of the others.

"Warm-say, it's _hot_, fellers!" he exclaimed, as he hastily snatched
back his hand, and commenced to blow the ends of his fingers. "Anyhow, I
guess I must 'a' just rooted out a live coal, for it burned like the
dickens."

"Well, we know one thing that we didn't before," asserted Owen.

"Two, you'd better say, for they both sting like fun," grumbled
Bandy-legs, rubbing his injured fingers vigorously.

"Yes," said Steve, "somebody's been in this old cabin, and not so very
long ago, either; for they must have made a little fire about dawn, to
fry a part of a partridge by. And if that's been all the poor critter
had for his breakfast, I'd like to wager, now, he must be hungry yet."

"I'm glad of one thing," ventured Bandy-legs.

"That you didn't get three fingers scorched; is that it?" asked Steve.

"Naw!" answered the other, indignantly, "Tell you what it is, boys; I
didn't believe much of it when they said it was ghosts up here on
Catamount Island. Now we know there ain't none around."

"Well, how do you know it, Bandy-legs?" asked Max.

"Because ghosts--whoever heard of them wanting a fire, either to cook
with, or else keep warm? Still, that awful howl we heard last night--I
keep wonderin' what it meant, fellers?"