A CRASH IN THE NIGHT
Led by Frank Allen, the boys turned to the job of cleaning up the
house, in reality a bungalow of the mountains.
On counting the opened cans of food they learned that Snadder and
Blinky had not purloined very much of it, and taking an inventory
of the remainder, they reckoned there was sufficient to carry them
over a period of a month or more, even though the other boys, down in
Columbia, who had promised to come up, should arrive.
Mrs. Parsons had spared no thought. She showed very clearly that she
had kept in close touch with the things which Mr. Parsons, her late
husband, had formerly brought to the camp for his own use.
The broken glass was gathered up carefully and thrown into a large
metal receptacle outside the rear door into which they also threw all
the empty cans.
“How about the window pane?” asked Lanky. “We ought to fix it, or we’ll
have trouble keeping this place warm.”
“I saw a piece of glass in that pantry,” said Buster. “It looked to be
about the same size.”
They obtained the sheet of glass, found it was unbroken, and the next
problem appeared--how to get the new pane to stay in without putty.
However, they succeeded in getting the new pane in the sash quite
securely, using the triangular shaped tacks which held the old one,
and, using no putty whatever, relying on the smooth scraping of the
woodwork behind the glass and the tightness of the tacks to keep out
most of the cold air.
“Buster,” called Lanky, while he was on the outside, pressing the tacks
in with the blade of a knife, “I’ll have to drive these in further, and
I can’t reach them with my right hand. Will you get that left-handed
hammer on the table in the kitchen?”
Buster Billings hurried to the rear of the house at once, and sought
in all parts of the kitchen for the hammer. In the meanwhile the other
three boys were enjoying the joke. Presently Buster returned.
“I can’t find it, Lanky. There isn’t any kind of hammer there.”
“Oh, well,” Lanky was thoroughly disgusted, “I’ll have to get it for
myself. It’s a shame that a fellow can’t get any help from you guys.”
With the words he strode, with seeming anger toward the rear, while
Frank and Paul guffawed loudly.
“There’s no reason why he ought to get so sore at me.” Buster felt
very hurt over Lanky’s actions.
Whereupon more loud laughing came from the two boys.
This job finished, they all turned to the general cleaning of the
dining room and the living room, another large stick of wood having
been thrown on the fire.
Night came on, and with it the wind rose high, whistling through the
trees around the house and fairly howling as it hurried through the
branches of the giant white pine at the side.
The boys discussed the temperature, wondering if it were dropping, for
they looked forward to a tighter freezing of the lake.
“If this wind keeps up it might blow a lot of the snow off the lake.”
Frank was planning for the next day. “That would make skating mighty
fine, provided the temperature is low enough to freeze it harder.”
“Yes, and if we had some bread we’d have a sandwich if we had some
ham,” laughed Lanky.
“Don’t start on me, champion kidder,” Frank rejoined. “Pick on some one
your size.”
After a while the boys made down the bunks and all crawled in, first
putting a log on the fire to keep the place heated overnight. Lanky
wanted to know where the sleeping porch was, because he could not sleep
without plenty of fresh air. Had it not been that they feared Lanky
might get the better of all three of them, they would have put him
outdoors so that he could have all the air he wanted.
Early in the morning they were up, and the big question of how to get
water came to mind, inasmuch as they had used all the water in the two
buckets in the kitchen.
An axe was brought into play, and all four of the boys proceeded to the
lake, and out a distance of twenty-five feet.
There they cut a square hole, about three feet long and wide, finding
that the ice was already more than four inches thick. Here they dipped
the buckets and brought in fresh, cold water to wash for the day.
“Now is the time we ought to take a morning plunge. I just dote on cold
water plunges,” laughed Lanky, peering into the hole.
Nothing daunted, and to even the score, Buster Billings gave Lanky a
shove toward the hole in the ice.
But Lanky’s long legs took him over the hole, where his heels struck
the ice at an angle, and he slid on his back several yards. Getting
quickly to his feet, he saw Buster disappearing into the house. But
Lanky had not taken his cold plunge.
Their breakfast was a matter of but a few minutes after their morning’s
ablutions had been made. They sat up to it and partook of it with a
zest. The wind had died down somewhat, though still blowing hard.
“What shall we do to-day?” Buster Billings asked, when the dishes
had been washed and all put away as in a town house. The boys were
determined to be as methodical and as cleanly as this very handsome
camp demanded of its occupants.
“Seems to me that we ought to lay out all of our stuff to-day, clean
our guns, get out the fishing tackle, and generally prepare for the
real purpose of our camp,” Frank suggested. “There’s almost a day’s
work just getting our staff untangled and cleaned up.”
It did require most of the day. The boys laughed and joked as they
worked, and Buster twice found his tackle badly twisted and snarled
when he had gone out for buckets of water.
“Wonder where the tramps went,” Lanky said, happening to think of the
intruders of the previous day. “Think they found a camp farther along
the lake?”
There was nothing else to guess, inasmuch as the men had not come back
this way, or, at least, the boys had not seen them come back.
“One of the things we should do, and we ought to do it each day, too,”
remarked Frank. “That is, we ought to cut down a tree and put logs on
the pile behind the house. When we came here we found logs ready cut
and we ought to leave with the pile the same size.”
“Do that on the last day,” suggested Lanky lazily.
“And it won’t be done,” Frank laughed. “To-morrow, before we do
anything else, we’re going to take those two axes and cut enough wood
to replenish the pile. That’s only fair.”
“I think that’s fair, too,” agreed Lanky. “There are only two axes. Of
course there is none for me, and I don’t know who else.”
“One of those axe handles is an exact fit for your hand,” remarked Paul
Bird. “You see, you square the length and breadth of your hand and
subtract it----”
“That proves it!” cried Buster.
This evening the boys tried a different menu, opening cans of food
which they had not yet tried, and each of the four took turns at
preparing something for the others. But while Lanky was doing his part
of the cooking, all the other boys kept their eyes on him. They were
not sure in whose plate Lanky would put sawdust, sand, or anything else
he could lay his hands on. He was perfectly trustworthy--maybe, they
thought.
It was not a late hour at night when the boys fastened the outer doors
securely and went to bed, deciding on getting out early the next day
to try some fishing at the hole which they had cut in the ice, even
though it was close to the shore.
The wind had risen during the afternoon, and as they retired it was
whistling, humming and moaning through the trees and screaming as it
passed over the top of the chimney. Nevertheless, they all at once fell
into a sound sleep.
It was just before daybreak, just at the darkest part of the night,
that the wind broke all bounds.
Crash! Cr--rro--ash! Plunk! Clink! Clink! The entire earth seemed to
heave upward, hurling everything in its path!
All the boys woke at the same time, thoroughly startled. The house was
rocking to and fro. The wind was whistling and howling, curtains were
flying, and they felt the chill bite as cold air rushed into the house.
Where were they? Was the house turned over?