SEEKING ANOTHER CASTLE
The two tramps were not armed, and Frank Allen went around to the front
door to enter the great living room.
“You ain’t got nothing on us,” grumbled Snadder, the taller one of the
pair, as the boys permitted them to drop their hands.
“No, but you fellows have got something on you that belongs to this
place,” replied Frank. “I want you to disgorge right now.”
“What do you mean, disgorge?” asked Snadder.
“Unload all the stuff out of your pockets that belongs to this house,”
replied Frank.
At first the men denied they had anything. But the evidence was too
plain, for a silver spoon showed in the shirt pocket of Snadder.
A few spoons were dumped out, and then a cigar case, all the pieces
bearing the initial “P” on them, indicating to Frank’s mind, that they
belonged to Mrs. Parsons.
“You’re not going to have us arrested for that, are you?” Blinky
whined.
“No,” replied Frank decidedly. “We’re not going to have you arrested,
but we’re going to tell you to get out of this camp and stay out. This
camp belongs to us right now, and we’re going to have it alone.”
Snadder’s mind, always seeking that which was crooked, now thought the
boys had no more right here than he and Blinky. And he mentioned the
fact, suggesting that all of them bunk here together.
“We can bring in your wood for you and do any other heavy jobs,” he
ended the suggestion.
“Nothing doing!” Frank declared. “We have a right here. The owner of
this place gave us permission to camp here, and we’re surely going to
do it. And more--she’s a friend of ours and we’re going to protect all
of her property, too.”
“Aw, come on, partner,” argued Snadder. “You boys will need somebody
to watch the place while you’re fishing or hunting. And there is other
work we can do.”
“Not to-day, thank you!” Frank was firm. “I am sorry that you have
to get out where it’s cooler, but you’ve got to go. If you had acted
decently in here it might have been different.”
“If you drive us out of here we’ll get even with you,” threatened the
tall man, Snadder.
This remark was too much for Lanky Wallace, who had allowed all the
conversation to go along without saying anything. But he broke in at
this juncture:
“Listen, Snadder! You’re just fixing things so as to get yourself into
a peck of trouble. If we see either of you fellows around doing any
mischief, or if we see you sneaking around this place, I’ll promise you
it won’t go easy with either one of you.”
With this he bristled over close to the tramps, and they started moving
for the door.
There was a short hickory handle lying on a chair near the door, and as
they approached it Snadder snatched up the handle in a flash and hurled
it squarely at the group of boys.
Paul’s arm caught it when he lifted the arm to protect his head from
the flying missile.
Instantly Lanky Wallace made a lunge for the tramp, but that fellow had
gotten through the door, pulling it quickly enough to stop the progress
of the young Columbian.
Outside the two tramps walked half backwards, keeping an eye on the
door and shaking their fists as they went. The mackinaws they wore were
of good material and were warm despite their ragged appearance.
The four boys, standing at the side windows, watched the two tramps
trudge through the snow-covered trail along the bank of Old Moose Lake,
moving off to the eastward.
“I wonder if there is a camp in that direction,” said Frank, nodding
toward the tramps.
“Sure. I’ll bet there are a dozen camps around the lake. Just look,
Frank. It’s clear and you can see how far it stretches,” replied Lanky,
indicating with his finger the broad distances across the lake.
True enough, it must have been a wide expanse of water, for they could
see no trees to indicate the opposite shore, though little hillocks
here and there, with trees growing on them, suggested the existence of
islands in the lake.
“Do you know,” said Frank, after a long silence, the tramps moving
farther and farther away, finally disappearing around a clump of trees
more than a quarter of a mile distant, “I believe the lake is freezing
over, or has frozen over, and that the snow isn’t deep. You see, the
snow probably fell into the water and melted until the water froze, and
it hasn’t snowed much since then. I’m going to see.”
All four of the boys went out of the house and to the shore of the
lake. Frank reached out the butt of his rifle and tapped the surface.
There was not more than two inches of snow on top, and a coating of ice
over the waters beneath.
“Hit it harder,” suggested Paul Bird.
“Not with my rifle butt,” answered Frank. “Get a stick and we’ll see.”
Lanky bethought himself of the hickory handle and brought it from the
living room of the house in a minute, then tried the ice to see what
its strength was.
It seemed to be reasonably solid. Then the boys ventured their feet on
it, and the lake stood under them all right.
“Skating! This is going to be great!” cried Buster Billings, himself a
good skater and a lover of the sport.
Back to the house they trudged, a happy band of boys, looking forward
to some great times in the northern woods.
Having built up the fire by the addition of a log pitched by two of
them on the dying embers, Frank spied a picture lying face upward on
the mantel above the fireplace.
It was a snapshot photograph of a moose!
It had been taken at a range of a hundred yards, in all probability,
and the big fellow was looking to one side.
On the back of the picture was written the words, “The King.”
“Look, fellows,” cried Frank. “Here is his picture--the big fellow that
Mr. Van Kirk offered the reward for.”
In the meanwhile Snadder and Blinky, proceeding along the shores of
the lake, angry at having been put out of such an easy home, wondered
where they could find another of like kind, if at all.
“I’ll get even with them kids,” muttered Snadder, leading the way along
the trail.
“Maybe we will and maybe we won’t. There are four of them boys and
they’ve got guns, and they don’t look like they would run from any
one,” remarked Blinky.
Turning past a clump of trees, the men reached a small hill, around
which the trail led, and then climbed between two more eminences which
seemed to butt right to the lake. Reaching the top of these two, they
saw ahead of them a log cabin--perhaps half a mile distant.
“Ain’t no smoke coming out--guess it’s empty,” said Snadder, pointing
to it.
“And the door locked and the key thrown away,” whined Blinky.
“Yeh, that’s the way with you. Honestly, Blinky, a man oughtn’t to
travel around with you. You’re always finding the dark clouds to look
at.”
As they neared the log cabin they were surprised to notice that two
sticks of wood, not covered with snow, were lying in front of the
place. This indicated to Snadder’s mind, and it cannot be said that
tramping had not improved his training in deduction, that some one was
either in the cabin or had been there this very morning, inasmuch as
the snow had stopped during the night.
All of this he remarked to Blinky, his teammate.
They arrived at the cabin, walking up to it as if they belonged there,
knocked on the door, received no response, and pushed their way in.
The ashes in the fireplace were warm, though no live coals were there.
There were two rooms to the place, the rear one having a bunk fastened
to the side of the wall and an oil stove standing on a box opposite the
bunk.
“Here’s food, anyhow,” said the taller of the two, picking up a can of
goods to look at it and to determine whether it was empty. “And there’s
some more under the bunk! Look!”
The tramps pulled all of it out without further ceremony, and then
poked around into all the corners of the place, learning what else
might be waiting for their very ready hands.
“’Tain’t so good as the place we had, but I don’t guess the landlord
will come around so soon, either,” Snadder smiled pleasantly at his
humor.
“Warm ashes in the fireplace says the landlord has been here,”
whispered Blinky. “Wouldn’t be surprised but he’s out hunting a little
game, or maybe there’s more than one landlord.”
“Well, we’ll just pretend we’re invited to this place and we’ll make a
fire and have some coffee.”
Snadder lighted the oil stove, placed the coffee pot thereon, and
the two tramps started a blaze in the fireplace of the front room,
determined that whatever comfort could be gotten they would enjoy at
once.
“Gosh, look!” said Snadder, as he looked out of the window and pointed
toward a clump of trees only a half a hundred yards away, in the center
of which another cabin, much larger than this, nestled comfortably.
No indication of life, no smoke issuing from the chimney, and a much
larger and more commodious place than the one in which they were.
“Looks like we’re sons of Old Lady Luck,” he laughed, rubbing his hands
in front of the fire.
“Yes,” again came the whining tones of the little fat, squint-eyed
tramp, “and the first thing we know, Old Lady Luck will be spanking her
sons, too.”