OFF TO CAMP
“What’s that?” cried Tom. “Are you joking? Professor Skeel going to
camp near us?”
“I’m not joking a bit,” declared Bert. “You can ask Jack.”
“It’s true enough,” put in Tom’s roommate at college. “We heard it the
other day--just before we came on here--from your old friend, Bruce
Bennington. I don’t know why we didn’t think to tell you before, except
that I didn’t recall that Crystal Lake, and the one where we’re going
camping, were so near together.”
“They’re about five miles apart,” said Tom. “But how is it that Mr.
Skeel is going up there? The last I saw of him was when the ship picked
us up from the derelict, the time we were wrecked, and he went on to
Honolulu. What brought him back from there?”
“It seems the place didn’t agree with him,” explained Jack. “He tried
to get into some business there but he failed. I guess he didn’t play
fair. Anyhow his health failed, and the doctor said he had to get back
to the United States. So he came.”
“Then he heard of a relative of his who was going up to camp in the New
York woods, and he decided to go along. In some way Bruce Bennington
got word of it. You know Mr. Skeel tried to play a mean trick on Bruce
once.”
“Sure he knows it,” put in Bert. “Didn’t Tom show up old Skeel?”
“Oh, yes, I forgot about that,” admitted Jack. “Well, anyhow, our old
enemy Skeel is going to camp near us, it seems.”
“It won’t bother me,” spoke Tom. “I don’t believe he’ll come near our
place, and, if he does, we’ll just politely ask him to move on.”
“Sure,” said Jack. “But it’s rather odd that he should be so near us.”
“It is,” agreed Tom. They discussed, for some time, the possibility of
meeting the former Latin teacher, who had been so unpleasant to them,
and then they resumed work on making the cradle, or crate, for the
motorboat.
There were busy times ahead of the boys. Their camp equipment had to
be gotten together, packed for shipment, and then came the details of
arranging for a food supply, though not much of this could be done
until they reached Wilden.
“And maybe we’ll come across the fortune that’s hidden in the old
mill,” suggested Jack, laughing.
“Or we may make friends with the wild man.”
“Don’t build too much on that,” advised Tom.
“Anyhow, we won’t want to be puttering around the old mill much,” said
Dick. “We’ll be out in the boat, or fishing, or going in swimming, or
something like that most of the time.”
“Or else hunting,” suggested Tom. “I hope you fellows brought guns.”
“We sure did,” spoke Jack.
The boys packed their kits of clothing, taking only as much as was
absolutely necessary, for they were going to rough it. A small quantity
of the most needful medicines were put up, and some other supplies were
included.
Their grips and guns they would carry with them, but the tent, a
portable cooking stove, and a case of canned provisions, as well
as some in pasteboard packages, were to be shipped by express. The
motorboat, which had been well crated up, was to go by freight.
By letter Tom had arranged for a supply of gasolene which was to be
left at a small settlement at one end of the lake. They could also get
additional provisions there and some supplies, and they hoped to get
fish enough to help out on the meals.
Finally everything had been packed up. The motorboat had been shipped,
with the other things, and the boys were to leave the next morning.
They would have to travel all day, reaching the town of Wilden at
night. They would sleep there, and go on to camp the next day.
The evening mail came in, and there was a letter for Mrs. Fairfield. It
was from her former school chum, Mrs. Henderson, and as soon as Tom’s
mother read it she exclaimed:
“Oh Tom! That old Jason Wallace is worse than ever.”
“How so?” asked Tom.
“It seems the other day that some campers who were staying near the old
mill went in the ruins and began digging about. He saw them and had a
quarrel with them. Now he’s got an old army musket and he keeps going
about the place like a sentinel, Mrs. Henderson says. He threatens to
shoot anyone who comes near. Oh, I don’t want you to go there!” and
Mrs. Fairfield was seriously alarmed.
“Don’t worry, mother,” spoke Tom. “I won’t take any chances. I guess us
fellows can make friends with old Wallace, and we’ll have him so tame
that he’ll eat out of our hands, and show us all the interesting places
in the woods and about the old mill.”
“Oh, Tom, you will be careful; won’t you?” asked his mother.
“Sure I will,” he promised, and she had to be content with that.
Later, when Tom told Jack and Bert about the news from the place where
they were going camping, Jack said:
“I wonder if it could have been Mr. Skeel who bothered the old man?”
“It can’t be,” declared Bert. “Why he’s hardly up there yet.”
“He might be,” spoke Jack. “If he is, and he hears anything about
treasure, I’ll wager that he gets after it. And he’ll make trouble
whereever he goes--he’s that way.”
“He sure is,” agreed Tom, thinking of how the former professor had
hidden away a secret supply of food and drink when the others were
trying to save themselves from starvation in the lifeboat.
“Well, anyhow, we don’t need to worry,” said Dick, who had come over to
Tom’s house to have a last talk before the start in the morning.
“That’s right,” agreed Tom. “Now let’s go over everything, and see what
we’ve forgotten.”
This took them the best part of the evening, and having found that they
had omitted a few things, they packed them into their grips and went to
bed, Dick promising to come over early in the morning to go with the
three chums to the train which they were all to take to reach Wilden.
Mr. and Mrs. Fairfield went to the station with the boys. The baggage
was checked, and Tom had to spend some time saying good-bye to a number
of his town chums.
“Hey, wish you’d take me along,” said Dent Wilcox, as he shuffled along
the depot platform. He seemed to have forgotten his little feeling
against Tom for not taking him in the motorboat, the day our hero got
the letter from his chum. “Can’t you take me, Tom?”
“I might if you’d promise to chop all the wood, go for all the water,
do the cooking, wash the dishes, make the beds, sweep up, and run for
gasolene.”
“Huh!” exclaimed Dent, looking for a place to sit down. “I guess I
don’t want to go.”
“And we don’t want you,” spoke Tom in a low voice.
There was a toot of the whistle, a puffing of smoke, and the train that
was to take our lads to camp, pulled in. The last good-byes were said,
Mrs. Fairfield made Tom promise about a dozen things that he would be
careful about, and gave him so many injunctions that he forgot half of
them. Mr. Fairfield shook his son’s hand, and those of his chums, and
there was a trace of moisture in the eyes of father and son as they
said farewell.
“Be careful, Tom,” said his father. “Don’t be tempted too much by the
fortune in the old mill.”
“I won’t dad, but--er--that is, I think I’ll have a try for it--wild
man or not.”
“Well, I supposed you would, after you heard the story. But don’t worry
your mother.”
“I won’t. Good-bye!”
“All aboard!” called the conductor, and the boys hurried into the
car. They waved their hands out of the windows and, a moment later,
the train pulled out. Tom had a last glimpse of his mother with her
handkerchief to her eyes, and he felt a lump coming into his throat.
“Oh, here, this won’t do!” he exclaimed half aloud. “I must send her a
postal from the first post office, to cheer her up,” and he carried out
that intention.
As the cars clicked along the rails, Jack, who had been looking into
the coach just ahead of the one in which he and his chums were riding,
uttered an exclamation.
“What’s the matter--forget something?” asked Tom.
“No, but I just saw someone I know.”
“Oh, if that’s the case, go ahead up and talk to her,” laughed Bert.
“He’s the greatest chap for girls I ever saw,” he confided to Tom.
“He’ll spot a pretty girl anywhere. And he knows so many of ’em.”
“This isn’t a girl,” said Jack in a low voice.
“No? Who is it then?” asked Tom, curiously.
“It’s our old enemy, Sam Heller; and Nick Johnson is with him!”