your father that the cook
shack was burned down while we were here."

"You can tell my father that it was your own carelessness, and let it go
at that," suggested Ripley.

"Humph! I like the cool nerve of your idea," Dick jeered.

"That's what you'll tell my father, if you know what's good for you,"
Fred went on. "That's all I've got to say, but you'll be sorry if you
don't take my advice."

Though the temperature was some degrees below zero in the forest that
evening, none of the boys near the log cabin felt at all cold. The
shack, whose roof soon fell in, still burned briskly enough to keep all
hands warm.

"Watch your chance to dart into the cabin when you see me start. Move
fast when the time comes. Tell Tom and Harry when you get a chance, but
don't let the Ripley crowd suspect."

Dick then found chance to pass the message to Greg and Dan.

Five minutes later Dick sauntered back to the corner of the cabin at the
front side. Dave approached from another direction. Tom and the others
caught the meaning of the move. Then, all of a sudden, there was a
scampering of feet.

"Look out!" yelled telltale Hen. "That crowd is up to something!"

"I know what they're up to!" shouted Fred. "Follow me!"

The older boys charged the cabin door, but they reached it just as Greg
was dropping the bar into place.

"Get in through the windows--quick!" shouted Ripley. He himself made a
dash for one of the windows. Click! went a shutter before his face, and
the locking-pin was dropped in. In a trice all the shutters were in
place.

Dick & Co. were in their castle!

"You fellows open that door!" stormed Fred Ripley.

"Come inside and make us!" mocked Dick.

"Open that door," summoned Fred, "or we'll get a log and use it for a
battering ram. We can get the door down that way!"

Dick felt a throb of dismay. It would be possible to get the door down
by the aid of a battering ram, if the boys outside could find a
sufficiently large log and had the strength to use it.

CHAPTER XXI

ON THE TRAIL BACKWARD

"You'd better listen to me, Fred Ripley," called Dick, through the
barred door.

"Yah! You better do the listening!" snarled Ripley. "Open that door, or
trouble is going to start inside of sixty seconds."

"What I want to say," Dick went on, rather calmly now, since he felt
that he was nearly master of the situation, "is that, if you break the
door down, or start anything else that is mean, we shall have to t