“I am thinking, Mike,” remarked Hoke some time later, “that if you intend to go clean round the lake we haven’t any time to throw away.”
“We kin take all day and the night, should the same be nicissary, but there’s no call to hurry and if ye find yersilf growing weary, ye have me permission to turn back whin the notion takes ye.”
“We have gone so far that I don’t see much choice in taking either direction. I say, Mike, isn’t that something queer ahead of us?”
“I’d like to know where ye could be without something qua’ar being ahead of ye,—begora! I belave ye are right,” added Mike in surprise. An object loomed up which he had not seen before nor had he heard any one speak of it, though he and others had been in the neighborhood more than once.
At a point where the undergrowth was plentiful and less than a hundred yards back from the shore, were the ruins of what probably had once been a fisherman or hunter’s cabin. Long before the present time, some party had erected these rude quarters as a refuge during cold or stormy weather only to abandon them for more inviting protection. The ruins were simply four walls of logs hardly a dozen feet square and less than half as high. If there had once been a roof, it had disappeared long since. No door was visible from where the boys stood.
“It reminds me of the Castle of Donleigh, which I niver obsarved,” remarked Mike after they had stood for some minutes.
“I think some one started to put up a cabin such as Uncle Elk did, but changed his mind before he built a roof. Maybe it was Uncle Elk himself.”
“Aither him or somebody ilse; let’s look further.”
Instead of going nearer, the two slowly circled the ruins, keeping a little way from them. When the circuit was completed the surprising fact became known that nothing in the nature of a door had been made by those who laid the logs. Manifestly the structure had been abandoned before it was half finished.
“It’s easy to raise yourself high enough to look inside,” suddenly remarked Hoke; “I’m going to have a peep. Wait here till I come back.”