Tom Slade at Bear Mountain

CHAPTER XXVIII—Three’s Company

“Well, there’s my mysterious fugitive smashed in the head,” laughed Tom.

“Also my mysterious sounds at the top of the well,” said Brent.

“And that’s that,” Tom added. “Mighty nice chap, huh? Boy, that must be interesting work!”

“I’m disappointed,” said Brent; “these prosaic calls are getting monotonous. We heard footsteps in the night and they turned out to be a Boy Scout—”

“Oh, there’s nothing prosy about Spiff,” laughed Tom.

“And now comes this tree dentist or whatever you call him, with his cement and his explosions—”

“Erosion,” said Tom. “It’s mighty interesting work. There’s a lot of that kind of work going on that we don’t know anything about.”

“Not a single escaped convict so far!” said Brent. “The only bait-box I’ve seen is full of salt. Conservation experts aren’t getting us anywhere. Escaping Scouts are not snappy enough. I was led to expect an old tottering hunter of the Covered Wagon type, and all I get is a dentist. I suppose the next person to come stealing in on us will be a life insurance agent. How about going fishing this afternoon?”

“Let me tell you one thing,” said Tom; “these fellows are a mighty interesting lot, these government fellows; surveyors and rangers, irrigation fellows and all that—and—”

“Dentists,” said Brent.

“Well, I hope you’ll give him the glad hand,” said Tom.

“He can fill all the cavities and do all the crown and bridge work and painless extractions he wants around here,” said Brent, “as long as he doesn’t bother me.”

“He doesn’t do it himself,” said Tom.

“Well, he can blaze all the trails he wants,” said Brent. “I should think his glasses would fall off climbing trees. He makes a noise like a professor, doesn’t he? What is it—corrosion?”

“Erosion,” Tom exploded.

“My error,” said Brent.

“Why, take that old elm near Conner’s well,” Tom said.

“All right, take it, I don’t care,” said Brent.

“That needs some filling,” said Tom.

“I think it needs a whole new set of teeth,” Brent observed.

“And you can see for yourself how important it is,” said Tom; “you were in the well.”

“I seem to remember,” said Brent.

“Where do you suppose that well would be if it wasn’t for the roots of that old tree? Why, it would have all caved in, wouldn’t it?”

“Absolutely. And I wouldn’t have spent an evening in it. Don’t talk to me about erosion, I’m in favor of it.”

“Well, you’re interested in government work, aren’t you?”

“Oh, yes, I love, I love, I love my country best.”

“Well, then,” said Tom, “we’ve got to look at it just as if that fellow was billeted with us and treat him right.”

“Have you ever known me to be impolite?”

“No, but you’re funny; everybody doesn’t understand you.”

“I’m like Spiff, I am not understood. So far as I’m concerned, Tommy, our forest home is open to the stranger and the cause he represents. Are we going fishing?”

They went fishing in the brook that afternoon and so much enjoyed their catch of trout that they went again the next day. They found the fish a grateful variation to their rather restricted diet. On returning with their luscious string of trout on that second afternoon they were hailed by Lawton, who was invisible among the branches of a tree.

“The cat came back,” he called cheerily.

“On the job?” Tom shouted. “Come down and have some supper with us; we’ve got eleven trout.”

“Be right with you,” the cheery voice called down. “What’s it going to do, rain?”

“We need rain bad enough,” Tom answered.

“Do you know,” he confessed to Brent as they went on to the cabin, “I’ve about forgotten all about John Mink; off with the old love, on with the new, I suppose you’ll say. It’s a lot of fun just camping here and catching trout and sitting around the fire. I hope Lawton stays all night; we’ll have a three-handed game of pinochle. Boy, that’s some string of fish, hey!”

Lawton did stay all night and made himself mightily at home, to their great enjoyment. He ate trout and talked about fishing in the Great Lakes and played pinochle and told about forestry work generally. He had been in service in France, and he and Tom talked about that. Brent had missed out on that adventure, being then under the age limit. But he enjoyed the talk.

Lawton was no bore, even the Philistine Brent had to admit that. He seemed always ready to answer questions, to explain. He laughed at the interest they showed and, thus encouraged, gave engaging morsels of adventure and talked somewhat of the difficulties the “forest bunch” have with the political powers that be. He was informative but not boastful. There was a contagious sprightliness about his eager manner of narration. He seemed amused at Brent, never taking offense at that sprawling young philosopher’s whimsical comments.

“Can’t you spare an afternoon and go fishing with us?” Tom asked.

“Don’t know about that! I’d like to right well, though. I’ve got to putter around over at the mountain in the morning; they’re going to revet some of the land where the shore line will run. I’ve got a couple of men coming down from up Lake Champlain to fill a lot of trees, if they ever get here. I was expecting them yesterday. They’ve got cement enough over there to close up the Grand Canyon. You may see me with my trained dentists in the afternoon. Be around?”

“We were thinking of following the White Bar Trail east to-morrow,” said Tom; “maybe up as far as Prairie Spoke. Do you know anything about Bockey Swamp?”

“Scout trails, eh? N-no. That’ll be an all day hike, I dare say?”

“We’ve got one coming to us,” Brent said.

“Yes, you get in the habit of lying around in a place like this,” Lawton said. “Well, so long, I may see you later.”

“Hang around for supper if you’re here,” Tom said. “Make yourself at home till we get here and we’ll have another crack at pinochle.”

“You might put some potatoes cooking at about five or so if you’re here,” said Brent; “put a little salt in the water.”

Lawton laughed good-humoredly as he went away.

CHAPTER XXIX—The Old Elm

The next morning something happened, trivial in itself, but destined to have a bearing on the course of this chronicle. The campers used up the last of their coffee for breakfast. After the usual playful expedient of trying to squeeze more out of the tin can, they found that even their supply for that particular breakfast was insufficient. A camp without coffee (whatever you may hear to the contrary notwithstanding) is as sad a thing as a camp without a camp fire.

“I don’t see but what we’ll have to bust into civilization,” said Brent. “I wonder if we look like a couple of Rip Van Winkles. Where do you suppose is the nearest grocery store?”

“Sandyfield? Scout Headquarters?”

“Let’s hike to Sloatsburg,” said Brent, “and that will give me a chance to buy a sweater. I’d like to explore the country southwest of here anyway. Let’s see if we can find a way out to the south and come back along the Sloatsburg road.”

“Suits me,” said Tom, always ready for anything in the way of exploratory hiking.

They struck into the trailless section south of Breakneck Mountain and pushed along in a westerly direction till they bumped into a trail running north and south. This brought them into the Tuxedo-Mt. Ivy Trail which they followed to the easterly end of Half Way Mountain. A leisurely exploration of this long mountain brought them out at Pine Meadow Brook. And so they passed out of the reservation to Sloatsburg by an unfrequented route.

They had an odd feeling, so Tom told me, that their sojourn in the dense forest would in some way advertise itself to the denizens of the outer world. And I think that he was a little disappointed that their backwoods career in the remote home of Long Buck Sanderson did not in some way give them a certain celebrity and prestige in the village. But the village did not know them for romantic treasure hunters. It sold them coffee and a sweater and a few post cards (one of which I received) and did not treat them as interesting pioneers and adventurers.

They returned along the Sloatsburg road and so came to Burnt Sawmill Bridge where the work on the new dam was going forward. The new lake would shortly spread over the country between this and the western reaches of Brundige Mountain with two long, watery arms embracing the mountain to the north and south.

The vicinity of the new dam was a perfect riot of mud and cement and rocks and disordered road. A dubious détour had been provided, which went down into a very wallow of muck where great trucks were emptying their loads of crushed stone and blocking even this temporary way.

“Worse than when we drove in, hey?” said Tom.

“Guess we won’t try to drive out this way,” Brent commented; “unless we get an airplane. They stamp out lakes these days like cookies, don’t they? You can’t depend on geography any more at all—build a dam and start a lake. They’ll be selling mountains and valleys in the five and ten next. Nature’s getting to be a regular quantity production proposition, like Fords.”

There were men wallowing knee-deep in mud, drilling rocks for blasting, sifting stone, and so forth. There were a couple of tents in the chaotic neighborhood and an old hut seemed to have been converted into a camp. There was something attractive about the whole confused scene as there always is about any kind of camp life. Several of the men, a fine, intelligent type, Tom thought, were guiding an apprehensive and fearful motorist through the worst part of the détour and explaining to him how he could accomplish the impossible and pass around a mammoth truck whose swinging body hung on end. They nodded in a friendly way at the returning campers, who paused to watch them.

“Lawton around?” Tom asked.

“Lawton?” one of the workers queried, and shook his head.

“The forest fellow,” said Tom. “He’s around here a good deal, isn’t he?”

“Never heard of him,” said the young man; then raising his voice he called to another worker, “Know any one named Lawton?”

The man consulted shook his head.

“Who’s boss around here, anyway?” Tom called.

“I am,” the man answered. “Why, was he supposed to be working here?”

“Well, I should hope,” said Tom. Then he glanced curiously at Brent.

“You can search me,” Brent said.

“That’s funny,” Tom commented. “Well, come ahead.”

Their hike back took them along the road by which they had originally entered the reservation and down through the woods which the gallant Ford had penetrated. The aggressive little car looked lonely and neglected under its tattered and soiled old covering. It seemed to be more buried than ever in foliage.

“See if there’s a can of soup left in the car,” said Tom. “I feel just like having a dish of soup to-night. Wonder if Lawton likes soup? Guess those government workers eat about anything, hey?”

Under the canvas was that odor which always emanates from an automobile in an enclosure, an odor as sure and invariable as the odor of beasts in captivity; a combination of oil, gas, metal, damp upholstery.

“Smells familiar, hey?” Tom said, poking his head in. “Here’s tomato and split pea. Which do you suppose he’d prefer?”

“Bring them both,” said Brent.

It was nearing twilight and they plodded on wearily through the solemn woods, Tom leading the way.

“We look like a nice domestic couple coming home on a Saturday night,” said Brent. “Why didn’t you remind me to buy an egg-beater? If this sweater doesn’t match my good socks I’m going to exchange it. There goes our friend the night worker”—as he called the owl. “Do you know I’m tired?”

“Same here,” said Tom. “We’ll feel like a little three-handed pinochle game after we have a good feed. I’d miss Lawty if he didn’t show up. I suppose they’re likely to shoot him off to the Great Lakes or somewhere soon. Look out you don’t throw that butt on the ground. Boy, but we need rain.”

“The leaves underfoot make as much noise as static, don’t they?” Brent said.

They approached the Gulch at the lower end where Conner’s ruin was. The place looked desolate enough in the waning light, the dead trees, of which there were a number, standing like outcast things amid the living foliage, their soulless look emphasized by the deepening shadows. Their bare, crooked branches, black and brittle, seemed the very symbol of death. Tom wondered if little June Sanderson had been timid in the haunted twilights of this uncanny place. What a scene for a little girl to witness in the bedtime hour!

“I wonder who Conner was and what he looked like,” Tom mused as they approached the Gulch.

Scarcely had he said the words when there was a sound in the distance and they paused amid the thick brush through which they were plowing. Conner’s was possibly two hundred feet distant, and looking in that direction they saw a figure descending the trunk of the old elm which shaded the well.

“There he is, busy as usual,” Tom said, with pleasure in his voice.

He was about to call when Brent, sensing his intention, grasped his arm and said, “Shh—keep still—look. What’s that he has under his arm?”

A last freakish ray of sunlight had caught the moving figure; he passed through it as he descended. But in those few seconds he was in a kind of spotlight. It seemed as if the good sun, already withdrawn from the desolate scene, were pointing a long finger at the distant form, to direct the gaze of the campers upon it. Just a kind of friendly act of the great orb toward the sojourners in that lonely Gulch whom it had seen there every day.

“Don’t call,” said Brent.

CHAPTER XXX—A Loss and a Gain

“Shh, don’t call,” Brent repeated; “wait a second.”

They paused in the brush waiting. The figure descended to within a few feet of the ground, then dropped. He seemed to fall over when he hit the ground. Then he picked himself up, looked quickly about, and sped into the woods.

Tom did not know what he thought; there was no time to think. He was greatly astonished. All in a second there came rushing into his mind the young workman at the dam saying, “Never heard of him,” and of the foreman shaking his head negatively at the unfamiliar name. He had studiously avoided thinking of this, or of speaking of it to Brent on their journey home. Brent had said nothing and Tom had wondered what he thought.

Now there was no time to call. The woods were not like a street; Tom knew not which way the fleeing figure might run.

“Go ahead,” said Brent, “I just wanted to see what he’d do.”

Tom was out of the bushes in a jiffy and running into the woods. Coming in sight of the fleeing form he called, “Hey, Lawton, wait a second; what’s the idea?” But Lawton neither paused nor turned.

Now he knew that something was wrong; Lawton heard him but would not wait. Tom had been running to catch up, as one might say; now he started in pursuit. He knew how to run in the woods and sped like a deer. Soon Lawton, fearful, glanced about, and seeing the distance between them closing up, increased his effort. Probably he had at first thought that he was unseen. But having continued running after Tom had called, flight was now his only course.

But it was no use: Tom caught up, passed him, and, turning about, stood in his path.

“What’s the idea, Lawton?” he panted.

“What’s your idea?” Lawton countered, clearly embarrassed.

“Well, I was expecting to cook supper for you and beat you at pinochle,” Tom said, unpleasantly. “I didn’t think I’d have to beat you running. Did you think you could get away from me?”

“You didn’t have to run after me, Slade,” said Lawton looking in a way of reprimand through his rimless eyeglasses. They gave him a certain student look which put Tom at the slightest disadvantage. “Did I say positively that I’d stay for supper?”

“No, but what are you hurrying away for? What’s that you’ve got under your arm?”

“Why, it’s something that belongs to me,” said Lawton crisply.

“It looks like the salt-box from our cabin,” Tom said. He was trembling with expectation, yet he hardly knew what more he could do or say.

“I can’t help that,” said Lawton. “You don’t think I stole your salt-box, do you? You haven’t as much sense of humor as your friend, Slade. What’s the idea now? I was running because I’m late and in a hurry to get to the dam; I’ve got to pay off a couple of tree men. Let’s make it to-morrow.”

For a few seconds Tom looked straight at him. “You’re not running toward the dam,” he said, “and besides, they never heard of you there, Lawton.”

Lawton winced at this but regained his composure. “You were talking with Edwards?” he asked, with an air of perfect sincerity.

“Oh, cut it out,” said Tom disgustedly. “I don’t believe there’s any one there by that name and I think you’re the biggest liar that ever made fools out of two poor simps, that’s what I think.”

“I suppose you want me to lay this box down and hit you and then you’ll pick up the box,” said Lawton. “Does the box belong to you? Tell me that, does the box belong to you? Am I stealing anything of yours? There’s the whole matter at a point. Is it yours?”

“Well—n-no, it isn’t,” Tom acknowledged weakly.

“Well, then, how long do we have to stand talking here?”

“Why, just a few minutes longer,” said a familiar voice.

They both stared at Brent, who had approached through the woods unperceived. It was characteristic of him that he had not hurried (at least he had not run), and he carried his customary whimsical and lazy air of self-possession. He had a paper in his hand, and what with this and his spectacles and altogether non-combatant manner, he looked as if he might be a lawyer bent on settling the dispute out of court. In his other hand he held his flashlight of adventurous memory.

“By the way, Doctor Somers,” said he, “I’m curious to know if you ever really were in the forestry service; you seem to know so much about it; you had me puzzled. I kind of suspected you weren’t a tree dentist, but I never knew you were a doctor. That’s a good front name you’ve got—Slicksby. Mother’s maiden name? I’ll always think of you as Slick—Slick Somers. Here you go, Tommy, glance at this, that I picked up under Conner’s elm.”

In the funniest way he handed the paper and flashlight to Tom (for it was now dusk) as if they were two parts of something to be used. And all the while he kept his eye on the discomfited Somers.

“Just a minute, alias Lawton,” said Brent. “This is turning out to be a real adventure after all. You found the money for us. Shall I take it? I can tell you all about it; that box has three thousand dollars in it belonging to your old friend out there in Missouri and we knew about it before you did, only we didn’t know where it was.”

Meantime, Tom was reading the paper. I have that paper now; it is my souvenir of the big adventure. It consists of about half a sheet of business letter paper, the lower half, so it contains no printed heading. I think, however, that it may be the letter paper of some lawyer. It contains the last part of a typewritten letter and a signature which I have never taken the trouble to investigate, and which I shall omit here. This was the letter, or as much of it as the sheet contained:

not to mention the note on which you forged the signature of endorser. The other matter about the automobile would certainly be considered as obtaining money under false pretenses. I set these two instances before you not as a threat but simply that you may know that the proceedings, if the matter is carried to the point of litigation, would inevitably take the form of a criminal action.

I am as anxious to avoid this as I am sure you must be, and it was for that reason that I suggested the possibility of your getting some accommodation in the matter of your salary at the sanitarium, so as to avert such a sequel.

I assume that this has not been possible. I doubt very much whether under the circumstances the professional money-lender would do business with you, as you have intimated. I have been able, as I say, to secure the promise which holds the matter in suspense until September 1st, and I very sincerely hope that you will be able to hit on some plan of securing the two thousand dollars by that date.

Yours very truly,

(Signature of sender)

To Doctor Slicksby Somers,

State Hospital, Mo.

On the back of this letter are roughly scrawled in lead pencil certain brief memorandums. These do not appear in sequence, but are written every which way on the sheet, and their general appearance suggests, I think, that they were jotted down as they were secured, perhaps with difficulty, from the person who gave them. Perhaps each memorandum was the result of patient and discouraging catechizing. Who shall say? I copy them here in order:

Rattlesnake Gulch near Sandyfield township, Haverstraw, N. Y. East of Sloatsburg, N. Y. Big pond near—maybe half mile. Sloatsburg—maybe a little north. Swamp two miles west of place—about. Cabin—old ruin near well. Well—lots of brush. Either tree near cabin or near well—over well—elm. Hole in crotch—second branch. Try trees near cabin first. Must reach down. Conner’s Hollow other name—could ask. Seth Borden—or Borsen—if alive could direct to Gulch—Ramapo. In tin box.

Tom glanced hurriedly over the letter and the not too intelligible notes on the back of it.

“So you’re the doctor—his doctor—that’s supposed to be in Europe, huh?” he sneered. “Oh, yes, we know old Mink—and now we know you. Give me that box, Somers; come, hand it over before I knock you flat, you low-down sneak!”

Somers had at least the courage to put up a momentary objection to handing over the box. It may have saved him a little measure of temporary self-respect. But it did not save him the box. Like lightning Tom wrenched it from him and sent him sprawling upon the ground.

“All right, Somers,” he said grimly. “Now, if you want to beat it you can do it. We came here to try and find that box and give it to the poor old fellow it belongs to—”

“That’s just what I wanted it for,” said Somers.

“Yes, well what have you been lying for, then? What did you start to run away for? What did you sneak out of my Ford and run away for? What did you walk away from that well for when there was somebody calling for help in it? Oh, I was some dub! Somers, you’re the biggest liar and the dirtiest low-down sneak I ever met in my life! Why, here in black and white is the proof that you forged somebody’s name. And the other matter about the automobile—goodness knows what you did there!”

“We appreciate it that you didn’t take our Ford,” said Brent.

“Honest to goodness, Somers,” said Tom earnestly, “when I think of that poor old codger out there, just getting hold of himself after his life being a blank all those years, and us waiting around here trying to find his money for him so we could give it to him and tell him about his old partner and his kid that’s in an orphan asylum; when I think of him wandering back here to his old home—why, Somers, I could almost shake hands with you for finding the box. You turned out to be the missing link in all this business—honest, I think some good fairy sent you here, with your lies about forestry and conservation! You’re all right, Somers, only you don’t get out of any of your scrapes with old Mink’s money—not unless you can take this box away from me. So you’re the young doctor that the poor old codger missed so much—oh, yes, you see we know all about it, we read the western papers.

“Now, Doctor Slick Somers, this old patient of yours is going to show up. If he doesn’t show up here, he’s going to show up somewhere; he’ll turn up and the authorities will find him. And we’re going to see to it that he gets his money.”

“We’re out for adventure,” said Brent.

“Now,” said Tom, “maybe you don’t trust us, and we certainly don’t trust you. This money don’t belong to any of us. If you want to hang around and make sure the old man gets it, why, you can sleep in the woodshed if you want to. But maybe your name will get into the papers, and then the automobile people may get after you and the guy whose name you forged and— Now, wouldn’t you say it was better just to beat it and let us take care of things? Just get into the Tuxedo road and—”

“Would you let me have money enough to get home?” Somers asked.

“Not one blooming cent,” said Tom.

“Millions for defense but not one cent for travelling expenses,” said Brent. “Why, a slick article like you ought to be able to jip a ride on some freight.”

“All right,” said Tom disgustedly, “there’s no use standing here talking; come ahead, Brent. So long, Somers; you’re the meanest proposition I ever met in my life.”

They went off leaving Somers standing stock-still where they had talked. He did not move till they were too far and too much engrossed with talk to notice him. Probably he had that odd feeling that the least move would make him the more shameful by making him the more conspicuous.

So he did not emphasize his presence by departing until there was no one to see him go. Where he went they never knew, but he was never heard of in his native home again. He certainly was a discredit to a very noble profession. Whatever his difficulties were, they must have been grave and pressing to prompt him to use the information given him by an unwary patient as a desperate means of saving himself from jail. I have often wondered, as Brent did, whether he really ever was in the conservation service.

“He would have made a good real estate salesman,” Brent said. And unquestionably he had one quality useful in that calling.

CHAPTER XXXI—Just the Two of Them

So there at last was the precious three thousand dollars of Long Buck Sanderson and his partner Mink Havers safe in the hands of our adventurers. Even on their way to the cabin after the scene just described, Tom must pause long enough to climb the old elm and examine the hollow in which the box had been for, who shall say how many years. There were many nutshells in the hollow, which was evidently a favorite nest of squirrels. The thought occurred to Tom how he had probably many times seen the little creatures who lived so near that precious box.

From the branch where the hollow was, he could look straight down into the fearful depth of the well. Mink Havers must have changed his mind about the hiding place in a last moment of hurried consideration. It seemed likely that he had fallen from the tree and that this had been the cause of his cut head and unconscious state when found.

“You don’t suppose there’s the slightest possibility, do you,” said Brent, as they went on to the cabin, “that Mink told Somers to get the treasure? sure? That would put us in wrong.”

“Don’t make me laugh,” said Tom. “Why, didn’t the article in the newspaper say the young doctor went to Europe? What was the use of that lie? He didn’t go, he came here.”

“And like the light that lies in woman’s eyes, he lied and lied and lied,” said Brent.

“My theory,” said Tom, “is that old Mink Havers was able to remember something about where his money was; he knew it was in a tree, but what tree? Somers was in trouble; that’s clear enough, isn’t it? And he jumped at this means to get the money that he needed. Things certainly broke right for him—till the last scene. He nearly got away with it. The forestry and tree dentistry gag gave him the chance to explore all the trees around here without starting suspicions. He was slick all right—and some line of talk!”

“I think you were a little leary about him,” Tom said.

“I was, but I don’t know just why,” said Brent; “woman’s intuition, I suppose.”

“Well, it’s all over but the shouting,” said Tom. “Just the same, we’ll camp here till Labor Day, hey? I have a feeling things are going to move along O. K.; old Havers will be heard from. Wonder what the Philistine1 will say.”

They found the bait-box to be locked, but they did not quite feel that they could suffer the least uncertainty as to its contents, so they ripped it open with a screw-driver and a can-opener. Inside it was a shabby old leather wallet, bulging with the little fortune that it contained. There was also an old bit of paper with some figures on it, a sample probably, of Long Buck’s crude account-keeping in the matter of his relations with Pollock. There was also something else which (when I saw it later) interested me not a little. This was an old program of the Gayety Museum which held forth on the Bowery in the bygone days. I suppose old Buck had visited it.

The campers ate heartily and were gay at their meal that night. The treasure (for they could never call it anything else) lay upon the barrel which was their dining table and they glanced at it continually; it had a sort of fascination for them. It carried their thoughts back to a time when there were no camps and no Scouts in that wild region; when this overgrown fastness in which they were camping was the home of hardy hunters and trappers.

I had seen the last of the sturdy race who dwelt in that wilderness, but Tom and Brent had seen not so much as a living remnant of the old adventure and romance which had once been there. Only the little primitive cabin was left, nestling amid the brush and trees, and Conner’s well, and the old overgrown foundation of the forest home in which Conner (whoever he was) had once dwelt. And the treasure, eloquent memorial of those old hunting days....

And as they looked into that old bait-box where the musty wallet lay open for repeated inspections, a thought was more or less clearly formulated in the minds of both the adventurers. It was Tom who voiced that thought.

“Do you know,” said he, “now that it’s all over, I don’t want that money at all; I mean I wouldn’t care so much about it even if it didn’t belong to anybody. It was the fun of wanting to find it, and of getting it. Adventure is better than money, when it comes to a showdown. Because it’s a blamed sight more scarce, I suppose.”

“Money does not always bring happiness, Tom,” said Brent, with a whimsical look on his funny face.

“There you go, joking again,” said Tom.

“What are we going to do with the box when we go fishing?” Brent said. “It would be a shame to take the money out of the box, it wouldn’t look like treasure any more, it would just look like plain, common, everyday money.”

“Plain, common, everyday money is right,” said Tom. “What do you say we have a game of checkers? Somehow, I’ve turned against pinochle since to-night.”

“I always said there was no romance to pinochle, Tommy,” said Brent. “Checkers is full of medieval tradition. I think the pirates used to play checkers—or was it Mah-Jong? Anyway, it wasn’t pinochle. All right, I’ll beat you a game before we turn in. There goes the night worker.”

“I kind of like to hear that owl screeching,” said Tom.

CHAPTER XXXII—A New Foe

I have told you of the geography of Rattlesnake Gulch; I must now tell you something of its immediate neighborhood. I never knew and I do not know now, whether the name Rattlesnake Gulch pertains to the little wild hollow where the cabin stood or to the larger gap of land in which it lay. It was, as one might say, a gulch within a gulch. Only the larger gulch is not so easy to present to the mind’s eye. I find myself writing of these places in the past tense, for they seem to me now all as part of a tale that is told. You must, somehow, be made to see this wild section clearly, if you are to understand what happened there.

If some wide railroad cut were overgrown and cluttered with rock and crazy trees and tangled brush for a couple of hundred feet or so, that would be something like the immediate neighborhood of old Buck’s cabin. Through this miniature jungle a stream had once flowed, and the old stream bed was a very chaos of rock and tangled undergrowth; a chaotic gully. On its damp bottom, underneath the rank growth, no ray of sunlight ever penetrated. A strange kind of life thrived here, slugs and little red lizards which hid under stones and scooted when such a refuge was removed by some alien hand or foot from the world above. So much you already know.

But this whole thicket where Conner’s ruin and the cabin lay was in a close valley flanked by ranges of hills running east and west. These ranges of hills were about a quarter of a mile apart, running more or less parallel. The land between them was what I have called the valley; it was long and deep, the flanking heights being in places almost precipitous. For all I know, this whole wild vale was Rattlesnake Gulch. No old inhabitant of the region ever visited our campers to tell them otherwise. I learned the appalling name from old Buck and passed it on to my young friends. It makes very little difference how much of that forbidding section the name was supposed to include. I suppose the whole region, as far as the flanking hills to either side, might properly have been called a gulch.

In hot weather the heat in this whole section was terrific, as it usually is in valleys. But it was more so, I think, than in a spacious, open valley, because, when the sun was overhead, it poured its torrid rays down into a sort of natural receptacle where the heat was confined and retained. That, I suppose, is the reason why so much of the vegetation there was dry; much of it dead or dying. One made as much noise walking over dried twigs and leaves there (even in the height of summer) as is usually made in walking on a pavement.

The whole place must have been frightful in times of storm. Dead and broken trees, sticking their crazy, dislocated branches this way and that, testified to the fury of the wind as it swept through the narrow valley. Even in calm weather, such as our campers had enjoyed, the door and little window of the cabin were always rattling at night because of the draught through the long, deep, narrow valley. I often think of the winters spent by old Buck and little June in that freezing channel between the hills: winters of lashing wind and blinding snow—they must have been terrible!

Well, a few days after recovering the treasure, Tom and Brent went fishing again. It was laughable, but they took the money with them (Tom carrying the wallet in his pocket) for fear of anything happening to it in their absence. They had done this before and faithfully replaced it in its romantic old container on returning, like a jewel replaced in its casket.

They had fished as long as daylight and hunger would permit, and were returning through the Gulch with a tempting string of trout. These they would cook and then settle down to an evening at chess, at which game Brent was something of an expert. They would lay the board on the dining table (that is, an old barrel) sitting on either side of it on a couple of old boxes. Four candles, one at each corner of the board, gave an ecclesiastical look to their silent encounters.

As they passed through the Gulch Tom observed (so he told me later) that if they hurried they could cook their fish by daylight, conserving their candles for the evening’s pastime. He pointed to an area of brightness to the west, that is, beyond the end of the valley, or where it widened out into open country. “We’ll have light for an hour yet,” he said.

A little later, as Brent emerged from the cabin to get some water, he noticed that the area of brightness, instead of being less, was of a flaming red and that there was smoke above it.

“Come and look at this,” he called.

The immediate neighborhood of the cabin was now in shadow, the hard outlines of trees and brush were dissolving in the softening light, but the light in the distance gleamed red. And now this red was rendered the more vivid in the pervading dusk. They saw now that it was not the changing red of sunset, but something alien to the twilight scene, and striking terror.

“It’s fire!” said Tom excitedly.

CHAPTER XXXIII—David and Goliath

“It’s blowing into the valley,” Tom said concernedly; “this is going to be bad.”

Scarcely had he said the words when the cabin door blew shut and the loose window rattled alarmingly.

“Maybe the swamp will stop it,2” said Brent.

“It’s this side of the swamp,” Tom answered, gazing intently; “why, it’s right in the valley. Boy, that’s bad! It’s going to sweep right through here.” He paused for just three or four seconds, thinking.

“Do you suppose we could head it off?” Brent asked.

“Either that or it’ll clean out the place,” Tom said. “I doubt if that’s seen anywhere else than here. The gang over at the dam might see it, at that.”

“They’ve stopped work by now,” said Brent.

“Yep, that’s the trouble. Looks to me as if it might just be starting. Here, I tell you what you do,” he added, in a kind of hurried uncertainty; “no, just let me think a second—here—give us that pail. The best thing for you to do, old man, is to beat it down through the valley and pull up all the brush you can—David and Goliath.”

“David got the decision, you know,” said Brent.

“Yere, well it’s all you can do. Hustle down that way and yank up all the brush you can—yank it up in a kind of channel right across the path of the fire—see? Here, take a knife—and take this other pail. Thank goodness, the brook runs through down here. After you get a channel cleared, souse it with water all the way across—you won’t get far, I’m afraid. Half an hour ago we could have stopped it—blame it all. Here—here’s your spectacles—hurry up—and go like a fireman, not like a philosopher!”

“It shall not pass,” said Brent.

“I wish I could believe it,” Tom said. “Anyway, hurry up, for the love of goodness! I’m going to send a signal from the hill. So long, I’ve got the money all right.”

Brent hurried along through the dry brush of the valley while Tom with frantic haste crowded some dried brush down into the pail and hurriedly grabbed old Buck’s threadbare corduroy jacket which still hung on a peg in the cabin. This he soaked in water at the spring and wrung it out. Then he started pell-mell for the nearest flanking hill.

It was a terrible climb, especially with one arm embarrassed by the pail; in places he had to lift himself from one rock or projecting tree to another, like a monkey. He might have made an easier ascent to a lower eminence, but every inch of altitude he could gain was needed now. From the hilltop he saw, to his comparative relief, that the flames had not spread over a very large area. It might be that the country beyond the narrow valley was not in great danger. The fire, so it seemed to Tom, had its beginning in the widening mouth of the big gulch and was being carried in by the rising wind.

Looking north from where he stood, he could see a few scattered specks of light. He believed that these were at the camps about Kanawauke Lakes. He knew he could not see the lights (if any there were) at Scout Headquarters because of the intervening eminence known as Pine Hill. But he could see the western end of the larger lake; that is, he could see little flickers of light which he thought were on or about the lake. It was now quite dark.

He set the pail upon a high rock and set fire to the contents. As soon as it was blazing prosperously, he poked it so as to get the whole mass of fuel to burning. Then he squeezed the old corduroy jacket into it as one wrings out a washed garment, and quickly spread the damp jacket over the pail. It is pretty skilful work getting just the right amount of water into a confined fire. You may make a smudge too voluminous to handle, or on the other hand, you may put the fire out. Tom knew the proportions for his signal fuel. When he pulled the jacket suddenly from over the pail a straight column of black mounted into the air. If a solid shaft had been raised it could hardly have been more readily discernible at a distance.

He watched the column piercing the sky, then looked into the pail as a chemist might do, pleased with an experiment. He let the column rise for perhaps a quarter of a minute, then spread the jacket over the pail. Just then the moon edged out from behind a wind cloud and lit up the hilltop. For perhaps a quarter of a minute Tom waited, long enough for the column to dissolve completely, then shot another dense pillar of blackness into the moonlit sky. Again, and still again he pierced the starry depths of heaven with this ghostly arm, rising out of a tin pail of smothered fire. So it was that water, the enemy of fire, was allied with the monster here to print a single word upon the open pages of the sky—H-E-L-P.

“That’s the worst of this signal business,” Tom said aloud, as he prepared to spell the word again. “One camp has one sign, another camp has something else, and you never know what reading they’ll get.”

He rolled up his sleeves, looked over to the north, then scrawled his urgent summons once again upon the firmament. “If it was at Temple Camp they’d know, all right,” he muttered.

CHAPTER XXXIV—The Sign of the Four

Spiffy Henshaw was breaking the rules that night. He did not care, since he was going to be sent home anyway. He was paddling about on the lake alone in his glory.

Spiffy had not fared well at camp. He had set himself up to be independent and do things in his own way. Then, when he had found that this way did not bring the world at his feet and win him merit badges, he had sought the coöperation and help which Scouts have in these enterprises. But by that time Spiffy was too deeply involved in difficulties with his superiors to make a new and proper start. He had denounced the ways of the Scout and had come to find that he could not count on the help of those that he had ridiculed and belittled.

This was the state of things when Spiffy had made his memorable call at the cabin. He had returned to camp after that call, resolved that he would win merit badges according to program and without help. But he had not made out. You cannot annihilate the past with a knock-out blow—unless it is a tremendous knock-out blow. Spiffy had scorned to wear his sumptuous four-jewelled pin, his cry for help, as Tom had called it, and had tried to win out alone. But he could not swim against the tide. And back he was going to Jersey City.

Suddenly, his gaze was attracted to something in the sky to the south. He saw a long, black, upright column hovering there. His ever scornful eye lingered upon it till it disappeared. Then it came again, high, commanding, alien in the clear, moonlit night. Then went, then came. And still Spiffy Henshaw watched it curiously, idly. Again it rose up like a climbing rocket, a great black, beckoning finger in the sky. And again it dissolved. Only the moon and the wind clouds were not to be seen in that direction.

Then it was that Spiffy Henshaw might have won a merit badge with his rowing—if frantic effort counts for anything. He did not row well; he did not do well anything which has to be learned. But if there had been any merit badge given for a mighty spirit, that badge would have been Spiffy’s. Though ornaments were dear to his heart, he did not possess a single such badge. The only ornament of vainglory which he owned was in his pocket (where the misjudging world could not see it) with its sharp end stuck into a cork—the four-jewelled pin, his disgraceful call for help, which since his meeting with Tom he had disdained to wear. Yet who shall say that this gorgeous trinket from a package of lemon-drops did not play its part in the life of Spiffy Henshaw?

It was just like him not to bother about chaining the boat. “Hurry up!” he shouted. “Hurry up, come ahead, there’s a call for help!”

He did not pause to see if any followed. Like a madman he ran headlong up the road to his own camp where he lived discredited. They were getting ready for camp fire (a pleasure he eschewed) and he alighted among them like a meteor out of the sky.

“Come ahead, everybody!” he fairly screamed. “There were four—black—smokes like—in—over there in the sky. It means help!”

“I guess not,” said the camp manager.

“Four—col—columns,” Spiffy panted; “it means help.”

Spiffy’s prestige in camp was not strong enough to win him much attention.

“It would be a lot of little puffs then,” said the young camp manager.

“Or four dots, and one dot, and a dot and a dash and two dots, and a dot and two dashes and one dot,” said a scout, who certainly knew the Morse code off-hand. “That’s what means help around here, if you know how to spell.”

Spiffy glared at him in mounting rage. And he said something which I think is worth recording. “What difference does it make what it means here?” he fairly roared. “It’s what it means over there that counts. I’m not asking you or anybody else what it means because I know! I’m asking you if you’re going to answer a call for help. Come ahead, those that are coming. You can come, too, if you want to,” he added, addressing the camp manager.