guided the Fire Bird into a
narrow lane.

"We'll try old Hemlock Grove first. There should be plenty of green stuff
there," replied Ned.

"Yes, and if I mistake not," added Nat, "there is in those woods a
cabin--old Hume's place. We may be able to lay out there for dinner."

"Goody!" exclaimed Roger, whose eyes had been continually on the big
basket of stuff which Norah, the good-natured cook at The Cedars, had put
up for the boys.

"Right," concluded Ned; "there's a chimney and all. Just the place for a
layout. Let me see, where did that shanty used to stand?"

"I see something like a cabin over there," said Joe, pointing to a corner
in the woods where great oak trees towered above all others in the grove.
Even in December some brown leaves clung to these giants of the forest,
that now rustled a gentle welcome to the boys in the Fire Bird.

Ned swung up as close as the wagon road would allow, and presently the
party had "disembarked," and were scampering through the woods toward the
abandoned hut of an old woodchopper.

"Great catch!" exclaimed Tom. "If there is one thing I like it is an
outdoor hut with an indoor place on a cold day."

"We've got a bag of charcoal, you know," Roger reminded them, for Norah
had secretly given that part of the equipment to Roger personally.

"That's right," assented Ned, "Then run over to the car and fetch it.
Norah is an all-right girl, isn't she?"

"I would call her a peach, whoever she may be," added Roland as he
gathered up some dry bits of wood on his way to the cabin.

"Norah's our cook," declared Roger with an implied rebuke in his voice,
for it did seem to him every one should have been aware of that important
fact.

"Beg your pardon," said Roland. "I have a profound respect for such a cook
as your refreshing Norah--I say refreshing advisedly," making a grab at
the basket Joe and Nat were carrying.

"Here we are," called Tom, who was somewhat in advance. "And the door is
not barred."

Roger was back with the bag of charcoal, and now they all entered the old
hut. The place had evidently been long ago left to the squirrels and wood
birds, but it was clean, save for the refuse of dry leaves and bits of
bark, remnants of other winters, when the broken windows accepted what the
winds chose to hurl in and scatter about the old woodchopper's cabin.

"Hurrah!" shouted Roger, inadvertently spilling his prized bag of
charcoal.

"We don't light the fire there," said Nat