"I wish that was the hardest nut I had to crack," laughed the scout master. "Fortunately the door opens outwardly."
"Unfortunately, you mean," echoed Mark, as he touched the painful lump on his forehead.
"I say yes to that," grinned Lil Artha, whose nose had stopped bleeding by this time, but whose face was a sight to behold, being smeared with all manner of strange red marks that made him resemble an Apache Indian on the warpath.
"As it does open outwardly, however," Elmer went on saying, with a sympathetic smile for the woes of his chums, "it ought to be easy enough for us to barricade the door. Look around, boys, and see if you can find several good stout sticks about three or four feet long. Even a small tree trunk would be about what we want."
"And I think I know where to find one," said Lil Artha, hastening away, "because I took a header over it when we were chasing the dago woman."
CHAPTER XIII.
THE CALL OF THE WOLF.
"That's the ticket, Lil Artha," said Elmer, as the tall scout returned presently, bearing on his shoulder quite a good-sized log about five feet in length.