The Auto Boys' Mystery

Great heavens! It's Lew Grandall! cried the stranger on the raft. ( Page 399 )
THE AUTO BOYS' MYSTERY
By JAMES A. BRADEN
AUTHOR OF THE AUTO BOYS, THE AUTO BOYS' ADVENTURE, THE AUTO BOYS' CAMP, THE AUTO BOYS' BIG SIX, FAR PAST THE FRONTIER, ETC.
FRONTISPIECE BY ALFRED RUSSELL
THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY CHICAGO AKRON, OHIO NEW YORK
The Auto Boys had been camped on the unfrequented shore of Opal Lake for several days. At first hunting and fishing were the only enlivening features of this, their unusual summer outing.
Opal Lake, far up in the big northern woods, had at this time no other campers. True, there was an abandoned clubhouse on a nearby point not far from where Phil Way, Billy Worth, Dave MacLester and Paul Jones selected the spot for their Outing Camp. But, until within a day or two, even the clubhouse had seemed to be as it looked, deserted.
But a smoke being seen one day, the boys had become curious. Without actually entering the house itself, they had made individual or collective trips that way. Also strange sounds had been heard, and even human presence had been detected. Finally Paul, the youngest of the boys, made a cautious trip thither and even entered the house where he had heard voices, and otherwise had detected that real folks were undoubtedly there; though why they were there Paul could only guess. Perhaps they were in search of a bag of money, said to be twenty thousand dollars, stolen three years before and supposed still to be hidden somewhere in that region.
Strange men had been seen near the end of a gravel road which the Longknives Club (owners of the now abandoned clubhouse) were then constructing for their own use and convenience. The unexpected loss of this money caused the work to stop, while the workmen, including a Swedish foreman, Nels Anderson by name, remained unpaid to this day.
Aside from the clubhouse, the nearest inhabitants to the boys' camp were this same Anderson and his family, who lived in a small clearing five or six miles away on the trail leading to Staretta, a small town perhaps a dozen miles further on. This was the nearest town to Opal Lake which was, indeed, a veritable Lake of the Woods.