"Whew!" puffed Dave. "It warms a fellow up a bit. That's a pretty solid-looking house, 'Hatchet.'"
The cabin was built of logs and stood some distance from the edge of the lake, and near the base of a steep hill. It was partly surrounded by a group of tall cedars.
Dave and Hackett crossed the intervening patch of snow, their skates crunching through the hard crust. The latter tried the door, while Dave peered in through a window.
He uttered an exclamation of disappointment.
"Somebody is living here," he said. "There's a lot of dishes and stuff on a table. It means that we'll have to build a camp, after all."
"And it would have been such a bully place to stay," said Hackett, giving the door a spiteful kick.
"Well, there's no help for it," put in Bob, who had come up. "You can see the snow is freshly trampled."
"Wonder who they can be."
"Most likely hunters."
"Well, what are we going to do?" asked Sam Randall.