“That’s a good bit easier than a plate camera,” came from Joel Runnell. “I once went out with a man who had that sort. His plates weighed an awful lot, and he was always in trouble trying to find some dark place where he could fill his holders.”
“This camera loads in daylight; so I’ll not have any trouble that way,” said Harry. “And I can take six pictures before I have to put in a new roll of films.”
It was high noon when the upper end of Pine Island was gained. All of the party were hungry, but it was decided to move on to the lodge before getting dinner.
The lodge set back about a hundred feet from the edge of a cove, and ten minutes more of walking over the ice and through the deep snow brought them in sight of the building. It was a rough affair of logs, twenty by thirty feet in size, with a rude chimney at one end. There was a door and two windows, and the ruins of a tiny porch. Over all the snow lay to a depth of a foot or more.
“I’ve got a name for this place,” said Joe. “I don’t think anything could be more appropriate than that of Snow Lodge.”
“That fits it exactly!” cried Fred. “Snow Lodge it is, eh, Harry?”
“Yes, that’s all right,” was the answer; and Snow Lodge it was from that moment forth.
There had been a padlock on the door, but this was broken off, so they had no difficulty in getting inside. They found the lodge divided into two apartments, one with bunks for sleeping purposes, and the other, where the fireplace was, for a living-room. Through an open window and through several holes in the roof the snow had sifted, and covered the flooring as with a carpet of white.
“We’ll have to clean up first of all,” said Joe. “No use of bringing in our traps until then.”
“Our first job is to clean off the roof and mend that,” came from Joe Runnell. “Then we’ll be ready for the next storm when it comes. After that we can clean up inside and cut some firewood.”