“I’ll start supper right off,” said Hal. “Must be ’most time, anyway.” He raised his voice and spoke with surprising heartiness. Had the man been watching him just then, which he wasn’t, having transferred his gaze momentarily to the leaping flames, he might almost have thought that Hal was trying to make his tones carry beyond the further window on which his eyes were set. “I don’t know how good it’ll be, though, for, you see, the fellow that’s our regular cook has gone to North Pemberton, and I guess he won’t be back yet awhile. But I’ll do—”
“Eh?” exclaimed the big man startledly. “North Pemberton? What’s he gone there for?”
“We get our groceries there,” answered Hal, rising from the cot, stretching and moving aimlessly toward the front of the cabin. “It’s about eight miles, I guess, and he isn’t likely to get back for a couple of hours.” Hal stopped at one of the two windows and stared out. “Hope he don’t get lost coming back. It’s as black as my pocket to-night.”
It was black, if one excepted the lake. That was darkly gray, and the moving form close to the nearer shore was momentarily visible ere it melted into the shadows. Hal turned away from the window. “Well,” he announced cheerfully, “guess we might as well light up.”
[CHAPTER XIII]
DOWN THE BROOK
As it happened, Joe had been coming back along the shore when the two men had emerged from the woods at the left of the cabin. They had not, he was certain, seen him, for he had instinctively swerved behind a clump of brush. His instant suspicion had become certainty when, watching, he had seen the strangers peer cautiously about them before slinking hurriedly to the front door. When they had entered, Joe stood for a long minute, his thoughts racing. He visioned his friends robbed and beaten, perhaps murdered. His first, not unnatural, impulse, was toward flight, but it was brief, and after that he set himself to find a practical means of helping the others. Several more minutes went by and the twilight deepened. At last Joe approached the cabin, keeping to the shadows. The windows were warmly lighted by the flickering flames of the fire as he crept across the porch toward the nearer one, and he could hear the low murmur of voices; sometimes could distinguish a word. His first hurried glance over the sill brought a sigh of relief. The scene inside was reassuringly different from what he had feared to find. Yet he was sure that the elements of tragedy were there, and he was striving desperately to think of some plan to circumvent the intruders when, looking again, he found Hal’s eyes on his. Then came Hal’s voice, suddenly raised, in the words: “I don’t know how good it’ll be, though, for, you see, the fellow that’s our regular cook has gone to North Pemberton, and I guess he won’t be back yet awhile.”
An instant later Joe was tottering cautiously over the frozen ground to the lake, his skates catching in hidden roots or colliding with snow-covered snags. Fortunately the distance was but a dozen rods, and he covered it without misadventure. Then he was skating along the deeper blackness of the margin, slowly that the sound of the steel blades on the ice might not be heard back at the cabin. And as he skated he thought hard. From the little he had seen and heard he had gathered a very correct idea of the situation back there. The robbers, who had doubtless been in hiding in the hills between North Pemberton and the lake since last night, had arrived at the cabin chilled and hungry. Doubtless they had demanded food and Hal had agreed to cook supper for them. Then he had happened to see the face at the window and had sent his message. “Hurry to North Pemberton and give the alarm,” was the way Joe had construed it. “We’ll keep them here as long as we can.”
And now, past the curving point of the land, Joe set his thoughts on the far end of the lake and put every bit of effort into his swaying body. Just when the plan to follow Rat Brook on skates instead of seeking road or trail came to him he could not have told. It was there, suddenly, in his mind the moment he reached the turn of the shore. He no longer sought concealment nor smooth ice, but headed as straight as his sense of direction pointed. The farther shore leaped out at him from the darkness suddenly and he had to check his speed to duck under the little bridge. Then he was off again, the ice-roofed brook stretching ahead of him plainly discernible in the faint early radiance of the stars. His skates seemed to awake hollow echoes, but the ice was firm beneath its occasional crust or light blanket of snow. Rat Brook had little current, so little that it froze almost as soon as the lake, and while the water moved sluggishly beneath the ice it did not weaken it. There was a straight stretch, like a canal, for nearly a quarter of a mile, and then the brook turned to the right, following the base of Little Rat Mountain, and after that curved continuously. Often the forest closed in on both sides and Joe must perforce trust to luck rather than to vision, yet save once or twice he held his course. Branches slashed at him, and now and then a protruding root or fallen tree strove to trip him. But somehow, in some instinctive fashion, he passed them all safely and without decreasing his speed. Had he stopped thinking of his errand long enough to consider that speed he would have been tremendously surprised, for he was skating just about twice as fast as he had ever skated in his life, and, moreover—which, if Hal was right, was possibly the reason for it—doing it without conscious thought!