Some of them favored using the dining room, but the majority vote was that they eat in the living room, by the light and warmth of the large grate there. All of them were hungry, and so the girls took charge of the supper preparation under the expert leadership of Mrs. Jordan. The boys sat in the living room with the coach and chatted about winter sports. In a very short time the delightful smell of things cooking reached them. The coach smiled as he heard the murmurs of appreciation.
“That’s a tempting smell, boys,” he said. “This Lake Arrowtip air is a great hunger-producing tonic!”
“We found it that way,” Tim grinned.
Charlie was seldom able to sit still long at a time, and he bounded off to the kitchen, followed by the faithful Castor Oil. Before long he was back, rigged out in an apron and a paper hat, obviously in the capacity of a waiter. Disregarding the jokes of the boys, he began to set things in order for supper.
It seemed to the hungry boys that the meal was a long time coming, but the girls declared with spirit that it hadn’t taken much time except to those who sat around waiting for it. The time finally came when they were all sitting close to the fire eating steak and potatoes, talking and enjoying themselves. All lamps had been put out, and only the red glow of the fire illuminated the room. But by this time the fire was a solid mass of glowing coals, and a sufficient light was rendered for all. Their shadows clustered on the wall back of them.
“And you four boys camped here for a few days, just like this?” a senior girl asked the four chums. “Wasn’t it delightful?”
“We enjoyed it,” Kent nodded. “We weren’t here all the time, though. At first we camped over in that smaller cabin that you could see as we drove up.”
“What made you leave it?” Mrs. Jordan asked.
This was getting close to things that the boys did not want to reveal, but before Kent could answer, Barry broke in. “That little cabin was cold, and the floor was hard to sleep on,” he said. “Then one night a limb dropped on the roof and scared us quite a bit, so we decided to move in here. Tim and Mac did the moving, and Kent and I got lost in a storm that day.”
“But what about all the ghost stories we hear?” another girl asked. “Is there a ghost around?”