"What spot?" queried his twin gayly. "A spot on the end of his tail or the tip of his ear wouldn't be of much account."
"I don't see how you can joke, Andy, when we're lost away out here in the woods and it's past midnight," came ruefully from Fred. "I'd give as much as a dollar to be at the Lodge and lying down in front of a roaring fire. I'm getting pretty cold."
They were all cold, for since nightfall the thermometer had been going down steadily. More than this, the wind was rising, and this in the open places was anything but pleasant to the cadets.
"I'll go with you, Jack," announced Spouter, and he, too, armed himself with his gun, a double-barreled affair of which he was quite proud.
Holding his flashlight so that they might see where they were walking, Jack led the way, and Spouter came close behind. They walked a distance of several hundred feet, and here found that the road came to an end among some rocks which were now covered with ice.
"It's a road to a spring, that's all," said Jack. "The water is frozen now, but I suppose in the summer time the lumbermen and the other folks around here occasionally travel in for a drink. We may as well go back."
"Well, it's a mighty good thing we didn't drive in here. We might have had a job turning around on that rough ice," answered Spouter.
The frozen-up spring was a beautiful sight, the water standing out in columns and waves as if made of milky glass. Behind the columns there was still a trickle of water.
To get a better view of the sight, Jack swept the rays of the flashlight first to one side and then to the other. As he did this he caught a glimpse of a pair of gleaming eyes from the brushwood and snow behind the spring. The eyes looked full of curiosity and fright.
"Look, look, Spouter!" he cried, and then dropped the flashlight into his overcoat pocket.