“Nobody would have to hunt very long around here before he found something, it seems to me,” said Bobby. “It seems as though it were the other way around, and the animals come and hunt us.”
“Well, that doesn’t matter, as long as they don’t get us,” said Lee, “and I guess we’re as safe in this cabin as we would be sleeping at Rockledge.”
“Yes, or safer, in one way,” said Fred. “If the cabin should catch fire, all we’d have to do would be to open the door and walk out, while when the school caught fire we didn’t have it quite so easy.”
“That’s true enough,” agreed Bobby. “But while we’re talking of this place being safe, I vote we fasten the door better than it is now. There’s nothing but a latch holding it, and I’d feel safer it we could make it a little more secure.”
“We might jam a chair against it,” suggested Fred, “the floor is pretty uneven, and we could jam the chair in between one of the planks and the door, so that an elephant would have a hard job getting in.”
“That’s certainly the way we want it,” said Lee, laughing. “The harder it is to get that door open, the better I’ll sleep.”
“Wow!” exclaimed Fred, with a tremendous yawn. “Speaking of sleep, let’s fix things up and go to sleep. I feel as though I could win the long distance sleeping championship without half trying.”
“You’ll have to go some to beat me out,” laughed Bobby, scrambling to his feet. “Let’s see if Fred’s plan to fasten the door will work.”
“Nothing surer in the world,” boasted Fred, “just watch me.”
Just in front of the door one floor board was warped so that it was perhaps half an inch higher than those alongside it. The cabin was equipped with three rude but very strong chairs, and seizing one of these, Fred jammed it in between the door and the uneven board so that any one or anything attempting to enter would have to tear up the floor before it could gain admittance.
“There!” exclaimed Fred, stepping back to view his handiwork, “I guess any one that wants to come in here now will have to ask our permission first.”
The windows of the little cabin were small and criss-crossed with stout scantlings, so there was no chance of any denizen of the woods making them an unwelcome visit by means of that route. It was Lee who suggested the only remaining possibility.