ON THE SUMMIT
The two facts uppermost in Tom's mind were these: Some one had marked
the trail up that mountain, and the patch of brightness on the top of
the mountain which had lately been familiar to the boys in camp had that
very night disappeared.
The owner of the gray roadster had not come back for it. He might be the
fugitive of the newspaper article, and he might not. If Tom had any
_particular_ reason for thinking that he was, he did not say so. There
are a good many gray roadsters. One thing which puzzled Tom was this:
the car had been in storage at Berry's for a few days at the very most,
but the bright patch on the mountain had been visible for a month or
more. So if the owner of this machine had gone up the mountain, at least
he was not the originator of the bright patch there. But perhaps, after
all, the bright patch was just some reflection.
[Illustration: SUDDENLY ROY CALLED, "LOOK HERE! HERE'S A BOARD!"
Tom Slade's Double Dare. Page 83]
"Let's have another look at that letter," said Tom.
He read it again with an interest and satisfaction which certainly were
not justified by the simple wording of the missive.
"Come ahead," he said; "we can't get much wetter than we are already. We
might as well finish the night's work. I guess Mr. Berry'll take care of
the searchlight."
Mr. Berry had no intention of leaving the scene of his ruined
possessions to the mercy of vandals. Moreover, it seemed likely that
with the abatement of the storm the neighboring village would turn out
to view the devastation.
Once the end of the trail was located, the ascent of the mountain was
not difficult, and the four explorers made their way up the
comparatively easy slope, hindered only by trees which had fallen across
the path. The old mountain which frowned so forbiddingly down upon the
camp across the lake was very docile when taken from behind. It was just
a big bully.
As Tom and the three scouts approached the summit, the devastation
caused by the storm became more and more appalling. Great trees had been
torn up as if they had been no more than house plants. These had fallen,
some to the ground and some against other trees, their spreading roots
dislodging big rocks which had gone crashing down against other trees.
Some of these rocks remained poised where the least agitation would
release them.
Nature cannot be disturbed like this without suffering convulsions
afterwards, and the continual low noises of dripping roots and of trees
and branches sinking and settling and falling from temporary supports,
gave a kind of voice of suffering and anguish to the wilderness.
These strange sounds were on every hand and they made the wrecked and
drenched woods to seem haunted. Now and again a sound almost human would
startle the cautious wayfarers as they picked their way amid the sodden
chaos. In places it seemed as if the merest footfall would dislodge some
threatening bowlder which would blot their lives out in a second. And
the ragged, gaping chasms left by roots made the soggy ground uncertain
support for yards about.
Toward the summit the path was quite obliterated under the jumble of the
wreckage, and the party clambered over and threaded their way amid this
debris until the tiny but cheering lights of Temple Camp were visible
far down across the lake. There the two arriving troops were about
finishing their hot stew! Far down and nearer than the camp was a moving
speck of light; some one was on the lake. The boys did not venture too
near that precipitous descent.
Suddenly Roy, who had been walking along a fallen tree trunk, called,
"Look here! Here's a board!"
He had hauled it out from under the trunk, and the others, approaching,
looked at it with interest. In all that wild desolation there was
something very human about a fragment of board. Somehow it connected
that unknown wilderness with the world of men.
"That didn't come up here by itself," said Tom.
"You're right, it didn't," said Tyson.
"Here's a rusty nail in it," Roy added.
The board, unpainted and weather beaten as it was, seemed singularly out
of place in that remote forest.
Suddenly Roy grasped Tom's arm; his hand trembled; his whole form was
agitated.
"_Look!_" he whispered hoarsely. "Look--down there--right _there_. See?
Do you see it? Right under.... Oh, boy, it's _awful_...."