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diff --git a/38431.txt b/38431.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..22be7cf --- /dev/null +++ b/38431.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7751 @@ +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: ASCII + +*** 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 reechoed 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 + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS SNOWBOUND *** + +***** This file should be named 38431.txt or 38431.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/4/3/38431/ + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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