T
HEsix youngsters stood looking curiously at one another.
"I wonder who it can be?" muttered Dan.
"Some one who has no business here, anyway," returned Tom Reade bluntly.
"I wonder if it's some one who did live here, or some one who thinks he's going to keep on living here?" asked Dave Darrin dryly.
"Just the same, I'd like to know who has been living here," Dick went on. "For that matter, who would want to live here, in the depths of the woods in winter?"
"Well, we do, for one crowd," Greg reminded him.
"Yes; but we're boys with a craze for open air and something different," Prescott maintained. "Now, if men have been living here, the case is different. Men don't care about schoolboy junkets. If the man or men who have been living here are honest, I don't mind. Such men will move on if they find that we're here, and that we alone have the proper authority to live here. But suppose the men are not honest? Or rough characters?"
"It will depend on how many there are of them," responded Dan, with one of his broad grins.
"Why?" challenged Dick. "If we had to fight for the right to live in this cabin, how many do you think we could thrash?"
"Oh, I guess it won't come to that," remarked Tom Reade coolly.
"And I hope it won't come to that, or anything like it," Dick replied.
"But just the same, you're going to be scared until you find out? Is that it?" laughed Harry Hazelton.
Dick flushed, but he answered honestly:
"Until something happens I can't tell whether I'm going to be scared or not. Anyway, perhaps I won't show the greatest amount of fright that is displayed around here."
"Now, you're answered, Harry," muttered Dave in a low voice, his eyes flashing. "No fellow in this crowd has any right to doubt that Dick Prescott is all there with the grit when it's called for."
"Can't a fellow joke?" asked Hazelton.
"But, while all this talk is going on," chattered Dan, "I'm not growing any warmer."
"All lend a hand, and we'll get the fireplace cleaned out and the fire going," urged Dick.
After that they made matters fly. The old ashes and hot embers were taken outside and spread. Logs were laid and coal oil spread over them. A match was touched, flames leaped up in response to the heavy draft of the broad chimney, and the interior of the old cabin seemed ablaze.
"My, but that's going to be plenty hot, and some more," chuckled Dan.
"Who'll chop the ice at the spring and get two buckets of water?" called Dick.
"I will," Harry answered, and departed, Greg going along to help him. In a short time Dick had water boiling in a kettle that hung over the fire.
"I don't suppose anyone cares for coffee?" proposed Dick, glancing about him.
In a very short time the beverage was ready.
"Aren't we going to have something to eat, too?" Dan wanted to know, as the young campers gathered at the table.
"What's the use of spoiling our supper, which is only a couple of hours or so away?" asked Dave sensibly.
Though the coffee was weak, it was hot. The youngsters soon began to warm up, and all became cheery.
"Oh, but this life is going to be great!" sighed Greg exultantly. "Say, fellows, I'm glad I thought of this way of putting in a vacation. Won't the other fellows in town be crazy when they hear what a great time we've had?"
"What I want to know," Harry broke in, "is whether rabbits really do run in the woods in winter? My mouth is made up for some rabbit stew."
"Maybe we can buy a couple of rabbits, then, from some farmer's son," suggested Dick dryly.
"Buy 'em?" sniffed Hazelton scornfully."Huh! Next thing we know you'll want some one to come in and do the housework!"
"It would be better done, then, I don't doubt," laughed Dick. "Now, fellows, the clock tells us that it's quarter of four. That means something like an hour more of daylight. I guess we've a few things to do, haven't we?"
"Get supper!" proposed Dan.
"That's one of the things," nodded Dick. "Then there's water to be brought in. In this nipping air I'll bet there's already more ice over the spring. Then we ought to bring in a lot more logs for the fire. It'll be harder work after dark. And some one ought to get potatoes ready to put on over the fire. Then we ought to select our bunks and get bedding in them. After that we want to tidy up this hard dirt floor. Some one will need to wash the cups and saucers, and have 'em ready for supper."
"Let's have some system to it, then," urged Dave. "Dick, you look about and see what's needed. Then set each fellow to his task—and all the rest will take any kicker down to the spring and duck him!"
"Lemme fix the potatoes, then," begged Dan. That being one of the "disagreeable" tasks, no one objected. Dick parceled out the tasks, and things were soon humming. While they were still busy, darkness had settled down. But Greghad filled the lamp and the lantern, and had them going, though the big, red fire filled the whole cabin with light.
"Whee! But this is jolly!" cried Greg, as he stood arranging his bedding in the bunk he had chosen.
"It'll be more like fun to-morrow, though," suggested Dick, "when we can have a whole, daylight day out in the woods. But I think we're all going to be mighty comfortable here."
That was the general feeling. The Grammar School boys found themselves filled with contentment.
"How are the potatoes coming on, Danny?" inquired Tom. "I'm so hungry I can hardly stand up."
"Ready in ten minutes more, I reckon," Dan answered cheerily.
"Bully!"
Greg was cutting bread and getting butter out of a glass jar. Dave had busied himself with opening two tins of meat. They had fresh meat, but the latter was to be used on the morrow when their housekeeping arrangements had been better made. For the present the meat and some other perishable articles of food rested on the ground outdoors, under an overturned box on which three large stones had been placed as weights.
"It's six o'clock," called Dick at last. "Are we going to eat on time?"
"I'm all ready with the potatoes," Dan called back.
Dick once more busied himself with making weak coffee. Tom and Harry set the dishes on the table with a cheery clatter. Then six fearfully hungry boys sat down to table.
"There's no jam on the table," grunted Harry.
"Oh, wait until we get outside of the solid stuff before we bother with sweets," begged Darrin.
It was nearly seven when the glorious meal was over. As nothing but potatoes and coffee had depended on a cook, nothing went wrong with the meal.
"Now, we can clean up and wash the dishes," proposed Dick Prescott.
"What's that?" demanded Tom Reade belligerently. "Work? Right on top of a supper like that?"
"I guess we do all feel more like taking a nap," laughed Dick. "Well, we'll rest for half an hour and see if we feel more like effort then. What do you say if we all pull our chairs up to the fire?"
"How close to the fire?" asked Dan, screening his eyes with his fingers as he glanced at the blazing logs.
"Oh, not too close for comfort, of course," agreed Dick. "But come on. We can swap stories."
"Will they be anything like the spanking story that good Old Dut told you last September, Dick?" teased Dave.
"Not right away, I guess," smiled Dick. "I don't believe any fellow, after that big supper, feels as if he had energy enough to tell a spanking story. But what kind of stories shall we tell?"
"I'll wait for some one else to start it," yawned Tom, as he took his seat in the semi-circle at a respectful distance from the blaze.
"Who else is going to be a quitter or a loafer?" inquired Dave scornfully.
There was a pause. No one appeared to have a story that he wanted to try out on such a critical audience.
At last Dick remarked thoughtfully:
"As the man on the clubhouse steps said——"
Then he paused, as if he had forgotten the matter.
"Well," insisted Greg presently, "what did the man on the clubhouse steps say?"
"Eh?" inquired Dick, gazing at him with mock blankness.
"What did the man on the clubhouse steps say?" repeated Greg.
"Oh—er—that is—it's really a secret," Dick replied provokingly.
"Now, see here, none of that!" growled Tom.
"Eh?" demanded Dan, awaking from a light doze, with a start and a subdued snore.
"Dick Prescott, you tell us what the man on the clubhouse steps said!" ordered Tom.
"But I've just told you that it's a secret."
"None of that, now!"
"But I can't tell secrets!" pleaded Dick.
"It isn't a secret at all. It's a good story, and you've got to let it come out. We need a good one to get us started."
All now joined in the demand, but Dick shook his head protestingly.
"Honestly, fellows, it wouldn't be right for me to tell secrets," he insisted.
The inner bar that locked the door by night had been dropped into place ere the boys sat down to supper. But now Harry rose, went over to the door and raised the bar.
"Fellows," he called back, "give Dick Prescott just one more swift chance to tell us what the man on the clubhouse steps said. If he won't, then grab him and fire him out into the night until he knocks on the door and promises to be good."
Tom, Greg and Dave made a laughing bolt for their young leader.
"Some one's pulling the latch-string from outside," reported Harry Hazelton, too startled, for the moment, to let the bar fall. But Tom wheeled like a flash, leaped forward and dropped the bar back into place.
"It's the fellow, or fellows, who have been living here before we came," whispered Dan in a half-scared voice.
"L
ETme in—quick!" demanded a voice.
"Move on!" ordered Dave.
"Whoever they are, they can break in through the windows, at any rate," muttered Harry Hazelton, in a voice that was just a trifle unsteady.
"We have legal right to occupy this cabin," called Dick through the door. "No one else has any right to be here."
"I know that," answered the voice, "but let me in before I freeze!"
To the amazement of some of the others, Dick Prescott raised the bar and swung the door open.
In came a figure—that of a boy. His cap was pulled down over his ears, and a big tippetobscured most of his face. But Dick grasped him by the shoulder as the youngster started to enter, followed by a heavy swirl of snow.
"What in the world are you doing here, Hen Dutcher?" Dick demanded.
"Yes! What are you doing here?" chorused the rest.
"Lemme get near the fire?" begged Hen, in a choking, sobbing voice. "I'm nearly frozen."
"Don't shut that door yet," called Dan, moving forward. "We didn't know it was snowing. I want to see if it's a big snow."
"You bet it is," chattered Hen. "It's a blizzard, and I don't care how soon that door is shut."
"You're not giving orders here, remember," retorted Dan crisply, as he went to the open doorway. The others, too, crowded to the doorway. It certainly was a big snow. The flakes were of the largest size, and coming down thickly to the tune of a moaning wind.
"It wasn't snowing at dark, and now there are at least four inches," cried Greg.
"Five inches," hazarded Dave.
"How many, Dick?"
"Say, are you fellows going to freeze me to death?" called Hen Dutcher, his teeth chattering. He was facing the fire, roasting in front, but with chills running down his spine.
"Close the door, fellows. We can't see much to-night at any rate, and we'll see the whole storm in the morning," proposed Dick. "We don't want to see Hen freeze to death."
"Nobody invited him here!"
Dick turned, wondering who had made that remark, but he could not make up his mind.
"Take off your coat, Hen, and have some hot coffee. We have some left, and it will warm you," Dick went on, after the door had been closed and barred.
"I'll have supper and the whole thing," declared Hen promptly. "Don't you fellows expect to feed your visitors?"
"We'll feed you," Dick agreed, "though we had made no plans for visitors and didn't expect any."
Hen had some difficulty in getting off his coat.
"Are you as stiff as that?" asked Prescott, going to the other fellow's assistance.
"I tell you, I'm just about frozen to death," moaned Hen. "My, how cold it came on, just after dark! The wind began to howl, and I could feel the ice forming on my chin every time I breathed. I thought sure I was going to freeze to death in the woods. I'd about given up when I saw your lights."
"How long has it been snowing?" Dave asked.
"Don't you fellows know?" Hen demanded.
"No; we were in here, getting supper and then eating it. We didn't know that it had even started to snow."
"It wasn't snowing at dark, but it began some time after," replied Hen, as he took the chair Dick offered and sank into it before the warming glow.
"Don't get too close to the fire until you thaw out a bit," advised Dick. "If you do you'll feel it more."
"I feel it now," groaned Hen, beginning to moan. "My hands are frozen stiff."
They weren't really frozen, though the hands had been badly nipped. It was twenty minutes before Hen Dutcher cared to move over to the table. Even then he complained severely of the "stinging" in his hands, feet and chin.
"I'm going out," proposed Dave, reaching for his cap and coat. "I'm going to see for myself just how cold it is."
No one offered to accompany Darrin. He paused, outside, to tap on one of the window panes. Two minutes after that he was back, pounding for admittance.
"Br-r-r-r!" Dave greeted his comrades, as he stepped inside. "Say, I don't want any more of being out to-night. I'll bet it's away down below zero. And how the wind howls and cuts!"
It took Hen Dutcher, after he got started,considerable time to eat his fill. In the meantime the others, restrained by a sense of what was due from hosts, held back their curiosity.
"There, I don't believe I could eat another mouthful," declared Dutcher, at last, pushing back from the table.
"Now, Hen," invited Dick, "come over to the fire and tell us how you came to be here."
"Why, I just naturally was hereabouts," declared Hen evasively.
"That won't quite do," replied Dick, shaking his head. "What brought you into these woods to-night? Did you expect that we'd invite you in to join us?"
"Nope. Not quite," Hen replied, a crafty look in his eyes.
"Then out with the truth, Hen Dutcher!" broke in Dave.
"I don't have to tell you fellows, do I?"
"Yes, if you want to stay here to-night!" blurted Tom Reade.
"You fellows wouldn't put me out in the cold again!" dared Hen.
"Wouldn't we?" retorted Greg Holmes.
"I just wanted a tramp, and took one," replied Hen sulkily.
"That's too thin!" snapped Dan Dalzell.
"Then you fellows can invent your own story," offered Hen.
"Out with him, fellows!" called Harry Hazelton, making a dive for Hen.
"Don't you dare!" blustered Dutcher tremulously.
"Out with Hen, if he doesn't tell the truth, and the whole of it," advised Tom Reade.
"Dick, you ain't going to let these fellows do anything of the sort, are you?" quavered Hen. "Why, I'd die if I had to be put out into the storm again."
"Why can't you tell us the truth, Hen?" asked Dick quietly, fixing a searching gaze on Dutcher. Then, with a sudden flash of inspiration, Dick added, "Who was out this way with you?"
"No one," Hen replied.
"Don't tell us that," warned young Prescott. "Who were the other fellows in the crowd?"
"I tell you I came alone," Hen insisted, with rising color, as he shifted under Dick's steady gaze. "Fred and——"
"Fred—who?" cross-examined Dick.
"Nobody," Dutcher answered, his eyes on the floor.
Dick thought a moment before a great light dawned on him.
"So, Hen Dutcher, Fred Ripley and some of his crowd knew we were coming out here, and so they came along, too, and you with 'em, eh?"
"I tell you I wasn't with 'em," protested Dutcher.
"You walked all the way?"
"Most of the way."
"And how did Fred Ripley and his crowd come?"
"On a wagon, and——"
Here Hen Dutcher paused suddenly.
"I came alone," he bellowed wrathfully. "There weren't any other fellows."
"Don't you call Ripley a fellow?" pressed Dick. "You said that he and his crowd came on a wagon. So they're going to play pranks on us, are they?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," protested Hen hoarsely.
Dave, Tom and Greg fastened on Dutcher, dragging him out of his chair. This time Dick did not feel called upon to interfere.
"Now, you tell us all about this queer game!" commanded Dave Darrin, his eyes flashing warningly. "If you don't, we'll shake it out of you; or we'll roll you in the snow until we soak the truth out of you! What do Fred Ripley and his crowd mean to do out here to-night?"
"I—I don't know," gasped Hen.
"Yes, you do," warned Dave Darrin crisply.
"No, I don't!"
"Hen Dutcher," Dick interrupted firmly, "weare out here to enjoy ourselves, and we don't propose to be interfered with. We have a right to be here, and no one else has. We've wormed it out of you that Fred Ripley and some other fellows have come out here to torment us. Fred Ripley has no right to come here and play mean tricks on us."
"Who gave you the right to be here?" demanded Hen sullenly. "Wasn't it Fred Ripley's father?"
"Yes; but that gives Fred no right to be mean in the matter, and Lawyer Ripley would be the first to say so, if I went and told him."
"And then you'd be 'Sneak Prescott,'" taunted Hen.
"I didn't say I was going to tell Fred's father," Dick answered, his color rising, "and I haven't any thought of it, either. Any fellow of anywhere near my own size who calls me a sneak can have his answer—two of them," Dick went on, displaying his fists. "You know that well enough, Hen Dutcher. You're one of our own crowd—that is, you go to the Central Grammar with us, and yet you've joined in with some High School boys to bother us and spoil our fun. Who's the sneak, Hen? Who will the fellows at the Central Grammar call the sneak when they hear about this?"
Hen began to look decidedly uneasy. He waswell aware what the Grammar School boys in Gridley did to one of their own number who was voted a sneak.
"I—I didn't mean any harm," muttered Hen, almost whimpering.
"See here," demanded Dick, another idea coming to him, "how much did Fred Ripley pay you to help work against us."
"He didn't pay me nothing," young Dutcher protested ungrammatically.
"How much did he agree to pay you, then? Come—out with it!" insisted Dick.
Hen saw the other chums pressing about him threateningly, so he almost blubbered:
"Said he'd give me a dollar if I did the trick right."
"So there was a trick?" cried Dick quickly; then added ironically: "Hen, you ought never to tell lies. You don't do it skilfully. You let out the truth, despite yourself. You've admitted that you've been hired to work against us—to help spoil our peace and comfort. Now, you've got to tell us all the rest of it, or you'll have to take the consequences!"
"Say, don't be mean with a feller!" pleaded Dutcher, ready to snivel.
"We're not mean with you," Dick insisted. "We've a right to protect ourselves, and we're going to do it. Besides, you joined us, and nowyou've got to be one of us and tell us the whole scheme against us."
"I didn't join you!"
"Do you belong to Fred Ripley's crowd, then? If so, you'd better join that choice gang! Grab hold of him, fellows!"
Dave Darrin and Tom Reade gripped Hen, on either side, with great heartiness. Dan Dalzell ran to unbar the door, after accomplishing which he turned to view what might follow.
"Are you going to tell us, Hen, what Ripley and his crew are plotting against us?" Dick insisted once more.
"They were going to come down here to-night," confessed Hen.
"What were they going to do here?"
"Scare you fellers."
"How?"
"Oh, they've got a lot of sheets, and a frame to rig up on Bert Dodge's shoulders. With the frame above him, and covered with sheets, Bert will make a 'ghost' about ten feet high."
"What else?" pressed Dick.
"Well, they've got a queer kind of whistle they can blow on, and it makes a long, loud moan, or a wail," explained Hen. "Whee! It gave me the creepy shivers the first time I heard it."
"Has Ripley's ghost party got anything else to make the night merry with?" questioned Dick.
"Some kinder colored fire, that they were going to light at quite a distance from here, to give an 'unearthly' glow through the woods."
"What else?"
"Oh, some other things," confessed Hen vaguely. "I can't tell you all that crowd has, for I didn't see it and they wouldn't tell me about it."
"And you turned on Central Grammar boys to help a lot of High School fellows out?" asked Dick in fine scorn.
"Well, I was crazy to have a day or two out here in the woods, and you fellows didn't ask me," protested Hen. "The other crowd did."
"Yes; because they wanted to use you for a tool against us. They wanted to make you their catspaw, Hen Dutcher. Oh, you must feel fine! And the other Central Grammar fellows back in Gridley will be so proud of you!"
"You don't have to tell 'em," urged Hen Dutcher pleadingly.
"No; we don't have to," confirmed Tom Reade. "But we can. And most likely we will. We want to separate the wheat from the chaff at the old Central Gram."
"But, please don't tell 'em," whined Hen.
"We'll see about that," said Dick Prescott. "We won't make a solitary promise. It may depend on how you act, Hen. Now, is there anything more you ought to tell us about what Fred Ripley's crowd intends to do?"
"No-o-o. I don't believe so."
"Who's with Fred Ripley?"
"Bert Dodge."
"Who else?"
Hen named five other young fellows, two of whom were rather worthless High School sophomores.
"And their plan," added Hen, unburdening himself, "was to swoop down here this evening, lay the lines for a first class ghost scare and then see you fellows start running and never stop till you reached Gridley. They've brought some provisions along with them, and they were going to move in here and camp, and laugh, and have a great joke about how the Grammar School kids got cold feet, and——"
"Where are they now?" Dick queried.
"They were going to my Uncle Joel's for a few hours, have supper there and then slip down here. But Uncle Joel's place must be four miles from here, and even he didn't know just where this camp was. So the fellows made me get the best idea I could from my uncle, and then sent me down here to find the place. They'll be mad 'cause I ain't back."
"More likely they'll come, without waiting for you, Hen," observed Dave Darrin grimly.
At this moment the latch-string moved; there was a click of wood against wood as the latch was raised.
"Fellows, it's our ghost party!" whispered Dick, hoarsely. "Stand close by me and sail in when I give the word. We'll do our best to make it hot for the ghost!"
There were varying degrees of bravery shown in that instant. Not one of the Grammar School boys dreamed that they could best Fred Ripley's crew in a rough-and-tumble, but Dick & Co. were all determined to be as "game" as possible.
It was different with Hen Dutcher. He turned pale and shook like a leaf.
T
HEheavy door was thrust open—and then the Grammar School boys had the surprise of their lives.
No swarm had invaded their camp. Instead a solitary man, clad in heavy overcoat, and with a cap pulled down over his ears, stamped into the cabin.
In his astonishment and dismay Dick Prescott could not repress the cry of:
"It's Fits—Mr. Fits himself!"
"I see you hain't forgot me!" snarled the fellow, as he slammed the door shut, dropped the bar in the place, and then stood with his back to that barrier.
"See here, you can't stay here," declared Dick, his eyes flashing.
"Can't, eh?" jeered the fellow. "And what's going to stop me?"
"We are. You've no business here."
"And if I don't see fit to go, my young bantam?"
"Then we'll put you out. We're smaller than you are, but there are seven of us—six, I mean," Dick corrected, after a glance at quaking Hen. "You'll find we can take care of you!"
"You kids, eh?" laughed Mr. Fits hoarsely. "Why, if you boys started in to climb over me I'd pick you off and scrunch you, like so many ants. Just try it and see!"
To make his bragging good, Mr. Fits crossed the cabin, helping himself to the chair by the table.
"I see you've got plenty of grub here," the big fellow went on. "I'll bother you to make me some hot coffee and get me the best you have to eat. Step lively, too! Any younker that doesn't move fast enough I'll pick up and swat, and then I'll throw him out in the snow to stay."
Saying which, with a savage snort, Mr. Fitsrose and took off his overcoat, tossing it on to the next chair.
"What are you two whispering about?" demanded the rough intruder, eyeing Prescott and Darrin, who were now at the further end of the log cabin.
"Never you mind," Dave retorted tartly.
"Don't give me any impudence, younker!" growled Fits.
"Then don't talk to us," Dick advised.
"I can see that I've got to trim a couple of you," muttered the intruder sourly. "And then, too, I reckon my supper will be coming along faster."
"You'll get no supper here," Dick warned him.
"I won't, hey? Why not, I wonder?" leered the fellow.
"Because we have no poison to mix with the food," Dave retorted.
"I'll have that grub, and some good coffee, set on mighty quick!" growled the visitor. "If that doesn't happen, then I'll run you all out into the snow. You won't last long out there, I warrant you! It's a fearful night."
"Wait!" begged Hen Dutcher. "I'll wait on you, sir."
"No, you won't, Hen," spoke Dick sharply, firmly. "This man doesn't stay here. He'sgoing to leave mighty soon, or he'll wish he had. If you do anything that we can't stand for, Hen, we'll put you outdoors with Mr. Fits."
"You wait on me, boy," ordered Fits gruffly.
"Yes, sir, I——"
"——won't," Dave finished for him snappily. "See here, Hen, you are of no account here. Look out that you don't make yourself too unpopular to be allowed to remain here to-night."
"I see that I've got to teach some of you young cubs a lesson," remarked Fits, rising from the chair.
"Look out that we don't teach you one!" cried Dick. "Watch him, fellows. If Mr. Fits gets too familiar, then sail into him!"
Dick snatched up one hatchet, Greg another. Dan made a rush for the bow and arrow, fitting a steel tipped arrow to the string. Tom Reade espied the crowbar, and reached it in two bounds. Dave Darrin caught up a stick of firewood, Harry Hazelton following suit.
Hen Dutcher didn't do anything except to slink away to one side of the big room. His bravery didn't go beyond the risk of telling lies.
"If Fits makes a move towards any of us, fellows," commanded Dick, in a tone whose steadiness surprised even young Prescott himself, "then the rest close in on all sides and give this big bully the best you've got."
"I wish there was a hatchet for me," growled Dave, whose eyes were flashing dangerously.
"Take this one," replied Dick, passing over his own hastily snatched-up weapon. Thereupon Prescott fell back for an instant, darting over to a pile of boxes and picking up the air rifle that had been brought along.
"Let's see if this air rifle is working?" pondered Dick aloud. He took quick aim and pressed the trigger.
"You dratted little pirate!" roared Mr. Fits, tensing for a leap forward. "I'll show you——"
"You'll get a lot more, if you don't quit trying to run things here," Dick threatened coolly.
Mr. Fits was waving his right hand aloft. Dick had struck the back of that hand with one of the pellets that the rifle carried in its magazine. The skin wasn't broken on that right hand, but the place stung, just the same, as Mr. Fits well knew.
"Hold on! Give him his supper, if he'll quiet down," urged Dave Darrin, aloud, adding, in a whisper to Dick:
"And while he's eating it I'll try to find the nearest house, and get men to come down here and grab him."
As cautiously as Dave spoke the big fellow heard him.
"Oh, you will, will you?" leered Fits."Younker, how long do you think you'd live in the storm that's going on outside? It's a blizzard. If you don't believe me, go out and see. I'll wait till you come back."
For answer Dave ran to the door and opened it. A swirl of snow greeted Darrin in the face, and another big swirl of the white fluff blew in on the floor.
"Go right on out in the snow," jeered Mr. Fits. Dave did so, but the other five chums kept their gaze steadily on the unwelcome intruder.
"By Jove, fellows," muttered Dave, as he stamped back into the cabin, "the storm has grown so that I don't believe any of us could get through it for a distance of three or four miles."
"And you see," continued Mr. Fits, "I stay here to-night for one very good reason, if I didn't have any others. It would be plain manslaughter to make me go out into the storm. I'd simply die in it before going a mile."
"The snow is already up over my knees," confirmed Dave Darrin dismally, "and I believe it would be twice as deep before I'd been gone an hour."
"So you see it wouldn't be decent to put me out," jeered the big bully, "even if I were afraid of you younkers and your wild west outfit of toy guns and archery."
Dave closed and barred the door with a grim tightening around the corner of his lips.
"Now I'll trouble you boys to stow your amateur theatrical outfit in a corner and get me a whopping big supper," continued the big fellow, with a grin, as he returned to his former seat. "If you don't——"
He paused impressively, then added:
"If you don't I'll start something moving here that'll show you who's boss. Or, if you feel too respectable to like my company, then you can all put on your overcoats and step outdoors. Maybe you can find your way to some pleasanter place for the night."
"If we could get through the storm," whispered Dick to Dave, "then we might leave him here, and get to help who would come down and grab the scoundrel."
"We'd get along all right at the start," muttered Dave, shaking his head. "But I don't believe, the way the blizzard is coming now, that we'd get more than a mile or so before we'd all lie down in the snow and have to give up the fight. You've no idea, Dick, what a howler and piler this storm is. You ought to go out and try it."
"If you say it can't be done, Dave, I'll take your word. You've as much sand and fight as any of us."
"Supper!" yelled the intruder lustily.
"It's the cook's night off," jeered young Prescott.
"Oh, it is, hey?" roared the big fellow. "I'll show you."
Jumping to his feet, snatching up the chair on which he had been sitting, and holding it above his head, Mr. Fits charged.
The crisis in the affair had arrived.
D
ICKPrescott was squarely in the way. He didn't flinch or dodge, either.
Like a flash he brought the air rifle up for use. But there was nothing wicked in Dick Prescott. Even against such a foe as this big intruder; Dick felt that it would be wrong, wicked, to aim for the face of Mr. Fits.
Instead, Dick aimed for one of the fellow's legs. The little buckshot went where aimed, but through the thick trousers and underwear the little missile had no painful effect.
"Get back, you lunatic!" quivered Dan, in the same instant, drawing the arrow to the head, ready to let drive.
But at that interesting moment another of the Grammar School boys saved the situation. It was Tom Reade, who, just as Mr. Fits started forward, and was still moving, thrust the crowbar between his legs.
Flop! Fits struck the earthen floor rather heavily, the chair flying over the head of Dick Prescott and landing beyond.
"Good chance!" cheered Harry Hazelton, bringing down his stick of firewood with a blow that resounded.
Tom Reade now raised the crowbar once more, standing where he could aim at the fellow's head. Tom was both too generous and too tender hearted to have struck a human being over the head with such an implement, even had Fits given provocation.
"Don't get up, Mr. Fits," warned Dick, still gripping the air rifle. "If you start to do so, it will be the signal for something to happen."
Their nerves tense from the peril of their surroundings, the Grammar School boys, none of whom were cowards at heart, even though they were pretty young, looked positively fierce in the eyes of the prostrate foe.
"You don't any of you dare hit me," he sneered, with an attempt at bluster.
"Don't we?" scowled Dave Darrin. "Then start something—we'll do the rest."
"Get back with that crowbar!" ordered the fellow sullenly. "Put that air rifle down, and drop that bow and arrow."
"Get up and make us," advised Dick Prescott almost placidly. "Now, Mr. Fits, I hope you realize that we're a few too many for you. As we suggested some time ago, we're going to order you out of here—and at once. And we're not going to take any fooling, either."
"But I can't go out," protested the big fellow. "Why, I'd be found frozen to death in the blizzard."
"You won't have to go far," Dick informed him. "You of course know, as well as we do, that there's a little cook shack at the rear of this cabin. There's a stove there, some firewood and two barrels of coal. Now, you're going there——"
"I won't."
"Yes, you are," Prescott asserted. "Unless you want us to beat you up and simply throw you outside into a snowdrift."
"But I'm hungry," protested Mr. Fits. "Also, it's mighty cold lying here."
"Stay right where you are," Dick went on sternly. "Hen, get this fellow's overcoat and throw it on the floor near the door."
Dutcher obeyed, though he seemed to feel decidedly nervous about it.
"Now, Hen," continued the young leader, "go to the food supplies and pick out two tins of corn beef. Got 'em? Also a loaf of bread. Put the stuff on the coat."
This was done.
"Now, Mr. Fits," went on Dick more steadily still, "it would be unwise for you to rise and walk to the door. We'd bother you if you did. But you can crawl over to your coat. Start!"
"What are you trying to do with me?" appealed the recent bully, in a voice that was now full of concern.
"Crawl over to your coat, and we'll tell you the rest of it. If you don't obey, promptly, we'll take the food part away. Start—crawl!"
Mr. Fits obeyed. He appeared wholly to have lost his nerve, but Dick wasn't so sure, for he ordered sharply:
"Watch out, fellows, that he doesn't play 'possum on us. We can't risk that, you know."
Mr. Fits, however, by dint of crawling, reached his overcoat and the food.
"Throw the door open, Dave," desired young Prescott. "Now, Mr. Fits, rise, get your things and hustle around to the shack at the rear. Woe unto you, if you try to turn and come back into this cabin! We won't stand any more of you."
Like one beaten, and knowing it, Fits shambled out into the storm. No one followed himto see that he reached the shack safely. Any man in good health could do far more than perform that feat.
"Shut the door and bar it, please," chattered Dan Dalzell. "Whew, but having that door open has made this place a cold storage plant!"
"Fellows," spoke up Dick, "if this blizzard is to continue, we'll presently freeze to death in here unless we get more firewood while we can."
"All right," grinned Dalzell. "I've a suggestion, and it's a bully one. We'll appoint Hen Dutcher a committee of one on the woodpile. Go out and study your subject, Hen, and bring in your report—I mean, a cord of wood."
"No, you don't!" protested Hen sullenly.
"Get on, now! Beat your way to the wood pile," ordered Tom Reade.
"No slang, please," mocked Dave. "How can a fellow who's going to work hard beat his way, I'd like to know?"
"If you don't think you'd have to beat your way, to reach the wood pile to-night," retorted Tom, "then just go out again and face the wind and storm. Hen, are you going?"
"No, I'm not," snapped Dutcher.
"Then I'm a prophet," declared Reade solemnly. "I can see you and me having trouble."
"I won't go," cried Hen, with an ugly leer."I know what you want to do. You want to drive me out to that shanty, so that big fellow will jump on me. Go yourself, Mr. Tom Reade."
"It's too hard a storm for any one fellow to bring in the wood alone," interjected Dick. "I'll go, and so will Greg. Hen, you'll come with us."
"No, I won't."
"Yes, you will," Dick informed him. "We've got to leave some of the fellows here, to guard the doorway against Mr. Fits. We three will go and attend to it all, and the rest of the fellows will stay right by the door and see that Mr. Fits, who has been kind enough to go, stays gone. Get on your coat, Greg, and you, too, Hen."
"I'll stay and help guard," proposed Dutcher.
"A bully guard you'd make," jeered Tom. "Into your coat—or else you'll go without one."
Tom took hold of Hen by the collar, propelling him rapidly across the cabin floor. Dick and Greg were slipping rapidly into coats, caps, overshoes and mittens. Dick picked up the crowbar and Greg the lantern. Hen Dutcher, making the gloomy discovery that it must be work or fight, submitted sulkily.
"Don't hold the door open. Open it when we holler," was Dick's parting direction.
"Whew!" muttered Greg, as they stepped outside. The wind blew in their faces as theywent around the end of the cabin, nearly taking their breath, while the snow proved, even now, to be above their knees.
"We can do this in the morning just as well," cried Hen, panting in the effort to make himself heard. "Let's go back."
"You try it, if you dare!" challenged Greg, waving the lantern in the other boy's face.
Even with that short distance to go, it took the three youngsters some little time to reach the great pile of logs. Sparks were flying from the chimney-top of the shack, showing that Mr. Fits was preparing to warm himself.
"And that's the way we've treated the fellow who stole mother's Christmas present, and mine," muttered Dick.
At last the boys reached the pile of logs. Dick tackled it bravely with the crowbar. Shortly he had half a dozen logs clear, though he was panting, both from the beating of the storm and from the hard labor he had taken upon himself.
"Get those in," called Dick. "While you're at it I'll pry more loose."
Hen Dutcher picked up the smallest of the logs, starting for the cabin, but Greg caught him by the shoulder.
"See here, Mr. Lazy, if you're going to pick out such easy ones as that, take two at a time."
"I can't," sputtered Hen.
"Then I'll turn you over to Dave Darrin when you get inside."
Hen thereupon picked up another small log, though he pretended to stagger under the double burden. Greg also carried two logs, and he staggered with good reason, for the weight was more than he should have attempted in the deep snow.
In the very little time that had passed the snow seemed to have grown much deeper. By the time the two wood-carriers reached the doorway and were admitted they felt as though they had done an hour's work of the hardest kind.
Dave Darrin stood just inside, booted and capped.
"Good enough," muttered Dave, holding out the air rifle. "Now, Greg, you take this pill-shooter and let me go out for the next wood. We'll send a new fellow every time."
"Then you can take my place, Darrin," proposed Hen readily. "Give me that air rifle."
"Humph!" was all Dave said, as he poked Hen outdoors before him, while Dalzell and Hazelton took the logs and stacked them at the further end of the cabin.
When Dave and Hen returned they carried but a log apiece.
"Dick says each fellow is to take only one log at a time," reported Dave. "In that wayhe thinks we'll last longer and get in more wood. Now, Hen will stay back. Tom, I see you're in your overcoat and ready. Come along with me. Dalzell get ready for the next trip, when I come back with my second log."
"And I'll be ready to help Dick with the crowbar," called out Hazelton, running for his coat.
In this way the Grammar School boys worked rapidly and effectively. Hen was the only one in the crowd who made any objection to the amount of work put upon him. Yet it was an hour and a half, from the start, before Dick would agree that there was wood enough in the cabin.
"For it may snow for three days, and grow colder all the time," Prescott explained. "By morning it may be impossible to get out at all. We don't want to freeze to death."
Truth to tell, the exercise had put all of the Grammar School boys in a fine glow. When, at last, the big lot of wood had been moved and stacked up inside, and they closed the door for good at last, not one of them, despite his hard work in the biting storm, felt really chilled.
"Now, what shall we do?" demanded Dave, his eyes dancing.
"Do you know what time it is?" asked Dick.
"Not far from ten o'clock."
"Yes; past bed time for all of us."
"Do you feel sleepy?" demanded Dave.
"I don't," chorused four or five.
"Let's sit up as late as we like, for once," proposed Greg Holmes. "That's part of the fun of camping."
"Humph! I want to go to bed," gaped Dutcher.
"Well, there's nothing to stop you, Hen," responded Dick pleasantly. "If you're really sleepy our chatting won't keep you awake."
"What bed shall I take?" inquired Hen.
"Any one that you like best. There are eight bunks to only seven fellows, you know."
Hen took a look, finally deciding on one of the two that were nearest to the chimney.
"What blankets shall I use?" he asked.
Dick looked rather blank at that question.
"Use the ones you brought with you," advised Harry Hazelton.
"But I didn't bring any with me," grunted Hen. "Hurry up, for I'm awful sleepy."
"Well, you see, Hen," Dick went on, "we're in something of a fix on the blanket question. Each fellow brought his own, and on a night like this any fellow who lends any of his bedding is bound to catch cold when the fire runs lower and the place gets chilly."
"But I gotter have blankets," whined Dutcher. "I can't freeze, either."
"I'll tell you what you do, Hen," Dick went on. "There are seven overcoats in the crowd. They'll keep you warm enough."
"But there's snow on the coats, or where the snow has melteditswater," objected Hen. "I'll tell you what you do. You fellows are going to sit up and you can wait for the coats to dry. Let me have a set of blankets, and some other fellow take the coats when they're dry."
"Well, of all the nerve!" gasped Tom Reade.
"Hen," spoke Dave sternly, "if you can't wait for the coats to dry, then you can sit up in a chair by the fire and throw on another log or two every time you wake up with a chill!"
Finding that he couldn't have his own selfish way, Hen, with much grumbling, arranged the coats on two chairs not far from the fire. When he considered the coats dry enough he crawled into his chosen bunk, grumbling at the coarse tick filled only with dried leaves, and was covered by Dick and Greg. Then the other fellows, after replenishing the fire, sat down to spin stories.
"You tell the first yarn, Dick," proposed Tom.
"Too bad," replied Dick, with a shake of the head. "All I can think of is what the man on the clubhouse steps said."
"And what was that?" demanded Tom Reade, leaning forward.
"I can't tell you, just yet," replied Prescott.
"Go on! Yes, you can."
"No; it's a secret."
"What did the man on the clubhouse steps say?" insisted Dan, jumping up, seizing the crowbar and poising it over Dick's head.
"Put down the curling iron, Danny," laughed Prescott. "What the man on the clubhouse steps said is a secret, and I'm not going to tell you, just yet, anyway. Some day I'll tell you."
So Harry Hazelton started the ball rolling with a story. When it was finished Greg rose and went to the window at the rear of the cabin.
"I can't see any lights in the shack," he called back. "I guess Fits must have turned in."
"I wish we had something better than glass windows between that scoundrel and ourselves," muttered Hazelton. "After we're asleep all Fits would have to do would be to smash a light of glass and jump right in here on us. Chances are that we'd all go on sleeping soundly, too, while he gathered up the tools and then he'd have us by the hair when we did wake up."
"Well, then," proposed Darrin quietly, "we'll fasten the shutters."
"Quit your kidding," begged Dan.
"I'm not kidding."
"But you talk of closing the shutters. There aren't any—worse luck for us."
"Aren't there?" challenged Dave. "Say, didn't you fellows know that the cabin windows have shutters?"
"Have they?" asked Dick, jumping up.
"Surest thing going," Dave answered. "Come along and I'll show you."
He went over to one of the windows, which was set to run sidewise in top and bottom grooves. On account of the snow and the cold the window stuck a bit, but at last Dave had it open. Then he reached out and tried to pull the outside shutter along in its own grooves.
"Stuck with a bit of ice," Dave reported. "Harry, just bring the kettle."
Darrin then poured some of the boiling water upon the sill, where the shutter stuck. At his next effort the shutter moved. Dave closed it and pegged it so securely that no trick from the outside could loosen that shutter.
This was done in turn to all the other windows. Feeling secure now, the Grammar School boys found themselves drowsy. Between them they fixed up the fire. Then blankets were spread in six bunks, after which the tired youngsters undressed and crawled in under the bedding.
Silence and slumber reigned in that cosy log cabin in the center of the forest that was in the grip of one of the biggest blizzards in years.