“Slippery, do you know anything about these log cabins which disappear on short notice?” the Captain asked.
The man shook his head in sullen silence. Captain Jim then turned to the other prisoners and asked the same question but they pretended to no knowledge of what he was asking.
“All right then, we’ll have to find out for ourselves. Get your gun out, Bob, and the rest of you stay here.”
The mysterious cabin stood in a small open space not more than a hundred feet from where they had stopped. With drawn revolvers the two approached it from the rear, after watching for some minutes to see if there were signs of it being occupied.
“I don’t believe there’s anyone there,” the Captain said as he stepped out into the open.
“Doesn’t look like it.”
It was only a few steps from the edge of the clearing to the back of the cabin. Captain Jim was a few feet ahead of Bob, he having insisted on taking the lead. As he came close to the house he stopped a moment and listened, then he stepped forward and the next instant he burst into a loud laugh.
“Well, I’ll be jiggered,” he cried as Bob came up. “What do you know about that?”
And then the mystery of the vanishing cabin was cleared up.
“Why, it’s nothing but cloth painted to imitate a log cabin,” Bob declared as he reached out his hand and touched it.