“I’m sure that it wasn’t,” Mac said.
“We ought to have seen it before this, if it was,” Tim chimed in.
“That is exactly what I thought,” Barry replied. “I was cutting wood, and while I was resting, I turned and looked at the place. It came to me at once that all the windows were down the last time we looked that way.”
“Then somebody has been in the place while we were off hunting for the sled,” Tim observed.
“It looks that way. For some reason he opened that upstairs window and forgot to close it. Fellows, we had better go explore that lodge right now. We can look for the sled later on.”
The boys needed no further urging. They were anxious to go through the old place, and now that the window had been opened they were more than eager to enter the lodge. Sweaters and caps were hastily put on, and Barry got the keys to the big building.
“If it hadn’t been for looking around for the sled, we would have been in that place this morning,” he said.
They crossed the snow to the front porch of Bluff Lodge. This porch extended clear across the log building and gave a magnificent view up and down the lake. Twenty-five yards from the porch the bluff dropped fourteen feet straight down to the waters of Arrowtip.
“Dandy place to sit and look out over the lake on a warm summer day,” Kent commented, as Barry fitted his key to the lock.
“It certainly is,” his chum agreed. “This lodge ought to be worth quite a bit of money. It would be, too, if it weren’t getting a bad name.”