“Coal, by ginger! Half a shed full of coal. I must tell Mac about this.”
He did not linger long out in the crisp air, but returned to the living room of the hunting lodge. Just as he reached the fireplace, Mac came in with a load of wood.
“This is the last of it,” he announced. “We’ll have to cut some more before it gets dark, and we’ll have to hustle to it because it is getting darker all the time. We’re in for a storm.”
“We’ll have to cut some wood,” Tim told him. “But I made a great discovery, Mac. There is a shed joined to the kitchen, and it is half filled with coal. That means an end to our wood-chopping.”
“It doesn’t belong to us,” Mac interposed, practically.
“I know, but if we pay for what we use, it ought to be all right. In the little time left for us to stay here we won’t use much. Come on and look at it.”
He led his brother to the coal shed, and Mac inspected it. “I suppose it will be all right,” the sandy-haired twin nodded. “If it isn’t, Barry will tell us when he gets back here. At any rate, we can use it to warm up the room in there, and it will do the job quicker than wood will. Let’s take a bucket of it in the house.”
“This coal explains why they use grates in the hall and the living room,” Tim said, as they filled a coal pail that hung close by.
Returning to the living room of the lodge, they quickly built the fire. The flames licked their way up through the paper and over the wood, and when this had caught fire in good style they put some coal on. As the fire blazed out in a comforting manner, the brothers stood and watched it with satisfaction.
“The first fire in this room for many a day,” remarked Tim.