CHAPTER IX Inside the Haunted Lodge
Barry lifted the ax and with a single swing of his arm imbedded it inthe side of the tree limb. Then he stepped to the door of the cabin andglanced inside. Mac was stacking the dishes up, and the other two boyswere just coming out of the lean-to kitchen.
"Come here a minute," Barry called to them. Mac lingered to finish hiswork.
When they had joined him at the door, he pointed toward the lodge. "Seeanything strange about the place?" he asked.
Mac joined them in the doorway, and they gazed at the hunting lodge."Looks the same as ever to me," Tim said.
"No, there is a window half open," Kent cried, pointing.
"That is just what I wanted you to see," Barry told them. "Did any ofyou notice that it was open before this?"
"I'm sure that it wasn't," Mac said.
"We ought to have seen it before this, if it was," Tim chimed in.
"That is exactly what I thought," Barry replied. "I was cutting wood,and while I was resting, I turned and looked at the place. It came to meat once that all the windows were down the last time we looked thatway."
"Then somebody has been in the place while we were off hunting for thesled," Tim observed.
"It looks that way. For some reason he opened that upstairs window andforgot to close it. Fellows, we had better go explore that lodge rightnow. We can look for the sled later on."
The boys needed no further urging. They were anxious to go through theold place, and now that the window had been opened they were more thaneager to enter the lodge. Sweaters and caps were hastily put on, andBarry got the keys to the big building.
"If it hadn't been for looking around for the sled, we would have beenin that place this morning," he said.
They crossed the snow to the front porch of Bluff Lodge. This porchextended clear across the log building and gave a magnificent view upand down the lake. Twenty-five yards from the porch the bluff droppedfourteen feet straight down to the waters of Arrowtip.
"Dandy place to sit and look out over the lake on a warm summer day,"Kent commented, as Barry fitted his key to the lock.
"It certainly is," his chum agreed. "This lodge ought to be worth quitea bit of money. It would be, too, if it weren't getting a bad name."
By this time Barry had turned the key, and with a grinding sound thebolt shot back. The boys crowded closer to him, anxious for their firstglimpse inside the haunted lodge building. Barry swung the door openwide, and they walked in, glancing around with interest.
They found themselves in a wide hall that was square and roomy. A bigfireplace took up a wide space on one side of the wall, and over it hungthe head of an elk. Pictures adorned the walls, and over a door leadinginto the other part of the lodge hung an old flintlock gun. A flight ofstairs led to the loft.
"This is a dandy place," remarked Mac, as they stood and looked around.
"I wonder if this is the main room, where they sit around the fire?"Kent asked.
Barry moved to the door and pushed it open. "No, this seems to be theliving room," he announced, stepping through the doorway. The othersfollowed and found themselves in a big living room, furnished withseveral chairs and a long couch that was placed in front of thefireplace. Shelves of books and some animal skins were to be seen inthis room, and it was unmistakably the guest gathering place.
"This is more like it," Tim remarked, as they explored the room. "Thatother place is just the front hall. Gosh, but it is cold in here!"
Beside the fireplace there were window seats, and Barry sat down andpulled the curtains aside. "You can see our place from here," he said."This certainly is a nice lodge, and I'd like to own it."
Kent opened a door from the living room, and they continued to explore.A long hall led to the kitchen at the back of the lodge, and from thishall three bedrooms and a dining room could be reached. It was indeed anunusually large log structure.
"Wouldn't this be a great place to have a party?" Barry exclaimed, withenthusiasm.
"Boy, it surely would!" Kent agreed. He opened a door and looked intoone of the bedrooms. "Look at those nice beds, and we are sleeping onthe floor over at our cabin!"
Tim called their attention to a pump on the back porch. "Here we are,melting down snow, and a good pump close to us."
"Bet it is frozen stiff," Barry objected.
"Even so, if some hot water were poured down it to prime it, I believethat we could use it," Tim said.
"Well, let's get on upstairs," proposed Barry. "We came over here to seeabout that window."
They went down the hall and through the living room to the big hall.Barry led the way up the stairs until they came to a door. This was nothard to open, and they found themselves in the attic or loft space ofthe hunting lodge.
It was a large open space and seemed to be almost empty. A brokenbobsled was over against one slope of the roof, and two dusty saddleshung from nails. There were only two windows in the upper section ofBluff Lodge, and one of them was slightly open. Barry crossed the floorof the attic and shut the window, peering out.
"Look at those prints in the snow," he said. "It seems as though someonemay have crossed the roof and come in this window. There is enough rooffor anyone to walk on."
"Then those tracks were made some time back," reminded Kent. "We haven'thad any snow lately. You can see how the snow melted down into thetracks."
"Yes, no doubt of it, the tracks are old," Barry agreed.
Two chimneys rose straight through the attic, and Mac wandered aroundrestlessly. The chimney from the lower hall took up little space, butthe living-room chimney rose several feet to push its way through theroof. Mac walked around this brick column while the others looked out ofthe window toward their cabin.
Then they heard him utter an exclamation. They turned to see himmotioning from around the corner of the chimney.
"Come here, you fellows! Look what I've found!"
Filled with curiosity, they joined him behind the tall chimney and foundhim pointing to a small pile of half-melted snow that showed on thefloor. Barry knelt and touched it with his finger.
"It is snow, all right," he announced.
"And that means that somebody has been in the lodge within the last fewminutes, possibly while we were walking around downstairs!" Mac remindedthem.