Frank Allen at Old Moose Lake;

The four boys hit a fairly good pace as they left Todds and made along the single trail toward the mountains, but three miles back from the Harrapin River.

From somewhere in a little clump of trees through which they were passing a rabbit jumped out.

“Get him!” cried Lanky Wallace, slinging his rifle around to catch it in his free hands.

The little fellow, scared out of a warm spot in the grove, or perhaps out foraging for something green to eat, was getting across the surface of the snow in a hurry.

Crack! Bang! Crack! Bang!

Each of these boys had pulled his firearm around at sight of the streak of motion, almost the color of the snow. And each of them had pulled down a quick bead on the animal; letting fly two bullets and two doses of shot.

“Came close!” called Frank, for the snow spat upward in several spots just ahead of or to one side of the rabbit, but the little fellow kept on and disappeared in the next grove.

“First shot of the expedition,” Buster Billings said. “I came nearest because I shot first.”

This brought a laugh from the other boys. For it was difficult to tell who had fired first.

“That was good work, fellows,” said Frank. “All four of us, from an unexpected start, got our rifles and shotguns into action at about the same time.”

The rabbit was safe somewhere else, they had shown to themselves that they knew how to get into action, and the boys trooped on through the snow even happier than they had been.

The sun was not shining, yet the morning was brighter than the day before, and the snow was falling less hard.

“Wonder what these footprints are,” remarked Lanky, who was slightly in the lead, with Frank close behind him.

“I’ve been noticing them all the way. They are headed opposite to the way we are going, and from the fact they are not yet filled with snow, it seems three people came in this morning,” replied Frank Allen.

Lanky continued looking toward the prints in the trail, finally remarking about a peculiar heel-print.

“Look, Frank,” he pointed. “One of the fellows must have an iron plate on his heels. Every now and then you can see a print in which a crescent shape shows, like those things they use to stop a heel from wearing down.”

But the boys were little interested in this. They looked casually at the prints for a while, trudging onward, but did not stop for a closer examination. A full hour passed, and they came to a dividing of the trail.

“Here’s the one to take. Here’s where we start saving those ten miles,” came from Frank. “They said it was thirty miles by the road around the mountains and only twenty if we took the trail straight through.”

“What that makes me think is this,” said Lanky, swinging along behind Frank, giving up his leading position. “How can the trail around the hills reach Old Moose lake?”

“I presume there is another divide in the trail lower down,” suggested Frank. “Maybe the lake is reached on one side by one trail and on the opposite side by another.”

Another hour passed away, finding the boys well up in the mountain trail, climbing higher.

The evergreen trees, hemlocks and pines were covered with the finer particles of snow. The trail itself was completely covered. Now and then the boys found it necessary to catch the overhanging branches of a tree to swing themselves along more easily, especially where the trail, in places, grew narrow.

A third hour passed away, indicated by Buster Billings’ watch, finding the young fellows well in the midst of the mountains, having dropped far down into a valley during the last half hour.

In the meanwhile the skies had become leaden-colored again, cast over with the winter shade, and snow was flying thicker than at any other time of the morning.

“We can’t be far from the second divide, the one where we have to make the careful choice,” Frank said as they stopped in the valley before following the trail up between two hills to their right, where it made a sharp turn.

“And it won’t be so easy to find, either,” said Paul, “unless the trails are plainer than this one is.”

Just as Buster Billings called out that the fourth hour had passed, Frank pointed to a sign nailed on a tree just ahead of them.

“Maybe that sign has something to do with the trails.”

But they were doomed to disappointment.

“Put out all camp fires—protect our forests,” read the sign.

It had been placed there during one of the campaigns for forest protection.

“But,” remarked Frank as he stood in front of the sign and thought it over, “this sign must have been placed at this spot for some reason. I believe we are at the divide in the trails. See? There are three different openings leading away—look there! Footprints on the one right there!”

Four boys stood and looked carefully, each thinking out the situation. Though Frank was the leader, one boy cannot do all the thinking for such a group of quick-minded young fellows as these.

“If there are three, those footprints are on the trail we were supposed to take,” said Paul Bird.

Frank agreed that this seemed the right conclusion.

“And the sign was posted at this spot because of its being a place where all men going through this trail must stop,” he went on, after agreeing with Paul.

They followed the trail on which the footprints were being rapidly obliterated by the falling flakes.

Heavier and heavier fell the snow as the boys proceeded, making their way around a hill and then dropping again into a small valley, catching here and there on bushes to hold themselves back on the stiff incline.

Reaching the bottom of the trail, which turned off to the left again, the snow was falling so hard they were able to see but a short distance ahead.

“Fellows,” Frank stopped at the bottom and looked in all directions, “we’re not on any trail. This is a blind one. It takes us nowhere.”

The other three boys looked about them, in one direction, in another, and back up the way they had come.

“It’s sure this doesn’t go any farther,” agreed Lanky Wallace.

“Let’s get back to the top and look things over again,” Frank suggested, leading the way.

Reaching the top, where the trails had seemed to divide, they studied the situation.

“I believe that one to the right is the plain one,” Frank nodded toward the one he meant. “It isn’t the way they told us to go, if these three are trails. On the other hand, if that over there is a trail, then the one right there is the correct one.”

The boys studied the problem over carefully, each one making sure that he would leave nothing out of consideration. Then they determined on the one which Frank had mentioned.

Another twenty minutes led them to an old tumble-down hut near a clump of hemlocks which had been out of sight from the top—and this trail proceeded no further.

“This thing is dangerous to enter. A little wind will knock it down,” Lanky leaned against the hut gingerly as if to push it gently over.

“Why enter it at all?” asked Paul Bird.

“Because it looks as if we might not get very much farther,” said Frank. “I don’t know how it looks to you fellows, but it is afternoon now, and we are not on the right track. Best thing we can do is to keep our bearings pretty well so we can come back to this place in case we have to.”

“Oh, it won’t come to that,” spoke up Buster Billings. “We can find our way all right. Let’s go back to the top, Frank, and go over the directions we were given.”

This was also Frank’s idea, and they trudged back through the almost blinding snow, not soft in its texture, but hard and packing as it fell. At the crest they very carefully talked over the instructions which they had been given. Then they decided on another apparent trail, and set off.

One hour passed, with the four boys fairly butting their way through the heavy snowstorm, hearing a bitter wind sweeping through the trees far above their heads.

“Look! To our left!” called Lanky Wallace, stopping, and pointing off through a small clump of brush.

“It’s the same hut!” said Frank. “Only we’re looking at it from the other side!”’

A council again was called. Here were four boys out in the mountains, fully ten or twelve miles from Todd’s, and, if their estimates were good, about eight or ten miles from Old Moose Lake, unable to figure out which way they should go.

“Shall we go back to Todds and get a fresh start?” asked Paul Bird.

“Sure not!” Lanky Wallace gave the answer. “If we went back there we’d get the same directions we got before, wouldn’t we? And then we’d come to the same place. I believe we lost ourselves somewhere else.”

“That is exactly what I think,” Frank agreed with Lanky. “I’ll tell you, fellows, what I think we should do—let’s pitch camp right here by this hut. Just as Lanky says, it would not be best to get under it because of this wind, but let’s get near, protected by the brush and trees, and stay all night. It is getting late in the day, and we ought to rest. Then to-morrow we’ll start again.”

So the packs were unlimbered, blankets drawn out, a fire was soon started, and, without taking any food, for they had brought only enough for one meal from Todds, they camped in the clump of hemlocks near the hut.

Until dark they stood around the fire and talked, for a time forgetting their plight and joking about things which had happened during the weeks past. At dark they prepared to turn in, rolled in their blankets, the snow continuing to fall heavily.

It was some time in the middle of the night, with no moon up, that Frank was suddenly startled from his sleep by a mysterious sound. He sat bolt upright. Ahead of him a pair of glaring balls of green fire danced!

He realized that some one else was at his side, and saw, from the corner of his eye, Lanky Wallace staring at the same thing.

The pairs of fire-balls moved slightly, then one went out as the other moved, and then they both showed up again.

Stealthily, very slowly, Frank reached for his rifle, his eyes on the balls of fire.

He got the rifle steadily to his shoulder, took careful aim, and pulled the trigger.

Crack!

Instantly the balls of fire disappeared—and the other two boys awoke!