and were crossing the clearing. The woman was the first to hear them, and she lifted her head with a swift motion, and her black eyes seemed to glitter like those of an animal who was trapped. She spoke sharply in French to her companion, who dropped a plate and rose to his feet, his hand running backward toward his hunting knife. The woman looked around at the rifle.

“Hi!” greeted Mac, not very well impressed with the manner of the two campers. “May we come into your camp?”

“Look like you in ze camp now,” said the man, without a smile. “What you want?”

“We’re camping just over the hill,” Mac explained, his eyes on the woman, who had picked up the rifle. She was holding it muzzle down in the crook of her arm, but her eyes stared at them in a way that neither of the boys relished. “We found that we had forgotten to bring any coffee with us, so we saw your fire and came to ask if you could sell us any.”

“Sorry if we startled you,” Tim added.

“What you want?” the man asked again. The boys looked at him with some astonishment.

“I just told you,” Mac answered. “We came to buy some coffee.”

“You not come to buy coffee,” the man said, his chin coming forward in a way that was far from comforting. “You want somet’ing else, eh? You follow us, eh?”

“We did not,” Tim denied, indignantly. “We’re camping up here and we saw your fire, that is all.”

The woman spoke to her companion. “Pierre, listen!” She launched into rapid French, and when she had finished he shrugged his shoulders. She turned to the boys suddenly. “We not got coffee. We not got anyt’ing. You go back to your camp. Go back!”

She made a quick motion with the rifle, though she did not lift the muzzle, which still pointed downward. There was no mistaking the implied threat or the fact that the boys were not wanted. Mac felt angry at their unfriendly reception, but he felt it best to retreat at once.

“All right,” he said. “We only wanted to buy a little coffee. We weren’t going to ask you to give it to us. Come along, Tim.”

“We got no coffee. We got not’ing,” the woman repeated, and the twins turned and walked off, their eyes on the alert for any sudden move. But the woodsman and his wife stood by the flickering fire motionless.

No word was spoken until they were around the rock bluff, and then the boys looked at each other. “What do you make of that?” Tim asked.

“Well, I’ll be hanged if I know,” Mac cried. “Wasn’t that the limit? They acted as if we were a couple of criminals.”

“That’s probably what they are,” Tim advanced. Mac came to a halt.

“Why, of course! He said something about following them. I’ll bet those two are a couple of bad eggs. Maybe we’re lucky we got away from them.”

Tim urged him on. “Let’s get back to the camp,” he said, looking over his shoulder. “See what the other boys think about it.”

When they stalked into camp a delightful smell of pork and beans greeted them. Kent was piling fresh wood on the fire, and Barry was stirring a fork around among the beans. The sled had been cleaned off and was ready to serve as a table.

“Hello, what luck?” Barry hailed. “Get any coffee?”

“All we got was an order to get out of the camp pronto,” Mac answered.

“Almost got ordered off with a rifle,” Tim added, stooping down and warming his hands over the cook fire.

“What’s that?” Barry asked, sharply.

“Was it Wolf’s camp?” Kent inquired.

“No, it wasn’t. This is what happened.” Mac related the story, and the other two boys listened with interest and astonishment.

“Well, you certainly got a cool reception,” was Kent’s comment.

“Cool!” exploded Tim. “It almost froze us!”

Barry gazed off in the timber in the direction of the hostile camp. “That’s a mighty queer way for anyone to act when you just go and ask them to sell you coffee.”

“Yes, and they had coffee, too,” Mac avowed. “I saw the jar of it. Did you, Tim?”

His brother nodded. “As plain as day, right there beside the fire. But they acted as though we were poison.”

They were still discussing it when they sat down to eat, and it furnished the main topic until bedtime. Gradually they drifted to other things and forgot the incident. They did not stay up long after supper. The cold was severe and did not encourage sitting around for more than an hour after the meal. After cutting a big supply of firewood they decided to turn in.

“The good old sleeping bags will serve us well tonight,” Kent said, as they prepared to turn in.

Barry brought a pan of melted snow from the fire. “Here is warm water to wash in,” he announced. “Hurry up and get at it, or it will freeze.”

Tim was the first one to wash, and he toweled his face and neck with chattering teeth. “Good night, but this is cold business,” he ejaculated. “Too icy to wash behind the ears tonight.”

Mac pulled off his shoes and shirt and sat on the sleeping bag while he washed. Then with a yell he slipped inside the warm lining of the bag, doubling up. “Boy, doesn’t this feel good!”

It did not take the others long to get into their bags. Barry and Kent shared one tent, and the twins had the other. After a few words they went to sleep, and utter stillness settled over the winter camp.

Several hours later Barry awoke and crawled out of the bag, shivering in the cold air. The fire was low, and he wanted to keep it going so that they could make a quick blaze in the morning. He pulled on his shoes and slipped into his Mackinaw. His hat followed, and then he stepped up and out of the tent, rubbing his hands.

He halted with a little shock. A short man in corduroy trousers and woodsman’s boots stood at the edge of the clearing, looking around the camp. At sight of Barry he crouched and fairly sprang into the bushes, beating a retreat from the place. His form had been shadowy and indistinct. Barry roused from his state of surprise.

“Here!” he called out, sharply. “What do you want? Who are you?”

There was no answer from the one who had been watching the camp. All was profoundly silent.