“Hold on a minute,” he said, and there was some strange quality in Tom’s voice that made his chum obey.
“What’s up?” he asked, glancing from Tom to the cabin.
“Nothing yet, but there may be,” was the cool answer.
“You mean there may be someone in that cabin—Skeel or those other men?”
“That’s about the size of it,” Tom said.
“That’s right—best to be on the safe side,” put in Bert. “Those men, or Skeel, especially, have been here lately.”
“But they haven’t any right in our cabin—at least the cabin your friends gave us the use of, Tom,” objected George.
“I know they haven’t, and that’s just where the trouble might come in. Those two men with Skeel look like ugly customers. If we cornered them in a cabin they had no right to enter, they might turn ugly. It’s best to go a bit slowly until we find out whether or not they are in there.”
“That’s what I say,” chimed in Jack. “Not that I’m afraid, but I don’t want to run into trouble so early on our vacation. Of course it’s possible,” he went on, “that someone else besides Skeel and his cronies may have been here, or may still be here, for boots, with nail-marks like those on the sole, can’t be so very rare. But I’m inclined to think Skeel wore those,” and he nodded toward the marks in the snow.
“I agree with you,” Tom said, “and we’ll soon find out. Let’s look about a bit before we rush up to the cabin,” he went on.