Part 19 (1/2)

”No other signs of anybody having been here?”

”Not that I could see,” said Hedden.

”Strange--if anybody had been in here who had a key. Have you seen Ike M'Graw?”

”No, sir. The men who brought us up here said the man had gone away--had been away for a week, sir--but would return tonight.”

”Then he was not the person who built the fire the embers of which you found. The coals would not have burned for a week. He is the person who has a key to the Lodge, and n.o.body else.”

”Yes, sir.”

”Whoever got in here, of course, either departed when you came, Hedden, or before. Did you notice any tracks about the house?”

”Plenty, sir. But only of beasts and birds.”

”Ah-ha! Are the animals as tame as that up here?”

”There were footprints that the men from town a.s.sured me were those of a big cat of some kind, and there were dog footprints; only the men said they were those of wolves. They say the beasts are getting hungry early in the season, because of the deep and early snow, sir.”

”Humph! Better say nothing to the children about that,” said Mr.

Howbridge. ”Of course, this party's being here will keep any marauding animals at a distance. We won't care for that sort of visitor.”

”I think there is no danger, sir. I will tell the chef to throw out no table-sc.r.a.ps, and to feed that big dog we have brought in the back kitchen. Then there will be nothing to attract the wild creatures to the door.”

”Good idea,” Mr. Howbridge said. ”And I will warn them all tomorrow not to leave the vicinity of the Lodge alone. When Ike M'Graw arrives we shall be all right. This vicinity is his natural habitat, and he will know all that's right to do, and what not to do.”

Mr. Howbridge still looked about the room. The thing that interested him most was the mystery of the intruder who had built the fire in the grate. Mrs. Birdsall's sitting-room! And the lawyer knew from hearing the story repeated again and again by the sorrowing widower, that the woman had been brought in here after her fall from the horse and had died upon the couch in the corner of the room.

He wondered.

Meanwhile the crowd of young people below were comforted with tea and crackers before they went to their bedrooms to change their clothes for dinner. Mr. Howbridge had brought the customs of his own formal household to Red Deer Lodge, and, knowing how particular the lawyer was, Ruth Kenway had warned the others to come prepared to dress for dinner.

Mrs. MacCall, after drinking her third cup of tea, went off with the chief maid to view the house and learn something about it. The Scotch woman was very capable and had governed Mr. Howbridge's own home before she went to the old Corner House to keep straight the household lines there for the Kenways.

Her situation here at the Lodge was one between the serving people and the family; but the latter, especially the smaller girls, would have been woeful indeed had Mrs. MacCall not sat at the table with them and been one of the family as she was at home in Milton.

The girls were shown to their two big rooms on the second floor, and found them warm and cozy. They were heated by wood fires in drum-stoves. Ike M'Graw, general caretaker of the Lodge, had long since piled each wood box in the house full with billets of hard wood.

Neale and Luke and Sammy were given another room off the gallery above the main hall. There they washed, and freshened up their apparel, and otherwise made themselves more presentable. Even Sammy looked a little less grubby than usual when they came down to the big fire again.

It was black dark outside by this time. The wind was still moaning in the forest, and when they went to the door the fugitive snowflakes drifted against one's cheek.

”Going to be a bad night, I guess,” Neale said, coming back from an observation, just as the girls came down the stairway. ”Oh, look! see 'em all fussed up!”

The girls had shaken out their furbelows, and now came down smiling and preening not a little. Mr. Howbridge appeared in a Tuxedo coat.

”Wish I'd brought my 'soup to nuts,'” admitted Luke Shepard. ”This is going to be a dress-up affair. I thought we were coming into the wilderness to rough it.”

”All the roughing it will be done outside the house, young man,” said Cecile to her brother. ”You must be on your very best behavior inside.”

Hedden's a.s.sistant announced dinner, and Mr. Howbridge offered his arm to Mrs. MacCall, who had just descended the stairway in old-fas.h.i.+oned rustling black silk.

Immediately Luke joined the procession with Ruth on his arm, and Neale followed with Agnes, giggling of course. Cecile made Sammy walk beside her, and he was really proud to do this, only he would not admit it.