."
+
+"What lovely long fur!" murmured Agnes. "Do you suppose you can really
+cure the skin for me, Neale?" she demanded.
+
+"What's the matter with the skin?" demanded Sammy, in wonder. "Is it
+sick?"
+
+"Good gracious!" exclaimed Agnes. "These children have to be explained
+to every minute. I hope that fox skin has no disease, Sammy."
+
+Luke and Ruth and Cecile had gone for a tramp through the wood. The
+little folks set to work building a snow man which was to be of
+wondrous proportions when completed. Naturally Neale and Agnes kept
+together.
+
+Agnes had been wandering along the edge of the wood in front of the
+house while Neale carried the fox indoors. Tom Jonah came back with
+Neale and began snuffing about the spot where the fox had laid.
+
+"See here, Neale O'Neil," cried Agnes, "I can't find anybody's
+footprints over here. Where do you suppose that man shot the fox
+from?"
+
+"Humph!" grunted Neale noncommittally.
+
+"But here's just the cunningest hoofprints! See them!" cried Agnes.
+
+The boy joined her. Two rows of marks made by split-hoofed animals ran
+along the edge of the wood.
+
+"Crackey!" ejaculated the boy. "Those are deer."
+
+"You don't mean it?"
+
+"Must be. Red deer, I bet. And right close to the Lodge! How tame
+these creatures are."
+
+"Well, deer won't hurt us," said Agnes, decidedly. "Let's see where
+they went to."
+
+Neale was nothing loath. One direction was as good as another. He
+wanted much to talk to somebody about the discovery he had made in the
+loft of the Lodge; but he did not wish to frighten Agnes, so he did
+not broach the subject.
+
+The two rows of hoof marks went on, side by side, along the edge of
+the clearing. They followed them to the very end of the opening which
+had been cleared about Red Deer Lodge--the northern end.
+
+Here began a narrow path into the woods. The spoor of the two animals
+led into this path, and the boy and girl tramped along after them.
+
+"I guess nothing frightened them," said Neale, "for they appear to be
+trotting right along at an easy gait. They must have passed this way
+in the night. And that's kind of funny, too."
+
+"What is funny?" asked Agnes.
+
+"Why, deer--especially two, alone--ought to have been hiding in some
+clump of brush during the night. They don't go wandering around much
+unless they are hungry. And there is plenty of brush fodder for them
+to eat along the edge of the swamps, that is sure."
+
+"Are you sure they are deer?" asked Agnes. "They couldn't be anything
+else, could they?"
+
+"I reckon not," laughed Neale. "I say! who lives here?"
+
+They caught a glimpse of an opening in the forest ahead. Then a cabin
+appeared, from the chimney of which a curl of blue smoke rose into the
+air. There were several smaller buildings in the clearing, too.
+
+"Guess we have struck that old timber cruiser's place," Neale said,
+answering his own question.
+
+"Oh! Mr. Ike M'Graw!" cried Agnes. "Now we can ask him if he shot the
+fox last night."
+
+"But where did these deer go?" exclaimed Neale, stopping on the edge
+of the little clearing and staring all around.
+
+For here the tracks they had followed seemed to cross and criss-cross
+all about the clearing. That wild deer should frolic so about an
+occupied house was indeed puzzling. He saw, too, that there were human
+footprints over-running the marks of the split hoofs.
+
+Suddenly from around the corner of the cabin appeared the long,
+slablike figure of the woodsman. He saw them almost immediately.
+
+"Hullo, there!" he cried. "Ain't you out early? I wouldn't have been
+up near so early myself, if it hadn't been for those confounded shoats
+of mine."
+
+"What happened to the pigs?" asked Neale, smiling.
+
+"They broke out o' their pen. Always doin' that!" returned M'Graw.
+"Run off through the woods somewhere, and then come back and made sech
+a racket around my shanty that I can't sleep. Confound 'em!"
+
+Neale suddenly saw a great light. He seized Agnes' hand and squeezed
+it in warning. With his other hand he pointed to the marks in the
+snow.
+
+"Are those the pigs' footprints?"
+
+"Yes. I just got 'em shut up again," said the woodsman. "Come in,
+won't you? I guess my coffee's biled sufficient, and I'm about to fry
+me a mess of bacon and johnnycake."
+
+"What do you know about that?" murmured Neale to the giggling Agnes.
+"We followed those pig tracks for deer tracks. Aren't we great
+hunters--I don't think!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE KEY
+
+
+The interior of Ike M'Graw's cabin was a place of interest to Neale
+and Agnes. There was not much room, but it was neat and clean. There
+were two bunks, one over the other at one end of the room. At the
+other end was the big, open fireplace.
+
+There were andirons, a chimney crane for a pot, a dutch oven, and a
+sheet-iron shelf that could be pushed over the coals, on which the old
+man baked his johnnycake, or pan-bread.
+
+The coffee pot was already bubbling on this shelf and gave off a
+strong odor of Rio. The bacon was sliced, ready for the frying pan.
+Ike wanted to cut more and give his two young visitors a second
+breakfast; but they would not hear to that.
+
+"We'll take a cup of coffee with you," Agnes said brightly. "But I
+know I could not possibly eat another thing. Could you, Neale?"
+
+"Not yet," agreed the boy. "And anyway," he added, with a smile, "if
+we are going to have a big storm as they say we are, Mr. M'Graw will
+need to conserve his food."
+
+"Don't you fret, son," said M'Graw; "I've got enough pork and bacon,
+flour, meal and coffee, to last me clean into spring. I never stint my
+stomach. Likewise, as long as I can pull the trigger of Old Betsey
+there, I shan't go hungry in these here woods. No, sir!"
+
+Neale stepped to the rack in the corner where stood the brown-barreled
+rifle the woodsman called "Old Betsey," as well as a single and a
+double-barreled shotgun.
+
+"Which of these did you use last night, Mr. M'Graw, when you shot that
+fox?" Agnes asked.
+
+"Heh? What fox?"
+
+"Maybe it wasn't you," said the Corner House girl. "But somebody shot
+a fox right up there in front of the Lodge."
+
+"When was this?" demanded the old man, looking at her curiously.
+
+Neale told him the time. The woodsman shook his head slowly.
+
+"I was buried in my blankets by that time," he declared. "Are you sure
+the fox was shot, young feller?"
+
+"I've got it hung up to get the frost out so I can skin it," said
+Neale quietly.
+
+"Shot, eh?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"What sort of a ball killed it?"
+
+"A small bullet. It was no large rifle bullet," said Neale
+confidently. "I should think it was no more than a twenty-two
+caliber."
+
+"Pshaw! that's only a play-toy," returned the old man. "Who'd have a
+gun like that up here in the woods? Guess you're mistook, young
+feller."
+
+"When you come up to the house you take a look at the fox," said
+Neale.
+
+"I'll do that. Where'd the feller stand when he shot the fox?"
+
+"Why," put in Agnes, as Neale hesitated, "we couldn't find his
+footprints at all."
+
+"Humph!" muttered the old fellow.
+
+He poured out the coffee. The cups were deep, thick, and had no
+handles. He poured his own into the deep saucer, blew it noisily, and
+sipped it in great, scalding gulps. Agnes tried not to give this
+operation any attention.
+
+Neale meanwhile was examining several fine skins hung upon the log
+walls. There was a wolf skin among them, and a big, black bear robe
+was flung over the lower bunk for warmth.
+
+"I got him," said the woodsman, "five year ago. He was in a berry
+patch over against the mountain, yonder. And he was as fat as butter."
+
+"And the wolf?" asked Agnes, with considerable interest.
+
+"I trapped him. Last winter. He was a tremendous big feller," said
+M'Graw, heaping a tin plate with johnnycake and pouring bacon grease
+over it. "There's a small pack living up in the hills, and I'm likely
+to get more this winter. These heavy snows will no doubt be driving
+'em down."
+
+"Oh! Wolves!" gasped the girl.
+
+"They won't bother you none," said M'Graw. "Don't go off by yourself,
+and if any of your party takes a long tramp, carry a gun. Like enough
+you'll get a shot at something; but not wolves. They're too sly."
+
+The conversation of the old backwoodsman was both illuminating and
+amusing. And his hunting trophies were vastly interesting, at least to
+Neale.
+
+There was a big photograph on the wall of Ike and another man standing
+on either side of a fallen moose. The great, spoon-shaped horns of the
+creature were at least six feet across.
+
+"You'll see that head up over the main mantelpiece up to the Lodge,"
+said M'Graw. "That's Mr. Birdsall. He an' me shot that moose over the
+line in Canady. But we brought the head home."
+
+Over his own fireplace was a handsome head--that of a stag of the red
+deer.
+
+"Got him," Ike vouchsafed between bites, "down in the east swamp, ten
+year ago come Christmas. Ain't been a bigger shot in this part of the
+country, I reckon, 'ceptin' the ghost deer Tom Lawrence shot three
+winters ago over towards Ebettsville."
+
+"Ghost deer!" exclaimed Neale and Agnes together.
+
+"What does that mean?" added the boy.
+
+"Surely you don't believe there are spirits of deer returned to earth,
+do you, Mr. M'Graw?" asked Agnes, smiling.
+
+M'Graw grinned. "Ain't no tellin'. Mebbe there is. I'm mighty careful
+what I say about ghosts," he rejoined. "But this here ghost deer,
+now--"
+
+He had finished breakfast and was filling his pipe. "Lemme tell you
+about it," he said. "I will say, though, 'twasn't no spirit, for I eat
+some of the venison from that ghost deer.
+
+"But for two seasons the critter had had the whole of Ebettsville by
+the ears. The hunters couldn't get a shot, and some folks said 'twas a
+sure-enough ghost.
+
+"But if 'twas a ghost, it was the fust one that ever left footprints
+in the snow. That's sure," chuckled M'Graw. "I went over there with
+Old Betsey once; but never got a shot at it. Jest the same I seen the
+footprints, and I knowed what it was."
+
+"What was it?"
+
+"Looked like a ghost flying past in the twilight. It was an
+albino--white deer. I told 'em so. And fin'ly Tom Lawrence, as I said,
+shot it. Why they hadn't got it before, I guess, was because them that
+shot at it shivered so for fear 'twas a ghost they couldn't hit the
+broad side of a barn!" and M'Graw broke into a loud laugh.
+
+"I did not know that deer were ever white," Agnes said.
+
+"One o' the wonders of nature," Ike assured her. "And not frequent
+seen. But that critter was one--and a big one. Weighed upwards of two
+hundred pound. Tom give me a haunch, and when it was seasoned some,
+'twasn't much tougher than shoe-leather. _Me_, I kill me a doe when I
+want tender meat. My teeth is gettin' kind of wore down," chuckled the
+old man.
+
+"Was it really all white?" asked Neale.
+
+"Well, that buck's horns an' hoofs was considerable lighter in color
+than ordinary. With them exceptions, and a few hairs on the forehead
+and a tuft on the hind leg, that critter was perfectly white. Queer.
+Jest an albino, as I said," M'Graw concluded between puffs.
+
+Beside the chimney on a big nail driven into a log, hung a string of
+rusty keys, with one big shiny brass one by itself. Agnes said:
+
+"I guess you have to lock everything up when you leave home, don't
+you, Mr. M'Graw?"
+
+"Me? Never lock a thing. We don't have no tramps. And if I leave home
+I always leave a fire laid and everything so that a visitor can come
+right in and go to housekeeping. It's a purty mean man that'll lock up
+his cabin in the woods. No, ma'am. I never lock nothin'."
+
+"But those keys?" the Corner House girl suggested curiously.
+
+"Oh! Them? Just spare keys I picked up. All but this," and he reached
+for the brass key briskly. "This is the key to the Lodge padlock, I'm
+goin' to take it up to that Mr. Howbridge of yours and tell him
+something about it. I'll walk back with you."
+
+He slipped into his leather jacket and buckled up his leggings. Then
+banking the fire on the hearth, he said he was ready to go. He put the
+big brass key in his pocket, but as he had intimated, he left the
+cabin door unlocked.
+
+Once outside, they saw that the sun was clouded over again. "That
+storm is surely a-coming," Ike observed. "I shouldn't wonder, when it
+does get here, if it turns out to be a humdinger. 'Long threaten, long
+last,' they say."
+
+When they arrived at the Lodge the old man took a look at the fox
+Neale had hung up. He examined the small hole under the ear where the
+bullet had gone into the animal's head.
+
+"Nice shot," he muttered. "Dropped him without a struggle, I reckon.
+And you sure are right, boy," he added to Neale. "It was a twenty-two.
+Nothin' bigger. Humph! mighty funny, that.
+
+"Well, you let it hang here and I'll skin it for you before I go back
+home. Fust off I want to see your Mr. Howbridge."
+
+As M'Graw went through the hall to find the lawyer, Neale and Agnes
+were called by Luke from one of the sheds. His voice and beckoning
+hand hurried them to the spot.
+
+"What do you know about this?" cried Luke. "Here are two perfectly
+good sleds--a big one and a smaller. And one of those drivers that
+have just started back for Coxford, told me where there was a dandy
+slide."
+
+"Crackey, that's fine!" agreed the eager Neale.
+
+Agnes, too, was delighted. The other girls were eager to try the
+coasting.
+
+"But we must get away without the children. It is too far for them to
+go," Ruth said. "At least, we must try it out before we let them join
+us."
+
+"They are all right at the front with their snow man. I just saw
+them," Agnes said. "Come on!" Agnes was always ready for sport.
+
+They started away from the house, the two boys dragging the bobsled.
+There were about four inches of fluffy, dry snow on top, and under
+that the drifts were almost ice-hard.
+
+"Ought to make the finest kind of sledding," Luke declared.
+
+Meanwhile Ike M'Graw had found Mr. Howbridge reading a book in a
+corner of one of the comfortable settees in the big living-room. He
+dropped the book and stood up to greet the woodsman with a smile.
+
+"How are you, this morning, M'Graw?" asked the lawyer. "How about the
+key?"
+
+"Here 'tis," said the guide. "Found it just where it should be. Looked
+as though it had never been touched since I was gone. But, of course,
+as I tell you, anybody might have been in my cabin. I don't lock
+nothin' up."
+
+"If the key was used, it was by somebody who knew it was the key and
+where to find it," Mr. Howbridge said reflectively.
+
+"You struck it there," agreed Ike. "And there's only two keys to that
+big padlock. Unless there's been one made since Mr. Birdsall died," he
+added.
+
+"If anybody borrowed the key and got in here, they got out again and
+locked the front door and returned the key."
+
+"So 'twould seem. You say there wasn't no marks in the snow when your
+folks fust came?"
+
+"No."
+
+"It snowed the day after I went away from here to Ebettsville. They
+must have come here and gone before that snow then. That snow covered
+their tracks. How's that?"
+
+"Not so good," the lawyer promptly told him. "You forget the live
+embers in the grate. Those embers would not have stayed alive for five
+days."
+
+"Ain't that a fac'?" muttered the old man.
+
+They pondered in silence for a moment.
+
+Hedden suddenly entered the room. He seemed flurried, and his employer
+knew that something of moment had occurred.
+
+"What is the matter, Hedden?" the latter asked.
+
+"I have to report, sir, that somebody has been at the goods in the
+pantry--the canned food and other provisions that we brought up."
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Mr. Howbridge curiously.
+
+"The chef, sir, says that quite a good deal of food has been stolen.
+He put the stuff away. There is a lot of it gone, sir--and that since
+last night at dinner time."
+
+"Humph! Isn't that strange?" murmured the lawyer.
+
+M'Graw grunted and started for the front door.
+
+"Where are you going, M'Graw?" asked Mr. Howbridge.
+
+"I'm going to find out who shot that fox," was the woodsman's
+enigmatical answer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+ALL DOWN HILL
+
+
+The party of young people with the bobsled was very merry indeed just
+as soon as they got out of hearing of the Lodge. By striking into a
+path which opened into the wood right behind the barns, they cut off
+any view the two little girls and Sammy Pinkney might have caught of
+their departure.
+
+"I feel somewhat condemned for leaving them behind," Ruth said. "Yet I
+know it is too far for such little people to go along and get back for
+lunch."
+
+"Oh, they are having a good time," Cecile said. "You make yourself a
+slave to your young family, Ruthie," and she laughed.
+
+"We will make it up to the kids," Luke joined in. "After we have tried
+the slide they can have a shot at it."
+
+"That's all right," grinned Neale O'Neil. "But if Tess Kenway thinks
+she has been snubbed or neglected--well! you will not hear the last of
+it in a hurry, believe me."
+
+This part of the wood into which the young people had entered was a
+sapling growth. Not many years before the timber had been cut and
+there were only brush clumps and small trees here now.
+
+Flocks of several different kinds of birds--sparrows, buntings, jays,
+swamp robins, and others--flew noisily about. There were berries and
+seeds to be found in the thickets. The birds had begun to forage far
+from the swamps--a sign that the snow was heavy and deep in their
+usual winter feeding places.
+
+"The dear little birdies!" cooed Agnes, waving her gloved hand at a
+flock that spread out fan-wise in the covert, frightened by the
+approach of the young people.
+
+Suddenly there arose a vast racket--a whirring and trampling sound, as
+though it were of runaway hoofs. Agnes shrieked and glanced about her.
+The other girls looked startled.
+
+"That horse! It's running away!" cried Agnes. "Oh, Neale!"
+
+"Shucks!" said that youth, scornfully. "'The dear little birdies!' Ho,
+ho! I thought you liked 'em, Aggie?"
+
+"Liked what?" she demanded, as the noise faded away into the wood.
+
+"The birdies. That was a flock of partridges. They can make some
+noise, can't they? Food in the swamps must be getting mighty scarce,
+or they would not be away up here."
+
+"Who ever would have thought it?" murmured Cecile. "Partridges!"
+
+"Wish I had a gun," said Luke.
+
+"Don't be afraid. They won't bite," chuckled Neale O'Neil. "And we
+won't be likely to meet anything much more dangerous than birds in the
+day time."
+
+"Yet we saw that big cat yesterday," Ruth said.
+
+"It ran all right. We might have brought Tom Jonah; only he was
+playing with the kids," said Neale. "Anyway, the best he would do
+would be to scare up creatures in the thickets that we otherwise would
+not know were there."
+
+"Now, stop that, Neale O'Neil!" cried Agnes. "Are you trying to
+frighten us?"
+
+"Shucks, Aggie!" he returned. "You know the kind of wild animal we
+scared up this morning when we found Ike M'Graw's place."
+
+"Oh! Oh!" cried Agnes, with laughter.
+
+"What's the joke?" asked Luke.
+
+So Neale told the rest of the party how he and Agnes had followed the
+footprints of the "deer" clear to the old man's cabin.
+
+"And there we could hear them squealing in their pen," was the way
+Neale finished it.
+
+"Two mighty hunters, you!" chuckled Luke.
+
+The road over which they dragged the sled soon became steep. They were
+now climbing a long hill through heavier timber. It was a straight
+path, and the crown of the ascent was more than a mile from Red Deer
+Lodge.
+
+Half way up they passed a fork in the timber road. The roads were not
+rutted at all, for they were full of firm snow. This second road
+dipped to the north, running down the steep hill and out of sight.
+
+"That chap who told me about this slide told me to 'ware that road,"
+Luke said. "Around that curve he said it was steep and there'd be no
+stopping the sled for a long way. If we stick to the right track, well
+slide back almost to the Lodge itself."
+
+"That'll help some," Cecile said. "I am getting tired tramping over
+this snow. It's a harder pull than I imagined it would be."
+
+"We were very wise not to let the children come," Ruth remarked.
+
+Uphill for all of a mile was, in truth, no easy climb.
+
+Agnes and Neale O'Neil began to bicker.
+
+"I'm no horse," said Neale rather grumpily, when Agnes suggested that
+the boys could drag the girls on the sled.
+
+"No; your ears are too long," she retorted impishly.
+
+"Now, children!" admonished Ruth, "How is it you two always manage to
+fight?"
+
+"They're only showing off," chuckled Luke Shepard. "In secret they
+have a terrible crush on each other."
+
+"Such slang!" groaned his sister.
+
+"Real college brand," said Agnes cheerfully. "I do love slang, Luke.
+Tell us some more."
+
+"I object! No, no!" cried Ruth. "She learns quite enough high-school
+slang. Don't teach her any more of the college brand, Luke."
+
+They puffed up the final rise and arrived at the top of the ascent.
+This was the very peak of the ridge on which Red Deer Lodge was built.
+
+Because it was winter and all but the evergreens and oaks were denuded
+of leaves, they could see much farther over the surrounding landscape
+than would have been possible in the leafy seasons; however, on all
+sides the forest was so thick at a distance that a good view of the
+country was not easily obtained.
+
+The valley toward the north was black with spruce and hemlock. One
+could not see if there were clearings in the valley. It seemed there
+to be an unbroken and primeval forest.
+
+This valley was included in the Birdsall estate, and the timber which
+the Neven Lumber Company wished to cut practically lay entirely in
+that wild valley.
+
+The hills to the west were plainly visible. Their caps were either
+bald and snow covered, or crowned with the black-green forest. Toward
+the lakeside the slopes were alternately tree covered and of raw
+stumpage where the timber had recently been cut. These "slashes" were
+ugly looking spots.
+
+"That is what all that part yonder of this estate will look like when
+the lumbermen get through," said Ruth. "Isn't it a shame?"
+
+"But trees have to be cut down some time. I heard M'Graw say that much
+of the timber on this place was beginning to deteriorate," Luke said
+in reply.
+
+"Shucks!" exclaimed Neale O'Neil, "if a tree is beautiful, why not let
+it stand? Why slaughter it?"
+
+"There speaks the altruistic spirit of the young artist," laughed
+Luke. "Ask Mr. Howbridge. How about the money value of the tree?"
+
+"Shucks!" Neale repeated, but with his eyes twinkling. "Is money
+everything?"
+
+"Let me tell you, boy," said Luke a little bitterly; "it buys almost
+everything that is worth while in this world. I want beautiful things,
+too; but I know it will cost a slew of money to buy them. I am going
+to set out and try for money first, then!"
+
+"Hear the practical youth!" said Cecile. "That is what he learns at
+college. Say! aren't we going to slide downhill? Or did we come up
+here to discuss political economy?"
+
+Luke, holding up his hand in affirmation, declared: "I vow to discuss
+neither polit, bugs, pills, psyche, trig--"
+
+"Oh, stop!" commanded Ruth, yet with curiosity. "What are all those
+horrid sounding things?"
+
+"Pshaw!" cried the collegian's sister, "I know that much of his old
+slang. 'Trig' is trigonometry, of course; 'psyche' is psychology;
+'pills' means physics; 'bugs' is biology; and 'poit,' of course, is
+political economy. Those college boys are awfully smart, aren't they?"
+
+"I want to sli-i-ide!" wailed Agnes, stamping her feet in the snow. "I
+am turning into a lump of ice, standing here."
+
+"Get aboard, then," answered Neale.
+
+She plumped herself on the sled. Luke straddled the seat just behind
+the steering wheel. The other girls took their places in rotation
+after Agnes, while Neale made ready to push off and then jump on
+himself at the rear.
+
+"Ready?" he cried.
+
+"Let her go!" responded the steersman.
+
+"Hang on, girls!" commanded Neale, as he started the sled with a
+mighty shove.
+
+The bobsled moved slowly. The runners grunted and strained over the
+soft snow that packed under them and, at first, retarded the movement
+of the sled. But soon the power of gravitation asserted itself. Neale
+settled himself on the seat. The wind began to whistle past their
+ears. In front a fine mist of snow particles was thrown up.
+
+Faster and faster they rushed down the descent. The young people had
+thought this trail very smooth as they climbed it; but now they found
+there were plenty of "thank-you-ma'ams" in the path. The bobsled
+bumped over these, gathering speed, and finally began to leave the
+snow and fairly fly into the air when it struck a ridge.
+
+The girls screamed when these hummocks arrived. But they laughed
+between them, too! It was a most exciting trip.
+
+Like an arrow the sled shot past the fork in the road, keeping to the
+left. But it would have been a very easy matter, as Luke Shepard saw,
+to turn the sled into the steeper descent.
+
+They started up a gray and white rabbit beside the path, and it raced
+them in desperate fright for several hundred yards, before it knew
+enough to turn off the road and leap into the brush. Luke's head was
+down and his eyes half closed as he stared ahead. But Neale gave voice
+to his delight in reëchoed shouts.
+
+There were slides in Milton. The selectmen gave up certain streets to
+the young folk for coasting. But those streets were nothing like this.
+
+On and on the bobsled flew, its pace increasing with, every length.
+Although this woodroad was in no place really steep, the hill was so
+long, and its slant so continuous that the momentum the sled gathered
+carried it over any little level that there might be, and at the foot
+of the decline still shot the merry crew over the snow at a swift pace
+and for a long distance.
+
+Indeed, when the sled stopped they were almost at the back of the Red
+Deer Lodge premises. A mellow horn was calling them to lunch when they
+alighted.
+
+"Oh! wasn't it bully?" gasped the delighted Agnes. "I never did have
+such a sled-ride!"
+
+"How about your trip up the lake!" Cecile asked.
+
+"Oh! But that scooter was different."
+
+The other girls were quite as pleased with the slide as Agnes; and the
+three ran into the house to dress for lunch, chattering like magpies,
+while the boys put the sled away under the shed.
+
+When Luke and Neale went into the house they found Ike M'Graw skinning
+the fox in the back kitchen, Tom Jonah being a much interested
+spectator. The woodsman beckoned Neale to him.
+
+"Look here, young feller," he said. "You seen this critter shot last
+night, you say?"
+
+"Yes," replied the boy.
+
+"Where was it shot from? I'm derned if I can find any place where the
+feller stood along the edge of the woods to shoot him."
+
+"No. I couldn't find any footprints either," Neale confessed.
+
+"Not knowing from which direction the bullet came--"
+
+"Oh, but I do know that, Mr. M'Graw. I am pretty positive, at least. I
+have been doubtful whether to say anything about it or not--and that's
+a fact."
+
+"What d'you mean?" demanded the old man, eyeing him shrewdly.
+
+"Well, I thought when I heard the shot and the fox was killed that the
+explosion was right over my head."
+
+"What's that? Over your head! In the attic?"
+
+"That is where the shot came from--yes."
+
+"Air you positive?" drawled the old man.
+
+"I went up there this morning and saw the place where the fellow had
+rested the barrel of his gun across the window sill to shoot."
+
+"My! My!" muttered Ike thoughtfully. "And there wasn't nobody up there
+this morning?"
+
+"No. And I asked Hedden, and he said neither of the other men knew how
+to use a gun and that they all were in bed at the time the fox was
+shot."
+
+"Do tell!" muttered the woodsman. "Then they--well, the feller that
+shot the fox was up there in the attic about bedtime, was he?"
+
+"Yes. Who do you suppose he was, Mr. M'Graw?" asked Neale curiously.
+
+"Well, I wouldn't want to make a guess. This here man workin' in the
+kitchen tells me that there wasn't a foot mark in the snow at all when
+he got up and went out of the back door here the fust time this
+morning. And, of course, there wasn't no footprints at the front of
+the house, was there?"
+
+"Oh, no! Not until after breakfast time."
+
+"Uh-huh! Well, after this John had tramped back an' forth to the
+woodshed and the like half a dozen times, anybody could have gone out
+of here without their footprints being noticed. Ain't that a fac'?"
+
+He said this to himself more than to Neale, who had become vastly
+interested in the subject. He eagerly watched the old man's
+weather-beaten face.
+
+Suddenly the woodsman raised his head and looked at Neale
+thoughtfully. He asked a question that seemed to have nothing at all
+to do with the subject in hand.
+
+"What kind of a dog is this here Tom Jonah?" Ike demanded. "Ain't he
+got no nose?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+FIGURING IT OUT
+
+
+Of course Ike M'Graw could see for himself very easily that Tom Jonah
+had a nose. It was pointed just then at the fox pelt in the old
+woodsman's hands, and was wrinkled as the dog sniffed at the skin.
+
+So Neale O'Neil knew that the man meant something a little different
+from what he said. He, in fact, wanted to know if Tom Jonah was keen
+on the scent, and Neale answered him to that end.
+
+"We think he's got a pretty good nose, Mr. M'Graw, for a Newfoundland.
+Of course, Tom Jonah is not a hunting dog. If he runs a rabbit he runs
+him by sight, not by scent. But give him something that one of the
+children wears, and he'll hunt that child out, as sure as sure! They
+play hide and seek with him just as though he were one of
+themselves--only Tom Jonah is always 'it.'"
+
+"Uh-huh?" grunted the old man. Then he said: "Don't seem as though any
+stranger could have come down from the attic and got through that hall
+yonder without this dog making some sort of racket."
+
+"I never thought of Tom Jonah," admitted Neale.
+
+"He was in here all night, they tell me," went on Ike.
+
+"Yes. But didn't the kitchen man, John, let him out when he first came
+downstairs this morning?"
+
+"No. I asked him. He said the dog didn't seem to want to go out. He
+opened that door yonder into this back kitchen and called the dog.
+This here dog come to the door, but he did not want to go out and
+turned away. So John shut the door again."
+
+"Crackey!" exclaimed Neale. "Then there was somebody in here, and
+don't you forget it, Mr. M'Graw!"
+
+"Uh-huh? But why didn't the dog give tongue? Was it somebody the dog
+knowed? You see, son, there's been food stole from that pantry yonder
+durin' the night. Could it be the feller that shot the fox from the
+attic winder was right in here when John called the dog, loadin' up
+his knapsack with grub?"
+
+"Why--why--"
+
+"This dog must ha' knowed him--eh?"
+
+"I--I suppose so. But who could it be?" demanded Neale with wondering
+emphasis. "Surely it was none of our servants. And Luke Shepard and
+Sammy and I were in bed in one room. The girls--Mr. Howbridge--Mrs.
+MacCall--"
+
+"I guess," said the old man, grinning, "that the lady and that lawyer
+man can be counted out of it. None of you brought a twenty-two rifle
+with you, anyway."
+
+"No."
+
+"That's what the fox was shot with. Here's the pellet," and Ike
+brought the little flattened lead bullet out of his vest pocket. "If
+it hadn't been a good shot--spang through the brain--'twould never
+have killed the fox. He had his head on one side, yappin', and that
+bullet took him right.
+
+"Now, better keep still about this. No use frightening the ladies.
+Girls an' women is easy frightened, I expect. I'll speak again to Mr.
+Howbridge about it. But this here dog--"
+
+He shook his head over Tom Jonah's shortcomings, while Neale ran away
+to wash his hands and face before appearing at the lunch table.
+
+The children around the table were in something of an uproar. Mrs.
+MacCall and Ruth were obliged to be firm in order to quiet Sammy, and
+Tess, and Dot.
+
+For Agnes, unable to keep anything to herself, had blurted out all
+about the lovely sled-ride the older ones had enjoyed. Immediately the
+three younger children decided that they had been cheated.
+
+"We wanted to go tobogganing, too," Tess declared.
+
+"I just _love_ sliding downhill," wailed Dot.
+
+"Huh!" sniffed Sammy Pinkney. "A feller can't have no fun where
+there's big fellers and big girls. They always put you down, and leave
+you out of the best things."
+
+"You shall go sliding tomorrow if the snow holds off," Ruth promised.
+
+"Why not this afternoon, Ruthie?" begged Tess.
+
+"Sister's got something else to do this afternoon. Wait until
+tomorrow," the oldest Kenway replied.
+
+"It's snowing already," muttered Sammy disconsolately.
+
+There were a few flakes in the air. But it did not look as though any
+heavy fall had begun.
+
+"I don't see why we need to have you go with us to slide," Tess said,
+pouting. "We go sliding without you in Milton."
+
+"This is different, Tess," Ruth said firmly. "Now, let us hear no more
+about it! You will annoy Mr. Howbridge."
+
+Sammy winked slyly at the two little girls. "Just you wait!" he
+mouthed so that only Tess and Dot heard him.
+
+"Oh, Sammy!" murmured Dot. "What'll you do?"
+
+"Just you wait!" repeated the boy, and that mysterious statement
+comforted Dot a good deal, if it did not Tess Kenway. Dot believed
+that Sammy was fertile in expedient. She had run away with him once
+"to be pirates."
+
+Before the meal was over, Hedden came in and bent beside Mr. Howbridge
+to whisper into his ear.
+
+"Oh! Has he come back again? I wondered where he went so suddenly,"
+said the lawyer. "Yes. Tell him I'll come out to see him as soon as I
+am through."
+
+Neale knew that he referred to M'Graw. Bright-eyed and interested, he
+bent forward to say to Mr. Howbridge:
+
+"I just told Mr. M'Graw something that I guess you'd wish to know,
+too, Mr. Howbridge. May I go with you when you speak to him?"
+
+"Certainly, my boy. There's nothing secret about it--not really. We
+are only puzzled about a suspicion that we have--"
+
+"That there was somebody in the house that ought not to be here,"
+whispered the boy.
+
+"That's it. How did you know?"
+
+"I'll tell you later," returned Neale O'Neil.
+
+Agnes was glaring at him in a most indignant fashion. It always
+angered the second Corner House girl if Neale seemed to have any
+secret that she did not share.
+
+"What's the matter with you?" she hissed, when Neale turned away from
+their host. "Don't you know it isn't polite to whisper at table, Neale
+O'Neil?"
+
+"What are you doing it for, then?" he asked her, grinning, and would
+vouchsafe no further explanation of the secret between Mr. Howbridge
+and himself.
+
+As soon as the lawyer arose from the table to go out to the kitchen to
+interview Ike, Neale jumped up to go with him. Agnes saw him depart
+with sparkling eyes and a very red face. She was really angry with
+Neale O'Neil.
+
+The boy was too much interested in the mystery of the shooter of the
+fox and how he had got in and out of Red Deer Lodge to be much
+bothered by Agnes' vexation. He and the lawyer found the old woodsman
+sitting in the servants' dining-room where he had been eating.
+
+"Well, sir," he began, when Mr. Howbridge and the boy entered, "'twixt
+us all, I reckon we're gettin' to the bottom of this here mystery. Did
+I tell you I couldn't find no place where the feller stood out there
+in the snow last evening to shoot that fox from?"
+
+"No."
+
+"But it's a fac'. Now you tell him, sonny, what you told me about what
+you found in the attic. I've been up and made sure 'twas so."
+
+Neale told the surprised Mr. Howbridge of the proved fact that the fox
+was shot from one of the attic windows.
+
+"And 'twas a play-toy rifle that done it--a twenty-two," said the
+woodsman, as though to clinch some fact that had risen in his own
+mind, if not in the minds of the others.
+
+"Now, let's figger it out. We got enough fac's now to point purty
+conclusive to who done it. Yes, sir."
+
+"Why, Ike, I don't see that," observed Mr. Howbridge.
+
+"But you will, Mister, in a minute or so," declared the old man,
+nodding with confidence. "Now, look you: Whoever was in this here
+house and made that fire in Miz' Birdsall's sittin'-room, was here
+when your people came day before yesterday."
+
+"No!" ejaculated Mr. Howbridge.
+
+"Yes!" repeated M'Graw with decision.
+
+"But you found that key in your cabin, did you not?"
+
+"Yes. But I tell you I've figgered that out. Whoever 'twas come here,
+got the key, come in here, opened the back door, and then locked the
+front door on the outside same as always."
+
+"Wait! No buts about it," interrupted the woodsman. "I got it figgered
+to a fare-you-well, I tell you. Now! The feller locked the front door,
+went back to my shanty and hung up the key, and then came back in by
+the rear door. See? He--ahem!--was in here when that man, Hedden, of
+yours, and the others, come."
+
+"But there were no footprints of human beings about the house in the
+snow."
+
+"That's all right. The feller that built the fire upstairs had done
+all his walking around before the snow fell the day after I went to
+Ebettsville. Don't you see? He didn't leave here because his
+footprints would be seen, and he couldn't lock the house up behind him
+if he did leave and make it look as though it had never been opened."
+
+"You are guessing at a lot of this!" exclaimed the lawyer, not at all
+convinced.
+
+"No. I'm jest figgerin'. Now, this Neale boy here heard that shot
+fired upstairs that killed the fox. He went up this mornin' and saw
+where the shot was fired from. I seen it, too. So the feller that
+opened the Lodge and that lit the fire was up there at ten or half
+past last evening, for sure."
+
+"Well?" murmured the lawyer.
+
+"He didn't go out during the night, or his footprints would have been
+seen by John this morning in the new-fallen snow."
+
+"That sounds right."
+
+"It is right!" said the old man vigorously. "Now we come to this here
+dog you brought."
+
+"Oh, yes!" cried Mr. Howbridge. "How about Tom Jonah? Surely if there
+had been a stranger about--one who stole food from the pantry--he
+would have interfered."
+
+"Mebbe he would. And mebbe again he wouldn't. He's a mighty friendly
+dog."
+
+"But he is a splendid watchdog," interposed Neale O'Neil.
+
+"That may be, too," Ike said, quite unshaken in his opinion. "If
+anybody had come in from outside and undertaken to disturb anything,
+that old dog would probably have been right on the job."
+
+"I see your point," Mr. Howbridge admitted. "But this person who came
+down from the garret must have been a stranger."
+
+"Now we're gittin' to it. Let's figger some more," said M'Graw, with a
+chuckle. "If you think hard, an' figger close enough, I guess 'most
+any puzzle can be solved."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+SAMMY TAKES THE BIT IN HIS TEETH
+
+
+M'Graw began slowly to fill his pipe. Mr. Howbridge saw that it was
+useless to hurry him, so he smiled at Neale and waited. When the
+tobacco was alight to suit him, Ike continued his "figgerin'."
+
+"When this here dog," he said, looking at Neale in turn, "is at home,
+I guess he knows everybody in the neighborhood, don't he?"
+
+"Yes. But surely, you don't think anybody from Milton is up here at
+Red Deer Lodge, except just these people that Mr. Howbridge brought?"
+
+"Hold on. I'm doin' the askin'. You just answer me, sonny," chuckled
+Ike. "Now, let's see. He does know lots o' folks--especially young
+folks--around where he lives when he's at home, don't he?"
+
+"Why, Tom Jonah," said Neale, "knows every boy and girl that comes
+past the old Corner House. He's a great friend of the kids."
+
+"Jest so," said M'Graw, as Mr. Howbridge started and was about to
+speak. But the woodsman put up a hand and said to the lawyer: "Wait a
+minute. This man, Hedden, has looked over the stuff you brought up
+here in the line of canned goods and sech. He says what was stole was
+mostly sweets--canned peaches, an' pears, an' pineapple, an'
+sugar-stuff, besides condensed milk. Jest what children would like."
+
+"The twins!" exclaimed Mr. Howbridge. "Do you think it could be
+possible, after all, Ike?"
+
+"Goodness!" gasped Neale.
+
+"Looks mighty like children's work," said the woodsman reflectively.
+"I knowed little Ralph had a twenty-two rifle. I taught him to shoot
+with it. He does me proud when it comes to shootin'. Yes, sir."
+
+"But to get clear up here--"
+
+"Them is purty smart children," said the old man. "And it looks, as I
+say, like their work. Who else would give themselves dead away by
+shootin' that fox out of the winder? No grown person would have done
+that if they didn't want to be caught in the house.
+
+"Then, Ralph and Rowena would have knowed where that key hung. They'd
+be more'n likely to build the fire in their ma's sittin'-room. Now,
+when they sneaked out o' the house this mornin', they'd take just this
+kind of stuff that's been took from the pantry."
+
+"I see. I see."
+
+"And the dog clinches it. He's a friend to all children. He'd never
+have stopped them, especially as they was in the house and didn't come
+from outside."
+
+"I believe you are right," admitted Mr. Howbridge.
+
+"I'm great on figgerin'," said the woodsman. "Now, let's see what sort
+of a nose that there dog's got."
+
+"You mean Tom Jonah?"
+
+"Yes. I ain't got no dog. There ain't none nearer'n Sim Hackett's
+beagle at Ebettsville that's wuth anything on the trail. Them
+youngsters must have gone somewhere, Mr. Howbridge. And they can't be
+fur off. We've got to find 'em before this here storm that's breedin'
+comes down on us. There must be tracks somewheres, and a trail a good
+dog can sniff."
+
+"I understand what you mean. But how shall we start the dog on their
+trail! We have nothing the twins have worn," said Mr. Howbridge.
+
+"Let's look around," suggested Ike. "Up-stairs in that sittin'-room,
+where you found the live coals--or, your man did--there's a closet
+where some of the twins' clo'es used to hang. Mebbe there's some there
+now. If that there dog has got a nose at all, an' he sniffed them
+children good this mornin', he'll know the smell of 'em again. Yes,
+sir."
+
+"That is a good idea," admitted Mr. Howbridge. "You go out and see if
+you can find any impressions of the children's feet in the snow, Ike.
+I will hunt in the rooms upstairs for something the twins may have
+worn."
+
+"Stockin's are best--stockin's that ain't been washed," said the
+woodsman. "Or mittens, or gloves. Come on, sonny," he added to Neale
+O'Neil. "You come with me and we'll try to find some trail marks in
+the snow." He glanced at the window. "And we've got to hurry. It's
+snowin' right hard now, and will smother marks and everything if it
+keeps on this way for long."
+
+Just then, while there was so much interest being felt in the Birdsall
+twins and the possibility of their having been at Red Deer Lodge,
+somebody should have felt a revived interest in three other
+children--Sammy Pinkney and the two youngest Corner House girls.
+
+They had gone out after lunch, presumably to continue the building of
+the snow man in front of the Lodge. The older girls and Luke were
+engaged in their own matters, and thought not at all of the little
+folks. But Sammy, Tess and Dot had quite tired of playing in the snow.
+
+"They're awful mean not to have taken us slidin' with them," declared
+Sammy, sitting on the front step and making no effort to continue the
+work of snow man building.
+
+"I love to slide," repeated Dot, sadly.
+
+"And now it's going to snow," said Tess, biting her lip. "If it snows
+a lot we can't slide tomorrow."
+
+"Awful mean," reiterated Sammy. "Say! Aggie said there was a small
+sled back there where they found the big one. Let's go and see it."
+
+Any idea seemed good to the disappointed little girls. Even just
+looking at the sled they could use, if nothing happened, was
+interesting. They followed Sammy.
+
+But Sammy had more in his mind than just the idea of looking at the
+sled. Only, from past experience, he knew that to get Tess and Dot
+Kenway to leave the path of rectitude took some sharp "figuring." So
+he, like Ike M'Graw, was exercising his faculties.
+
+They came to the shed.
+
+"Oh, what a nice sled!" cried Dot, as Sammy drew out a shiny sled, big
+enough for three or four little folks, and with a steering arrangement
+in front.
+
+"It's a better sled than the one I have at home," admitted Sammy.
+
+"I guess we could slide all right on that," said Tess slowly.
+
+"Guess we could!" agreed the boy.
+
+"I'd like a ride on it," said Dot wistfully.
+
+"Get on, kid. Me and Tess will drag you," said Sammy.
+
+Dot overlooked the objectionable way in which Sammy had addressed her
+and hurried to seat herself on the sled. Sammy and Tess took hold of
+the rope. It was not very hard to pull such a light body as that of
+the fairylike Dot through the soft snow.
+
+Sammy wisely turned away from the Lodge and followed the tracks of the
+bobsled. In two minutes they were out of sight of the Lodge, and even
+of the sheds. At that time Neale and the old woodsman had not come out
+for the purpose of searching the vicinity of the Lodge for the
+footprints of the Birdsall twins.
+
+Sammy and the two smallest Corner House girls moved up the woods path
+which the other sledding party had found and followed. If Ruth and the
+others had gone this way, surely they could safely follow the same
+route. Although the snow was increasing, even the cautious Tess Kenway
+saw no danger menacing the trio.
+
+But at first she had no idea just what Sammy had determined upon. In
+fact, Sammy Pinkney had taken the bit in his teeth, and he was
+determined to do exactly what they had been forbidden to do. If the
+older ones could slide downhill, why could he and the little girls not
+have the same pleasure?
+
+He and Tess drew Dot for a long way, much to that little girl's
+delight. Then the uphill grade tired Tess so much that she had to
+stop.
+
+"Shift with Dot," Sammy said. "Come on, Dot. You and I will drag Tess
+a piece."
+
+The little girl was willing, and she and her sister changed places.
+Dot could not do much to aid Sammy, but he buckled down to the work
+and pulled manfully.
+
+When he had to stop, puffing, they were then so far up the hill that
+his suggestion that they keep on to the top and slide back, met with
+even Tess' approval.
+
+"We've come so far, we might's well finish it," she said.
+
+"Well, I hope it isn't much farther," said Dot, "for it's awful hard
+walking in this snow. And it's snowing harder, too."
+
+"Don't be a 'fraid-cat, Dottie," snorted Sammy. "I never saw such a
+girl!"
+
+"Am not a 'fraid-cat!" declared the smallest Corner House girl, prompt
+to deny such an impeachment. "Snow don't hurt. But you can't see where
+you are going when it snows so thick,"
+
+"Shucks!" said Sammy. "We can't get lost on this road, can we, Tess?"
+
+"No-o," agreed Tess. "I guess we can't. We can't get off the path,
+that's sure. And we can see the marks the big sled made all the way."
+
+These tracks, however, were rapidly being effaced. The children were
+not cold, for as the snow increased it seemed to become warmer, and
+the hard walking helped to keep them warm.
+
+They had to put Dot back on the sled and draw her the final two or
+three hundred yards to the top of the hill. There, fast as the snow
+was gathering, they could see where the other coasters had turned the
+bobsled around and prepared to launch themselves from the top of the
+hill.
+
+"I guess they slid almost all the way home," said Tess, with some
+anxiety. "I hope we can do as well, Sammy."
+
+"Sure," agreed Sammy. "Ain't no need to worry about that. Now I'm
+goin' to lie right down, and Dot can straddle me. Then you push off
+and hang on at the back end of the sled, Tess. Don't you kids fall
+off."
+
+"I wish you wouldn't call me a kid, Sammy Pinkney," complained Dot.
+"And don't wiggle Bo if I've got to sit on you."
+
+"Well, I got to get fixed," Sammy rejoined. "Hang on now. All ready,
+Tess?"
+
+"Yes. My! how the wind blows this snow into your face."
+
+"Put your head down when we get started. I've got to keep lookin'
+ahead. Bet this is a dandy slide--and such a long one!"
+
+"Here we go!" cried Tess, pushing with vigor.
+
+The sled started. It seemed to slide over the soft snow very nicely.
+She scrambled on, and, sitting sideways, clung with both hands to the
+rails. Dot was hanging to Sammy's shoulders.
+
+"Choo! Choo! Choo! Here we go!" yelled Sammy, wriggling with
+eagerness.
+
+"_Do_ keep still, Sammy!" begged Dot.
+
+But the sled did not gain speed. The gathering snow impeded the craft
+even on the down grade.
+
+"Kick! Kick behind, Tess!" yelled Sammy. "Kick _hard_."
+
+"I--I am kicking," panted his friend. "Why don't the old thing go
+better?"
+
+"This snow is loadin' right up in front of it," sputtered Sammy. "It's
+too de-e-ep! Aw--shucks!"
+
+The sled almost stopped. Then it went over a thank-you-ma'am and slid
+a little faster. The slide was nowhere near as nice as they had
+expected. Why! they were not going downhill much faster than they had
+come up.
+
+The snow was sifting down now very thickly, and in a very short time
+the trio was likely to have to drag the empty sled through deep
+drifts. Even Sammy was secretly sorry they had come such a long way
+from the Lodge. Although it was barely mid-afternoon, it seemed to be
+growing dark.
+
+They struggled to make the sled slide, however; neither Sammy nor Tess
+was a child who easily gave up when circumstances became obstinate.
+Tess continued to dig her heels into the snow, and when the sled
+almost stopped, Sammy plunged his arms elbow deep into the snow to aid
+in its movement.
+
+But suddenly they went over a hummock. It seemed a steep descent on
+the other side. In spite of the gathering snow the sled got under
+better headway.
+
+"Hurrah, Tess!" yelled Sammy. "We're all right now."
+
+"I--I hope so!" gasped the older girl.
+
+"Oh! Oh!" shrieked Dot. "We're going!"
+
+They really were going--or, so it seemed. Faster and faster ran the
+sled, for the hill had suddenly become steep. It was snowing too
+thickly for any of them to notice that this part of the track was
+entirely new to them.
+
+They shot around a turn and took another dip toward the valley. Sammy
+did not mind the snow beating into his face now. He yelled with
+pleasure. The little girls hung on, delighted. The sled sped downward.
+
+All marks of the bobsled's runners were long since lost under the new
+snow. The hill grew steeper. Sammy's yells were half stifled by the
+wind and snow.
+
+It did seem as though that slide was a very long one! In climbing the
+hill the trio had had no idea they had walked so far. And how steep it
+was!
+
+Over a level piece the sled would travel at a moderate rate, and then
+shoot down a sudden decline that almost took their breath. Surely they
+must have traveled almost to the Lodge from which they had started.
+
+Finally the path became level. Great trees rose all about them. They
+could see but a short distance in any direction because of the falling
+snow.
+
+The sled stopped. The girls hopped off and Sammy struggled to his feet
+and shook the snow out of his eyes.
+
+"Je-ru-sa-_lem_!" he choked. "What a slide! Did you ever, Tess?"
+
+"No, I never did," admitted Tess quite seriously.
+
+"Oh!" cried Dot. "Let's go home. I'm co-co-o-old. Why--why--" she
+gasped suddenly, looking about on all sides.
+
+"Well, don't cry about it," snorted Sammy. "Of course we'll go home.
+We must be almost there now--we slid so far."
+
+"Oh, yes. We _must_ be near Red Deer Lodge," agreed Tess.
+
+It did not look like any place they had ever seen before. The trees
+were much taller than any they had noticed about the Lodge. Yet there
+was the open path ahead of them. They set Dot upon the sled again, and
+Tess helped Sammy drag it and her sister straight ahead. Somewhere in
+that direction they were all three sure Red Deer Lodge was situated.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+FOLLOWING ANOTHER TRAIL
+
+
+After all the activities of the forenoon both by the older boys and
+girls of the vacation party at Red Deer Lodge, and by the children as
+well, the soft snow was considerably marked up by footprints around
+the premises.
+
+Ike M'Graw and Neale O'Neil, searching for prints of the feet of those
+who they thought had left the vicinity of the house early that
+morning, struck directly off for the edge of the clearing.
+
+"The best we can do," M'Graw declared, "is to follow the line of the
+woods clean around the clearing. Somewhere, whoever 'tis got that fox
+and lifted the canned goods, must have struck into the woods. They
+ain't hidin' in the barns or anywhere here. I've been searchin' them.
+That's certain."
+
+Neale had very bright eyes, and not much could escape them; but the
+snow was coming down fast now and even he could not distinguish marks
+many yards ahead.
+
+Here and there they beheld footprints; but always examination proved
+them to be of somebody who belonged at the Lodge. The prints in the
+snow Luke and his sister and Ruth had made soon after breakfast fooled
+Neale for a moment, but not for long.
+
+They saw the woodsman's big prints, too, where he had been looking for
+the marks of the fox hunter. There were the marks Neale himself and
+Agnes had made when they had followed the "deer."
+
+All these various marks bothered the searchers; and all the time, too,
+the snow was falling and making the identification of the various
+prints of feet the more difficult.
+
+"This here's worse than nailing the animals that they say went into
+the ark that time Noah set sail for Ararat," declared Ike, chuckling.
+"Whoever followed them critters up to the gangplank must have been
+some mixed up--
+
+"Hello! What's this?"
+
+They had come around behind the sheds. Here was the entrance to the
+road on which Neale and Luke with the three older girls had coasted
+that forenoon. The woodsman was pointing to marks in the snow, now
+being rapidly filled in. Neale said:
+
+"Oh, we were sliding on this hill, you know."
+
+"Uh-huh? Who was?"
+
+"Five of us. With a big bobsled."
+
+"Now, you don't tell me that bobsled made them marks," interposed the
+old man. "I know that bobsled."
+
+"Why--I--"
+
+"Them runner marks was made by little Ralph Birdsall's scootin' sled.
+I know that, too. Who's gone up to slide this afternoon?"
+
+"That must be the kids!" exclaimed Neale. "I wonder if Ruth knows they
+are out here playing! I remember now I didn't see them at the front of
+the house."
+
+"You don't suppose they've gone far?"
+
+"Oh, I guess they will come to no harm around here. Ruth would not let
+them go away from the Lodge to play."
+
+"Humph!" muttered the old man.
+
+But he went on. There was really no reason for Neale to be worried
+about the children. They were almost always well behaved. At least,
+they seldom disobeyed.
+
+Besides, it was only a few minutes later when Mr. Howbridge, well
+muffled against the storm, appeared with Tom Jonah on a leash. The old
+woodsman had just got down on his knees in the snow to examine two
+lines of faint impressions that left the path John's footprints had
+made to the farther shed.
+
+"Now, what's this? A deer jumped out here--or what?"
+
+Neale waited and Mr. Howbridge held the dog back. Ike got up and
+followed the half-filled impressions a little farther. They headed
+directly for the thicker woods to the north of the Lodge premises.
+
+"Might have been feet--small feet. And two sets of 'em," said Ike.
+"Hi, Mister! did you find anything up in that closet belongin' to the
+twins?"
+
+"Here is a pair of bed slippers. Knitted ones. They are much too small
+for a grown person," the lawyer declared.
+
+M'Graw took the articles thoughtfully into his big hands. "Humph! Look
+like little Missie's slippers. Certainly do. Roweny, you know. Wonder
+if this old dog knows anything."
+
+He offered the slippers to Tom Jonah to sniff. The dog had been used
+to following a scent in times past; often they would send him after
+Dot or Tess or Sammy. He snuffed eagerly at the knitted shoes.
+
+"Don't know how strong the scent is on 'em. It's been some time,
+p'r'aps, since little Roweny wore 'em. But--"
+
+Tom Jonah whined, sniffed again, and then lifted up his muzzle and
+barked, straining at the leash.
+
+"Looks like he understands," said the old man, reaching for the leash
+and taking the bight of it from Mr. Howbridge's hand. "Good dog! Now,
+go to it. These here footprints--if that's what they are--are fillin'
+in fast."
+
+Tom Jonah put his nose to the marks in the snow. He sniffed, threw
+some of the light snow about with his nose, and started off. He
+followed the faint trail into the woods. But Neale doubted if the dog
+followed by scent.
+
+Once, in the thicket the marks were only visible here and there. The
+fresh snow was sifting down faster and faster. The dog leaped from one
+spot to another, whining, and eagerly seeking to pick up the scent.
+
+"It's awful unlucky this here snow commenced as it has. Hi! I don't
+see what we can do," sighed Ike.
+
+"Do you really believe those marks were the twins' footsteps?"
+
+"I do. I believe they was in the house when your folks came, Mr.
+Howbridge," M'Graw said. "But now--"
+
+Tom Jonah halted, threw up his shaggy head, and howled mournfully.
+
+"Oh, don't, Tom Jonah!" cried Neale O'Neil. "It sounds like--like
+somebody was dead!"
+
+"Or lost, eh?" suggested Ike. "Ain't no use. He--nor a better
+dog--couldn't follow a scent through such snow. We're too late. But
+I'd like to know where them children went, if these is them!"
+
+They turned back toward the Lodge, rather disheartened. If the two
+Birdsall children, who had been left to the care of Mr. Howbridge,
+were really up here alone in the wilderness--and perhaps shelterless
+at this time--what might not happen to them? What would be the end of
+this strange and menacing situation?
+
+Nobody spoke after M'Graw expressed himself until they came to the
+path on which they had previously seen the marks of the small sled and
+the footprints of Sammy and the two youngest Corner House girls. These
+traces were now entirely obliterated. It was snowing heavily and the
+wind was rising.
+
+"Hi gorry!" ejaculated the old woodsman, "how about those other
+children? Are they at home where they ought to be?"
+
+"Whom do you mean?" asked the lawyer, rather startled.
+
+But Neale understood. He looked sharply about. Not an impression in
+the snow but that of their own feet was visible.
+
+"I'll go and see if the sled is returned to the place they got it
+from," he said, and dashed away to the shed.
+
+Before Mr. Howbridge and M'Graw had reached the Lodge Neale O'Neil
+came tearing after them.
+
+"Oh, wait! Wait!" he shouted. "They haven't come back with the sled.
+What do you suppose can have happened to Sammy and Tess and Dot?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+ROWDY
+
+
+About the time Neale O'Neil was asking his very pertinent question
+about the whereabouts of Sammy and Tess and Dot, that trio had
+stopped, breathless and not a little frightened, in a big drift at
+what seemed the bottom of a deep hole.
+
+The snow swirled about them so, and they seemed to have come so far
+down from the place where they had pushed off on the sled, that they
+believed it was a deep hole; and there seemed no possibility of
+getting out of it.
+
+"I--I guess," quavered Dot, "that we'll just have to lie right down
+here and let the snow cover us all--all up."
+
+"I do wish, child, when you get into trouble that you wouldn't give up
+all hope, right first off!" exclaimed Tess, rather exasperated at her
+sister. "Of course we are not going to give up and lie down in this
+snow."
+
+"Of course not!" echoed Sammy Pinkney.
+
+Nevertheless, Sammy experienced a chill up and down his spine, and the
+short hairs at the back of his neck stiffened. It was borne upon his
+mind all of a sudden that they were lost--utterly lost! He could not
+understand how they had got off of the straight path to Red Deer
+Lodge; but he was very sure that they had done so and, as far as he
+knew, they were miles and miles away from that shelter and from their
+friends.
+
+Yet there seemed nothing to do but keep on through the snow--as long
+as they could press forward. Tess was quite as plucky as he made
+believe to be. And they could haul Dot a little way at a time on the
+sled.
+
+"But we're going on, Sammy, without getting anywhere," was Tess' very
+wise observation. "I think we ought to scrouge down under something
+until the snow stops."
+
+"Just like the Babes in the Woods," wailed Dot, who knew all the
+nursery stories.
+
+"Do be still!" cried her sister, quite tartly. "Sammy and I are going
+to find you a nice place to stop, Dot."
+
+"Well, I hope it's a place with a fire in it, 'cause I'm cold,"
+complained the smallest Corner House girl.
+
+They all wished for a fire and shelter, but the older ones feared with
+reason that both comforts would not be immediately found. Sammy had
+not ventured forth this time prepared for all emergencies, as he had
+the time that Dot and he ran away to sail piratically the canal. He
+had no means of making a fire, even if he could find fuel.
+
+Sammy was not without fertility of ideas, however; and these to a
+practical end. It must never be said of him, when the lost party got
+back to Red Deer Lodge, that he had not done his duty toward his
+companions.
+
+He saw that the lower branches of some of the big spruce trees swept
+the snow--indeed, their ends were drifted over in places. Under those
+trees were shelters that would break both the wind and the snow. He
+said this to Tess, and she agreed.
+
+"But we must keep a hole open to look out of," she said. "Otherwise we
+won't see the folks when they come hunting for us."
+
+"Je-ru-sa-_lem_! If they come along this road while it's snowing like
+this lookin' for us, we'd never see 'em," muttered the boy.
+
+But he kept this opinion to himself. Vigorous action claimed Sammy
+Pinkney almost immediately. While Dot "sniffled," as he called it, on
+the half-buried sled, Sammy started to dig under the boughs of a tree
+near at hand.
+
+The wind seemed to be less boisterous here, but the snow was drifting
+rapidly. Back of the tree the steep hillside rose abruptly, somewhat
+sheltering the spot.
+
+Sammy burrowed through the drift like a dog seeking a rabbit. He found
+a way between two branches of the spruce, over which the snow had
+packed hard at a previous fall. He had to break away fronds of the
+tough branches to open a hole into the dark interior.
+
+"Come on!" he shouted, half smothered by the snow he was pawing out.
+"Here's a hole."
+
+"Oh, Sammy! suppose there should be something in there?" gasped Tess,
+her lips close to his ear.
+
+At this suggestion Master Sammy drew back with some precipitation.
+
+"Aw, Tess! what d'you want to say such things to a feller for?" he
+growled. "If there is anything in there we'll find it out soon
+enough."
+
+Dot's sharp ears had heard something of this. She shrieked:
+
+"Oh! Is it mice? I hm afraid of mice, and I won't go in there till you
+drive them all out, Sammy."
+
+"Je-ru-sa-_lem_!" murmured Sammy, with vast disgust. "Don't girls beat
+everything?"
+
+"I don't care! I don't like mice," reiterated the smallest Corner
+House girl.
+
+"Huh!" declared Sammy, wickedly, "maybe there'll be wolves under
+there."
+
+"Wolfs? Well, I haven't my Alice-doll here, so I don't care about
+wolfs. But mice I am afraid of!"
+
+At that Sammy took a deep breath, gritted his teeth, and dived out of
+sight. He found that there was quite a sharp incline over hard snow to
+the bottom of the hole. All around the trunk of the tree, and next to
+it, was bare, hard ground. It made a roomy shelter, and it was just as
+warm as any house could be without a fire.
+
+There was a quantity of dry and dead branches under here to scratch
+him and tear at his clothing. Sammy broke these off as he crawled
+around the tree, making the way less difficult for the little girls
+when they should enter.
+
+A little light entered by the hole down which he had plunged. It made
+the interior of the strange shelter of a murky brownness, not at all
+helpful in "seeing things."
+
+Sammy was quite sure there was no wolf housed in here; but about the
+mice or other small rodents he was not so sure.
+
+However, he called to the little girls cheerfully to come down, and
+Dot immediately scrambled in, feet first. Tess followed her sister
+with less precipitation. Like Sammy, she felt the burden of their
+situation much more than did Dot. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil
+thereof," was Dot's opinion.
+
+Sammy crawled out again and rescued the sled which was already buried
+in the snow. He dragged it to the opening and left it right over the
+hole so as to keep the snow from drifting in upon them.
+
+"But it makes it so dark, Sammy!" said Tess, a little sharply.
+
+"Wait a while. You can see better pretty soon. Your eyes get used to
+the dark--just like you went down cellar at night for a hod of coal."
+
+"Oh, I wouldn't!" declared Dot. "But I'm not afraid of the dark. It's
+nothing you can feel."
+
+So they were very cozy and fairly warm under the tree. Soon the snow
+had heaped so thickly over the mouth of their shelter that they could
+not even hear the wind.
+
+They had eaten a good lunch. Sammy had some nuts in his pockets. It
+was now about four o'clock. They were not likely to suffer for
+anything needful for some time. And, of course, neither of the three
+thought that their stay under the spruce tree would be for long.
+
+"If the snow doesn't stop pretty soon, and so we can get out and find
+the way home, Neale O'Neil and Aggie will come for us," Dot said, with
+considerable cheerfulness for her. "I'm all warm now, and I don't
+care."
+
+Sammy did not feel altogether as sure that they would escape from the
+difficulty so easily; but he did not openly express his belief. He
+was, like the little girls, glad to have found shelter. With
+provisions and a fire, he said, they could stay here like Crusoes.
+
+"You know, Robinson Crusoe lived in a cave, and in a hut. And he was
+all alone till he got some goats and a Man Friday."
+
+"We might have brought Billy Bumps along," said Dot thoughtfully.
+
+"I guess I wouldn't want to live with an old goat," Tess observed,
+with scorn.
+
+They had no means of measuring the passage of time, and of course it
+seemed that "hours and hours" must have passed before Sammy tried to
+look out through the opening the first time.
+
+And this was no easy work. The snow had gathered so quickly and packed
+down so hard upon the sled that the boy could scarcely raise it.
+Finally, by backing under the sled and rising up with it on his
+shoulders, the sturdy little fellow broke through the drift.
+
+"I got it!" he shouted back to Tess and Dot. "But, oh, Je-ru-sa-_lem_!
+ain't it snowin' though? Bet it never snowed so hard before. I guess
+we'll have to stay here till they dig us out."
+
+"Oh, Sammy! All night?" gasped Dot.
+
+"Well, I don't know about that. But until this old snow stops,
+anyway."
+
+He, nor the little girls, scarcely appreciated the fact that the worst
+blizzard of the winter had broken over that territory, and that trails
+and paths were being utterly obliterated. The keenest scented dog, and
+the most experienced woodsman, could not have traced the three
+children to their present shelter.
+
+Sammy came in and fixed the sled again to keep out the snow. He felt
+pretty serious--for him. Sammy Pinkney was not in the habit of looking
+for the worst to happen. Quite the contrary.
+
+Yet he could not throw off anxiety as easily as Dot could. As long as
+she was not hungry, and was warm, the smallest Corner House girl felt
+quite cheerful.
+
+They could see a little better in their cozy nest now, and being
+assured that there were no mice, thought of other wild creatures of
+the forest did not disturb Dot Kenway.
+
+"Let's play something," said Dot. "Cum-ge-cum!"
+
+"What do you come by?" asked Tess quickly. This was an old, old game
+of guessing that Aunt Sarah Maltby had taught the little folks.
+
+"I come by the letter 'S,'" declared Dot.
+
+"Snow," guessed Sammy promptly.
+
+"No."
+
+"It's got to be the 'nitial of something in this--this house," Tess
+observed. "Shoes, Dottie?"
+
+"No. 'Tisn't shoes. And 'tis in the house--if you call this a house."
+
+"Shirt," Sammy declared.
+
+"Nopy!"
+
+"Sled?" guessed Tess.
+
+"No, it is not 'sled,'" said the littlest girl.
+
+"Stockin's?" suggested Sammy. "I've got a hole in one o' mine. Feels
+like my big toe was stranglin' to death, so it does."
+
+"S-s-s--"
+
+"Oh, stop!" shrieked Dot suddenly. "What's that at the door?"
+
+The two little girls shrieked again and scrambled behind the trunk of
+the tree. Sammy was just as scared as a child could be, but he sat
+right where he was and watched the dim light grow at the hole over
+which he had pulled the sled.
+
+Something was scratching there, dragging the sled away from over the
+hole in the snowdrift. Sammy did not know that even the hungriest
+animal in the forest was snugly housed during this storm. The
+creatures of the wild do not hunt when the weather is so boisterous.
+
+It might have been a wolf, or a bear, or a lynx, _or a tiger_, as far
+as the small boy knew. Just the same, having the responsibility of
+Tess and Dot on his mind, he had to stay and face the unknown.
+
+Suddenly a voice spoke from without. It said with much disgust:
+
+"Oh, shut up your squalling. I'm not going to bite you."
+
+"Je-ru-sa-_lem_!" murmured Sammy. "What's this?"
+
+In a minute he was reassured, for the sled was torn away and a head
+and shoulders appeared down the opening through the drift.
+
+"Hello!" exclaimed the voice again. "How did you get here? How many of
+you are there?"
+
+"Two girls and a boy. And we slid here," said Sammy, gulping down a
+big lump in his throat.
+
+"_Girls?_" gasped the stranger, who seemed to be very little older
+than Sammy himself. "Girls out in this blizzard?"
+
+"No. We're all safe in here under the tree," said Sammy, with some
+indignation. "I wouldn't let 'em stay out in the storm."
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed the stranger. "And do you intend to stay here till it
+stops snowing?"
+
+"Why not?" demanded Sammy.
+
+"That won't be until tomorrow--maybe next day," was the cheerful
+response. "I guess you don't know much about storms up here in the
+woods."
+
+"Nope. We come from Milton."
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed the other. "You're some of that bunch from Red Deer
+Lodge, aren't you?"
+
+"Ye--yes, sir," Tess interposed politely. "Do you suppose you could
+show us the way home?"
+
+"Just now I couldn't," said the other, wriggling his way into the
+shelter. "This is pretty good in here. But you'd better come to my
+cave."
+
+"Oh! do you live in a cave?" asked Sammy.
+
+"Isn't it dark?" asked Tess.
+
+"Are there fishes in it with blind eyes?" demanded Dot, who had heard
+something about the fish of the streams in the Mammoth Cave, and
+thought all caves were alike.
+
+"Fish?" snorted the newcomer. "I guess not! Wish there were. We'd eat
+them. And we need meat."
+
+"Is--is your cave far?" asked Sammy, in some doubt.
+
+"No. Just back of this tree. And we'd better get back there quick, or
+the door will be all snowed under. This is a big, big storm."
+
+"Who are you?" Tess asked. "If you don't mind telling us. This is
+Sammy Pinkney; and I'm Tess Kenway; and this is my sister, Dot."
+
+"Huh!" said the stranger. "I--I'm Rowdy."
+
+"Rowdy?" repeated Tess, wonderingly.
+
+"That's what they call me," said the other hastily. "Just Rowdy. And
+we'd better go to my cave."
+
+"But you don't live out here in the woods all by yourself, do you?"
+asked Sammy, in much surprise.
+
+"No. But--but my father's gone a long way off." The boy hesitated a
+moment, and then added: "Gone to Canada--trapping. Won't be back for
+ever so long. So I live in the cave."
+
+"Oh, my!" murmured Tess.
+
+"Je-ru-sa-_lem_!" exclaimed Sammy. "Ain't you afraid to live here
+alone?"
+
+"I'm not afraid," said their new friend. "And there's nobody to boss
+you all the time here. Come on. You follow me. Drag along the sled. We
+might need that after the snow's stopped."
+
+He started to crawl out through the hole into the storm again, and the
+trio from Red Deer Lodge decided that there was nothing better to do
+than to follow him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+IN THE CAVE
+
+
+The snow beat down upon them so when they were outside of the shelter
+that the little girls could scarcely get their breath. Dot clung to
+Tess' hand and bleated a few complaining words. But the strange boy
+said sharply:
+
+"Don't be blubbering. We'll be all right in a minute. I want to hunt
+for something around here. That's what I come out of the cave for."
+
+"Am not blubbering!" muttered Dot, quite indignant. "But this old
+snow--"
+
+"Oh, I've got it!" shouted the strange boy, leaping ahead through the
+snow with great vigor. "Come on! Don't lose sight of me."
+
+"You bet we won't," said Sammy, urging Tess and Dot on ahead of him
+and dragging the sled after.
+
+"What is it?" asked Tess, curiously.
+
+"A trap," said the other.
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"What kind of a trap?" asked the eager Sammy.
+
+"Rabbit trap. Box trap. Rafe and I brought it down here with us and
+set it this morning. I put a handful of corn in it and I saw rabbit
+tracks all about just before it began to snow so hard. Here it is."
+
+The speaker had knelt down in the snow and was uncovering some long,
+narrow object with his hands.
+
+"It's sprung, anyway. You see, the door's dropped," he said. "The
+rabbit pokes right in after the corn, and when he begins to eat the
+bait clear at the end of the box, he trips the trigger and the door
+falls. Yes! He's here!"
+
+"Oh, Je-ru-sa-_lem_! A real rabbit?" gasped Sammy Pinkney.
+
+"A poor little bunny?" murmured Tess, her tender heart at once
+disturbed at the thought of the trapped animal.
+
+"Huh! If we are snowed up in that cave for a week or so," said the boy
+called Rowdy, "you'll be mighty glad I caught this rabbit."
+
+He had lifted the door and thrust in his left hand to seize the
+animal.
+
+"Oh! Oh!" squealed Dot. "Won't it bite you?"
+
+"It doesn't bite with its hind legs," said Rowdy with scorn. "Ah! I
+got him."
+
+He drew forth the rabbit, kicking and squirming. The little mouse-like
+cry the poor beast made sounded very pitiful to Tess. She murmured:
+
+"Oh, don't hurt him!"
+
+"Je-ru-sa-_lem_!" exclaimed Sammy to Rowdy. "Ain't girls the worst
+ever?"
+
+"Huh!" said the strange boy, suddenly glaring at Sammy Pinkney, "what
+do you know about girls?"
+
+He was a dark boy, with ragged black hair that had evidently been
+sheared off roughly by an amateur barber. He was dressed warmly and in
+good clothes. He wore leggings that came up to his hips. He was
+bigger, and must have been older than Sammy.
+
+He stood up now, with the kicking rabbit held by the hind legs. The
+trapped animal was fat and was of good size.
+
+"Oh! Oh!" cried Dot. "He'll get away from you."
+
+"Like fun he will."
+
+"How are you going to kill him?" Sammy, the practical, asked.
+
+"Break its neck," was the prompt reply.
+
+"Oh! How awful!" gasped Tess. "Won't it hurt him?"
+
+"It won't know anything about it," said Rowdy.
+
+He was already holding the rabbit away from him almost at arm's length
+and poised his right hand, edge out, for the blow that was to finish
+the creature. Sharp and quick was the blow, the outer edge of the
+boy's hand striking across the back of the rabbit's neck just at the
+base of the brain. The vertebra was snapped in this way and the
+creature instantly killed--a merciful and sudden death. The rabbit
+kicked but once, and then was still.
+
+"Oh! Oh!" murmured Tess.
+
+"Oh, don't worry," said Rowdy. "Ike M'Graw showed me how to do that."
+
+"Oh!" cried Dot. "_We_ know Mr. Ike M'Graw--so we do."
+
+"How did you come to know him?" demanded Rowdy, quickly and
+suspiciously, it seemed. "He isn't at home now."
+
+"Yes, he is," said Sammy. "He was up at Red Deer Lodge last night and
+he was there again this morning."
+
+"Oh!" ejaculated Rowdy, standing and holding the rabbit as though the
+information gave him considerable mental disturbance. "I--I thought
+he'd gone away for good."
+
+Then he turned suddenly and plunged into the drifting snow. "Come on!"
+he exclaimed again. "This snow is drifting awfully."
+
+Sammy drove the little girls ahead of him again. "Aw, go on!" he
+muttered. "He's all right. He's got some kind of a hide-out."
+
+"I don't believe I like that Rowdy," said Tess softly. "He--he's real
+cruel. All boys are, I s'pose."
+
+"They have to be," returned Sammy.
+
+"Why?" demanded Tess, in wonder.
+
+"Cause girls are such softies," declared the impolite Sammy.
+
+They plunged ahead, wading far above their waists now. Behind the
+trees the hillside rose abruptly. It towered so above their heads in
+the snow that the children were almost scared. Suppose that hill of
+snow should tumble right down on top of them!
+
+"Goodness!" exclaimed Tess, with some exasperation. "Where is your old
+cave?"
+
+"Come on," said Rowdy, patiently. "It's here somewhere. But the old
+snow--Ye-e--yi, yi!" he suddenly yelled.
+
+Faintly there came an answering voice--half smothered, wholly eerie
+sounding.
+
+"Oh! Who's that?" demanded Sammy.
+
+"Him," said Rowdy shortly.
+
+"Then don't you live alone?" Tess demanded.
+
+"I have my brother with me," said Rowdy, plunging on to the right.
+
+The snow beat into their faces and eyes, almost blinding them and
+wholly stopping their chatter. Above their heads the huge trees
+rocked, limbs writhing as though they were alive and in pain. And from
+these writhing limbs the snow was shaken down in avalanches.
+
+One great blob of snow fell square on Sammy, trudging on behind the
+procession, and he went down with a howl like a wolf, buried to his
+ears.
+
+"Oh, Sammy! Sammy!" shrieked Tess, above the wind. "Are you hurt?"
+
+"I--I'm smothered!" groaned the boy, struggling to get out of the heap
+of snow. "Hey, you Rowdy! Get us out of this, or we'll be buried and
+lost."
+
+"Come on!" sang out the bigger boy from up ahead. "O-ee! Rafe!" he
+shouted.
+
+A figure appeared before them--the figure of a boy not much bigger
+than Rowdy.
+
+"What have you there?" a hoarse voice demanded.
+
+"A rabbit."
+
+"I mean who are those behind you?" and the hoarse voice was very tart
+now.
+
+"A couple of girls and a boy," said Rowdy. "I picked 'em up back there
+by the trap."
+
+"Well! But we don't keep a hotel," said the second boy.
+
+"Hush!" commanded Rowdy. "Where are your manners? And they come from
+the Lodge," he added.
+
+"How are we going to feed so many people?" was the rather selfish
+demand of the second boy from the cave.
+
+"Mercy! you're a regular pig, Rafe," exclaimed Rowdy. "Go on. Take
+this rabbit. I'll help the little girl. She's almost done for."
+
+Dot Kenway really was breathless and almost exhausted. She was glad to
+be taken in the strong arms of Rowdy. He staggered along behind the
+one called Rafe, and so came to an opening behind a bowlder which
+seemed to have been rolled by nature against the hillside.
+
+The hole was sheltered from the direct effect of the wind that was
+drifting the snow in a huge mound against the bowlder. Rafe, with the
+rabbit, dived first into the hole. Rowdy followed, with Dot in his
+arms.
+
+"Oh! Oh!" cried the littlest girl with delight. "Here's a fire."
+
+"Isn't that splendid?" demanded Tess, who came next and saw the blaze
+at the back of the cave, between two stones. "Why! what a nice cave
+you've got here."
+
+The fire lit up the cave, for it was only about a dozen feet square.
+Only, it was not really square, being of a circular shape at the back.
+The smoke from the fire rose straight up and disappeared through a
+hole in the low roof through which there must have been considerable
+draught.
+
+Of course, there was a strong smell of wood smoke in the cave; but not
+enough smoke to make one's eyes smart. There were some old blankets
+and rugs on the floor for carpet. Against one side wall was a great
+heap of balsam boughs, over which were flung robes.
+
+When Sammy came staggering in with the sled he fairly shouted his
+approval of the cave.
+
+"Je-ru-sa-_lem_! what a jim-dandy place. Say! I bet Neale O'Neil would
+like to see this."
+
+"Well, you needn't be bringing anybody here and showing it. This is
+our own particular hideout--Rowdy's and mine. So now," observed Rafe,
+who seemed to be less friendly than his brother.
+
+"Oh, hush," pleaded the latter. "Do be hospitable, Rafe. Don't you
+know these kids are our guests?"
+
+"'Guests!'" snorted the other.
+
+"Yes, they are."
+
+"Oh, please don't quarrel about us," urged Tess Kenway gently. "We'll
+go right away as soon as it stops snowing, and we'll never tell
+anybody about this cave if you don't want us to."
+
+"Don't mind him," said Rowdy. "He's got a cold and a grouch. Come on,
+Rafe; help me pluck this rabbit."
+
+"Oh, I'll do that!" cried the red-faced Sammy. "Let me!"
+
+While the little girls were glad to sit before the fire on the
+blankets, he wished to make himself useful. Besides, to help skin a
+real rabbit was a height of delight to which Sammy Pinkney had never
+before risen.
+
+"All right," said Rowdy. "You get the potatoes and onions ready, Rafe.
+We have salt and pepper and we can have a nice rabbit stew."
+
+"Just fry it," recommended the other cave dweller. "That's less
+trouble."
+
+"You do as I say!" exclaimed Rowdy, sternly. "There are five of us
+instead of two to eat, and we've got to make this rabbit go a long
+way."
+
+"Well, who brought them in? I didn't," said Rafe, angrily. "You knew
+we didn't have any too much to eat."
+
+"You are a nice one!" began Rowdy, when Tess broke in with:
+
+"I'm awful sorry we came if we are going to make trouble. We can go
+back under that tree--can't we, Sammy?"
+
+"I'm not going back there," Dot said stubbornly. "There's no fire
+there. If this other boy doesn't like us because we are girls, can't
+he go out and live under the tree himself?"
+
+This idea seemed to amuse Rowdy a good deal. He laughed aloud--and the
+laugh did not sound just like a boy's laugh, either. Tess stared at
+him wonderingly.
+
+"If Rafe's going to be so mean," he said, "he ought to be put out. Go
+ahead and peel the potatoes and onions, Rafe."
+
+"Sha'n't. That's girl's work," growled Rafe.
+
+"Oh! If you've got a knife I'll peel them," said Tess. "I don't mind."
+
+"All right," Rowdy said. "Give her the knife, Rafe. Put over the pot
+with some snow in it. The little girl can feed that till there is a
+lot of water ready. We'll want some for tea."
+
+"Don't want tea," growled Rafe. "I want coffee."
+
+"Oh, stop that, Rafe, or I'll slap you good!" promised Rowdy, his
+vexation finally boiling over. "I never saw such a boy. Come on here,
+Sammy. Hold this rabbit by the hind legs and I'll skin it in a jiffy."
+
+With the help of a knife to start the rabbit's hide, Rowdy "plucked"
+the bunny very handily. It was drawn and cleaned, too, and soon Rowdy
+was disjointing it as one would a chicken, using a flat stone for a
+butcher block.
+
+"It--it looks so much like a kitten," murmured Tess. "Do you suppose
+it is really good to eat?"
+
+"You wait till you taste it," chuckled Rowdy, who seemed to be a very
+practical boy indeed. "I'm going to make dumplings with it, too. I
+have flour and lard. We'll have a fine supper by and by. Then Rafe
+will feel better."
+
+Rafe merely coughed and grunted. He seemed determined not to be
+friendly, or even pleasant.
+
+Tess was an experienced potato peeler. She often helped Linda or Mrs.
+MacCall at home in Milton. In the matter of the onions she was quite
+as successful, although she confessed that they made her cry.
+
+"I don't see why onions act so," Dot said, wiping her own eyes. "There
+ought to be some way of smothering 'em while you take their jackets
+off. Oh, Tess, that one squirted right into my face!"
+
+"You'll have to take your face away from me, then," said her sister.
+"I can't tell where the onion's going to squirt next. They are worse
+than those clams we got down at Pleasant Cove, about squirting."
+
+"Goodness' sake!" exclaimed Rowdy. "Clams and onions! Never heard them
+compared before. Did you, Rafe?"
+
+"Don't bother me," growled Rafe, from the bed where he had lain down.
+
+Rowdy kept right on with his cooking. There being plenty of snow
+melted, he put down the disjointed rabbit with a little water and
+pepper and salt to simmer. Later he put in the onions and the
+potatoes. But they all had to simmer slowly for some time before the
+dumplings were made and put into the covered pot with the rabbit stew.
+
+The children were all very hungry indeed (all save Rafe, the grouch)
+before Rowdy pronounced the stew ready to be eaten. By that time it
+was late in the evening. It seemed to the younger children as though
+they had been living in the cave already for a long, long time!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+ANXIETY
+
+
+In this valley into which Sammy and the two youngest Corner House
+girls had coasted without realizing their unfortunate change of
+direction, the blizzard that had swept down from the north-east upon
+the wilderness about Red Deer Lodge did not reveal to the castaways
+its greatest velocity.
+
+The wind was mild in the valley compared to the way it swept across
+the ridge on which the Birdsalls' home had been built. Already, when
+Neale O'Neil discovered the absence of the small sled Sammy and Tess
+and Dot had taken, the storm was becoming threatening in the extreme.
+
+Urged by Mr. Howbridge, Neale ran into the house to make sure that
+Sammy and the little girls were really gone. Nobody indoors knew
+anything about the trio. Instantly anxiety was aroused in the minds of
+every one.
+
+Hedden, John and Lawrence, as well as Luke Shepard, soon joined in the
+search. Ike M'Graw of course took the lead. He knew the locality, and
+he knew the nature of the storm that had now developed after
+forty-eight hours of threatening.
+
+"No use lookin' for them twins," he had told Mr. Howbridge bluntly.
+"If they got away from here this mornin' with grub and a gun, they'll
+likely be all right for a while. They know where to hole up, it's
+likely, over this storm. 'Tain't as though they hadn't lived in the
+woods a good deal, winter and summer. When this storm is over I'll
+have a look for them twins, and like enough I'll find 'em all right.
+They air smart young shavers--'specially little Missie.
+
+"But these here young ones you brought with you--well, they don't know
+nothin' about the woods. If they started up that road to have a slide,
+no knowin' where they are now. They've got to be found and brought
+home. Yes, sir!"
+
+Ruth and the other girls had come running to the back kitchen where
+the party was making ready for departure. Agnes and Cecile were in
+tears; but although Ruth felt even more keenly that she had neglected
+the little folks, and because of that neglect they were lost, she kept
+her head.
+
+The oldest Kenway hurried matters in the kitchen, and before Ike was
+ready to start with his crew, she brought two big thermos bottles, one
+with hot milk and the other with hot coffee.
+
+"That's a good idee, Miss," said the woodsman, buttoning up his
+leather coat. "But we'll probably get them youngsters so quick they
+won't be much cold. Scared, mostly."
+
+All the members of the searching party did not feel so confident as
+Ike's expression pictured his feelings. And perhaps Ike said this only
+to help ease the minds of those who remained at the Lodge.
+
+Neale and Luke walked side by side as they set forth against the wind
+that now blew so hard. The snow sheeted them about so quickly that
+they were lost to the vision of the girls and Mr. Howbridge before
+they had gone twenty yards.
+
+The boys were right behind M'Graw. The other men trailed them.
+
+"Don't you fellers stray off the road we're goin' to follow," advised
+the old woodsman. "This is a humdinger of a storm, and it's goin' to
+get worse and worse from now on."
+
+"Those poor kids will be buried in it," Luke shouted in Neale's ear.
+
+"We'll dig 'em out, then," returned Neale, confidently. "Don't give up
+the ship before we've even started."
+
+But there was not much talk after getting into the road up which they
+knew Sammy and the little girls had started with the sled. In fact,
+they could not talk. By this time the blizzard was at its height, and
+it was blowing directly in their faces as they advanced.
+
+Over boot-tops, over knees, even leg-deep where the drifts were, the
+searchers pressed on. Hedden overtook the backwoodsman and shouted:
+
+"Hadn't we better separate, Mr. M'Graw, and beat the bushes on either
+side of this road?"
+
+"No. Don't believe it's safe. And I don't think them little shavers
+separated. They've holed-in together somewhere by this time, or--"
+
+He did not finish his remark, but plowed on. He did not pass a hummock
+or snow-covered stump beside the road that he did not kick into and
+quite thoroughly examine. Every time Neale O'Neil saw one of these
+drifts he felt suddenly ill. Suppose the little folks should be under
+that heap of snow? Nor did Luke bear the uncertainty in lighter vein.
+There were tears frozen on his cheeks as they pressed on.
+
+The falling snow and sleet, driven by the wind, seemed like a solid
+wall ahead of them. This buffeted the searchers with tremendous power.
+It took all their individual force to stand against the storm.
+
+When they finally reached the summit of the road, where the young
+people had started the bobsled for the long slide that forenoon, they
+had found no sign of Sammy and the little girls.
+
+Lawrence, one of the men, was completely exhausted. Ike made him sit
+down in the shelter of a tree and dosed him with a big draught of the
+hot coffee.
+
+"Don't want to have to lug you back in our arms, young man," snorted
+the old woodsman. "You city fellers ain't got much backbone, I allow."
+
+Meanwhile the other members of the searching party examined every
+brush pile and heap of snow for a circle of twenty yards around the
+point where Ike and Lawrence waited. Neale and Luke shrieked
+themselves hoarse calling the names of the trio of lost children.
+
+"Do you suppose any wild animal has attacked them, or frightened them,
+Mr. M'Graw?" Hedden asked.
+
+"Lynx and them is holed up, all right," declared the backwoodsman with
+conviction. "Nothing would bother them while this storm lasts. But I
+declare I don't see why we ain't found 'em," he added, shaking his
+head. "Not if they come this way."
+
+"I don't think they would have gone beyond this spot, do you?" Neale
+asked. "Here's the top of the hill. They must have started for this
+place with the sled."
+
+"'Twould seem so," agreed Ike M'Graw.
+
+"I doubt if they could have walked so far from the house," said Luke.
+
+"'Twasn't snowin' like this when they was on the way. But if they come
+up here and slid down again, why didn't we find 'em on our way up?
+Beats me!"
+
+"Perhaps we should have brought Tom Jonah with us," Neale observed.
+"He might have nosed them out."
+
+"The old dog couldn't scurcely git through this here snow," said
+M'Graw. "I don't guess he can help us much till the storm's over. But
+let's go back. Them young ones must have turned out o' this road
+somewheres. Stands to reason the snow scared 'em and they started
+back. They must have got out o' this woodroad, and then--"
+
+He slowly shook his head. His anxiety was shared by all. Wherever the
+children had gone, they were surely overtaken by the storm. If they
+had found some shelter-they might be safely "holed up" till the storm
+stopped. But if not, neither Ike M'Graw nor the others knew where to
+look for them.
+
+And the blizzard was now sweeping so desperately across the ridge that
+the sturdiest of the party could scarcely stand against it. Had it not
+been at their backs as they headed for Red Deer Lodge again, it is
+doubtful if they would have got to their destination alive.
+
+The last few hundred yards the party made by holding hands and pulling
+each other through the drifts. It was a tremendous task, and even
+M'Graw was blown when Red Deer Lodge was reached.
+
+Lawrence was the worst off of them all. Neale and Luke literally
+dragged him through the storm from the sheds to the rear door of the
+Lodge. He would probably have died in the drifts had he been alone.
+
+The girls and Mrs. MacCall, as well as Mr. Howbridge, were awaiting
+the return of the searchers with the utmost anxiety. Not only were
+they disturbed over the loss of the three children, but the
+possibility of the men themselves not returning had grown big in their
+minds. The rapidity with which the snow was gathering and the
+fierceness of the gale threatened disaster to the searchers.
+
+When M'Graw fell against the storm door at the rear of the house and
+burst it open, everybody within hearing came running to the back
+kitchen. When Ruth saw that they did not bring with them the two
+little girls and Sammy, she broke down utterly.
+
+Her despair was pitiful. She had held in bravely until now. To think
+that they had come up here to Red Deer Lodge for a jolly vacation only
+to have this tragedy occur!
+
+For that it was tragedy even Ike M'Graw now admitted. There was no
+knowing when the storm would cease. If the children had not been
+providentially sheltered before the gale reached this high point, it
+was scarcely possible that they would be found alive after the
+blizzard was over.
+
+At this hour no human being could live for long exposed to the storm
+which gripped the whole countryside.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was anxiety in the cave in the valley as well as at Red Deer
+Lodge about this same hour. But it must be confessed that the children
+who had taken refuge in the cave were mostly anxious about that rabbit
+stew!
+
+Was there going to be enough to go around? And had Rowdy made the
+dumplings all right and seasoned the stew so that it would be
+palatable?
+
+[Illustration: "The housekeeping arrangements of the cave were
+primitive."]
+
+"Why, you're all sitting around here and sniffing at that stew every
+time I lift the pot cover like hungry dogs," declared Rowdy. "I guess
+if it doesn't turn out right, you'll eat me."
+
+"Oh, no," said Dot. "We wouldn't like to do that, for we aren't cannon
+balls."
+
+"You aren't _what_?" cried the boy, amazed.
+
+"Oh, dear, Dot! Why _will_ you get so mixed up in your words?" Tess
+wailed. "She doesn't mean 'cannon balls,' Rowdy; she means cannibals.'
+And we aren't. It is bad enough to have to eat rabbit when it looks so
+much like a cat."
+
+This very much amused Rowdy and Sammy Pinkney; but Rafe, the grouchy
+brother, would not be even friendly enough to laugh at the smallest
+Corner House girl.
+
+"I don't know what's got into him," said Rowdy. "He never was this way
+before."
+
+Rafe lay on the bed of balsam branches, and when his brother tried to
+stir him up he growled and said: "Let me alone!" But when the stew was
+done he was ready for his share.
+
+The housekeeping arrangements of the cave were primitive. There were a
+few odd plates and dishes. But knives and forks were not plentiful,
+and the tea had to be drunk out of tin cups, and there were only three
+of them.
+
+There was condensed milk for the tea; and besides the dumplings which
+Rowdy had made, there were crackers and some cold cornbread left from
+a previous meal.
+
+Rowdy seemed to be a pretty good cook for a boy of his age. And he was
+just as handy with dishes and in housekeeping matters as a girl.
+
+The visitors praised his rabbit stew. They really had to do that
+because they ate so much of it. Rafe grumbled that they took more than
+their share.
+
+"I'd like to know what's got into you!" Rowdy said to his brother in
+great disgust. "You are just as mean as poison ivy--so there!"
+
+"I am not!"
+
+"Yes, you are. And what are you scratching that way for?"
+
+"Because my chest itches. What does anybody scratch for?" growled
+Rafe.
+
+After eating, Rafe rolled up in a robe and went to sleep at one end of
+the bed. The others helped Rowdy clean up; and, as he said, "just to
+pay Rafe off for being so mean," they had dessert which Rafe had no
+part in. Rowdy produced a can of pears and they opened and ate them
+all!
+
+"Je-ru-sa-_lem_!" ejaculated Sammy, when this was finished, "ain't it
+fun living in a cave? I'd rather be here than up to that Red Deer
+Lodge place. Hadn't you, Tess?"
+
+"No-o," admitted the honest but polite little girl. "I can't say just
+that. But I think Rowdy's cave is very nice, and we are having a very
+nice time here."
+
+Dot frankly yawned. She had been doing that, off and on, all through
+supper.
+
+"I'm afraid there won't be anybody to put my Alice-doll to bed
+tonight," she said. "And I haven't any nightgown with me. Why, Tess!
+what shall we do?"
+
+"I guess you wouldn't want to take off your clothes here. It isn't
+warm enough," said Rowdy.
+
+"But can't we say our prayers?" murmured the startled Dot. "Of course,
+Tess and I spent the night once right out under a tree--didn't we,
+Tessie? Last summer, you know, when we went on that tour in our
+automobile. But we said our prayers first."
+
+"I guess we'd all better say our prayers and go to bed," said Rowdy.
+"This is a pretty big storm, and maybe it won't stop snowing for ever
+so long. The more we sleep, the less we'll know about it."
+
+Therefore, a little later, the four joined the already slumbering Rafe
+upon the heaped up branches; wrapping themselves as best they could in
+the torn robes and pieces of carpet.
+
+It was not a very comfortable bed or very nice bedding; but they were
+all too weary to criticize the shortcomings of Rowdy's cave. At least,
+it was shelter from the storm.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+RAFE IS CROSS
+
+
+Sammy Pinkney awoke to hear barking. But it was not Tom Jonah, as he
+had dreamed it was. He was chilly, too, and when his eyes got used to
+the semi-darkness of the cave he was sleeping in, Sammy discovered
+that Rafe had deliberately removed the share of the bedclothes that
+had been over Sammy and spread them over himself.
+
+"Aw, say!" muttered Sammy. "Ain't he fresh?"
+
+Then Rafe barked again.
+
+"He certainly has one fierce cold!" muttered Sammy. "I ain't got the
+heart to start nothing on him."
+
+Instead he got up and crept over, to the fireplace where there were
+still some red embers. Rowdy, or somebody, had evidently been up more
+than once to put fuel on the fire, and now Sammy did the same and blew
+the coals until the wood caught and blazed.
+
+Beside the fireplace was a great stack of billets of seasoned wood.
+Evidently this cave had been used as a living place for a long time;
+or perhaps it had merely been stocked with fuel for a long time.
+
+Sammy hoped it was well stocked with food, too. For Sammy was hungry,
+right then! It seemed to him that the rabbit stew had been eaten a
+long time before. There was no clock; but judging from the way he felt
+he thought he must have slept the clock around.
+
+He wondered if the storm had ceased. Was there likelihood of their
+being able to get back to Red Deer Lodge this morning (if it was
+morning), or would they have to remain until some one came to dig them
+out?
+
+The fire having sprung up now, and the flickering light aiding him to
+see his way about the cavern, Sammy moved toward the entrance. This
+aperture beside the huge bowlder was scarcely higher than Sammy
+himself. Before it Rowdy and Rafe, the two strange boys, had hung a
+piece of matting. When Sammy pulled this matting away he saw
+snow--snow that filled the hole "chock-er-block," as he expressed it.
+
+"Je-ru-sa-_lem_!" muttered the startled Sammy, "I guess it did snow
+some. How are we ever going to dig out of here?"
+
+There was a slab of wood standing beside the opening, leaning against
+the rock. Sammy seized this and began to dig desperately at the snow.
+
+So interested did he become in digging through the bank that filled
+the cave entrance that he did not pay much attention to where he flung
+the snow behind him. He was still digging like a woodchuck when
+Rowdy's voice reached him:
+
+"What are you trying to do? Going to fill this cave with snow?"
+
+"Say!" said Sammy, "it's getting-up time. And there's an awful lot of
+snow here. I guess we're buried alive, that's what I guess!"
+
+Just then Rafe coughed again, and his brother hopped up and went to
+him.
+
+"Don't scatter that snow all about, Sammy," he commanded. Then to
+Rafe: "What's the matter, Rafe, dear? Don't you feel any better?"
+
+"I'm--I'm chilly," chattered the boy with the cough.
+
+"I'll cover you up better," said Rowdy, getting his own blanket. "And
+we'll have more fire and some breakfast. Are you hungry, Rafe?"
+
+"I'm thirsty," said Rafe, rather whiningly. "I want some--some
+coffee."
+
+"I'll make some right away. Don't be sick, now, Rafe. I don't see what
+we should do for you if you got sick. What _are_ you scratching for?"
+
+"Because I itch," replied Rafe drowsily.
+
+But he snuggled down under the coverings until the coffee should be
+made. He seemed in a pleasanter humor, at least, than on the evening
+before.
+
+Rowdy bustled about, making coffee and stirring up some kind of bread
+by the light of the fire. Soon the fuel heaped upon the blaze made the
+cave warm again, although the smoke set them all to coughing.
+
+The two little girls woke up. Dot demanded a light.
+
+"I don't like this old smoky fire to see by," she complained. "Why
+don't you keep your fire in a stove, Rowdy?"
+
+"Haven't a stove," replied Rowdy promptly. "How did you girls sleep?"
+
+"All right, I guess," Tess replied. "What are you doing, Sammy? Can we
+go home this morning?"
+
+Sammy was still digging. He tramped the snow into a corner behind him.
+But the more snow he dug out of the hole the more there seemed to be.
+He took a round stick as tall as he was himself and pushed it up
+through the snowbank, and it let in no light at all.
+
+"Je-ru-sa-_lem_!" he cried. "There's all the snow in the world blown
+into this hole, I guess. We'll never get out of here!"
+
+"Oh!" squealed Dot, "don't say that, Sammy. Of course we must get out.
+It's coming Christmas, you know, and I've got to finish my motto that
+I'm making for Ruthie. It's got to be done, and I didn't bring it with
+me."
+
+"But," said Tess, yet with some hesitation now, "the folks will surely
+come to find us. Don't you say so, Rowdy?"
+
+"If they know where you are," said Rowdy.
+
+"But we didn't tell 'em," growled Sammy, coming to the fire to get
+warm.
+
+"That'll be all right," Dot declared, seeing no difficulty. "Tom Jonah
+will find us. You know, we never can hide from Tom Jonah."
+
+Tess explained to Rowdy that Tom Jonah was a dog, and a very good dog,
+too. But she secretly had some doubts, as did Sammy, that the old dog
+would be able to find them away down at the bottom of this hole where
+they had coasted. She was careful to say nothing to frighten Dot, or
+to discourage her.
+
+They were all much interested in Rowdy's preparations for breakfast.
+He produced a strip of bacon and he fried some of this in a pan while
+the bread was cooking. There was no butter, and the coffee was rather
+muddy; but not even Dot complained, as long as she got her share.
+
+While they ate, they talked. At least, Rowdy and the visitors talked.
+Rafe drank the coffee and ate his share of the breakfast, and then
+went back to the bed and heaped almost all the coverings over him. He
+had little red specks on his chest and arms, and he said he could not
+get warm.
+
+Sammy was desirous of getting out through the cave entrance to see if
+it had stopped snowing and what the prospect was for clear weather.
+But he dug for an hour after breakfast without accomplishing much.
+Then Rowdy came to help him.
+
+"I tell you what I think," said the Milton boy, in a low voice, so the
+girls would not hear. "I b'lieve all that snow that was up on that
+hill has just come tumbling down before this cave--so there!"
+
+"An avalanche!" gasped Rowdy.
+
+"I don't know what you call it. But that's what I think," repeated
+Sammy. "We'll never dig out of here in this world."
+
+"But I guess we've got to," said Rowdy sharply. "We can't live here
+long."
+
+"It ain't a bad sort of a place," said Sammy cheerfully. "I guess
+Robinson Crusoe didn't have a better cave."
+
+"He had more food than we have," said Rowdy thoughtfully. "And you
+kids do eat a lot. If I'd known you were coming here to live I'd have
+brought more stuff to eat--I surely would!"
+
+"Can't we catch any more rabbits?" suggested Sammy.
+
+"How are you going to catch rabbits when we can't get outside this
+cave?" returned Rowdy. "I guess all boys are foolish. That sounds just
+like Rafe."
+
+"Say! You're a boy yourself," said Sammy, in surprise. "You needn't
+talk."
+
+"Oh!" rejoined Rowdy, and said nothing more for a time.
+
+But they gave up digging through the snowbank. The snow seemed packed
+very hard, and it was difficult to dig with a slab of wood. If there
+had been an avalanche over the mouth of the cave their chances for
+digging out were small, indeed. Luckily none of the children realized
+just what that meant.
+
+Living in the cave was some fun, as Sammy declared. At least, it had
+the virtue of novelty. The time did not drag. They played games, paid
+forfeits, and Tess told stories, and Rowdy sang songs. He had a very
+sweet voice, and Tess told him that he sang almost as well as Agnes
+did.
+
+"And Agnes sings in the church chorus," explained Tess.
+
+"And I think you cook 'most as good as a girl," said Dot. "I guess you
+cook 'most as good as our Linda, at home, in Milton."
+
+If Rowdy considered these statements compliments he did not say so.
+Indeed, he seemed to be very silent after they were made. He sat
+beside Rafe on the bed for some time, and they whispered together.
+Rafe seemed to get no better, and he slept a good deal.
+
+So did the other children sleep, after a while. Having no means of
+telling whether one day or two had passed, after eating a second time
+they all curled down, covering themselves as best they could, and
+found in slumber a panacea for their anxiety.
+
+It was not Sammy who awoke the next time, but Tess. She became wide
+awake in a moment, hearing a sound from somewhere outside of the cave.
+She sat up to hear it repeated.
+
+Something was scrambling and scratching in the snow. She even heard a
+"woof! woof!" just as though some animal tossed aside the snow and
+blew through it. Tess was badly frightened.
+
+"Sammy! Rowdy! Oh, please!" she cried. "Is it a bear?"
+
+"Is what a bear?" demanded Rowdy, waking up in some confusion. "I
+guess you've been dreaming, Tess."
+
+"That isn't any dream!" cried the Corner House girl, and she sprang
+up, seizing Dot in her arms.
+
+Rowdy screamed now; not at all like a boy would cry out. He leaped
+from the bed and ran to the other side of the room. There, hanging on
+two pegs, was a small rifle. Sammy had eyed it with longing. But Rafe,
+awakened as well, shouted:
+
+"No good taking that, Rowdy! It isn't loaded. You know I shot away the
+last cartridge at that old fox."
+
+"Oh, Rafe! I told you then you were foolish," said Rowdy. "What shall
+we do?"
+
+"What is it?" yelled Sammy, tumbling out of bed.
+
+"It's a wolf!" replied Rowdy. "I can hear it! Listen!"
+
+Dot added her voice to the din. "Tell that wolf we haven't anything to
+throw to him, so he might's well go away," she declared.
+
+Rowdy ran to the hole in the snow. It seemed to be suddenly lighter
+there. Was the beast that was scratching through letting daylight into
+the cave?
+
+Rafe shrieked and leaped out from under his coverings.
+
+"You'll be killed, Rowdy! Don't go there!" he cried.
+
+Dashing across the floor of the cave, he seized Rowdy and pulled him
+out of the way.
+
+"Give me the gun!" he ordered, wresting it from Rowdy's hands. He
+seized it by the barrel and poised it as a club.
+
+"Get out, Rowdy!" he commanded. "This isn't any place for a girl!"
+
+At that amazing statement the little girls from the old Corner House
+and Sammy Pinkney were so utterly surprised that they quite forgot the
+savage animal that seemed to be trying to dig into the cave to attack
+them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+HOLIDAYS--CONCLUSION
+
+
+It was rather fortunate that Ralph Birdsall had shot way his last
+cartridge in killing the fox three nights before from the garret
+window of Red Deer Lodge. Otherwise he might have hurt Tom Jonah.
+
+For the old dog scrambled through the drift ahead of the searching
+party that had started out as soon as the gale ceased. Tom Jonah was
+pretty near crazy--or he acted so.
+
+Barking and leaping, the dog threw himself upon Ralph and tumbled him
+over. He was prodigal with his expressions of joy and affection, going
+from one to the other of the five children, and in his boisterousness
+tumbling them in heaps.
+
+"I never did! Tom Jonah! why don't you behave?" demanded Tess. "And I
+have been telling Rowdy and Rafe, these nice boys, just how good and
+smart you are."
+
+"Je-ru-sa-_lem_!" gasped Sammy, finally getting his breath. "They
+ain't boys!"
+
+"Who aren't boys?" asked Tess, wonderingly.
+
+"Well--well, _this_ one isn't," said Sammy, pointing at Rowdy. "He's a
+girl, that's what he is."
+
+"Why, Rowdy! I _thought_ there was something funny about you," Tess
+Kenway said. "You--you were so much nicer than boys are. I declare!"
+
+But this point was discussed no further at the time. For into the
+entrance to the cave came tumbling Neale O'Neil and Luke Shepard,
+covered with snow and shouting their joy, while behind them was Ike
+M'Graw.
+
+"Ralph! Roweny!" shouted the old timber cruiser. "Jest what sort of
+doin's do you call this?"
+
+Neale and Luke greeted the three lost Milton children with vehemence.
+Afterward Sammy confessed that maybe it was a good thing to get lost,
+for then you found out how much folks thought of you.
+
+These three, with Tom Jonah, made up the searching party this time.
+They had come away from Red Deer Lodge without letting the others know
+where they were going.
+
+It was really Agnes who started them off on the right trail. While the
+gale still rocked Red Deer Lodge in its arms and nobody could go out
+of doors, Agnes remembered about the fork in the road where she and
+her friends had coasted.
+
+"If the little ones tried to slide, they might have taken that wrong
+road," she said. "They could have slid right into it without knowing.
+Where does it go, Mr. M'Graw?"
+
+It did not take Ike long to study out what she meant. Then he did some
+more "figgering." He knew exactly where the branch road led to.
+
+He was so successful in this figuring that he encouraged the young
+people from Milton to believe as he did. He saw a chance for the three
+little folks who had gone sliding to be safely housed in the cave that
+he called "Ralph and little Missie's playhouse."
+
+The Birdsall twins had often camped out in that cave hollowed in the
+hillside at the bottom of the valley. If Sammy and Tess and Dot had
+slid down there, more than likely, so Ike said, they had found the
+cave and had taken refuge there.
+
+In addition (but this was his own secret) the timber cruiser believed
+that the twins, having been in Red Deer Lodge, had started for that
+very cave some hours before the gale broke.
+
+If the young Birdsalls were there, the lost children would be safe
+enough. This had proved to be the case.
+
+Nevertheless, the old woodsman scolded Ralph and Rowena heartily.
+
+"What d'you mean?" he demanded, "by running way from your guardian!
+Mr. Howbridge is as fine a man as ever stepped in shoe-leather. I'm
+ashamed of you children. And when you did come clean up here, why
+didn't you come to my shack and stay?"
+
+"We did go there; but you were away. Then we thought we had a right to
+live in our own house. You know papa built it," said Rowena, bravely.
+"We didn't know anybody was coming there this winter. And we brought
+some food with us from Coxford. Then those people came, and we waited
+till we could get out without being caught at it."
+
+"Some young ones! Some young ones!" groaned M'Graw. "Well, now, you'll
+go back to the Lodge and see what Mr. Howbridge has to say to you. And
+you dressed like a boy, Roweny!"
+
+"I don't care," said "Rowdy." "Ralph dressed up like a girl at first.
+We came up here that way. But other kids picked on us so that I
+thought I'd better be a boy as well as Ralph. And we had these clothes
+at Red Deer Lodge. I make as good a boy as he does a girl."
+
+"Say!" asked Neale O'Neil, vastly interested, "you two stopped a week
+at the village on the ice and fished, didn't you?"
+
+"Yes," said Rowena.
+
+"And you were girls there?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well," said Neale, laughing now, "what I want to know is, which of
+you it was that thrashed those two boys that tried to steal your
+set-lines?"
+
+"That was Rowena!" croaked Ralph from the bed. "I acted just like a
+girl ought to and let them take the lines; but Rowena fought them, and
+licked them good, too!"
+
+There was a deal of talk after that, but most of it was done following
+the arrival of the party at Red Deer Lodge. As soon as that had
+occurred, however, and Mrs. MacCall had heard Ralph cough and heard
+about the itching, she made an examination.
+
+"There!" she declared, half an hour later after she had put the boy
+between blankets and given him a hot drink, "I might have known
+something would happen if we came up to this out-of-the-world place."
+
+"I should think something had happened!" murmured Ruth, who still held
+Dot in her lap and hugged her as though she could not let her go
+again. "What is the matter with Ralph?"
+
+"Chickenpox. And it's coming out thick on him right this minute."
+
+"Oh! Oh! _Chickens?_" gasped the smallest Corner House girl. "Are they
+roosting on him? No wonder Rafe scratched."
+
+"And like enough you'll be scratching my lassie," said the Scotch
+woman. "One an' all of you. I never knew it to fail. If one bairn gets
+it, all the others in the neighborhood catches it."
+
+Nor was she a poor prophet. All the little folks, even Rowena,
+developed mild cases of chickenpox and were kept in the house for most
+of the holidays.
+
+Holidays they were, nevertheless. Perhaps the little Corner House folk
+had never had so good a time over Christmas and New Year's. Ralph and
+Rowena Birdsall proved to be rollicking, good-natured children, and
+they felt themselves at home at Red Deer Lodge and could entertain
+Tess and Dot and Sammy Pinkney.
+
+"We won't blame them for giving us chicken scratches," said Dot to
+Tess. "At least, Ralph did. But he couldn't help it. And mine's most
+gone, anyway."
+
+The "older young folks," as Mr. Howbridge called them, had most
+delightful times out of doors, as well as in. There was four or five
+feet of snow on the ground, on the level, and it was packed hard
+enough to make splendid snow-shoeing.
+
+Ike M'Graw had plenty of snowshoes, and he taught them all how to use
+them. When they became adept he led them in short jaunts all about the
+section in which Red Deer Lodge was situated.
+
+The boys went out with him at night, hunting. Neale and Luke both
+killed rabbits, and Neale shot a bigger fox than the one Ralph
+Birdsall had knocked over.
+
+Those were wonderful days; but the nights were still more wonderful,
+for they were moon-lighted for most of the holiday time.
+
+There is nothing better than coasting by moonlight, and of that sport
+Ruth, Agnes and Cecile, as well as the two boys, had their fill.
+
+Nor did they overlook the two holidays, Christmas and New Year's. Ike
+cut and trimmed a huge Christmas tree and that was set up in the main
+hall of the Lodge and decorated in a most beautiful manner. Presents
+had been brought up from Milton for everybody. And although Ralph and
+Rowena Birdsall and Ike M'Graw were "added entries," as Luke said,
+they were not allowed to feel slighted when the presents were given
+out on Christmas night.
+
+A big sledge came through from Coxford two days after Christmas, and
+this brought additional supplies for the party at Red Deer Lodge.
+There came on the sledge, too, the red-faced Mr. Neven who wished to
+buy the standing timber on a part of the Birdsall tract.
+
+There was much talk between the lumberman, Mr. Howbridge and M'Graw
+regarding the timber. But Ike proved himself a good "figgerer" in more
+ways than one. The lawyer remained determined to accept the old timber
+cruiser's report as correct and finally Neven came to their terms.
+
+Before the holiday of the Milton party was ended, a big gang of
+lumbermen came up the tote-road from Coxford and the lake, ready to
+set up a camp in the valley near the twins' cave, and finish the
+season by cutting over several acres of the Birdsall piece.
+
+"I won't want to see our place up here again until the new timber is
+grown," cried Rowena, mournfully.
+
+"Then you'll have to wait till we get through college," Ralph told
+her. "Mr. Howbridge is going to have us live with him till we go to
+college. But I expect he'll bring us up here once in a while if you
+change your mind, Rowdy, and want to come."
+
+"Don't call me 'Rowdy,' Ralph," said his sister. "That was only for
+our trip up here. And, anyhow, I am not going to be a boy--never--any
+more!"
+
+"We're going to have a lot to tell the kids back home," remarked Sammy
+Pinkney one day before they left Red Deer Lodge. "Je-ru-sa-_lem_!
+think of that long slide, Tess."
+
+"But it ended bad," said Tess.
+
+"It ended good!" cried the boy. "Didn't we find Ralph and Rowena, and
+live in a cave, and eat rabbit stew, and--"
+
+"And get chicken scratches," put in Dot. "But mine don't scratch any
+now. The chickens went away quick."
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+CHARMING STORIES FOR GIRLS
+
+(From eight to twelve years old)
+
+THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS SERIES
+
+BY GRACE BROOKS HILL
+
+Four girls from eight to fourteen years of age receive word that a
+rich bachelor uncle has died, leaving them the old Corner House he
+occupied. They move into it and then the fun begins. What they find
+and do will provoke many a hearty laugh. Later, they enter school and
+make many friends. One of these invites the girls to spend a few weeks
+at a bungalow owned by her parents; and the adventures they meet with
+make very interesting reading. Clean, wholesome stories of humor and
+adventure, sure to appeal to all young girls.
+
+  1 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS.
+  2 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS AT SCHOOL.
+  3 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS UNDER CANVAS.
+  4 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS IN A PLAY.
+  5 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS' ODD FIND.
+  6 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS ON A TOUR.
+  7 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS GROWING UP.
+  8 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS SNOWBOUND.
+  9 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS ON A HOUSEBOAT.
+  10 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS AMONG THE GYPSIES.
+  11 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS ON PALM ISLAND.
+
+BARSE & HOPKINS, PUBLISHERS NEWARK, N. J.--NEW YORK, N. Y.
+
+
+
+
+THE POLLY PENDLETON SERIES
+
+BY DOROTHY WHITEHILL
+
+Polly Pendleton is a resourceful, wide-awake American girl who goes to
+a boarding school on the Hudson River some miles above New York. By
+her pluck and resourcefulness, she soon makes a place for herself and
+this she holds right through the course. The account of boarding
+school life is faithful and pleasing and will attract every girl in
+her teens.
+
+  1 POLLY'S FIRST YEAR AT BOARDING SCHOOL
+  2 POLLY'S SUMMER VACATION
+  3 POLLY'S SENIOR YEAR AT BOARDING SCHOOL
+  4 POLLY SEES THE WORLD AT WAR
+  5 POLLY AND LOIS
+  6 POLLY AND BOB
+
+Cloth, Large 12mo., Illustrated.
+
+BARSE & HOPKINS, PUBLISHERS NEWARK, N. J.--NEW YORK, N. Y.
+
+
+
+
+CHICKEN LITTLE JANE SERIES
+
+By LILY MUNSELL RITCHIE
+
+Chicken Little Jane is a Western prairie girl who lives a happy,
+outdoor life in a country where there is plenty of room to turn
+around. She is a wide-awake, resourceful girl who will instantly win
+her way into the hearts of other girls. And what good times she
+has!--with her pets, her friends, and her many interests. "Chicken
+Little" is the affectionate nickname given to her when she is very,
+very good, but when she misbehaves it is "Jane"--just Jane!
+
+  Adventures of Chicken Little Jane
+  Chicken Little Jane on the "Big John"
+  Chicken Little Jane Comes to Town
+
+With numerous illustrations in pen and ink
+
+By CHARLES D. HUBBARD
+
+BARSE & HOPKINS, PUBLISHERS NEWARK, N. J.--NEW YORK, N. Y.
+
+
+
+
+DOROTHY WHITEHILL SERIES FOR GIRLS
+
+Here is a sparkling new series of stories for girls--just what they
+will like, and ask for more of the same kind. It is all about twin
+sisters, who for the first few years in their lives grow up in
+ignorance of each other's existence. Then they are at last brought
+together and things begin to happen. Janet is an independent go-ahead
+sort of girl; while her sister Phyllis is--but meet the twins for
+yourself and be entertained.
+
+6 Titles, Cloth, large 12mo.
+
+Covers in color.
+
+  1. JANET, A TWIN
+  2. PHYLLIS, A TWIN
+  3. THE TWINS IN THE WEST
+  4. THE TWINS IN THE SOUTH
+  5. THE TWINS' SUMMER VACATION
+  6. THE TWINS AND TOMMY JR.
+
+BARSE & HOPKINS, PUBLISHERS NEWARK, N. J.--NEW YORK, N. Y.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Corner House Girls Snowbound, by 
+Grace Brooks Hill
+
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