“No, my foot struck it. I felt something harder than the snow, and I reached down to see what it was. As soon as I touched it, I had an idea what it was.”
Barry looked away in the direction of Rake Island, shrouded in the darkness. “It all means that somebody stood here and fired at least four shots from a rifle at someone else,” he said slowly. “The ones who were shot at scuttled away across the ice. I’d like to know what it all means.”
“Let’s get in around the fire and look these shells over,” Kent urged, and they were soon back in the cabin, grouping around the warm fire and looking at the empty cartridge curiously. The ones that Kent had found were exactly the same, and there was no doubt that they had all been shot from the same gun.
“It seemed to me that there were more than four shots, but perhaps I just imagined that,” Barry said, sitting down on the sleeping bag.
“The whole thing was so sudden and unexpected that I hardly know what did happen,” Mac admitted. “The shots were near us, too.”
“Almost outside of our window,” Kent nodded. “Gosh, that gives me something to think about, do you know it? The light of our fire would show anyone that we were here, and whoever fired the shots might have been protecting us. See what I mean?”
“Do you mean that those people who ran across the ice may have been looking in at us and were scared off by the shots?” Tim asked.
“Sure! Or maybe the ones who did the shooting were looking in at us and were disturbed. Of course, any way you look at it, it is all pure guesswork, and we know as much about it as we do about the whole mystery business.”
“I’m glad that we are going to move over into the lodge,” declared Barry. “That’s a bigger place, and I’ll feel safer in it.”
“Don’t forget, though, that the lodge is the home stamping ground for the spook,” Mac reminded him.