“I’d certainly like to know what’s in that thing,” Ken whispered.
“I’ll go in and ask him,” Sandy offered. “Maybe he’ll give me a cup of coffee and a doughnut while I’m there. Even if he slit my throat afterward,” he added, “it would almost be worth it.”
The man had finished the doughnut. He took his feet off the box rim and let his chair come down on its front legs with a thump. Still holding his coffee mug in one hand, he reached for a poker with the other, shoved aside the stove lid and shook down the fire.
A shower of brilliant sparks flew out of the chimney above the boys’ heads, immediately followed by a burst of thick acrid black smoke. The wind twisted it down onto them in a choking cloud.
They buried their faces in their arms, trying to protect themselves against the cabin wal
