“Maybe he slipped through that.”
Barry crossed the floor of the tool house and tried the window. It was not locked, and it lifted inward.
“Well, he might have, though I don’t see why I shouldn’t have seen it at the time. Looks as though that was his only way. Perhaps he heard or saw me running across to the back porch and he slipped out of the window as we were approaching the front. Too bad, but he is gone.”
“I’m convinced that it was our spook, too,” Mac said.
“Let’s take a look around back and see if we can find any footprints,” proposed Kent, and, going to the back of the tool shed, they looked around. But a mass of briar bushes grew close to the rear of the small building, and they were unable to find any clues.
“Nothing doing,” Barry sighed. “He has given us the slip.”
“Let’s get inside,” suggested Tim, who was feeling the cold intensely.
“Yes, you fellows aren’t dressed for outdoors,” nodded Kent. “And we are just about crazy to get in around the fire. We’ll have to give this up as a bad job, for the time being anyway.”
With some reluctance they left the vicinity of the tool house and made their way around to the front of the hunting lodge. The boys had left the front door open in their haste, and the hall was even colder than it had been. The twins led the way into the living room of the lodge.
“Welcome to Bluff Lodge!” Mac cried, taking the poker and beginning to stir the fire. Barry and Kent spread grateful hands toward the blaze.