THE MYSTERY OF THE CABIN.
Max, in whose ability to understand all such things they felt so much
confidence, spoke those surprising words, the others showed more or less
astonishment.
One by one they had to bend down, and put his assertion to the test, by
poking a finger gingerly into the little pile of gray ashes. Even
Bandy-legs would not rest satisfied until he had thus copied the example
of the others.
"Warm-say, it's _hot_, fellers!" he exclaimed, as he hastily snatched
back his hand, and commenced to blow the ends of his fingers. "Anyhow, I
guess I must 'a' just rooted out a live coal, for it burned like the
dickens."
"Well, we know one thing that we didn't before," asserted Owen.
"Two, you'd better say, for they both sting like fun," grumbled
Bandy-legs, rubbing his injured fingers vigorously.
"Yes," said Steve, "somebody's been in this old cabin, and not so very
long ago, either; for they must have made a little fire about dawn, to
fry a part of a partridge by. And if that's been all the poor critter
had for his breakfast, I'd like to wager, now, he must be hungry yet."
"I'm glad of one thing," ventured Bandy-legs.
"That you didn't get three fingers scorched; is that it?" asked Steve.
"Naw!" answered the other, indignantly, "Tell you what it is, boys; I
didn't believe much of it when they said it was ghosts up here on
Catamount Island. Now we know there ain't none around."
"Well, how do you know it, Bandy-legs?" asked Max.
"Because ghosts--whoever heard of them wanting a fire, either to cook
with, or else keep warm? Still, that awful howl we heard last night--I
keep wonderin' what it meant, fellers?"
No one attempted to answer Bandy-legs. They believed they had about
exhausted that subject while sitting around the camp fire on the
previous evening, before starting to go to their blankets; and did not
feel like reopening the question.
"Let's get out of this," suggested Steve, with a shiver.
"Second the motion," declared Toby, speaking straight again.
"Unless Max wants to hang around a little longer, in the hope of
striking a clew that might tell us something about this queer old place,
and the mysterious party that's been sleeping here," Owen followed with.
"Oh, I think I'm done looking around in here," the one mentioned
remarked, with a shade of disappointment in his voice; for Max disliked
to give up any object he had set out to attain.
"We might run across some tracks outside," suggested Steve.
"I meant to give that a try," Max explained; "but somehow I don't feel
as if we'd have any great success there; because, when we came in I
noticed that the ground was kind of poor for showing footprints--rocky,
and covered with dead leaves that have drifted in here right along."
But all the same Max spent some little time hovering around, now down on
his knees and closely examining the ground; again looking up at the
swaying limbs of the overhanging trees, as though knowing that they
could explain the mystery, if only they might speak.
"Any use, Max?" called out impatient Steve, presently; for he had been
fretting at the delay for several minutes now.
"Give it up," returned the other, turning his back on the strange cabin
with its green roof and lichen-covered walls.
"Which way now?" asked Steve, evidently pleased that they were going to
make a move of any sort; for inaction galled him always.
"Back to camp?" queried Bandy-legs, hopefully; because he believed that
was the one comfortable spot on all that island, and regretted ever
having left it; though they could never have tempted him to remain in
camp alone; not on that island with the evil name, at any rate.
"Well, after starting out, we ought to poke around a little farther than
we've done this far, I should think," Max replied; "still, I'm ready to
do whatever the majority say; three against two has always been our
rule. How about it, boys?"
"G-g-go on!" exclaimed Toby, promptly.
"Same here," from Steve.
"Count me in," came from Owen, smilingly; for whatever Max thought
right, his cousin could usually be depended on to back up.
"And I move we make it unanimous; because I don't just like being the
only one on the other side," Bandy-legs ended up with.
"That settles it, then; so come along, and we'll keep on to the upper
end of the island," Max suggested, leading off, gun in hand.
"Oh, wait, I've forgotten something!" cried Bandy-legs, running back.
Steve groaned aloud.
"I just knew he'd remember that blooming old fish spear again!" he
declared. "I saw he'd forgotten it, but I didn't say a word; because he
keeps turning the thing around so that a fellow don't dare call his life
his own. See here, Bandy-legs, let me knock off a few feet from that
long pole. Then mebbe you c'n handle the spear better."
"Oh, that's awful kind of you, Steve; I was just thinking of trying to
do that myself, when you saved me the trouble," remarked Bandy-legs,
sweetly, as he suffered Steve to take the long pole out of his hands,
place it on two stones, and by jumping smartly on it at the weakest
part, manage to sever some four feet of the spear shaft.
"Now you can handle it better; and for goodness' sake keep it away from
my back," Steve went on to say; "there's no telling what you might do,
if you got excited all of a sudden; and I wouldn't like to be taken for
a big carp, or a sucker either."
So they turned their backs on the queer cabin, and once more plunged
into the tangle of vines and vegetation, making their way slowly onward.
At times they could not even see the sun that they knew: was shining
above the leafy canopy over their heads. But Max seemed to have no
difficulty whatever in keeping along a straight course.
"Don't see how he does it," muttered Bandy-legs, as he fumbled with a
little compass he carried all the time nowadays; for having been lost
once upon a time in the woods, he was determined not to take chances
that way again.
"Oh, there are plenty of ways for keeping a course you set, even when
the sun is behind the clouds," Max told him. "It's a poor hand that
depends alone on seeing sun or moon to know his way in the forest. I can
tell from the bark on these trees which is north; then the green moss on
the trunks tells me the same thing; and even the general way the trees
lean points it out; for you'll notice that nine out of ten, if they bend
at all, do so toward the southeast; that's because all of our heavy
winter storms come from the northwest."
"All that's mighty interesting, Max," remarked Steve; "wish I knew as
much as you do about traveling through the woods, and the things a
fellow is apt to meet up with there. The more I hear you tell, the more
I make up my mind I'm going to take lessons in woodcraft; but I never
seem to fully catch on."
"Well, it comes easier with some persons than with others," remarked
Max, who was too kind to say what he really thought; which was that in
his opinion boys, or men either for that matter, who are hasty and
impetuous by nature, never make clever hands in the woods, where patient
labor at times is the only method of solving some of the puzzling things
that confront one.
"Now we're getting near the upper end of the island," remarked Owen, a
while later.
"How do you find that out!" asked Bandy-legs, looking around him
helplessly, as if he really expected to see signposts to the right and
left, informing the traveler of the lay of the land.
"Why," answered Owen, "you see, the trees are getting lower, and not so
thick, as the soil doesn't seem so rich down near the water. I can see
through the upper branches here, and we couldn't do that before.
Besides, I've been keeping tabs on the distance we came, measured by
paces; and I reckon we just must be near the other end of the island by
now. Max said it was about two hundred and fifty yards from top to
bottom."
"Oh, is that it?" was all Bandy-legs remarked; but he beamed admiringly
on Owen from that moment, as though he might be sharing the halo of
glory that was hovering over the head of Max.
They did come out on the shore a couple of minutes later. Looking up the
river it was easy to see where the stream became narrow again, after
spreading out into the broad bay where Catamount Island was situated.
"And to think we've just got to go back that same way," sighed
Bandy-legs, dismally.
"Perhaps not," remarked Max, who had a frown on his face, as of new
concern. "I was just thinking that we'd better keep right along the
beach here, boys, and get back to camp as soon as we can. I reckon we've
been gone more than a full hour now; and that we may have done a foolish
thing to come away, and leave things unprotected."
"Whew, that _was_ silly of us, sure enough!" ejaculated Steve; "and yet
it never struck me that way till you mentioned it, Max. Yes, let's lose
no more time, but get a move on us. Looks like we might have easy
walking all the way, and get there in next to a jiffy."
"If so be those Shatters and Toots and Beggs are around, haven't we left
things nice for them, though?" commented Owen. "If we're lucky enough to
get off scot free this time, you won't catch us doing just that sort of
foolish thing again."
"They might steal our grub!" gasped Bandy-legs, to whom such a thing
would be in the nature of a terrible calamity, since he did like good
eating above almost anything else.
"What about our canoes?" said Max, sternly, very much provoked at
himself for having made this slip, when the others all seemed to look to
him to provide against any such mistake in judgment.
They hurried as much as the rough nature of the shore line allowed. Poor
Bandy-legs was put to it to keep up with his more nimble companions; and
came puffing along in the rear, sometimes tripping over the pole of his
fish spear, but holding on to the same with dogged determination.
And so, in the course of a little time, they rounded the point that
stood out just above where they had fixed their camp, and thus came in
sight of the beach upon which they had landed when reaching Catamount
Island the afternoon before.