Chapter XVIII: Lost Again

“Now what’s up?” cried Tom, as he made a rush after the dog. But he was too late. Towser was out in the snow.

“It’s that bear again,” George said.

“You’ve got bear on the brain,” commented Bert.

The boys looked out and listened, but they could neither see nor hear anything, and soon the dog came back. But, even as he reached the door, he turned and sent a challenging bark toward someone--or something.

“This sure is queer,” murmured Bert.

“And it’s queer what Jack said,” went on Tom. “About being spied upon. What do you mean, old man?”

“Just what I said,” was the answer. “Just before the dog gave the alarm, I had a feeling as though someone outside was keeping watch over this shack.”

“That sure is a funny feeling,” commented George. “Who would it be? There aren’t any persons up around here except Sam Wilson, or maybe some of those Indian guides he knows.”

“It might be one of the Indians,” suggested Bert. “They might be sneaking around, to see what they could pick up.”

“A wild animal wouldn’t make a fellow feel as I felt,” decided Jack. “But maybe I’m only fussy, and----”

“You are--worse than a girl,” said Tom, with a laugh that took the sharpness out of the words. “I guess it’s only the storm, and the effect of being in a strange place. Now let’s settle down and take it easy. There’s no one outside.”

Once more they disposed themselves before the cheerful blaze, the dog stretching out at full length to dry his shaggy coat that was wet with melting snow.

“I wonder what sort of a place this was?” spoke Jack, at length.

“Must have been a hunter’s cabin,” suggested Tom.

“It’s too big for that. This looks as though people had lived in it once,” declared Bert. “Besides, it’s too near the road for a hunter to want to use it. I guess the family died off, or moved away, and there isn’t enough population up here to make it so crowded that they have to use this shack.”

“Well, it comes in handy for us,” remarked George. “I could go another sandwich, but----”

“All the going you’ll do will be to go without,” laughed Bert, grimly. “There isn’t a crumb left, but I could manage to squeeze out some more coffee.”

“Better save it for morning,” advised Tom. “We’ll need it worse by then.”

The storm still raged, but inside the deserted cabin the boys were fairly comfortable. They had on thick, warm garments, and these, with the glowing fire, made them feel little of the nipping cold that prevailed with the blizzard.

The wind howled down the chimney, scattering the light ashes now and then, and filling the room with the pungent odor of smoke. Around some of the windows, where the rags were stuffed in the broken panes, little piles of sifted snow gathered.

At times the whole frail structure shook with the force of the blast, and at such times the boys would look at each other with a trace of fear on their faces. For the ramshackle structure might fall down on them.

But as it did not, after each recurrent windy outburst, they felt more confident. Perhaps the cabin was built stronger than they thought. The dog showed no uneasiness at these manifestations of Nature. He did not even open his eyes when the wind howled its loudest and blew its strongest. And, too, he seemed to have gotten over the strange fear that caused him to act so oddly.

The other boys had rather laughed at Jack’s “notion” of being “spied upon,” but had they been able to see through the white veil of snow that was falling all about the cabin, they would have realized that there is sometimes something like telepathy, or second sight. For, in reality, the boys were being observed by a pair of evil eyes.

And the evil eyes were set in an evil face, which, in turn belonged to the body of a man who had constructed for himself a rude shelter against the storm.

It was such a shelter as would be hastily built by a hunter caught in the open for the night--a sort of “lean-to,” with the open side away from the direction in which the wind blew. But it could not have been made in this storm, and, consequently, must have been put up before the blizzard began.

The lean-to showed signs of a practiced hand, for it was fairly comfortable, and the man in it chuckled to himself now and then as he looked over toward the deserted cabin.

The man was on the watch, and he had prepared for just this emergency. At times, when he heard the barking of the dog, a frown could have been seen on his face, had there been a light by which to observe it. But the lean-to was in absolute darkness, save what light was reflected by the white snow.

“I thought they’d end up here,” was the man’s muttered remark to himself, for he was all alone. “Yes, I thought they would. It’s the nearest shelter after they left the doctored signboard. Naturally they turned in here. That changed sign did the trick all right. Lucky I thought of it. Now I wonder what the next move will be?”

He did not answer himself for a few seconds, but crouched down, looking in the direction of the cabin, through the chinks of which shone the light of the fire.

“They’ll stay there until morning, I reckon,” communed the man to himself. “Then they’ll light out and try to find Ramsen. But they won’t locate it by going the way that sign pointed,” and he chuckled. “They’ll only get deeper in the woods, and then, if we can cut out that Fairfield from among the others, we’ll have him where we want him. If we can’t, we’ll manage to take him anyhow.”

He paused, as though to go over in his mind the details of the evil scheme he was plotting, and resumed:

“Yes, they’ll light out in the morning. I’ll have to follow ’em until I make sure which trail they take. Then the rest will be easy. It isn’t going to be any fun to stay here all night, but it will be worth the money, I guess.

“That is, if Skeel ponies up as he says he will. And if Skeel tries to cut up any funny tricks, and cheat me and Whalen, he’ll wish he never had. He’ll never try it twice!”

With another look out at the dimly lighted cabin, as if to make sure that none of those he was spying on had left, the man composed himself to pass the night in his somewhat uncomfortable shelter. He curled up in a big blanket and went to sleep. For he was a woodsman born and bred, and he thought nothing of staying out in the open, with only a little shelter, through a long, cold night. He was even comfortable, after his own fashion.

And slowly the night passed for our four friends in the deserted cabin.

They had managed to construct a rude sort of bed by placing old inside doors on some boxes. Their heavy mackinaws were covers, and the nearness of the fire on the hearth kept them warm. Occasionally, through the night, as one or another awoke from a doze, he would toss on more wood, to keep the blaze from going out.

The dog whined uneasily once or twice during the night, but he did not bark or growl. Perhaps he knew that the man in the lean-to was asleep also, and would not walk abroad to plot harm.

“Well, it’s still snowing,” remarked Tom, as he arose and stretched his cramped muscles.

“How do you know? Is it morning?” asked George, yawning.

“It’s an imitation of it,” Tom announced. “I looked out. It’s still snowing to beat the band.”

“Oh, for our cozy camp--any one of them!” sighed Jack. “Let’s have what’s left of that coffee, Bert, and then we’ll hike out and see what we can find.”

The coffee was rather weak, but it was hot, and that meant a great deal to the boys who had to venture out in the cold. Every drop was disposed of, and then, looking well to their guns, for though they hardly admitted it to each other, they had faint hopes of game, the boys set out.

As they emerged from the cabin, they were not aware of a pair of sharp, ferret-like eyes watching them from the hidden shelter of the lean-to. As the wind was blowing toward that shack, and not away from it, the dog was not this time apprised by scent of the closeness of an enemy, whatever had happened the night before.

“Well, let’s start,” proposed Tom. “This is the road to Ramsen,” and he pointed to the almost snow-obliterated highway that ran in front of the deserted cabin they were leaving.

Their hearts were lighter with the coming of the new day, though their stomachs were almost empty. But they hoped soon to be at one of their camping cabins, where, they knew, a good supply of food awaited them.

On they tramped through the snow. It was very deep, and the fall seemed to have increased in rapidity, rather than to have diminished. It had snowed all night, and was still keeping up with unabated vigor. In some places there were deep drifts across the road.

“This sure is heavy going,” observed Jack, as he plunged tiresomely along.

“That’s right,” agreed Bert.

“I don’t see how Towser keeps it up,” spoke George, for the dog was having hard work to get through the drifts.

“He seems to enjoy it,” commented Tom. “But it is deep. I think----”

He did not complete the sentence, for, at that moment, he stepped into some unseen hole and went down in a snow pile to his waist.

“Have a hand!” invited Jack, extending a helping arm to his chum, to pull him up. “What were you trying to do, anyhow?”

“I don’t know,” answered Tom, looking at the hole into which he had fallen. “But I think we’re off the road, fellows.”

“I do, too,” came from Bert. “It seems as though we were going over a field. Yes,” he went on, “there’s a stump sticking up out of the snow. We’re in some sort of a clearing. We’re clean off the road!”

It took only a moment for the others to be also convinced of this.

“We’d better go back,” George said. “We’ve probably come the wrong way. I don’t believe this is the road to Ramsen at all.”

“The signboard said it was,” Bert reminded him.

“I can’t help that. I believe we’re wrong again--lost!”

“Lost--again!” echoed Jack. “Lost in this wilderness!”

“It does begin to look so,” admitted Tom slowly. “Where’s that dog?”