"So it's you, Carl. Why don't you come in?"
"Der door open, Pud, please. I my arrums full mit dings have."
Bud sprang from his blankets and threw the door open, admitting a cold
blast and a flurry of snow.
"Ugh!" he ejaculated, with a shudder. "Come in, yer fat wad o' Dutch.
What yer waitin' fer?"
"Someding has my hat stolen off mit my head." Carl's voice expressed
both perplexity and awe.
Evidently something unusual had happened, and Bud put on his hat and
stepped outside.
He had no sooner passed through the doorway than his own hat was
snatched from his head.
He drew his revolver, leaped into the open, and looked about him.
There was no one in sight except Carl, who was standing near him with
his arms full of blankets and bundles.
Carl could not have played the trick on him, and there was not wind
enough to have blown the hat away. Anyhow, it had been snatched from his
head by a hand and not by the wind.
There was something uncanny about this.
It was still light enough to see out in the open, and the snow-covered
ground reflected light enough to have discovered an intruder had one
been there.
Bud ran around the house, but could find no person, and there were no
tracks of a man's foot in the snow.
"Jumpin' sand hills, but that's queer," said Bud, coming back to where
Carl was still standing in the snow before the door, staring about in a
bewildered way.
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