They had all seen a light, though it had remained for the keen eyes of X-Ray to discover what caused it. But as soon as they emerged from the shelter, Phil, Ethan and Lub found no difficulty in seeing that the alarm had not been a false one; for one side of the shack was all afire.
“Go for it, everybody!” cried Phil, as he started to throw all the snow he was able to snatch up on the fiercely burning mass.
“Fire-fighters get busy!” echoed X-Ray, copying the other’s example; nor was Lub long in finding a place where he could deposit his burden and join in the attack.
Thus beset on all sides the fire quickly died down as the snow melted and drowned the ardor of the flames. Before many minutes had passed away they had it under control.
“We want to save a part of it for our regular fire, because we’ll need it to get warm by!” observed long-headed Ethan.
“Warm!” gasped Lub. “Why, I’m fairly roasting right now.”
“Well, you won’t be in a jiffy, when that cold wind strikes down your back,” the other warned him; “how about the fire business, Phil?”
“It’s a good idea,” he was told; “but don’t bother carrying any of what is left of this stuff over; we have plenty of good wood handy, you remember. And I want to look a little closer into this brush-heap, you see.”
“Ginger popguns; that’s so,” cried X-Ray; “however did that stuff get there, I’d like to know? We didn’t bank it up that I remember.”
“Never mind about that yet,” Phil told him; “get the fire going, and then we can talk it over. There’s something about this affair that looks pretty suspicious to me, I want you to know.”