TOM SLADE IN THE NORTH WOODS

CARRYING PART OF OUR PROVISIONS WE PROCEEDED SINGLE FILE.

TOM SLADE

IN THE NORTH WOODS

BY

PERCY KEESE FITZHUGH

Author of

THE TOM SLADE BOOKS

THE ROY BLAKELEY BOOKS

THE PEE-WEE HARRIS BOOKS

THE WESTY MARTIN BOOKS

ILLUSTRATED BY

HOWARD L. HASTINGS

Published with the approval of

THE BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA

GROSSET & DUNLAP

PUBLISHERS : : NEW YORK

Made in the United States of America

Copyright, 1925, by

GROSSET & DUNLAP

TOM SLADE IN THE NORTH WOODS

CHAPTER I—PERHAPS YOU HAVE MET BEFORE

One of the surest signs of approaching autumn in this suburban town of ours, is the reappearance in the main thoroughfares of my adventurous young friend Tom Slade after his summer sojourn in the mountains. When I see that familiar form in brown negligee attire careering down Main Street in the outlandish flivver which seems to be a very part of him, I know that Temple Camp has closed for the season, that the schools are again open, and that soon I shall be raking up dried leaves on the front lawn. The return of Tom Slade is just as much a harbinger of autumn as the coming of the first robin is a harbinger of spring.

My first glimpse of that dilapidated Ford always arouses a cheery feeling in my heart and I am not offended at the rather perfunctory wave of the hand with which Tom recognizes and greets me as he hurries by. I know that when he gets around to it he will run up to see me and beguile me with an account of the summer up at the big scout camp of which he is the very spirit.

Sometimes I think that there is no single character in this whole thriving town who would be as much regretted as Tom Slade, if he should go away. There is a breezy kind of picturesqueness about him that sets him apart and makes him a sort of local celebrity. I think I have never in my life seen him wearing a regular suit of clothes. He goes hurrying about town in the winter months quite hatless; he seems always on the go. I have seen a good many boys in this town, who were scouts not so long ago, grow up and become absorbed in the seething business of the growing community. Some of them are grown into ingratiating young fellows in banks, some are in the real estate “game” as they call it; they are all driving around in good cars and exhaling a distressing atmosphere of sophistication.

When I go into the Trust Company and am welcomed patronizingly by young Ellis Berrian I could almost choke him for his self-sufficiency. He used to caddie for me over at the Warrentown course. These white-collared young gentry are cutting a great swath and producing nothing. They buy cars on the installment plan and talk glibly about the rise in values when the new bridge shall span the Hudson.

The first I ever knew of Tom Slade was when he was a hoodlum down in Barrel Alley (since obliterated, praise be) and he got his name in our local newspaper for knocking down a heroic official who was placing the few Slade belongings in the street by way of executing a court order of eviction. Tom, then fourteen, knocked the official in the gutter—I think it was the gutter.

Then the local scout troop got hold of him and found (as the official had found) that he had an uncanny way of doing what he set his heart on doing. He made a record in scouting. His mother and father both died, and the scouts took him up to camp with them. His heroism up there brought him to the attention of Mr. John Temple, of whom this town may well be proud, and the outcome of the whole business was that Mr. Temple founded Temple Camp up in the Catskills which has grown into one of the biggest scout communities in this country.

When the war cloud broke Tom enlisted, and came back when it was over with a record that made him a celebrity in this young city. He was right then at the parting of the ways. He might have got a job in one of the banks or studied law (so I understand) on Mr. Temple’s bounty, and become another hapless member of that group of young ghouls who haunt the court-house and are sometimes driven back on real estate and title searching. It must be confessed Tom would have made a wretched lawyer. But the spirit of adventure was in him, the wind blew in his face, the woods called to him. He went up to Temple Camp and became a sort of assistant there.

I do not know exactly what are his duties, but when I visited Temple Camp a couple of years ago, he seemed to form a kind of link between the management and the scouts. He invited me up there and I hardly laid eyes on him during my whole week’s stay. All I can say is that he was always in a hurry, always hatless, and always had a group of scouts following him about. He had what none of the councilors or scoutmasters had, and that was picturesqueness. I think he is the only official up there who has anything bizarre about him. I suppose a big camp like that must have its hero, and he is that.

Temple Camp has a small office in this town, where there is a manager, a bookkeeper, and two or three girls who send out circulars and prospectuses. During the winter months, Tom identifies himself with this prosy department of the romantic scout community in the Catskills, and in the spring he is off again to get the boats in the water and repair the springboard or the observation tower, and fell trees for new cabins, and heaven knows what all. During his season in Bridgeboro I am likely to see him to talk with a dozen times more or less. He stays down at the old County Seat Hotel and comes up here for dinner occasionally. He is always welcome. Sometimes we play chess and I can always beat him at that. We talk into the wee hours.

In our fireside chats this winter we shall have more serious matters to recall than heretofore. The adventures we will discuss will seem like things seen in a dream. And when February gales whistle around the bay window in this cozy library, my little sanctum will seem the more secure and cheery because of our harrowing recollections of a wind-swept mountain in the north woods, where a wild voice that haunts me even now was drowned in the fury of the gale as it echoed in the ghostly fastnesses of that eery wilderness. We will live over again the chilling terrors of a night when wild eyes stared into mine, and clawing fingers groped toward my throat, and the wind moaned and was never still. Perhaps we may even fancy that we see the poor departed spirit that is said to haunt the neighborhood of Weir Lake over which the towering Hogback casts its brooding shadow; the wandering shade that is ever searching and never finding a living soul in whom to confide the appalling truth about the tragedy of Leatherstocking Camp.

If you would know this story as Tom and I know it, you may come here in imagination to my little sanctum, and welcome you will be. You may fancy that you have tumbled the books and papers from that littered couch before the open fire plunk on to the floor as Tom himself is wont to do. Then you may fancy that you are reclining comfortably among my numerous cushions listening to a winter’s tale about the lonely spaces of the North.

CHAPTER II—WHO IS THAT MAN?

It is now midwinter and more than a year has passed since Tom ran up here early in September to see me after his return from Temple Camp. For reasons you are to know about he did not pay me his usual call of greeting this last fall. As I think it over now it seems to me his camp must have closed early that year, for the weather was quite summery and I was sitting on the porch when I saw that dilapidated Ford of his come up the quiet street making a noise like a brass band run amuck. On the side of this gorgeous chariot is printed TEMPLE CAMP, BLACK LAKE, NEW YORK. But Temple Camp has long since repudiated this ramshackle car which completed an honorable career in mountainous and rocky by-roads. It is now Tom’s official equipage and will be, I think, till the end of time.

“Tomasso,” said I, “I wish you would park that thing around the corner; I’m afraid people will think it belongs to me.”

“What’s the matter with it?” he called from the curb. “I’m going to turn it upside down and empty the motor out of it this winter and get it ready for the Adirondack trails next spring. All she needs is a new block—and a new body. She’s going to do some stepping next summer.”

“Yes, yes, explain all that,” I said, as he breezed up onto the porch and grabbed my hand. “It’s good to see you, Tommy, old boy.”

He wore, as usual, a khaki-colored flannel shirt with trousers to match. He never bothers about a scarf and, as he scorns a hat, the breeze (especially when he is driving) plays havoc with his hair. I would say that the most bizarre detail of his attire is a belt which he says is of snakeskin. He got it from old Uncle Jeb Rushmore, the one time scout and guide on the western plains, who is now ending his days as chief scout at the big camp.

“Well, Tom,” I said; “What’s the good word?”

He sat on the railing unrolling his sleeves, as a trifling concession to social propriety, I suppose. “I’ve been trying to get up here ever since Saturday,” he said, “but we’re making a big map of the camp down at the office—it’s going to be a peach, ’bout five feet square. They’re going to photograph it down and send out copies with the spiel—you know that booklet. By the way, do you want to buy a thousand dollars’ worth of stock in a new camp? Up in the Adirondacks? Leatherstocking, how’s that for a name?”

“It’s taken from a character in Cooper’s novels, in case you don’t happen to know,” I commented dryly. And I added, “If I had a thousand dollars to throw away I’d buy you a new car.”

“Well, the name fits pretty pat,” Tom said. “Did you ever hear of Harrison McClintick, the leather king? I suppose maybe that’s why he named his camp Leatherstocking. He’s a war millionaire; he made a fortune in leather during the war.”

“Did he make leather stockings?” I asked.

“Listen to what I’m going to tell you,” said Tom, ignoring my playfulness. “I’ve just come from Mr. Temple’s⸺”

“He’s the man to see if you want a thousand dollars,” I said. “Do you wear your present regalia when you go up to Temple’s?”

“Sure, he doesn’t care,” Tom rattled on. “Listen, I want your advice and I may want some help⸺”

“Not a thousand dollars,” I said. “They’re starting a new Golf Club down at Cedarville and I’m interested in that, thank you.”

Tom extended his arms on either side of him, bracing his hands against the railing on which he sat. “Listen,” he said, “I want to tell you about something that happened this summer—I mean something I heard about. If I can get Mr. Temple interested I’m going to do something big.”

“Somehow I can’t picture you as a stock and bond salesman, Tom,” I said.

“That’s just the trouble,” he complained. “I wish I was ten years older, then maybe Mr. Temple would listen to me. But you’ll listen to me, and he’ll listen to you.”

“I’d do more for you than listen to you, Tommy, old boy,” I said. He was so breezy and enthusiastic, so fresh and wholesome in his unconventional attire, that I could not help letting a little ring of affection sound in my words. “But it would be a terrible blow to me, Tom, if you should get interested in business. To me you have always seemed the very spirit of scouting.”

“No, but listen,” he continued eagerly. “Up at camp this summer a crew of government surveyors blew in one day; they’re connected with the Geologic Survey—nice chaps, all of them. All the scouts fell for them.”

“And then?”

“Well, they were there to make a survey of Beaver Chasm up in back of the camp—you know the place.”

“You were going to take me there, but you never did,” I said. “You were building cabins instead.”

“Forget it,” said Tom. “They spent a couple of nights with us at campfire; they’ve been in the Florida Everglades and up in Alaska and down the Mississippi on levee work and gosh knows where all. Well last summer, before they hit Temple Camp neighborhood, they were surveying up in the Adirondacks around Lake Placid. After that they hit it for Ausable Chasm. About ten miles east of the boundary of the Adirondack Park—I know just about where it is—they got into a pretty punk road that led around north of a mountain. Hogback—ever hear of it? Well, they drove along and all of a sudden the road ended—plunk. Right in the middle of the woods. That’s the way it is with a lot of roads up there in the Adirondacks. Well, there was a trail, a sort of continuation of the road. Of course they couldn’t drive, but they hiked in about a mile or so and ran right into a camp—now wait!”

“I’m all ears,” I said.

“They were in one of those rich men’s camps—those places are all through the Adirondacks, you know. There was a lake about half a mile across, a fine hunting lodge—big chimney-place and everything. Yes, I’ve seen it myself! I took a run up there before I came home. The hunting lodge is, oh, maybe, fifty by a hundred, all rough stone. Outbuildings and everything! Regular millionaire’s camp!”

“Go on,” I said, laughing at his enthusiasm. “Did you meet the millionaire?”

“Nah, he wasn’t there; the place is for sale. There were just a couple of game wardens bunking there when the surveyors saw the place. When I was there week before last there wasn’t a soul. But I saw a deer—saw two of ’em. So you see it’s not much like Times Square. Oh man alive, that’s some wilderness up there. Why, when I went back to Temple Camp I thought I was on Broadway.

“So I didn’t learn anything when I was there, only I saw the place. Oh boy, what a place for trout fishing—regular mountain streams, you know, rocks and everything. Well, now here’s what the surveyors told me—I’ll give you an idea of the place afterwards.”

“Any golf up there?” I coyly ventured.

“There you go with your golf!” he hurried on. “No, there’s no golf. But if you want to get your shoes shined or your suit dry cleaned—you old front porch shark—you can go to Plattsburg about twenty miles away, over the mountains.”

“Do the buses run often?” I asked.

He ignored my query and hurried on. “Well, now that camp is owned by Harrison McClintick who made millions in leather during the war. He made holsters for pistols, and leather belts, and with the odds and ends he made leather buttons, and the strips that couldn’t be used for leather buttons or puttee laces, he made into shoelaces. By the time he got through with a leather hide there wasn’t enough left to clog up a fountain pen.”

“Fancy that,” I commented.

“Yes sir; well, to make a long story short, that place, Leatherstocking Camp, is for sale, and it can be bought cheap. Now wait a minute, I’m going to tell you something—keep still.”

“Proceed,” I said with quiet dignity.

“Now what do you say to that place for a scout camp? You’ve heard a lot of talk—Mr. Temple himself started it—about a training camp for scoutmasters. There’s the spot, made to order! What I want you to do is talk to Mr. Temple about it, so as he’ll talk with the local council—maybe the national council.”

I am afraid that I must have looked very practical and sober to poor Tom. I remember laying my open hands finger to finger with the first fingers against my pursed lips as I contemplated him rather dubiously. “Want me to speak to Mr. Temple?” I queried ruefully.

“Sure, why not?”

“Hmph,” I mused. “But tell me, Tommy boy, why does Mr. Harrison McClintick, the leather king millionaire, want to sell his romantic camp in the wilderness?”

“Now you’re talking,” said Tom. “Listen⸺”

“Let’s go indoors and listen,” I said, rising.

“There was a tragedy up there,” Tom said.

“Well!” I commented. And then, happening to glance out toward the street, I said, “Do you know that man standing near your car, Tom?”

“He looks like a hobo,” Tom said.

He did indeed; I think he was the most dubious looking person that I ever beheld. His clothing was in the last stages of wear, and he had a scraggly beard which somehow suggested neglect of shaving rather than a preference for that style of adornment. At the distance from which I saw him, he might have been either young or old. I suppose no man with a beard looks very young. More than once he had glanced furtively toward the porch. However, I had not thought it worth while to interrupt Tom’s eager narrative. But now that we were going indoors I called attention to him.

“He can hardly have designs on your car,” I observed ironically, as we sauntered into the house.

Little did I dream of the part that this loitering stranger was to play in our two lives. I soon forgot him in the appalling story which my young friend proceeded to tell me. Yet already that prowling figure was cast in the drama in which Tom and I were to play our parts. Already the springs of action were moving which were later to produce a thrilling drama at lonely Leatherstocking Camp.

CHAPTER III—A TRAGIC EPISODE

Seated comfortably in my library, Tom at once plunged into what I suppose might be called the human interest side of his story. I must confess I am not greatly interested in leather, nor even in millionaires’ camps. Nor was I altogether carried off my feet by Tom’s vision of a new camp. But I listened with rapt attention to his account of the tragic incident which had made Leatherstocking Camp a place of bitter memory to its owner.

“The reason why he wants to get rid of it,” Tom said, “is because he can’t bear the sight of it; he wants to put it out of his life; doesn’t ever want to hear of it again. Those game wardens up there told the surveyors all about it. Last year Mr. McClintick and his son and a man who was an old friend—Weston, I think his name was—were up there duck shooting. Well, one morning young McClintick got up early and went out to take a swim in the lake. It happened that Mr. Weston was out early, too, looking for ducks. I guess it was pretty early, and misty. Anyway, Mr. Weston saw a dark object moving through the water out in the middle of the lake. He thought it was a duck and he aimed his gun and shot at it.”

I drew a quick breath. “It wasn’t young McClintick?”

“It was young McClintick.”

“Heavens!” I said. “That was terrible.”

Tom paused before continuing. I could only shake my head, drawing a long breath and repeating, “Terrible—terrible!”

“It was just another of those fatal accidents that happen in the gaming season,” Tom said. “Most every year you read of some such thing.”

I shook my head; his recital had almost unnerved me. “No, it was horrible,” I mused aloud. “I never read of another accident just like that—no. I’ve heard of a man aiming at a deer and shooting a comrade somewhere beyond. But never anything like this. I think the poor man must have gone crazy afterward.”

“Well,” said Tom, “the story as I heard it from the surveyors was that he did go to pieces. When he shot at the object, suddenly there was a kind of splash and something reached up; he thought it was an arm. Well sir, he wouldn’t let himself believe that he had⸺”

“Awful, frightful,” I said, shudderingly. “Tom,” I added, “I don’t know whether I feel sorrier for the man or for the father. How would you feel in the man’s place?”

Tom shook his head. “The game wardens up there told my friends, the surveyors, that Mr. Weston couldn’t bring himself to go into the lodge and see if young McClintick was there asleep. He knew the old man never went in the lake and that there wasn’t anybody else for miles around. You see there were just three of them there. I understood Mr. Weston was an old friend of Mr. McClintick. He did think that maybe a game warden or a fire-ranger had happened into the neighborhood and gone in the water. All he had to do was to go into the lodge and see if young McClintick was there in his bed. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He just waited around, all gone to pieces, for an hour or so.”

“I would say that must have been the most terrible half hour that ever passed in any human life,” I reflected. “Well, what then?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Tom said. “Of course, both he and Mr. McClintick knew the worst before long. It sort of broke up the friendship. Naturally would, don’t you think so? Yet I guess the old man wasn’t—that is, didn’t exactly hold it against him.”

“Just an accident,” I mused. And Tom and I sat silent for a few moments, both musing.

“Just an accident,” he said. “They didn’t succeed in getting the body for several weeks; it was caught in an old seine at the bottom of the lake. I understand the poor old fellow thought the world of his son. He just went down to his place in Long Branch and got through with it somehow. He’s got a big place down there, I understand, and another in Newport. Lives in New York winters; has a mansion there too, I suppose. Poor old gent, they said he cared more about his Leatherstocking Camp than all his other places put together. But he won’t go there now; won’t look at the place; won’t hear about it. Just wants to sell it and he won’t haggle about the price. I suppose fifteen or twenty thousand bucks would buy the whole outfit. Oh, boy, that’s some wonderful place! I was telling Mr. Temple all about it. He just patted me on the shoulder and said he’d have to talk with the Scout people about it. I think he was just letting me down easy. But there’s a chance! There’s the place for a training camp for scoutmasters! Take it or leave it—but there’s the spot! There won’t be another bargain counter chance like that, not till Gabriel blows his horn—no sir!”

“Did you talk to Mr. Temple like that?” I queried.

“Yes, and he said, ‘It’s always good to see you, Tommy.’”

“Tom,” I said, “do you know, if I were that man—Weston, was it?—do you know, I think I’d feel worse than if I had murdered. You see a murderer is defective, he doesn’t see straight, his mind isn’t right, he has no imagination, he doesn’t suffer remorse. A man who has deliberately killed doesn’t suffer because he’s abnormal.”

“Highbrow stuff?” Tom commented.

“But a perfectly normal man who takes careful aim and shoots another to death, in a ghastly accident⸺”

“I know,” Tom said.

“What must be his feelings?” I mused. “I think I would be a complete wreck after that. I think I would be forever haunted by the thought of my ghastly blunder. After all, the most horrible thing may be just a mistake. I wonder how Mr. Weston was affected.” For a few moments I sat musing; I could not think of the possibilities of that deserted camp. I could only think of the tragic occurrence which cast its shadow over it. To go there after poor Mr. McClintick had turned his grief-wrung face from it forever would seem almost like wearing a dead man’s shoes.

Tom aroused me out of my reverie by saying, “Sure, I suppose he was broken—naturally. But what I’m thinking about now is getting hold of that property—just wait till you see it—and starting it as a scout camp. Why Mr. Temple made a speech up at Temple Camp only this summer and said what a wonderful thing it would be to have a sort of training camp for scoutmasters. Goodness knows, a lot of them need it. And now here’s a millionaire’s camp in the wilds of the Adirondacks that can be had almost for the asking⸺”

“Oh, hardly that, Tommy,” I said. “Besides, it would cost money to put it in shape. You can’t turn a rich man’s hunting lodge into a scout camp overnight, you know. You’d have to build shacks and a dormitory; you’d have either to build or transport boats and canoes there; you’d have to spend a lot of money, in short. According to your account this place is in the wilderness. Mr. Temple is a very rich man, my boy; but he’s also a very shrewd and practical man.”

“Well, talk is cheap,” Tom complained. “But here’s a chance.”

“Oh, you shouldn’t talk like that about Mr. Temple,” I said. “Mr. Temple is as good as his word every time, and you know it. For my part—maybe I’m more sentimental than you—I’d have a kind of a queer feeling about the place. Sort of spooky—no?”

“Sure not,” Tom laughed. “Why, two boys have lost their lives at Temple Camp since the place opened up.”

“Well, I guess you’re right at that,” I confessed. “Now I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” I added rather more briskly, for to tell you the truth the story Tom had told affected me so keenly that I found it hard to think of any other phase of the matter. Perhaps that is because I am a writer and am apt to see the dramatic element of a thing to the exclusion of everything else. “I’ll go up and see Mr. Temple; he can’t do more than throw me out. He and I have one thing in common anyway, that’s golf⸺”

“And scouting.”

“Yes, and scouting. I’ll tell him I think the more scout camps there are, the better. I’ll tell him I think that his own idea about a training camp for scoutmasters is a bully idea. And I’ll tell him I believe in you; that I think you know more about the real outdoor stuff than anybody this side of Mars. Of course, I can’t put myself in the position of asking him to start and endow a new camp. But I’ll sound him out, and I think I’m old enough so that he won’t just pat me on the back.”

“You’re young enough,” Tom said with spirit. “All you need is to sleep outdoors in the summer.”

“Thank you, I have a home to sleep in,” I said.

“And if we get this thing started, you’re going to come up there,” he declared.

“And while you’re careering around doing a hundred things at once, I’ll have to wander around the lake and think about the tragedy that made the new camp possible.”

“Oh, try to forget it,” said Tom.

“And there’s another thing,” I said. “What would Temple Camp ever do without you?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t cut out Temple Camp,” he exclaimed. “I’d just take a summer off to get this new camp started.”

I just shook my head. I’d give a good deal to have his fine spirit and energy.

CHAPTER IV—THE NEW VENTURE

I wish not to intrude into this narrative. Of the extraordinary adventures which I am now to record, Tom was unquestionably the hero. But since I am a trustee of the new camp and was present there in the exciting season of its formation, I suppose I am the logical one to group these remarkable incidents into a story. As for Tom, he cannot remain seated long enough to write a letter.

You must bear with me a little time while I tell briefly the somewhat humdrum details incident to the launching of this enterprise. Yet even here was a spice of mystery. I went up that very evening to see our town’s most benevolent and distinguished citizen, Mr. John Temple. I know him, as every one in town knows him; perhaps a little better than some, for I have met him on the golf course. He is none of your open-handed story book philanthropists, tossing princely sums here and there, one of those scout angels who rewards the juvenile hero with a thousand dollars for a brave deed. But he is a very rich man, and a vastly generous one. I have always believed that the conspicuous success of Temple Camp is to be ascribed, not only to his liberal endowment of it, but to his wise and painstaking oversight. It is his pet and his pride.

Well, I went up to see him and on my way there a rather singular thing happened. Scarcely had I reached the first corner when I was accosted by a man whom I thought to be the same one that I had noticed loitering (or at least pausing) in front of my house during Tom’s call. To this day, I do not know for a certainty whether or not he was the same man. If he was, he must have put on an overcoat in the interval. Notwithstanding his scraggly beard he appeared rather more presentable than the man I had noticed near Tom’s car. Yet I thought he was the same man.

Be that as it might, he addressed me by name and asked me if I knew whether the Adirondack camp property, as he called it, had been sold.

“May I ask who you are?” I said with intentional curtness.

As I did not pause he fell in step with me. “No offense,” he said. “I heard young Mr. Slade was interested in buying it. I’d like to get a job up that way; my health ain’t so good.”

“I’m afraid that wouldn’t be much of a recommendation,” I said rather coldly. “And what makes you think that I should know anything about it?”

“I heard it was for sale,” he stammered confusedly.

At the corner I paused just long enough to say, “You had better consult those who are interested. The matter is none of my business, and none of yours. Do you belong here in town?”

The man was obviously embarrassed; he had evidently counted on a better success in chance acquaintanceship. He fell behind me and soon I hit on an explanation of his presumption. I came to the conclusion that he was an aggressive real estate man who was after information about a transaction from which he might squeeze a profit. I thought he might represent interests which would be keen to make a quick purchase of the camp property if a prompt resale were assured.

I did not mention this incident in my talk with Mr. Temple, for I wished not to give him the impression that I was trying to urge him to a quick decision. But I was very glad indeed that he seemed really interested in the property and disposed to act promptly. I had thought of my call as in the nature of a favor to Tom, but had feared it would be unavailing. But I was quite reassured. Tom thinks it was I who did the trick, but frankly, I believe that Mr. Temple had the matter in mind when I called on him.

Well, to make an end of this business phase of the story, Mr. Temple told me he intended to get in touch with his broker at once, and also with the national scout people. Mr. Gerry and Mr. Donaldson, of our local council, went up with Tom and had a look at the property. And later, Mr. Temple himself went with old Uncle Jeb Rushmore, the good old scout of Temple Camp. I kept out of the business until the new camp was actually opened and then I became a trustee.

As soon as the deal had gone through (that was in January) Tom went up to the property with a couple of young men from this town to stay there through the spring and try to get the place in some sort of shape for the summer. One of these young men was the fellow they call Skipper Tim who is steward down at the boat club during the boating season. He was well chosen. The other was Totterson Burke—Tot Burke, they call him. He’s freight agent here in town and used to be in the life saving service along the coast. I may say here that I think Tom Slade’s circle of available friends represents every out-of-the-ordinary and adventurous calling on the face of the earth. They went up in Tom’s flivver, of course, stopping at Temple Camp to get some tools needed in felling trees and building cabins. Here they picked up Piker Pete, who is fire-lookout up on Cloudburst Mountain in back of Temple Camp, and took him along. I understand he is called Piker because he scans the country and not because he is in any sense stingy.

As for myself, I did not go till later, when I went up with Brent Gaylong. That was in the summer. And before that something very startling happened.

CHAPTER V—A NEIGHBOR’S STORY

Once the proposition of the new camp was settled, and Tom and his hardy adventurers had gone to brave the winter in those howling wilds, I forgot all about the enterprise which now seems likely to mean so much to scouting. Tom wrote me twice, mailing his letters at Harkness on the Ausable River, about eight miles east of the camp. He told me that they had a storehouse and two cabins up. His letters breathed a warmth of enthusiasm which I suppose helped to palliate the rigors of the biting winter. I inferred that they were working hard and withal having a good time of it. He wrote that the game wardens made free with his hospitality and were always welcome with their fireside yarns.

I must confess that when I thought of the spot at all it was as the deserted camp of the bereaved leather king; not all the pother about the new enterprise could drive from my memory the vivid picture of the tragic accident which had occurred there. To me, that would always cast a shadow over the place. That fine youth (fond of sport and the great outdoors, as I pictured him, and with a vast fortune to make the path of life easy) shot through the head as he took an early morning swim in the lake! And the bereaved father, to whom the spot was now become a place of sorrowful memory! It seemed almost like taking advantage of his grief to buy the property at a sacrifice figure. But Mr. Temple only laughed at me when I spoke to this effect.

Now toward the end of the winter I did something which I suppose was a trifle presumptuous. This was, I think, a couple of months before I went up to the camp. I have a little place in Cedarville, a slight distance inland from Long Branch which, as you know, is on our New Jersey coast. Here I while away the summer months playing golf. At that time the Cedarville Golf Club was having a campaign for membership, for its exceptionally fine course had begun to attract the attention of golf enthusiasts in other communities.

Well, not to make a long story of it, I was struck by an inspiration. Tom had mentioned that Mr. Harrison McClintick had a place at Long Branch. Here would be a fine name to juggle with in our campaign. Surely he played golf; all millionaires play golf. He must join the Cedarville Club, and lend his name to our intensive drive.

So when I was down at my little place on a week-end I ran over to Long Branch. I only suspected that Mr. McClintick would be there; finding millionaires in their homes is a kind of hunting sport in itself. I was somewhat crestfallen to learn that Seven Towers, his magnificent place, had been sold. I have seen few houses so palatial. It was a young man on the adjoining estate, a gardener or perhaps superintendent, who told me of the sale of the place. And he told me of other matters which somewhat changed the color of my thoughts.

Leaning against my car with one foot on the running board he chatted quite freely about the McClintick fortune. “Why, as I understand it, he sold out because he couldn’t keep it up,” said he. “He used to have a place in Newport too, but I heard that’s been sold. Easy come and easy go, you know. He made it all in the war.”

“So I heard,” I said. “I happen to know the interests that bought his camp in the Adirondacks. He had a sadder reason for selling that.”

To my astonishment the young man only pursed his lips and looked rather quizzical. “Guess the old gent was glad enough to get the money,” he said.

“He’s had reverses then?”

“That’s what they say,” my informant replied.

“Hard luck,” I mused aloud in a kind of half interest. “To lose his son that way was bad enough⸺”

“Sure was,” the young fellow agreed. “Rolly, he didn’t amount to much though. It was a terrible thing just the same.”

At this casual observation I experienced almost a shock. Perhaps I have a too ready fancy, but I had pictured young McClintick as a splendid and beloved son cut down by a horrible accident in the bloom of youth.

“So?” I queried. “Why,—what was the matter with him? He certainly had a sad enough end.”

“Come through the fighting on the other side all right, and then got shot,” my chance acquaintance commented. “That’s the way it is,” he added. Then, as if to modify his criticism of the victim, he said, “Oh, I don’t know; Rolly wasn’t so bad, I suppose. They had their place here when we got into the war, only it wasn’t anything like the way you see it now; that whole left wing and both towers were added. Yes, the old man made quite a place of it. He sure knew how to spend it.”

By way of prolonging our casual chat I offered him a cigarette and lighted one myself. And so we both lingered for still a few minutes, he with a foot on the running board, I resting my arms on the steering wheel.

“You connected with this other estate?” I queried.

“Oh yes.”

“What was the matter with young Mr. McClintick?” I ventured.

“Well, I don’t know as there was anything much. I remember once he was in some kind of a raid—gambling place down in Atlantic City, I think it was—and he gave the name of the family’s butler. They came up here after the butler, I remember.” He recalled the incident with a chuckle. “Worked out all right,” he added. “The McClinticks paid the fine and I heard they gave the butler a good fat tip for his wounded feelings. I guess Pete was satisfied. Oh, Rolly wasn’t so bad, I suppose; guess he was like a good many millionaires’ sons.”

“Just a little skittish,” I commented.

“Hm, ’bout the size of it. Then there was some trouble when he was drafted for service; I don’t know just what it was. Old man tried to get him off on the grounds of his being in war work already—leather. But they didn’t put it over. I guess Rolly made out all right enough on the other side. I was over there myself when he was drafted. Let’s see, Rolly would have been—he must have been—maybe a little over thirty when he was killed. Funny, huh, how a fellow goes through a war and then comes back and gets bumped off by some fool of a hunter.”

“It’s a funny world,” said I.

CHAPTER VI—THE END OF ONE TRAIL

Well, I reflected as I drove away, I hadn’t learned anything so very shocking after all. What surprised me most was that the leather king had lost his fortune. I thought that Tom, when I saw him, would be interested to hear about these things. But long before I saw Tom my tidbits of information were thrown in the shadow by an occurrence which shocked this whole section of the country. Tom and his comrades did not learn of it in their lonely retreat until I found time to write, and even then my letter waited four days in the little post office at Harkness. So out of touch with the outside world were those workers in the new camp!

The letter which I sent to Tom was brief for it enclosed a lengthy clipping from a New York paper that spoke for itself. That same clipping, returned to me by Tom, is before me on my table now, and the sight of that glaring headline recalls the sensation which followed the shocking news contained in the article. I will paste it to my manuscript so that you may read it just as I did, and as Tom and his friends did a little later.

MANUFACTURER FOUND KILLED

MYSTERY SURROUNDS DEATH OF HARRISON

MCCLINTICK IN HIS NEW YORK APARTMENT

ROBBERY THOUGHT TO BE MOTIVE

FINGERPRINTS ONLY CLEW

Harrison McClintick, one of the most picturesque figures in the financial world, was found killed in his apartment in the Raleigh Arms on Central Park West early this morning. A maid, entering the living room to turn on the heat at a radiator, discovered the body on the floor. Greatly affrighted, she summoned Mrs. Estelle Trevor, the victim’s widowed sister, who has been the mistress of his home since the death of Mrs. McClintick in 1921. It was found that Mr. McClintick had not occupied his room during the night. Physicians later declared that he had been dead some hours. No weapon had been used; he had evidently been strangled. An overturned chair and disordered rugs gave evidence of a struggle.

Mr. McClintick’s pockets had been rifled and the contents of a wallet were strewn about the floor. Two twenty dollar bills and several bills of smaller denomination were found among the papers which had been thrown about the floor. Several of these papers contained finger marks and these markings are the only clew the police have to go upon. Robbery seems the only plausible motive, yet the discovery of the money left on the scene seems to discount this theory. If robbery was the motive, the police say, why did the robber leave this considerable sum? If robbery was not the motive, why did the murderer go through his victim’s pockets, leaving a gold watch and chain as well as the bills strewn on the floor?

The Raleigh Arms is a modern, but by no means palatial apartment house. Mr. McClintick’s apartment is on the ground floor, and is entered by a door in the foyer to the left of the main entrance. Three windows in the apartment overlook the street, but they are protected by heavy and elaborate grille work. Careful inspection of the premises gave no indication of violent entry and it is thought that the assailant must have rung the apartment bell and been admitted by Mr. McClintick himself sometime during the evening. Neither Mrs. Trevor nor the maid heard or saw any one in the apartment during the evening. Both retired at about ten o’clock. The telephone operator, who sat in the public foyer, does not remember seeing any one approach the apartment entrance during the evening. This young woman was reading a novel and though she heard people passing in and out, paid no attention to them. She went home at about nine-thirty and from that time on, no one was near the public entrance of the building.

HIS SPECTACULAR CAREER

The McClintick millions were a product of the world war. The rise of Harrison McClintick in that period was Napoleonic. He began life at a bench in a shoe factory in New England. Later he went west and worked in a tannery, subsequently becoming foreman, and in time owner. He was a prosperous, moderately wealthy man when the war broke out. Almost as if by magic the McClintick tannery became the center of a group of factories in which were turned out every variety of leather article used by the war department. During their period of intensive production, the McClintick plants fell under the frowning scrutiny of the government and charges of gross profiteering resulted in an investigation which put the leather king on the front page of the public prints.

McClintick’s profits were beyond the dreams of avarice and he spent and gave lavishly. His magnificent Wave Crest Villa at Newport was only one of his bizarre extravagances. His palatial yacht was seized by the government for use in the navy. His estate at Long Branch, New Jersey, was the scene of hospitality out of keeping with the tragic drama from which his princely fortune was drawn. His camp in the Adirondacks with its rubble-stone hunting lodge was a model of a wilderness retreat. It was here that a year or two ago, his only son lost his life in one of those tragic accidents that occur in the hunting season. On a misty morning he was shot while swimming in the lake, the shooter mistaking his bobbing head for a wild duck.

Misfortune fell heavily on the head of McClintick after the war. His wife died in 1921. Already the spectacular fortune was ebbing away. The place at Newport, and later, the place at Long Branch, was given up. His town residence on Riverside Drive was sold and the culminating tragedy of his death occurred in a comparatively unpretentious apartment where he was living in reduced circumstances with his widowed sister and one servant.

So that was the story of Millionaire McClintick. And such was his tragic end. I was shocked by his death, as the heedless public could not have been, for I felt almost as if I had known him. At least I could have added one item to the newspaper report; I could have told the curious that Leatherstocking Camp, the last of his properties, had been sold also, and was at that very time being made over to meet the requirements of a scout camp.

So, you see, two of my mind pictures were smashed. The noble son had been, to say the least, not without his faults. And the quiet camp, harboring only sorrowful memories for a bereaved father, had been sold not so much because of grief as because of pressing need. Well, well, that was quite a little dose for a story-book dreamer like myself.

But, after all, was the whole business any the less sad? Here was this crude, strong man forging his way ahead and making a vast fortune. The “tumult and the shouting died” and his house of cards began to fall about his head. His wife gone. One estate, then another, sold. Perhaps it was to get away from all his trouble just for a little season that he and his party, his son and their friend, went up to their wilderness retreat. Perhaps, after all, the quiet woods beckoned to this shrewd old hustler.

And there, in this remote lakeside camp, his only son was taken from him. What matter why he sold his camp? Poor man, the story was sad enough in any case, thought I. The newspaper had printed a picture of him which showed him a stolid looking man; a man with indomitable will printed on his hard rugged features. He had an uncompromising jaw. But, I thought, it is just these wilful and triumphant men who suffer keenest when fate shows itself more powerful and relentless than they.

It was about a month after the tragedy, and the newspapers were still full of false alarms about an arrest, when Brent Gaylong and I went up to the camp where Tom and his crew were working with might and main in the heroic hope of getting the place in some sort of shape during the late spring.

CHAPTER VII—INTO THE DEPTHS

At Tom’s request I asked Brent Gaylong to go with me and I’m glad I did, for I think he supplied just what was needed in our camp family. Perhaps you know him. He lives with his people here in town and is a very intimate friend of Tom’s. People, speaking likingly of Brent, say there is something funny about him. I think I know what it is. He is long and lanky, and wears old-fashioned spectacles and is physically lazy. Hence he always seems funny against the background of strenuous outdoor life; in camp he seems particularly amusing. He is sometimes excruciatingly funny by contrast with Tom’s untiring energy and enterprise. He will do anything you want him to do with a whimsical air of resignation. He will climb mountains, hunt for treasure, or trail an animal with an absurdly serious air. The funny thing about Brent is that, owing to Tom, his lot is cast in the theatre of adventure, while he looks for all the world like an old-fashioned schoolmaster. He must be twenty-two or three by now. He’s good company.

“You’ll go, won’t you?” I asked, alluding to Tom’s message. “Come and bring your knitting; that’s what he told me to tell you. I’m going to drive up as far as Harkness and Tom will meet us there with his flivver.”

“Do we have to walk much?” Brent asked.

“Why, as I understand it, Tom can push his flivver up a kind of trail to within a mile or so of the camp. That isn’t so bad is it?”

“The flivver?” Brent drawled.

“No, the walk,” I said. “You don’t have to have a wheel-chair just for a mile or so. Come ahead, Brent; Tom always says when you’re along something’s sure to happen. You can take some books along, you don’t have to work.”

“Is that a promise?” he asked.

“Absolutely.”

“How long do we linger near to nature’s heart?”

“Maybe two or three weeks, maybe all summer,” I said.

“I’m not supposed to take an axe or a gun or anything?”

“You can sit indoors all day long and read.”

“I’ll take my slippers and a bath robe,” he said.

We had a delightful motor trip, stopping over at old Ticonderoga and reaching the little mountain village of Harkness late on the second day. Keeseville, in the vicinity of the wonderful Ausable Chasm, is the last place of any size to be passed before entering that wild region to the west where only foot trails wind in and out among the dense mountains. Along the road from Keeseville to Harkness the glare of the declining sun dazzled my eyes so that I could hardly see to drive. It spread a crimson coverlet over the distant peaks and shimmered a tiny area in a lonely valley; I suppose it was the glinting water of some sequestered lake that we saw. It looked like a patch of gold in the deepening gloom. Then suddenly it was gone.

At Harkness Tom was awaiting us with his flivver. It gladdened my heart to see that outlandish little car piled full of provisions from the village store. I wondered how he would make shift to seat us for the last stage of our journey. The difficulty seemed not greatly to worry him, for he and a companion hurled a big meal bag into the rear seat even as Brent and I stood in rueful contemplation of the miscellaneous freight.

“You can sit right on the bag, Brent,” Tom said, as he hustled about, busy with a hundred matters. “We don’t get over here to the metropolis very often. Charlie, this is old Doctor Gaylong; meet Charlie Rivers, you chaps. I suppose we’ve got to find a place to store your car— Did you get the bacon, Charlie? And the macaroni? How about cocoa? This city trash will probably want cocoa. This is the darndest store,” he explained, turning to me. “You can get anything here. Climb right in, you ducks. I guess we won’t be able to take the grindstone this trip—never mind. We’re going to sharpen our own axes after this, bought a grindstone; unit production, is that what they call it? Here, hang on to this bag of flour, you. I thought you fellows wouldn’t show up till after dark. We were just going to start a game of pinocle with the sheriff. Are you all comfortable?”

“It’s like a bed of roses,” said Brent, as we drove off.

“Tom,” I said⸺

“You comfortable?” he interrupted.

“Tom,” I said, “I’m glad to see you’re going to keep the old name Leatherstocking Camp. I think it’s a fine romantic name.” I was referring to some rather gay lettering which had replaced the name of Temple Camp on the side of the Ford.

“Yep, that’s Paul’s work,” Tom rattled on.

“Are you Paul?” I asked the youngish man who sat beside him on the front seat.

“Didn’t I tell you this is Charlie?” Tom snapped. “Paul’s our artist, born and brought up in the Black Forest in Germany. Used to camouflage lunch wagons for the Kaiser in the war. We’ve got all kinds up here; happy family circle. We’re all living happily forever after, hey Charlie?”

“And working,” Charlie said.

“Working?” asked Brent.

“Yes, do you want to get out and walk home?” Tom asked.

“Is Tot Burke still with you?” I queried.

“Yep. So is Skipper Tim; you remember him. He’s building boats for the lake just now. Unit production, hey Charlie? You remember Piker Pete, the fire-lookout up near Temple Camp? He’s here too; going to stick all summer. Says he could never go back to the Catskills now, he’d be kept awake by the noise.”

“Speaking of noises,” Brent said, “hasn’t your Ford changed from a baritone to a soprano?”

“You’ll be glad enough to hear any kind of a friendly noise up here,” Tom said.

“How far is it to the drug store?” Brent queried.

“Heaven help me if I should run out of good cigars,” I said.

“You got right, as Paul says,” Tom laughed. “You won’t be bothered by the neighbors’ victrola, I’ll tell you that.”

He was certainly right. As we drove westward along the old, narrow, dirt road the wildness of the region was almost oppressive. I had an odd feeling that instead of our penetrating the winding passes among those clustering mountains, the mountains were slowly, relentlessly closing in about us. At one point, as the little Ford rattled along, it seemed as if the towering heights, now wrapped in the solemn gloom of approaching night, were creeping in on the narrow road from either side and would presently close upon our little tin toy like a pair of vast jaws. Then the heights would slope away as we seemed to dance merrily out of such peril. There was a chill in the air, the gloom and remoteness insinuated themselves into my very being and gave me a feeling which I can only liken to homesickness. Perhaps the early mariners felt so when they sailed out upon unknown seas.

I asked Tom how far the camp was from Harkness and he and Charlie Rivers immediately fell into an argument about whether it was five or seven miles. I later found that no two persons at the camp agreed about the distance. Brent and I walked it once, and he said it was fifty-seven miles. All I know is, it takes about an hour to drive in, and the way is through the wildest region I have ever seen. We passed no human abode, no sign of cultivation. Nothing but mountains, mountains, mountains.

“Pretty tough about old man McClintick, hey?” Tom said as we rattled along. “Talk about the wild places! Why they’ve got more bandits to the square inch down there in New York than they have all through the wild and woolly west. Am I right, Charlie? Seen anything of Mr. Temple lately?” he asked suddenly.

“No, I suppose you hear from him,” I said.

“He sent a check up last month to pay off with. I’ve got an account in Keeseville. Old McClintick didn’t leave much, I read. Well here’s where we turn in. Do you know if J. T. is coming up this summer?”

“I think he’s going to Europe,” I said. “How about Temple Camp, Tommy?”

“Guess they’ll have to get along without me this summer,” he said.

“Is this supposed to be a cross street?” Brent asked.

We had turned into a sort of wagon trail that led into dense woods. The branches of the bordering trees intertwined overhead and it needed only the thick foliage which would come later to make the place a tunnel.

“This is Main Street,” said Tom.

For fully a mile, I would say, we drove along this sequestered trail, deeper and deeper into the forest. Twilight shadows played among the trees. The night was coming on apace. At last the indomitable little, Ford stopped short; it could not go another yard. Beyond was only a foot trail.

We gathered into our arms such part of the provisions as we could carry and proceeded single file like a procession of homeward bound Christmas shoppers.

“What do we do next, when this trail stops?” Brent asked. It was laughable to see him walking soberly along, holding a flour bag as a woman holds a baby.

“We’re almost there,” said Tom.

CHAPTER VIII—SHADOWS

Tom had been right when first he told me of the spot. Surely there is not in the wide world a better site for a camp. Harrison McClintick had chosen well. Embosomed in the dense forest, on the shore of a small lake, was Leatherstocking Camp. There was no clearing; the beautiful rubble-stone lodge with its heavy, low, overhanging roof, was closely hemmed in by trees.

This main building was of a fine solid structure. Tom said the wagon trail had been open all the way in when the lodge was built. It must have cost much money to cart the materials to the spot. The lodge was oblong in shape and at one end was a massive chimney, a rugged marvel of masonry. The whole interior was one spacious living room. But a rustic stair led up to a balcony just under the heavy polished rafters and three small apartments opened onto this.

The furnishings of the former owner seemed all intact. Over the railing of the balcony hung a large bearskin. The walls were of exquisite masonry, the same as outside, and were decorated with the skins of smaller animals. Over the mammoth fireplace, which filled one end of the lodge, was a magnificent moose head with spreading antlers, on one of which (as if it had been tossed there) was a rather gay looking cap, albeit faded and dusty. I could not help wondering if it had belonged to Roland McClintick.

On either side of the fireplace hung guns and pistols and spring traps, and on the high, heavy mantel shelf several wooden decoy ducks sat comfortably in retirement. One of these was painted brown and it was easy to fancy its general resemblance to a human head when seen at a distance in the haze of early morning. I thought it bespoke a fine sentiment in the tough old warrior of commerce that he had taken nothing from his camp, but just the one thing—a sorrowful memory.

The lodge was much the worse for the irreverent usage of Tom and his strenuous crew. They cooked and ate and slept there, and in the evenings, and on rainy days, they played cards there.

They had felled trees enough to build seven cabins, and five of them were completed; they had a real woodland atmosphere about them, a pioneer look, which was lacking in the sumptuous lodge. A landing place of logs had been built at the lake and several rowboats floated ready for use. Tom told me they had carted the planking for these all the way from Keeseville in, or on, his Ford.

“And that’s old Hogback,” he told us, as he and Brent and I strolled out after supper while the others lingered in the lodge. “Wait till you see it in the daylight. You can climb up it if you want to. Some mountain, huh?”

“I don’t want to,” Brent said.

“See the hermit,” laughed Tom.

“I thought you’d have something like that,” Brent said. “It’s getting so there are no mountains left without hermits; they’re pushing in everywhere. They’re going to cause a lot of congestion if it keeps up.”

“Well, I don’t know about the hermit,” Tom laughed, “but I can promise you there are bears and wildcats up there.”

“Well then we won’t need to go up to find out,” Brent said. “As long as you’re sure.”

“Yes, and rattlesnakes too,” Tom said. “I found the tracks of a pretty big lynx one day. Well, you can see we’ve been working. Guess we better go in and talk to the bunch, hey?”

We went into the lodge where four of the young men were already playing cards at the carved library table which I suppose must always have been used as a dining table. The other fellow, the one they called Rivers, was starting a fire in the big chimney-place. It was a cozy, pleasant scene.

I knew Tim Daggett, of course, and he greeted me cordially. Tot Burke, also of my home town, I knew slightly. Piker Pete, the fire-lookout near Temple Camp, was hardly more than a boy. He returned to his aerial perch in the Catskills after I had been at camp a day or two. Paul Scheffler was a smiling, tow-headed young German who had worked as a farmhand near Ausable Forks; I never knew how Tom got hold of him. There is always a kind of drift toward Tom; odd characters find him somehow. Heinie, as we called Paul, had been in the German army and I believe he had also followed the sea. His home was in his hat.

Charlie Rivers had lately drifted into camp seeking work. He was a bronzed, taciturn man with an inscrutable look. He worked hard and said little. He was well versed in woods lore. His eyes had a quiet keenness about them and seemed always fixed on the distance. When accosted he would pause, listening patiently, with his gaze afar. I never got the impression that he could not look at me, but rather that what I said was not of enough importance to warrant such acknowledgment of my presence. I liked and respected him.

The tired workers did not remain late at their card game and Tom and Brent and I were left alone in the lodge where we sat late before the cheerful blaze. The men slept in another building, only less pretentious than this main structure; there were half a dozen rooms in it, and a large room for provisions. Besides these completely furnished apartments there were, I think, as many as twenty army cots piled in the storage part; they looked to me as if they had never been used.

I understood that the leather king had planned to carry electricity into his wilderness retreat, but Brent and I were glad that he had not done so. When the men adjourned to their own quarters that first night, they carried three railroad lanterns which had lighted their game. Somehow that silent little procession emphasized the solemnity and remoteness of our camp, as it made its way among the trees to the other building. The new cabins loomed momentarily in the dim passing lights. Then we could see only a faint gleam in a distant window to tell that the men had reached their lodging. We paused in the doorway a few moments listening to a dismal wailing somewhere in the lower reaches of the mountain which cast its gloomy shadow over our camp.

“That’s a cat,” said Brent. “There must be a back fence somewhere around here.”

“It’s a lynx,” Tom said. “We hear it most every night; seems to come from over on that second slope. Charlie Rivers says it’s a jaguar, but I don’t think so. He’s thinking of the Canadian lynx; he used to hang out up there in the Canadian Rockies.”

“I say it’s a Canadian lynx,” I said.

Tom laughed at me. “What do you know about it?”

“Maybe it’s the hermit having his singing lesson,” Brent suggested.

“I kind of have a feeling that if Charlie Rivers says a thing it must be so,” I observed. “I sort of feel that he always knows what he’s talking about. I say a jaguar.”

“Well,” laughed Tom, “we’ll have to find out if he stays up there till the hunting season opens.”

“Whatever he is, he’ll have to come to Bridgeboro if he wants to meet me,” Brent said. “I shall withdraw before the hunting season. I think too much of my head.”

We put a log on the fire and sat before it, talking late into the night. We discussed the violent end of Mr. McClintick, the progress of the work at camp, the probable time of opening which seemed likely not to be before the following spring. The tragic accident which had occurred on Weir Lake near by seemed not to weigh heavily on Tom’s mind; he was too full of plans. Brent sprawled in a big chair, one lanky leg over an arm, the other resting on a box. He always reminded me of an octopus when he sat at ease for he seemed to project in every direction.

“Do you suppose that’s young McGinty’s cap up there on the moose horns?” he queried idly. “McClintick,” I corrected him.

“When was it—last summer?” Brent asked.

“It was a year ago last fall—in the hunting season,” Tom said. “The place here was closed up after that till Mr. Temple took it over last fall.”

“I thought you told me some game wardens were here when your friends, the surveyors, passed through,” I said.

“Sure they were,” Tom said. “But of course, the buildings were locked up. Mr. McClintick’s broker gave the keys to Mr. Temple. Why, what’s the idea?”

“You mean me?” Brent queried in his funny, lazy way. “I haven’t any ideas. It’s mighty nice and quiet here, that’s sure. Must be kind of slow in the winter—especially on rainy Sundays.” His idle gaze wandered about the room which lay in shadow save where the fire blazed. Wriggling silhouettes of the flames played upon the wall in the dim background, giving it a changing uncanny light. Brent gazed about in a kind of half interested, leisurely inspection. “Pretty heavy rafters, huh?” he queried. “What are they—ash?”

“Oak,” said Tom.

“Used to be a picture over there, didn’t there?” Brent drawled. “You can see a kind of square where the smoke didn’t get.”

“You don’t miss much, do you, Brent?” I laughed.

“I have an inquiring mind,” said he in his funny way.

“Well, so you won’t lose any sleep over it,” Tom laughed, “a painting of Mr. McClintick hung there.” I am always amused at the contrast between Tom’s briskness and Brent’s drawling half interest in everything. “When we got word that he had been murdered we took it down and laid it away in one of the rooms up there,” he added, indicating the balcony.

“I didn’t think you and your little circle were that sentimental,” Brent drawled. “Maybe I should say susceptible. What was it—a picture of the old geezer?”

“The old gentleman, yes,” said Tom. “We eat right here, you know, and there he was staring down at us all the time. We didn’t just like a murdered man to be staring down at us. Heinie said, ‘It remembers me of a ghost aready.’”

Brent lost interest and fell to gazing about again. Our talk drifted into other channels. Even in the lodge we could hear the distant moaning that we had heard before. The fire blazed away and crackled companionably. Even Brent had to drag himself together and withdraw a little from its increasing warmth. As he did so, he stooped to inspect what seemed to me to be but an imperfection in the cement hearth. His scrutiny seemed quite casual; there was always a kind of ludicrous snoopiness about him which I think he sometimes practised to amuse and sometimes to annoy Tom. To this day I remember saying to him, “Well, what is it—a lynx or a jaguar?”

“It’s a human footprint,” he said.

“I doubt it,” said Tom.

“Somebody must have stepped in the cement before it was dry,” Brent observed. “His foot went over the edge.”

“What’s that in the middle?” I asked him, rather amused. For I was only half convinced, and the matter was of no consequence anyway. “Looks like a scar,” Brent said, feeling of it.

“And departing leave behind us,

Footprints in the dry cement

as Longfellow says.”

“The sands of time,” I said.

“Dry cement is better,” Brent countered.

“Listen!” said Tom, not in the least interested. “Listen to that, now. That’s a lynx all right. Hear it?”

In an interval between the boisterous cracklings of our blazing log a long wail, spent by the distance, could be heard far off. The wind was rising, making a strong draught in the chimney and rustling the trees outside. A flickering shadow on the dim masonry behind me danced up and disappeared with such suddenness that I was startled as if by some ghostly presence. As I returned my gaze to the merry fire a shadow crossed one of the windows. Startled, I fixed my gaze there, for the moving thing, whatever it was, had not the erratic, jumping quality of the shadows cast by the fire.

“Did you see that?” I asked, my voice instinctively falling to a whisper.

Tom had evidently seen it. Without saying a word he arose, went to the cupboard beside the chimney, took down a lantern and lighted it.

“Maybe it was only a reflection of the blaze at that,” I said.

“Do I have to get up?” Brent asked.

This outline is a crude reproduction of the markings that Brent noticed in the cement of the hearth. Of course it does not show the depressions. If you will imagine the large area as a depression, and the five smaller enclosures as depressions, with all of the outlines less distinct, you will have an idea of the imprint as we saw it.

Lantern in hand, Tom went to the door, and as he opened it a gust of wind rushed in, blowing a lot of papers from the open cupboard, and banging the cupboard door furiously back and forth. Through the window we could see the light of the lantern moving about outside. Suddenly I was moved to join Tom and together we went over to the other building and quietly opened the door. The men were all in their beds asleep. Only Rivers stirred and spoke to us; I would have picked him for one of those men who are not to be surprised even in sleep.

“I thought some one was around,” Tom said.

“Hear that animal?” Rivers asked.

“Yep; well, good-night, Charlie,” said Tom.

CHAPTER IX—THE SIGN OF THE FOUR

We looked all about before returning to the lodge and entered all the completed cabins, but no sign was there of anything amiss. We thought that one tree sheltered a lurking presence, and I saw Tom’s hand reach around to his hip pocket as we approached it. But it was only the shadow of a wind-blown branch that we had seen, and it dissolved as we drew nearer. We even went down to the lake, but there was nothing unusual there.

“I think that Weir Lake is a good name for it,” I said as we went back. “It’s so black and still.”

“Oh, that isn’t the reason for the name,” Tom said. “The old gent named it; it’s named after his wife; her maiden name was Weir. It didn’t have any name when he blew in here. Right about where we were standing is where Mr. Weston stood when he aimed and shot. Then he came up to the lodge and looked in the room you’re going to have, to see if young McClintick was there. Must have been an awful suspense to him, just that little while before he could muster up courage to take a peek and be sure of the truth.”

I just shook my head.

“Guess it was only a reflection of the fire you saw,” he said. “But it looked kind of funny, didn’t it? Moved sideways instead of jumping up and down. I don’t suppose any bandits would push in here. It’s just as well to be careful.”

We found Brent sitting in the middle of one of the long sides of the table; he looked ridiculously like a business man attending to his correspondence. He had lighted another lantern and with his spectacles half-way down his nose was studiously scrutinizing one of the many sheets of paper he had gathered from the floor.

“Did you find him?” he asked casually, never looking up.

“Guess it wasn’t anything,” I said. “What have you got there?”

“Targets,” he answered. “They’re very interesting.”

I saw then that the sheets of paper were of uniform size, about a foot square. Printed on each was a series of graduated circles with the bull’s-eye, so called, in the center. They were the regular practise targets familiar to all. I later found in the cupboard a board like a drawing board containing a screw eye by which to hang it on a tree. These targets had evidently been fastened to the board by thumb tacks.

“You say it was a year ago last fall they were here?” Brent asked, somewhat preoccupied. “And that was the finale, huh? One of these is dated November two, three of them are dated November three. They all seem to be dated, and when there were several used in a day, they’re numbered one, two, three. Here’s five of them that were used in one day. When was what’s-his-name killed, anyway? The young fellow, I mean.”