"I'm the one to get out ahead!" cried the Giant, and the small form slipped deftly between the others. "Hullo, Jed Sanborn! How are you?"
"Hullo, yourself!" came from off the ice of the lake, as the well-known old hunter strode forward. "Thought I'd find you to hum—by the look of the smoke from your chimbley."
"Where did you come from, Fairview?"
"Yes,—got letters fer all of you."
"Oh, letters!" was the cry, and then all the young hunters rushed forward to shake hands and escort the old hunter into the shelter. Jed Sanborn looked around in perplexity.
"Why, say, this ain't the camp I expected," he stammered.
"The other was burnt down when we got here," answered Snap.
"Burnt down? 'T wasn't burnt down when I was here last, lad."
"So you told us. It must have been burnt down after that. The work of some enemy," put in Shep.
"You don't suspect Felps, do you?"