“It was a good sized log cabin,” Drummer related. “There was a high barbed wire fence around it! Can you imagine a log cabin way out in the woods with a barbed wire fence around it?”
“Anyone living in it?” Ted asked.
“Yes, I guess so, at least it looked as though somebody was. A couple of windows were open and a curtain was flapping out in the breeze. The gate on the fence was padlocked. Whoever lives way out there doesn’t want any company.”
“It surely is a queer looking place,” Buck said, thoughtfully “Right in the midst of wild country, too. There is a little cabin that looks like a stable in the back of the place, and a steamer chair was out in front. We went up and looked in but nobody came out, though if there was anybody at home they must have heard us talking.”
“Funny that anyone should want to put up a fence like that out in the mountains,” Ted thought. “And with curtains and a steamer chair in evidence, it doesn’t look as though it was some wild mountaineer. I’d like to know who it is.”
“Maybe someone around here knows about the place,” suggested Buck. “When we go for eggs and butter we’ll find out.”
“Yes, and we will have to go tomorrow,” nodded Ted. “By the way, we must build a good ice box. I think we can sink one in the mud down near the creek.”
They were on their way to the tents that night to turn in, when an odd sound reached their ears, causing them to look toward the back section of their camp beyond the tents. The wind had been blowing in gusts for the last hour and there had been a distinct rustling in the trees and bushes. But this was something different, a rattle and a click, and it came from a section which they had never bothered to investigate with any degree of interest, though it is probable that one or two of them had been to the spot. They stood outside the tent and listened, and as a gust of wind sighed through the trees the clicking came again.
“What can that be?” Buck asked.
Ted reached into the tent and took down the lantern. “We’ll soon see,” he said. But one of the younger boys was ahead of him. Bob Gilmore, the captain of the tent next to Buck’s, took the lantern from his tent and taking a short cut between the tents, plunged into the undergrowth. The light winked at them for a moment and then was gone.