Part 18 (1/2)

”I noticed a bowling alley next door, Phil,” announced Roger. ”If we can't do anything else to-day we can bowl a few games. That will be fine exercise.”

”Do the girls know about bowling?” questioned Ben.

”Not very much,” answered Dave. ”Laura has bowled a few games, I believe. But it will be fun to teach them, if we don't find anything better to do.”

The boys walked through the small lobby of the hotel and into the smoking room. Here several men were congregated, all talking about the storm and the prospects of getting away.

”The snow is nearly two feet deep on the level,” said one man; ”but the wind has carried it in all directions so that while the road is almost bare in some spots there are drifts six and eight feet high in others.”

”Looks as if we were snowed in good and proper,” returned another man.

”I wanted to get to one of those stores across the way, and I had about all I could do to make it. In one place I got into snow up to my waist, and it was all I could do to get out of it.”

”Doesn't look like much of a chance to get away from here,” observed Roger.

”We are booked to stay right where we are,” declared Phil; ”so we might as well make the best of it.”

”Let us go out to the barn and see what Wash Bones has to say,”

suggested Dave. ”He has probably been watching the storm and knows just how things are on the road.”

”All right,” returned Ben. ”But I am going to put on my cap and overcoat before I go. It must be pretty cold out there even though they do keep the doors shut.”

”Yes, I'll get my cap and overcoat, too,” said Dave. Phil and Roger had taken their things up to the third floor the night before, and now had their overcoats over their arms.

The large rack in the hallway of the hotel was well filled with garments of various kinds, so that Ben had to make quite a search before he found his own things. In the meantime, Dave was also hunting, but without success.

”That's mighty queer,” remarked the latter. ”I don't seem to see my cap or my overcoat anywhere.”

”Oh, it must be there, Dave,” cried his chum. ”Just take another look.

Maybe the overcoat has gotten folded under another.”

Both youths made a thorough search, which lasted so long that Phil and Roger came into the hallway to ascertain what was keeping them.

”Dave can't find his overcoat or his cap,” explained Ben. ”We've hunted everywhere for them.”

”Didn't you take them up-stairs last night?” questioned Phil.

”No, I left them on this rack. And Ben left his things here, too,”

replied Dave. ”I can't understand it at all;” and he looked worried.

”Maybe Laura saw them and took them upstairs, thinking they wouldn't be safe here,” suggested Roger.

”I hardly think that, Roger. However, as the coat and cap are not here, maybe I'd better ask her.”

Another search for the missing things followed, Dave looking through the parlor and the other rooms on the ground floor of the hotel, and even peeping into the restaurant, where a number of folks were at breakfast. Then he went upstairs and knocked softly on the door of the room which Laura and Jessie were occupying.

”Who is it?” asked his sister, in a somewhat sleepy tone of voice.

”It's I, Laura,” answered her brother. ”I want to know if you brought my cap and overcoat upstairs last night.”

”Why, no, Dave, I didn't touch them. What is the matter--can't you find them?”