THE GREATER MYSTERY
Since there was no solution of this singular puzzle, Tom did not let it
continue to trouble him. He was too busy with his duties incidental to
the closing season to concern himself with mysteries which were not
likely to reveal anything of value. The kidnapping was a serious affair,
and the curious discovery which he had made in the woods was soon
relegated to the back of his mind by this, which was now the talk of the
camp, and by his increasingly pressing labors.
[Illustration: "DID EITHER OF YOU FELLOWS DO THAT?" TOM ASKED.
_Tom Slade on Mystery Trail. Page_ 151]
Moreover he believed that some scout or other had visited this now
memorable spot and marked his initials on the mud, squatting on the log
the while. To be sure, the absence of footprints close by, save those
easily recognizable as Skinny's, was perplexing, but since there was
no other explanation, Tom accepted the one which seemed not wholly
unlikely. At all events, what other explanation was there?
For an hour or more that same night Tom lay under Asbestos' elm
pondering on his singular discovery. Then realizing that his duties were
many and various, he put this matter out of his head altogether and went
to work in the morning at the strenuous work of lowering and rolling up
tents.
The papers which the boys brought up from Catskill that afternoon were
full of the kidnapping. Master Harrington's distracted mother was under
the care of a dozen or so specialists, six or eight servants had been
discharged for neglect, Mr. Harrington offered a reward of five thousand
dollars, somebody had seen the child in Detroit, another had seen him in
Canada, another had seen him at a movie show, another had heard
heart-rending cries in some marsh or other, and so on and so on.
In New York "an arrest was shortly expected," but it didn't arrive. The
detectives were "saying nothing" and apparently doing nothing. Master
Anthony Harrington's picture was displayed on movie screens the country
over.
But out of all this hodge-podge of cooked up news and irresponsible
hints there remained just the one plausible clew to hang any hopes on
and that was trainman Hanlon's recollection of seeing a child in a
mackinaw jacket and carrying a jack-knife in the company of two men who
alighted from a northbound train at Catskill, within ten miles of Temple
Camp.
One other item of news interested the camp community, and that was that
boy scouts throughout the country had been asked to search for the
missing child.
Meanwhile, the kidnappers sat tight, expecting no doubt that their
demands for a large ransom would be more fruitful after the chances of
legitimate rescue had been exhausted. The great fortune of Anthony
Harrington of Wall Street was quite useless until a couple of ruffians
chose to say the word. And meanwhile, Master Anthony, Jr., might be
hacking himself all to pieces with a horrible jack-knife.
It was just when matters were at that stage that Pee-wee Harris, Elk
Patrol, First Bridgeboro Troop, went in swimming for the last time that
summer in the cooling water of Black Lake. He gave a terrific cry,
jumped on the springboard, howled for everybody to look, turned two
complete somersaults and went kerplunk into the water with a mighty
splash.