"Now, everybody put his best foot forward, and we"ll soon be there,"
urged Phil; "the worst is behind us, you know."
"That"s a heap better than having it yet to come!" declared X-Ray, feeling that with the goal in sight he should be able to hold out.
They plodded along for some eight minutes or more, frequently catching glimpses of the lake beyond, and knowing that they were rapidly approaching its border. All at once X-Ray gave a cry.
"Tell me, what is that I can see over there, Phil; looks for all the world like a shack made of silver birches! See how the sun shines on its side, will you? Is that your cabin, do you think, Phil?"
"Just what it must be, X-Ray," the other told him; "they"ve nailed birch bark all over the sides of the log hut, you see, just to make it look rustic."
"Then we"ll have to call it Birch Bark Lodge!" burst out Lub, who had a little vein of the romantic in his disposition.
"That sounds good to me!" declared Ethan.
"It goes, then, does it?" asked the delighted Lub, beginning to believe he must be waking up, to have any suggestion of his so quickly and favorably seized upon.
"Sure thing," said X-Ray Tyson. "Hurrah for Birch Bark Lodge, the home in the wilderness of the Mountain Boys."
"Don"t be too quick to settle that sort of thing," advised the more cautious Phil. "For all we know there may be somebody ahead of us in the shack; and you know we couldn"t well chase "em out."
"But see here, Phil, if the cabin stands on your ground of course it"s your property by right of law, no matter whoever built the shack in the start. He was only a squatter at the best," and Lub looked wise when he laid down this principle in common law which is often so exceedingly difficult to practice in the backwoods, where right of possession is nine points of the law.
"Yes," Phil told him, "but there"s always a rule in the woods that governs cases like this, no matter who owns the land. First come, first served. If we find that shack occupied by some sportsmen and their guides, why, we"ll have to chase along and put up one for ourselves somewhere else."
"Huh! I don"t like to hear you say that," remarked Lub, who would possibly have liked to enter into a discussion along the line of right of property, only none of the others cared to bother with such a question, particularly after what Phil had said.
They pushed on and approached the cabin. One and all were looking eagerly to discover any signs of occupancy, and greatly to their satisfaction no dog came barking toward them, nor was there even a smudge of smoke oozing out of the mud-and-slab chimney that had been built up alongside the back of the shack.
"I guess it"s all hunk," admitted Ethan, with a sigh of relief, as they drew near the partly open door. "See that gray squirrel running along the roof, would you? He wouldn"t be doing that same if folks were around."
"Oh! that depends on what kind of folks," remarked Phil. "For my part I never yet would shoot little animals around camp. I like to see them frisking about too much to want to eat them up. But as you say, it looks as if we had the cabin to ourselves, after all, for which I"m glad."
"Tell me about that, will you?" muttered Lub, also showing positive signs of satisfaction.
All of them pushed into the cabin.
"Why, this is _just_ the thing!" cried Ethan Allan; "see the bunks along one side of the wall, boys,--two, three, four of them, if you please."
"Just one apiece for us, and I choose this because it looks more roomy, and better fitted for a fellow of my heft than any of the rest!" Lub was heard to say.
They immediately began to unfasten the straps that held their packs in place.
"Hey! what"re you doing, starting a fire already, Phil?" called out Ethan, noticing that the other was bending over the hearth.
For answer Phil beckoned to the others to approach closer.
"There"s something queer happened," he told them, with a frown on his face; "just bend down here, Ethan, and put your hand in these ashes, will you?"
"Why!" exclaimed Ethan, immediately, "they"re warm right now, would you believe it?"
CHAPTER III
A MYSTERY, TO START WITH
While Ethan, Phil and X-Ray Tyson seemed to grasp the true significance of this astonishing discovery, Lub as yet had not managed to get it through his head. He was a little dense about some things, although a clever enough scholar when at school.
"The ashes warm, you say, Ethan?" he burst out with. "Now, that"s a funny thing. What would make them hold heat that way, when there"s not a sign of anybody around?"
"There _has_ been somebody here, and only a short time ago, don"t you see?" explained Phil.
"And like as not they heard us cheering when we glimpsed the lake, and cleared out in a big hurry," Ethan went on to say.
"Cleared out?" echoed Lub". "Well, why should they run from us, tell me?
We don"t look dangerous, as far as I can see. We wouldn"t bother hurting anybody; and didn"t Phil say a while back that if we found some fishermen in his shack we"d just shy off, and build one for ourselves?"
"Yes, but these people didn"t hear Phil say that; we were half a mile and more away from here at the time," explained X-Ray.
"And they couldn"t begin to tell just who was coming," added Phil.
"It might be!" exclaimed Ethan, "that they took us for game wardens.
Mebbe now they"ve been shooting deer out of season, and got cold feet when they knew some people were coming in to the lake."
Phil nodded his head in the affirmative, when he saw that Ethan was looking to find out just how that suggestion struck him.
"I rather think you"ve struck the right nail on the head there, Ethan,"
he told the other. "It seems the most reasonable explanation for their clearing out in such a big hurry."
"They tried to put the fire out too, didn"t they, Phil?"
It was X-Ray Tyson who asked this. Those keen eyes of his had made another discovery, and he was even then pointing the same out to his chums.
"Yes, I had noticed that some one had certainly thrown water on the fire," said Phil. "You can see where it washed the ashes off this charred piece of wood; and besides, it made little furrows in the ashes."
"That"s an old trick in the woods," remarked Ethan, with a superior air; "fact is, no true woodsman would think of breaking camp without first making sure every spark of his fire was put out. Lots of forest fires have come from carelessness in guides leaving red cinders behind them."
"Yes," Phil added, "because often the wind rises, and whirls those same cinders to leeward, where they fall in a bunch of dry leaves, and begin to get their work in. But when people live in cabins they seldom bother wetting the ashes, unless they"ve got a mighty good reason for wanting to hide the facts."
"And these people did," added Ethan, conclusively.
"Let"s look around some," suggested X-Ray.
Two of the others thought this a good idea, for they immediately started a search of the interior of the cabin, their idea being to find some clue that might tell just who the late mysterious inmates were, and why they had fled so hurriedly.
Lub may have been just as curious as his mates; but he was very tired after the long and arduous walk, so that apparently he believed three could cover the field just as thoroughly as four. At any rate he showed no sign of meaning to quit his seat upon the rude stool he had found; but leaning forward, watched operations, at the same time rubbing his shins sympathetically.