"I got two hundred and three dollars left," said Early Ann, averting her eyes. "I feel kind of wicked when I think how I've squandered ninety-seven dollars. But I ain't going to spend one more cent until the day I'm married. I've got to have something left to help set up housekeeping." "Who you going to marry?" Peter asked. "Oh, I got a fellow," lied Early Ann. She wanted to egg him on, and she was a trifle disappointed at the casual way in which he had taken it. 2 One windy November afternoon when Stud and Gus were cutting firewood in the grove beside the lake, Stud looked across the bay and was surprised to see smoke streaming from the chimney of the old hunting lodge on Lake House Point. The blizzard, which had flung ten-foot waves against the crumbling cliff, had stripped the leaves from oak and elm and maple, sent them in cascades down every ravine and gully, left the old building naked to the eye. "Looks like we got a neighbor," said Stud. "Better not monkey with my mushrat traps." "What'd you do?" "Pepper his behind with rock salt from the old ten gauge." "You talk big," Stud admitted. "Why don't you mosey over and see who it is?" "Not me," said Gus. "It ain't healthy." Stud grinned. He knew that Gus would rather sleep in a cemetery or break a looking-glass than set foot on Lake House Point. Long ago the limestone bluff had been the stronghold of Indians. Later a small colony of Mormons, hated alike for their polygamy and their horse-thieving, had made the Point their hide-away until chased from the country by the indignant settlers. In the eighties a club of rich Chicago duck hunters had put up the present lodge where shortly before the turn of the century a bloody murder had occurred. No one went near the lodge now. The porches were drifted deep with leaves, the old boathouse was strewn in whitened planks the length of the beach. The bluff was overgrown with sumac, ivy and grapevines. Scrub oak extended from the edge of the cliff to the marsh behind the Point. Old women, children and hired hands believed implicitly that ghosts could be seen at the broken windows of the lodge and in the rotting halls and paneled rooms. Stud scoffed at all these old-wives' tales, but admitted he would rather live on his own side of the bay than on that bluff with its unpleasant memories. "Might be that feller," suggested Gus. "The one prowling around here nights?" "Might be." "Might be, but probably ain't." Possibly Gus was right. Stud had an uneasy feeling that a man by the name of Joe Valentine was living in the lodge, trapping perhaps, catching fish, stealing a few chickens.