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CHAPTER III
THE COMING STORM

For several minutes the boys were the least bit quiet and subdued. There is always something sobering in going away from home and leaving relatives and friends behind, especially when the parting is going to last for many months, and the warm-hearted farewells of the group at the station were still ringing in the boy’s ears.

But it is not in boy nature to remain quiet long, and their irrepressible spirits soon asserted themselves and caused the young travelers to bubble over with fun and merriment.

Besides, Pee Wee and Mouser had said good-bye to their parents the day before in their own homes, and had been stopping over night with their school chums in Clinton. Their depression was but for the moment and was over the thought of leaving behind so much fun and good will as they had found at their chums’ home town, and they helped Bobby and Fred to forget their feeling of homesickness.

There were not many other passengers on the train that morning, so that the boys had plenty of room and could give vent to their feelings without causing annoyance to others. They snatched each other’s caps and threw them in the aisles or under the seats, indulged in good-natured scuffling, sang bits of the Rockledge songs and cut up “high jinks” generally.

Fred and Mouser were seized by a longing for a drink of water at the same moment, and they had a race to see who would get to the cooler first. Fred won and got first drink while Mouser waited for his turn. But Mouser got even by knocking Fred’s elbow so that half the water was spilled over the front of his coat.

“Quit, I tell you, Mouser,” remonstrated Fred, half choking from the effort to drink and talk at the same time.

But Mouser kept on, until suddenly Fred saw a chance to get back at him.

“What does it say there?” he asked, pointing to some words engraved on the lower part of the cooler. “I can’t quite make the letters out from here.”

Mouser innocently bent over, and Fred, taking advantage of his stooping position, tipped his glass and sent a stream of water down his victim’s neck.

There was a startled howl from Mouser as the cold water trickled down his spine. He straightened up with a jerk and chased Fred down the aisle, while Bobby and Pee Wee went into whoops of laughter at his discomfiture.

“That’s no way to drink water, Mouser,” chaffed Bobby as soon as he could speak. “You want to use your mouth instead of taking in through the pores.”

“Oh, dry up,” ejaculated Mouser, making frantic efforts to stuff his handkerchief down his back.

“We’re dry enough already,” chuckled Pee Wee. “Seems to me it’s you that needs drying up.”

“You will jog my elbow, eh?” jeered Fred, who was delighted at the success of his stratagem.

“My turn will come,” grunted Mouser. “It’s a long worm that has no turning,” he added, getting mixed up in his proverbs.

Again the boys shouted and Mouser himself, although he tried to keep up his dignity, ended by joining in the merriment.

In the scramble for seats when they had first boarded the train, Bobby and Fred had had the luck to get the seat that faced forward. Mouser and Pee Wee had to ride backward and naturally after a while they objected.

“You fellows have all the best of it,” grumbled Pee Wee.

“That’s all right,” retorted Fred. “That’s as it should be. Nothing’s too good for Bobby and me. The best people ought to have the best of everything.”

“Sure thing,” Bobby backed him up. “The common people ought to be satisfied with what they can get. You fellows ought to be glad that we let you travel with us at all.”

“Those fellows just hate themselves, don’t they?” Mouser appealed to his seat mate.

“Aren’t they the modest little flowers?” agreed Pee Wee.

“What do you say to rushing them and firing them out?” suggested Mouser.

“Oh, don’t do that,” cried Fred in mock alarm. “Pee Wee might fall on one of us, and then there’d be nothing left but a grease spot.”

“Might as well have a ton of brick on top of you,” confirmed Bobby.

“I’ll tell you what,” grinned Pee Wee. “We’ll draw straws for it and the fellows that get the two longest straws get the best seats.”

“That would be all right and I’d be glad to do it,” said Fred with an air of candor. “Only there aren’t any straws handy. So we’ll have to let things stay as they are.”

“You don’t get out of it that way, you old fox,” cried Mouser. “Here’s an old letter and we’ll make strips of paper take the place of the straws.”

“All right,” agreed Fred, driven into the open. “Give me the letter and I’ll make the strips and you fellows can draw.”

“Will you play fair?” asked Mouser suspiciously.

Fred put on an air of offended virtue.

“Do you think I’m a crook?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” retorted Mouser in a most unflattering way. “A fellow that will pour water down my back when I’m trying to do him a favor will do anything.”

Fred looked at him sadly as though lamenting his lack of faith, but proceeded briskly to tear the strips. The boys drew and Bobby had the luck to retain his seat, but Fred had to exchange with Mouser.

“It’s a shame to have to sit with Pee Wee,” said Fred as he squeezed in beside the fat boy. “He takes up two-thirds of the seat.”

“The conductor ought to charge him double fare,” grinned Mouser.

Pee Wee only smiled lazily.

“Look at him,” jeered Bobby. “He looks just like the cat that’s swallowed the canary.”

“It would take more than that to make Pee Wee happy,” put in Fred. “A canary would be a mighty slim meal for him.”

“You’d think so if you’d seen how he piled into the buckwheat cakes this morning,” chuckled Bobby. “Honestly, fellows, I thought that Meena would have heart failure trying to cook them fast enough.”

“I noticed that you did your part all right,” laughed Pee Wee. “I had all I could do to get my share of the maple syrup.”

“Buckwheats and maple syrup!” groaned Mouser. “Say, fellows! stop talking about them or you’ll make me so hungry I’ll have to bite the woodwork.”

“We can do better than that,” said Fred. “Here comes the train boy. Let’s get some candy and peanuts.”

The boys bought lavishly and munched away contentedly.

“Look at the way the snow’s coming down!” exclaimed Fred, gazing out of the window.

“It is for a fact,” agreed Bobby.

“Looks as though it had settled in for a regular storm,” commented Mouser.

“Maybe it will be a blizzard,” suggested Pee Wee.

As a matter of fact, it appeared to be that already. The snow was falling heavily and shutting out the view so that the boys could scarcely see the telegraph poles at the side of the track. A fierce wind was blowing, and in many places the fence rails were almost covered where the snow had drifted.

“Hope we won’t have any trouble in getting to Rockledge,” remarked Fred rather apprehensively.

“Not so bad as that I guess,” said Bobby. “There’s one place though, a little further on, where the track runs through a gulch and that may be pretty well filled up if the storm keeps on.”

“I wonder if there’s anything to eat on the train if we should get snowbound,” ventured Pee Wee.

“Trust Pee Wee to think of his stomach the first thing,” gibed Fred.

“There isn’t any dining car on the train,” said Mouser. “And we’re still a good way from the station where it usually stops for lunch.”

“We’re all right anyway as long as the candy and peanuts hold out,” laughed Bobby.

“Yes,” mourned Pee Wee, “but there isn’t much nourishment in them when a fellow’s really hungry.”

The storm continued without abatement, and the few passengers that got on at the way stations looked like so many polar bears as they shook the clinging flakes from their clothes and shoes.

“Oh well, what do we care,” concluded Pee Wee, settling back in his seat. “There’s no use borrowing trouble. It always comes soon enough if it comes at all.”

“We ought to be used to snow by this time,” remarked Mouser. “After what we went through up in the Big Woods this doesn’t seem anything at all.”

“Listen to the north pole explorer,” mocked Fred. “You’d think, to hear him talk, that he’d been up with Cook or Peary.”

“Well, I’ve got it all over those fellows in one way,” maintained Mouser. “I’ll bet they never had a snowslide come down and cover the shack they were living in.”

“That was a close shave all right,” said Bobby a little soberly, as he thought of what had been almost a tragedy during their recent holiday at Snowtop Camp. “I thought once we were never going to get out of that scrape alive.”

“It was almost as bad when we were chased by the bear,” put in Fred. “We did some good little running that day all right. I thought my breath would never come back.”

“And the running wouldn’t have done us any good if it hadn’t been for good old Don,” added Mouser. “How that old dog did stand up to the bear.”

“He got some fierce old digs from the bear’s claws while he was doing it,” said Bobby.

“He got over them all right,” affirmed Mouser. “I got a letter from my uncle a couple of days ago, and he says that Don is as good as he ever was.”

The train for some time past had been going more and more slowly. Suddenly it came to a halt, although there was no station in sight. It backed up for perhaps three hundred feet, put on all steam and again rushed forward only to come to an abrupt stop with a jerk that almost threw the boys out of their seats.

They looked at each other in consternation.

CHAPTER IV
HELD UP

Once more, as though unwilling to admit that it was conquered, the train backed up and then made a forward dash. But the result was the same. The snorting monster seemed to give up the struggle, and stood puffing and wheezing, with the steam hissing and great volumes of smoke rising from the stack.

“We’re blocked,” cried Bobby.

“It must be that we’ve got to the gulch,” observed Fred.

“A pretty kettle of fish,” grumbled Pee Wee.

“We’re up against it for fair, I guess,” admitted Mouser. “But let’s get out and see how bad the trouble is.”

The boys joined the procession of passengers going down the aisle and jumped off the steps of the car into a pile of snow beside the track that came up to their knees. Pee Wee, who as usual was last, lost his balance as he sprang, and went head over heels into a drift. His laughing comrades helped him to his feet.

“Wallowing like a porpoise,” grinned Fred.

“You went into that snow as if you liked it,” chuckled Bobby.

“Lots of sympathy from you boobs,” grumbled Pee Wee, as he brushed the snow from his face and hair.

“Lots of that in the dictionary,” sang out Mouser. “But come ahead, fellows, and see what’s doing.”

The others waded after Mouser until they stood abreast of the locomotive.

It was a scene of wintry desolation that lay stretched before their eyes. As far as they could see, they could make out little but the white blanket of snow, above which the trees tossed their black and leafless branches. Paths and fences were blotted out, and except for the thin column of smoke that rose from a farmhouse half a mile away, they might have been in an uninhabited world of white.

“Looks like Snowtop, sure enough,” muttered Mouser, as he looked around.

The conductor and the engineer, together with the trainmen, had gathered in a little group near the engine, and the boys edged closer in order to hear what they were saying.

“It’s no use,” the grizzled old engineer was remarking. “The jig’s up as far as Seventy-three is concerned. I tried to get the old girl to buck the drifts, but she couldn’t do it.”

The boys thought it was no wonder that Seventy-three had gone on strike, as they noted that her cowcatcher was buried while the drift rose higher than her stack.

“It’s too bad,” rejoined the conductor, shaking his head in a perplexed fashion. “I’ve been worrying about the gulch ever since it came on to snow so hard. It wouldn’t have mattered so much if it hadn’t been for the wind. That’s slacked up some now, but the damage is done already.”

“What are you going to do, boss?” asked one of the trainmen.

“You’ll have to go back to the last station and wire up to the Junction for them to send the snow-plough down and clear the track,” responded the conductor. “Get a hustle on now and ask them to send it along in a hurry.”

The trainman started back at as fast a pace as the snow permitted, and the engineer climbed back into his cab to get out of the wind while waiting for help. The conductor started back for the smoking car, and as he went past, Bobby ventured to speak to him.

“How long do you think we’ll have to wait here?” he inquired.

“No telling, sonny,” the conductor answered. “Perhaps a couple of hours, maybe longer. It all depends on how soon they can get that snow-plough down to us.”

He passed on and Mouser gave a low whistle.

“Scubbity-yow!” cried Fred, giving vent to his favorite exclamation. “Two long hours in this neck of the woods!”

“And nothing to eat in sight,” groaned Pee Wee.

“I wish I’d let Meena put up that lunch for us this morning,” said Bobby regretfully. “My mother wanted me to bring one along, but I was in a hurry and counted on getting something to eat at the railroad lunch station.”

“What are we going to do?” moaned Pee Wee.

“Fill up on snowballs,” suggested Mouser heartlessly.

Pee Wee glared at him.

“I’m almost as bad as Pee Wee,” said Fred. “I feel as empty as though I hadn’t had anything to eat for a week. I could eat the bark off a tree.”

“I tell you what, fellows,” suggested Bobby, who was usually the leader when it came to action; “what do you say to going over to that farmhouse and trying to buy something to eat? I don’t think they’d let us go away hungry.”

They followed the direction of his pointing finger, and new hope sprang up in them.

“But it’s an awful long way off,” objected Pee Wee, whose fear of exertion was only second to his love of eating.

“Have you got another stone bruise on your foot?” asked Mouser sarcastically.

This was a standing joke among the boys. Whenever Pee Wee hung back from a walk or a run, he usually put forth the excuse of a stone bruise that made him lame for the time.

“No, I haven’t any stone bruise,” Pee Wee rapped back at him, “but how do you know I didn’t bark my shins when I had that tumble a few minutes ago?”

He put on a pained look which might have deceived those who did not know him so well. But the steady stare of his comrades was too much for him to stand without wilting, and he had to join rather sheepishly in the laugh that followed.

“You stay here then, Pee Wee, while we go over and get something to eat,” suggested Fred. “We’ll ask the farmer to bring you over something on a gold tray. He’ll be glad to do it.”

“Oh, cut it out,” grinned Pee Wee. “Go ahead and I’ll follow.”

“Foxy boy, isn’t he?” chuckled Fred. “He wants us to break out the path so that it will be easier for him.”

“I’d rather have Pee Wee go ahead,” remarked Mouser. “He’d be better than any snow plough.”

With chaff and laughter they started out, Bobby leading the way and the rest following in single file. They had pulled their caps down over their ears and buttoned their coats tightly about their necks. Luckily for them the wind had moderated, although the snow still kept falling, but more lightly than before.

They did not do much talking, for they needed all their breath to make their way through the drifts. As they had no path to guide them, they made straight across the fields, bumping every now and then into a fence that they had to climb. They were pretty well winded and panting hard when at last they reached the fence that bounded the spacious dooryard in front of the farmhouse.

A big black dog came bounding down to the gate barking ferociously. The boys took comfort from the fact that the fence was high and that the dog was too big and heavy to leap over it.

“He’s glad to see us – I don’t think,” said Fred.

“Seems to have a sweet disposition,” muttered Pee Wee.

“Let Mouser get to talking to him,” suggested Bobby. “He’ll tame him down in no time.”

Mouser, somewhat flattered, stepped forward. He had gained his nickname because he had a number of mice which he had taught to do all sorts of clever tricks. His fondness extended to all animals, and he had the remarkable power over them with which some people are gifted. No matter how savage or frightened they might be, they seemed to yield to his charm.

It did not fail him now. He muttered some words soothingly to the dog, whose barking grew feebler. Soon it stopped altogether, and in another minute or two the brute was wagging his tail and poking his muzzle through the rails of the fence for Mouser to pat him.

It was almost uncanny, and the boys held their breath as they watched the transformation.

“It’s all right now,” said Mouser, lifting the latch of the gate. “Come along, fellows.”

“Gee whiz!” exclaimed Bobby. “How do you do it?”

“You ought to be with a circus,” said Fred in undisguised admiration. “You’d make a dandy lion tamer.”

Mouser was elated at the tribute, but accepted it modestly enough, and led the way up to the house, the dog prancing along with them in the most friendly manner.

As they reached the door and were about to knock, it was opened, and a motherly looking woman appeared on the threshold. There was an expression of anxiety on her face.

“Down, Tiger, down,” she cried. Then as she saw the evident pleasure of the brute in the boys’ company, her worried expression changed to one of surprise.

“Mercy on us!” she exclaimed. “I was afraid the dog would eat you up. He’s awfully savage, but we keep him on account of there being so many tramps around. I was upstairs when I heard him barking, and I hurried down as fast as I could, for I was sure he’d bite you if you came inside the gate.”

“Oh, Tiger’s a good friend of mine, aren’t you, Tiger?” laughed Mouser, as he stooped to caress the dog.

Tiger licked his hand.

“Well, I never saw anything like it,” said their hostess. “I just can’t understand it. But here I am keeping you standing outside when you must be half perished with the cold,” she went on with quick sympathy. “Come right inside and get warm before you say another word.”

She led the way into a bright, cheerful sitting room, where there was a big wood fire blazing on the hearth. She bustled around and saw that they were comfortably seated before the fire. Then Bobby explained their errand.

“I suppose we’re sort of tramps ourselves,” he said with the winning smile that always gained for him instant liking. “But we were on the train and it got stalled over there in the gulch on account of the snow. We hadn’t brought any lunch with us and we thought we’d come over here and see if we could buy something to eat.”

“You poor starved boys!” she exclaimed with as ready a sympathy as though she had been the mother of them all. “Of course you can have all you want to eat. It’s too early for dinner yet, as Mr. Wilson – that’s my husband – went to town this morning and will be a little late in getting back. But I’ll get up something for you right away. You just sit here and get warmed through and I’ll have it on the table in a jiffy.”

“Don’t go to too much trouble,” put in Bobby. “Anything will do.”

She was off at once, and they heard the cheerful clatter of pans and dishes in the adjoining kitchen.

The boys stretched out luxuriously before the fire and looked at each other in silent ecstasy.

“Talk about luck,” murmured Mouser.

“All we want to eat,” repeated Pee Wee.

“She didn’t know you when she said that,” chaffed Fred. “I don’t believe there’s enough in the house to fill that contract.”

“Pee Wee will have to go some to get ahead of me,” chimed in Bobby.

A savory odor was soon wafted in from the kitchen. Pee Wee sat bolt upright and sniffed.

“Say, fellows! do you smell that?” he asked. “If I’m dreaming, don’t wake me up.”

“It’s no dream,” Mouser assured him. “It’s something a good sight more real than that.”

Before long the door opened to reveal the smiling face of Mrs. Wilson.

“All ready, boys,” she announced cheerily. “Come right along.”

CHAPTER V
THE TRAMPS’ RETREAT

The boys needed no second invitation. Even Pee Wee shook off his usual laziness. With a single impulse they sprang from their chairs and trooped out into the dining room.

It seemed to the hungry boys as though nothing had ever looked so good as the meal that their hostess had provided for them. There was a huge dish of bacon and eggs, plates piled high with snowy, puffy biscuit, which, as Mrs. Wilson told them, she had “knocked together” in a hurry, smoking hot from the oven, a great platter of fried potatoes, and, to crown the feast, mince and apple and pumpkin pies whose flaky crusts seemed to fairly beg to be eaten.

A simultaneous “ah-h” came from the boys, as they looked at the store of good things set before them, and the way they plunged into the meal was the sincerest tribute that could be paid to the cookery of their hostess. It brought a glow of pleasure into her kindly eyes and a happy flush to her cheeks. She fluttered about them like a hen over her chicks, renewing the dishes, pressing them to take more – a thing which was wholly unnecessary – and joining in their jokes and laughter. It is safe to say that a merrier meal had not been enjoyed in that old farmhouse for many a day.

But even a meal like that had to come to an end at last, and it was with a sigh of perfect satisfaction that the boys finally sat back in their chairs and looked about at the complete wreck they had made of the viands.

“Looks as if a whirlwind had passed this way,” remarked Mouser.

“I never enjoyed a meal so much,” said Pee Wee.

“Well, you’re certainly a judge,” laughed Fred. “When you say a meal’s the limit you know what you’re talking about. And this time I agree with you.”

“I’m glad you liked things,” put in Mrs. Wilson. “It does me good to see the way you boys eat.”

“I’m afraid you wouldn’t make much money if you had us as steady boarders,” smiled Bobby.

“Come right back to the living room and get yourselves warm as toast before you start out again in this wind,” urged their hostess.

“We’d like to ever so much,” replied Bobby. “But I guess we’d better be getting along. Perhaps that snow plough will get down sooner than we thought, and everything’s been so good here that I’m afraid perhaps we’ve stayed too long already.”

They wrapped themselves up warmly, and then Bobby as spokesman turned to their hostess.

“How much do we owe you?” he asked, taking out his pocketbook, while the others prepared to do the same.

“You don’t owe me a cent!” declared Mrs. Wilson with emphasis.

“Oh, but yes,” rejoined Bobby, somewhat startled. “We couldn’t think of letting you go to all that trouble and expense without paying for it.”

“I won’t take a penny, bless your hearts,” Mrs. Wilson repeated. “It’s been a real joy to have you here. I haven’t any children of my own, and the old place gets a bit lonesome at times. I haven’t had such a good time for years as I’ve had this morning, seeing you eat so hearty and listening to your fun. I feel that I owe you a good deal more than you do me.”

She was firm in her determination, although the boys pressed the matter as far as they could without offending her. So they were forced at last to yield to her wishes and return the money to their pockets.

It was with the warmest thanks that they left their kind-hearted hostess and went down the steps, Tiger accompanying them to the gate. He seemed to want to go further and whined softly when Mouser patted him good-bye.

“Isn’t she a prince?” said Pee Wee admiringly, as they waved their hands in farewell.

“A princess you mean,” corrected Mouser.

“Have it your own way,” retorted Pee Wee. “Whichever name’s the best, she’s that.”

They were in a high state of elation as they ploughed their way across the snowy fields. They were blissfully conscious of being, as Mouser put it, “full to the chin,” and little else was needed at their age to make their happiness complete.

But they were sharply awakened by the sound of a whistle.

“That must be our train,” cried Fred in alarm.

“That’s what it is,” assented Bobby, quickening his pace. “We stayed a long time at the table, and the snow-plough must have come along sooner than they thought it would. Hurry, fellows, hurry!” and he tried to break into a run.

The others followed his example, but the snow was too deep for that. It clung about their feet and legs until they felt that they were moving in a nightmare.

“She’s going, fellows!” shouted Mouser in despair, as a stream of smoke began to stretch out behind the moving train.

“And all our bags and things are on board!” wailed Fred.

“Now we’re in a pretty mess,” gasped Pee Wee, slumping down in the snow.

There was no use in hurrying now, and they looked blankly at each other as they came to a full stop.

“Scubbity-yow!” howled Fred as the only way to relieve his feelings.

“Well, I’ll be jiggered!” exclaimed Mouser.

Pee Wee was too tired out from his exertion to say anything, and Bobby, too, kept silent, though for a different reason. He was busy thinking of the best way to get out of the tangle.

“There’s no use in worrying about our baggage, fellows,” he said at last. “Probably the conductor will take good care of that. And we may be able to send a telegram from some place telling the conductor to put our things off at Rockledge and leave them in care of the station agent there. What we’ve got to worry about is ourselves. We can’t stay here, and we’ve got to find some way to get another train as soon as we can. Have any of you fellows got a time table?”

“I had one,” replied Mouser, “but it’s in my bag on the train.”

None of the others had one and Bobby came to a quick decision.

“There’s no other way,” he announced. “We’ll have to go back and ask Mrs. Wilson. She’ll know all about the trains and what’s the best station for us to go to.”

They trudged back rather forlornly and explained their plight to Mrs. Wilson, who was full of sympathy.

“I’d like to have you stay here all night,” she volunteered, “and Mr. Wilson will take you over to the station in a rig to-morrow morning.”

They thanked her heartily, but explained that this was out of the question. They would be missed from the train, telegrams would be flying back and forth and their parents would be anxious and excited. They must get to some place where they could either telegraph or, better yet, get a train that would land them in Rockledge that afternoon or evening.

“I’ll tell you what to do,” she suggested, as a thought struck her. “You can’t get a train on this line you’ve been traveling on until very late to-night. But there’s another road that crosses this at a junction about two miles from here and connects with the main line that goes on to Rockledge. There’s an afternoon train on that line that you’ll have plenty of time to make, and it will land you in Rockledge before night. There’s a telegraph office there too, and you can send any messages you like before you board the train.”

“That’s just the very thing,” cried Bobby with enthusiasm.

“Just what the doctor ordered,” chuckled Mouser.

She gave them very careful directions for finding the station, and as there was none too much time and the walking was bound to be slow they set out at once, after thanking their friend for having come a second time to their relief.

Their path led for the most part through a wood and they passed no other houses on their way. Even in summer it was evident that the locality was wild and deserted. Now with the snow over everything it was especially desolate.

“You might almost think you were up in the Big Woods,” commented Mouser.

“That’s what,” agreed Fred. “It would be a dandy place for train robbers and that kind of fellows.”

“I’d hate to be wandering around here at night,” remarked Pee Wee, who was panting with the exertion of keeping up with the others.

“It would give one a sort of creepy feeling, like being in a cemetery,” assented Bobby.

Suddenly Fred uttered an exclamation.

“There’s a little house right over in that hollow,” he cried, pointing to the right.

“More like a hut or a shack than a regular house, seems to me,” grunted Mouser.

“I don’t believe there’s any one living there,” commented Pee Wee.

“Yes, there must be,” declared Bobby. “I can see the light of a fire shining through the window.”

The hut in question was a dilapidated structure of only one story that stood in a little hollow just off the road. It was in the last stages of decay and looked as though a strong wind would blow it to pieces. There were no fences nor barn nor any wagon or farm implement in sight.

Yet that some one lived in the crazy shack was evident, as Bobby had said, by the red light that came flickeringly through the only window that the cabin possessed.

“Let’s stop there for a minute and get warm,” suggested Fred. “Then, too, we can make sure that we’re still on the right road to the station.”

“What’s the use?” cautioned Bobby. “We got left once to-day by stopping too long.”

“It will only take a minute,” urged Fred.

As the others also wanted to stop, and Bobby did not wish to insist too much, they all went down into the hollow together.

The snow of course deadened their footsteps, so that whoever was in the cabin had no notice of their approach.

Fred, who was in advance, rapped on the door.

There was silence for a moment and then the door swung open and a rough looking man appeared on the sill.

“What do you want?” he asked gruffly.

“We wanted to ask directions about the road,” said Fred, a little dismayed by the fellow’s surly manner.

The man looked them over for a moment, noticed that they were well dressed and hesitated no longer.

“Come in,” he said briefly, and stood aside for them to pass.