CHAPTER XI A Disturbed Night
The sight of the falling snow gave the boys a new channel forconversation, and they were slow about going to bed. They had puteverything soft that they could find under their sleeping bags andlooked forward to a fairly comfortable night in the log cabin. Since thesnow had begun falling the air had become much warmer, and the inside ofthe little building was warm and inviting.
"It's a thick, heavy snow," Tim remarked, after peering out of thewindow.
"If anyone comes near the cabin tonight, we ought to see his footprintsin the morning," Mac said.
"Maybe not," Kent denied. "If it keeps on snowing this way, any trackswould be covered up in a very short time."
"If it kept up this way for a long time, we'd be snowed in here for awhile," Barry told them. "We might not get back to school in time."
"That would break my heart!" Mac grinned.
"Don't you want to know anything, you ignorant duffer?" Kent asked.
"I thought I knew about all there was to know," Mac returned blandly.
"Then you're smarter than most humans," Barry retorted.
"I accept!" grinned the twin.
"We'll ask Pa about that sometime," said Tim, slipping inside the bag."I bet he'll have a different answer."
The fire blazed up in the chimney, and the shadows leaped and darted onthe walls. A split log popped, and a blazing ember shot out across thehearth and landed close to Kent's sleeping bag. He put his arm outsideof the bag and flicked it back into the fireplace.
"If any of you get hot in the night, you'll know that a spark landed onyou," he said.
"If you know so much, what made that wood pop like that?" Barry askedMac.
"Expansion. Heat expanded it and made it burst."
"All right. What made that popping sound?"
"That is a secret that we scientific men keep to ourselves," answeredMac soberly.
"I wish you'd all quit talking about such nonsense and let me go tosleep," grumbled Kent. "I'm tired after our tramping around today."
"Yes, let's go to sleep," Mac urged. "Tomorrow I'll explain all thesedeep things to you!"
"Thanks!" said Barry. "We can hardly wait until we hear them!"
The others were as tired as Kent, and they were willing to drop theirgood-natured conversation and drift off into slumber. Nor did it takethem long. They were active and healthy boys, and sleep was a thing thatthey needed and enjoyed. In a few moments they were all breathingdeeply, and quiet settled over the Bronson cabin.
The fire continued to flare, and occasionally it popped, but no moreembers left the chimney. The snow came down gently and settled on theframe of the window until the little panes became round from theclinging white flakes. The wind was rising slightly, and now and then apuff came down the chimney and caused the fire to leap and twist upward.
The slumbers of the mystery hunters were rudely broken into by a suddenmedley of shots and yells. The boys woke up with a start, and as theydid so two more shots rang out. Then stillness succeeded.
"What was that?" Barry asked, as they sat up in the bags and lookedaround in the semigloom. The fire had sunk down, and a glance at an oldalarm clock that Kent had brought with him, and which stood on the stonechimneypiece, showed that it was a quarter of two.
"Shots," was Kent's answer, as he kicked his way out of the bag."Several of them, and close to here, too."
"I heard some yells," put in Tim.
All four of them were now up and hastening into their clothes. Macswiftly tossed some wood on the fire, and in the increasing light theyhurriedly dressed. Barry peered out of the window as he pulled hissweater down.
"I don't see anybody," he said. "It is still snowing."
Kent took his rifle from a nail upon which he had hung it, and handedBarry his. "I guess we had better take these with us," he said. "Noknowing who is out there, shooting around."
"From the yells we heard, it sounds as though somebody was winged," Macsaid, as he took the shotgun that the twins shared between them. Timplaced his ax in his belt, and they were ready to go out into the nightand investigate.
Barry opened the door, and they stepped out. It was still snowing, butthe flakes were finer now, and there was a brisk wind that moanedthrough the tops of the trees and whipped the snow into whirling shapesand formations. The boys left the cabin cautiously, but no onechallenged their coming, and they stood in the snow outside the door,their hands in pockets, feeling the change from the warm inside to thecold outdoors. Much snow had fallen since they had gone to bed.
For a moment they were silent, listening for any sound that might breakthe stillness or rise above the gusts of wind, but although theystrained their powers of hearing, no sound reached them. Then a flash oflight out on the lake caught their attention. It lingered only a momentand then was gone, and after a brief interval, it came again.
"Somebody is running across the ice!" Barry and Mac said in chorus.
"Yes," Kent agreed. "And they have a flashlight that they are turning onevery once in a while. Wonder who they are?"
"I'll bet they are the ones that yelled," said Tim.
"Heading for Rake Island," Barry observed.
"Maybe whoever is putting on all the funny business around the lodgehides away on Rake Island," Kent suggested. "We ought to search thatplace one of these days."
"We will," Barry promised. He glanced toward the dark hunting lodge."Which way did those shots come from?"
"I'd say from just behind the lodge," Tim answered.
"Seemed that way to me," Kent agreed. "They were mighty close to thiscabin of ours."
"Let's go over there and see if we can find anything," Barry suggested.
"I'll get the lantern," Mac offered. "You fellows want your hats andgloves?"
They agreed heartily that they did, for the night air was penetrating,and before long the sandy-haired twin was back with the lantern andtheir warmer clothing. In a short time they set out across the openspace toward the lodge, keeping a sharp watch on every side. The flashesno longer came from the lake.
Back of the lodge they flashed the lantern around the ground, lookingfor footprints, but the snow had been blown around in such a way as tomake it impossible for them to find any. They did not waste many minutesin the hunt, as the cold was too keen, but soon gave it up and startedback to the cabin.
"Nothing doing," Barry announced. "And I'm not going to stay out herelong. That wind feels like a knife. Me for the fire!"
His companions were of the same mind, and they were approaching thecabin when Tim stopped and fumbled into the snow. When he straightenedup he held an object in his hand, and as soon as he had wiped it off hewhistled.
"Hey! Look here, fellows. A rifle shell!"
The boys bent over his extended hand and examined the metal cartridgewith interest. Then Kent began to brush through the snow in search ofothers. Before long he had found three more.
"This is where the fellow stood that fired those shots," he announced.
"Pretty close to our cabin," Barry said.
"These shells came out of a big rifle," Mac observed. "Did you see thatshell on the ground, Tim?"
"No, my foot struck it. I felt something harder than the snow, and Ireached down to see what it was. As soon as I touched it, I had an ideawhat it was."
Barry looked away in the direction of Rake Island, shrouded in thedarkness. "It all means that somebody stood here and fired at least fourshots from a rifle at someone else," he said slowly. "The ones who wereshot at scuttled away across the ice. I'd like to know what it allmeans."
"Let's get in around the fire and look these shells over," Kent urged,and they were soon back in the cabin, grouping around the warm fire andlooking at the empty cartridge curiously. The ones that Kent had foundwere exactly the same, and there was no doubt that they had all beenshot from the same gun.
"It seemed to me that there were more than four shots, but perhaps Ijust i
magined that," Barry said, sitting down on the sleeping bag.
"The whole thing was so sudden and unexpected that I hardly know whatdid happen," Mac admitted. "The shots were near us, too."
"Almost outside of our window," Kent nodded. "Gosh, that gives mesomething to think about, do you know it? The light of our fire wouldshow anyone that we were here, and whoever fired the shots might havebeen protecting us. See what I mean?"
"Do you mean that those people who ran across the ice may have beenlooking in at us and were scared off by the shots?" Tim asked.
"Sure! Or maybe the ones who did the shooting were looking in at us andwere disturbed. Of course, any way you look at it, it is all pureguesswork, and we know as much about it as we do about the whole mysterybusiness."
"I'm glad that we are going to move over into the lodge," declaredBarry. "That's a bigger place, and I'll feel safer in it."
"Don't forget, though, that the lodge is the home stamping ground forthe spook," Mac reminded him.
"I know it is, but we seem to have had a lot of visitors and prowlersaround here. I don't feel quite safe any more. If we did stay in thiscabin, we'd have to build some sort of a shutter to put over thatwindow, so that people couldn't come looking in."
"Do you believe it was any of Carter Wolf's friends?" Tim inquired.
Barry smiled. "We're trying to hang everything against his account, justbecause he has no use for us. No, I hardly think so. I wonder if any ofhis bunch carries a rifle big enough for these shells?"
"They might," Kent said. "Some of his friends are sports and have goodequipment. We know that he is somewhere near here, but I just don'tthink that they had anything to do with it all."
"Well, that artillery practice was too close to suit me," Mac declared,as he began to get ready for bed again.
"I'm just wondering if anyone was hit or if they just yelled becausethey were scared," murmured Barry, as the boys prepared to go to sleepagain.
"I suppose we should have gone on down to the lake to see if anyone washurt or not," admitted Tim.
Mac placed fresh fuel on the fire, and they talked for another half-hourabout the mysterious event of the night. The wind was rising and blowingmore strongly, and the old cabin shook under the force of some of theblasts. At length the boys became quiet and sank away into deep sleep.
It seemed that they had scarcely closed their eyes when there came athunderous booming crash that jarred the cabin. Something scraped downthe roof and fell to the ground back of the lean-to kitchen. At the sametime some stones fell into the fire, which had sunk to red embers,scattering it to right and left. The boys bounded up from their bedswith rapidly beating hearts.
"What was that?" Tim shouted.
"Something hit the cabin," Barry said, as he reached for his clothesagain.
"Yes, and it took part of the chimney," Mac pointed out. "I'll get alight and we'll see what it was."
Kent threw the remaining wood on the fire, and Mac lighted the lantern.It was just five o'clock, an hour which rather surprised the boys, as itwas still pitch dark outside. They dressed as quickly as possible,waiting for further sounds, but all was still.
"Do you suppose that somebody bumped against the side of the cabin?" Macasked.
"Bumped it with a battering ram if he did," Barry retorted. "That thumpwas on the roof. Let's see what it was."
He seized the lantern, and the others followed him out into theearly-morning air. The blackness was growing faintly gray in the east,and before very long the sun would be up. But the boys were notinterested in these things at that moment. They walked out to a placewhere they could look at the roof of the cabin.
One glance told the story. A big limb had blown down and landed on theroof, knocking off a corner of the chimney. Part of the limb had sliddown the back part of the roof, but the heaviest portion was stillbalanced on the peak of the roof.
"A tree limb!" Kent cried. "We might have known it."
"A big one, too," Barry observed. "We'll have to pull it down before weleave this cabin."
"I thought the whole house was coming down when it hit," Mac grinned.
"Are you going to go back to sleep?" Tim inquired.
"Sleep?" echoed Kent, in disgust. "Not for me! It's morning, anyway. Ifwe did go to sleep, something else would be sure to happen. I'm sleepy,but no more for me. What a fine night that turned out to be!"