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."