“That’s just what has happened,” Kent exclaimed with conviction.
Barry crushed the snow under his fingers. “It hasn’t been here very long,” he gave his opinion. “You didn’t have any of it on your shoes, did you, Mac?”
The Ford twin shook his head. “No, and I discovered it before I had walked that far. I wasn’t sure at first what it was, and I had to touch it to make sure. If that fell off of somebody’s clothes, then somebody was here just a few minutes ago.”
“Right you are,” Kent nodded. “We ought to go down and look through the house again.”
“And the sooner the better,” seconded Barry, rising from the floor. “I must let Dad know about this.”
Led by Kent, the boys went downstairs and made a hasty search through the lodge, but found nothing. It was with considerable excitement that they looked into each room, not at all certain as to what they would find, but no one was in the place. At last they gathered on the front porch and looked up and down the lake, but no one was in sight.
“Let’s take a look around the grounds,” Tim suggested, and they made a tour of the place. In the rear, back of the kitchen and in a separate building, they found a variety of garden tools and odds and ends, but the shed itself was empty of all life.
The timber came close to the back of the lodge, and if anyone had been bent on vanishing from sight in that direction, it would not have taken him long to do so. Going around on the far side of the lodge, the boys saw that it was more rugged land than that on their side. A series of ravines and gullies ran beside the lodge, and less than an eighth of mile away rose the scarred side of the old abandoned quarry.
“Pretty wild country on this side,” said Barry, as they halted under one of the bedroom windows to look around.
Tim approached the gully closest to the house and gazed down into it. “People who camp in this lodge don’t want to go walking at night,” he said. “Not in this direction, anyway. They had better——Well, I’ll be jiggered!”