g
the wood, if that suits the rest of you. Our path of yesterday is blown
over a bit with snow, but we can dig it out again in a little while.
And, while we're at that, we may as well dig through to the cook shack
again. I want to get a good look in there this time."

"Expect to find Mr. Fits there?" Dave asked.

"Hardly, if we didn't find him there yesterday. But, the more I think
about it, the more I feel certain that the noises of last night were in
some way connected with the shack."

"I'd like to believe that," muttered Tom. "If that's the case, some of
us might sleep in there to-night and catch hold of the noise maker."

"Who'd sleep there?" grimaced Dan.

"Well," responded Reade slowly, "we might let Hen sleep there. He's the
bravest of the lot, you know, and so he's just the fellow for the job."

Dutcher choked over the food he was swallowing, and shifted his feet
uneasily.

Soon after breakfast was over Dick, Dave and Tom stepped outside with
the shovels. Here and there the path had been left fairly clear, though
at other points they had to shovel industriously through the new drifts.
At last, however, they reached the same window through which they had
looked in the day before.

"No sign of any one inside," muttered Dick. "Nor have we seen any signs
of fire from the chimney. I can see the stove, now, but there doesn't
seem to be any sign of fire in it."

"Let's dig around to the door," proposed Dave, "and go inside."

Accordingly the three bent to the new work. A few minutes later Dick
gave a tug at the latch-string and the door swung open.

"It doesn't seem as cold in here as you'd expect to find it," murmured
Reade.

"That's because we've just come from where it's a good deal colder," Tom
answered.

Dick stepped over to the cook stove, raising a lid.

"Look, fellows; here are a few live coals left here yet."

Dave and Tom joined him, staring at the embers in some astonishment.

"Yet there's no one here, and no tracks in the snow outside," observed
Tom. "Say, if the tenant of this place can go over the snow without
leaving a trail, it does look rather ghostly, eh?"

"A ghost wouldn't need warmth," Dick retorted promptly.

"Then what's the answer?" challenged Dave.

Dick shook his head, but went to one window after the other.

"No one left or entered here by way of the window," Prescott soon
announced. "It struck me that Mr. Fits might have used a window, instead
of a door, but if so,