e," agreed the second man. "Anyhow he isn't around."

"That's true enough."

With their fish the young people started back in the ice boat, Will
finding out, by talking with the other lumbermen, that Paddy Malone had
not been seen in some time.

The fresh fish were indeed a welcome addition to the table that night,
the boys having their share. "We'll have to try this sport to-morrow,"
decided Will, when he had cleaned off his plate the second time.
"They're great!"

Accordingly the next day the boys chopped holes in the ice, and with
baited hooks attached to springy branches, set in the ice, with a piece
of cloth, that, by its bobbing gave indication of a bite, planned for a
big catch. The visual signals enabled each lad to set several hooks.

But either they were not in the right place, or they did not use the
right bait, for two small fish were all they caught.

"Those lumbermen have them hypnotized," complained Will. "I'm going up
to their fishing grounds to-morrow."

The other boys said they would accompany him. This left the girls to
their own devices, since they did not care to go with the boys.

"Who's for a walk in the woods?" asked Mollie, and they all were eager
to come along. In their short skirts and leggings they found it easy
going, even in comparatively deep snow.

"Oh, it's great to be an outdoor girl!" exulted Betty, as she trudged
along beside Grace.

"Yes. I wonder if Carrie Norton, the girl who fell out of the tree,
would like this?" ventured Amy.

"She was a real outdoor girl, too," observed Mollie, reflectively.

Carrie, however, who figured largely in the third book of this series,
had gone, as has been said, to live with a distant relative.
Occasionally she wrote to her young friends.

The girls had gone about a mile, or perhaps two, from their camp, and
were nearing the debatable ground where Mr. Jallow claimed a valuable
strip of timber. Grace was just about to warn her companions not to
trespass, when Amy called attention to something in the woods a short
distance off.

"See the cute little log cabin!" she cried. "Let's see if any one lives
there."

"If they do they must be frozen!" declared Mollie. "It is full of chinks
and cracks."

They approached closer to it. It was not like any log cabin they had
ever seen, consisting, as they could see through the open door, of but
one room.

"It's probably only a hunter's lean-to," said Betty. "Don't go too
close, Amy."

But Be