A STORY OF THE PAST
Now this is the story about the buried treasure. After the big fire at
Temple Camp three years ago (that’s when I was a tenderfoot, but I
wasn’t so awful tender) a lot of carpenters were working putting up new
buildings at camp.
They built the cooking shack (that’s Pee-wee’s favorite building) and
the diving board (that’s my favorite building) and the observation tower
(that’s Hervey’s favorite building because he’s always on the top of it
taking chances and observations).
They built the new Administration Shack too. That’s where the library
and the mail office are and it’s where the managers stay and it’s where
all the office business is. There are lots of pictures in there and
portfolios with maps in them and everything. One thing I don’t like
about it, it’s got a rug on the floor.
One day—it was on a Saturday—Mr. Carson (he’s a trustee) and another man
who was a scoutmaster, went to Catskill to get the money out of the bank
to pay the workmen. They always brought it in a tin box. So now you
better look at the map.
Instead of coming around to camp by the trail they rowed across the
lake. They started from a willow tree up near the outlet. That was where
they had left the boat on the way down to Catskill. You’ll see that
tree. The reason why they didn’t go around by the trail was because on
account of the mud. It had been raining all the time for about a week
and the trail was bad, especially in the woods. There were great big
puddles in the woods like young lakes.
That afternoon when they came back it was very dark and while they were
coming across the lake toward camp all of a sudden a thunder-storm
started. Gee whiz, I can remember it because we were helping to pile up
lumber at the new landing, and the wind blew over a pile of boards. We
were just scooting for the pavilion when all of a sudden Worry Aiken (he
was in a troop from Vermont), he shouted, “_Look at the boat! Look at
the boat! Look at the boat!_”
Oh, boy, I’ll never forget what we saw. The boat was about maybe two or
three hundred feet from the shore where the willow tree is. It was so
dark and the water was so all churned up like that we couldn’t see very
plain. But anyway it seemed to me the boat was upside down.
I know one thing, I had a funny kind of a feeling, gee, I can’t tell you
about it, but I felt as if maybe I would see something later that I
didn’t want to see. It felt all kind of, you know, sort of like when
you’re in an elevator and it stops suddenly.
The next thing I saw, a figure crawled up on the shore away over on the
other side. A scout said, “_Look!_” That was when I first saw it. It
looked black and low down like an animal. Then it seemed to stay still.
I said, kind of whispered, I was so scared, “I don’t see the boat any
more.”
Garry Everson (he comes from down the Hudson), he said, “It’s there,
look where the light is—just this side of the light.”
Then I could see it. It was upside down. You could hardly tell it from
the water. There wasn’t anybody near it that I could see. Besides, I
couldn’t see the person on the shore any more. I felt as if pretty soon
I would hear of something terrible.
Once in my class room a pupil had a kind of an attack on account of his
heart, and they carried him out. And they said we should go on with our
lessons, but anyway it seemed kind of funny and afterwards we found out
he was dead. So kind of that’s the same way I felt that afternoon.
In about half a minute all the camp was down at the lake and everybody
was excited. Most all the kids were told to go in the pavilion. Tom
Slade had a big oilcloth hat, rubber boots and a lantern. He looked kind
of like a picture of a fisherman or a captain on a boat or something. It
kind of gave me thrills to see him because, gee whiz, that fellow always
knows what he’s about.
I guess everybody knew what it meant. Mr. Whittaker (he’s a trustee)
called through the big megaphone, but there wasn’t any answer from
across the lake.
Then several men started around by the trail—Tom Slade and Mr. Whittaker
and Uncle Jeb Rushmore, he’s manager. Some scouts started after them,
but they were chased back. We stood on the porch of the commissary shack
(you can see where that is) watching. Every now and then we could see
the light from Tom Slade’s lantern as they picked their way along the
trail through the woods.
I guess it was about two hours before they came back. We just stood
around waiting for them. When they came, Uncle Jeb and another man were
carrying something on a canvas stretcher. That was Mr. Carson, and he
was unconscious. Mr. Kennekott, the man who had gone with him, was
drowned. He had got underneath the boat when it turned over and one of
his legs had been caught underneath the seat. Even when Mr. Carson was
better he didn’t know how he’d got to shore.
After what happened the boat was blown out into the middle of the lake,
and some of them went out in another boat and towed it to the landing.
They found Mr. Kennekott caught underneath it. His leg was between the
middle seat and the floor. That seat was very low. The tin box with the
money must have gone down where the boat upset.
There wasn’t much fun at Temple Camp after that. It was a kind of an off
summer anyway on account of the camp being sort of rebuilt. Mr.
Kennekott’s troop went away, and they have never come back to Temple
Camp. Jiminies, you can’t blame them. They were a nice troop, those
fellows. One of them had the bronze medal—he sat next to me at eats.
The camp officials dragged the lake over on the other side, but they
never found the box. Mr. Temple, who founded the camp, he said they
shouldn’t worry. So that was the end of it except after a while scouts
began fishing for the box. Lots of them did that. They kidded themselves
that they were treasure hunters, I guess. I never did because it always
reminded me of what happened.
Of course, it was too deep to dive over there, and there was a strict
rule against that. Because I’ll tell you why. There used to be houses
where Black Lake is and in some places old chimneys and things like that
stood on the bottom. And there’s a rule that we can only dive near the
landing. After a while the trustees made a rule that we shouldn’t even
go over there and grapple for the box. That was after little Skinny
McCord nearly got drowned. So that was the end of the whole thing.
Most of the scouts that were at camp that year don’t come now and, gee
whiz, you hardly hear anybody speak about it any more. It just happened
to pop out of my head when we were talking with those girls.
Now there’s one thing more I’ll tell you. You remember how one of the
scouts said the boat was near a light? When he was pointing it out to
me? That was only the reflection of a light away up on the mountain.
There were two grown-up fellows who had a camp up in the mountain across
the lake from Temple Camp. Often we saw their camp-fire at night. They
had it burning that afternoon way, way up there. And it made a spot of
light down on the lake. It was right close to that spot of light that
the boat upset. That was what the fellow meant. It wasn’t really a
light, it was only a reflection. That summer those big fellows up in the
mountain went away, and they never came back again. Gee whiz, you can’t
exactly say that the reflection of a light is a scout sign. Because when
the light goes away the reflection goes away, too.
So, after a while nobody seemed to know just where the boat upset. The
scouts who were there that summer knew. But after that it was a kind of
a—you know—a legend, sort of. I guess the trustees were glad of that
because scouts couldn’t go grappling any more.
It was all nice and forgotten, sort of, when all of a sudden last
summer, Harry Donnelle came to see us at Temple Camp. He’s a big fellow
and he lives near me and he’s especial friends with my sister, only she
says I have to cross this part out, but I won’t do it. That fellow was
in the war, and he just didn’t get killed as many as four times. He’s
been in South Africa, too. His middle name is adventure. Gee whiz, I
hope he marries my sister.
Anyway he heard about that accident because birds come and whisper
things to him, that’s what he says. Believe me, I think they shout at
him. Anyway he found out. So one dark, gloomy afternoon he took three of
us up to that old camp, and he made a couple of other fellows row around
in a boat down on the lake.
They built a big fire up at the old camp in the mountain and then the
fellows in the boat noticed just where the reflection hit the water.
Then they made a kind of a diagram on a map of the lake that showed just
exactly where the boat upset. First they tried to drive a pole in, but
the lake was too deep. So then they made notes on the map and dotted
lines and everything that showed that the spot was in a line exactly
southeast of the willow tree, I don’t know how far.
Gee whiz, there were going to be big doings next day—but that was the
end of it. And I guess the trustees were glad of it. That very same
night away went Harry Donnelle to Hudson Bay—he got a telegram, that’s
all I know. He forgot all about the buried treasure. Mr. Temple said
that was just like him. All he wanted was the fun of the thing. I bet
the trustees were glad when he went away. He sent me a post card from a
trading station in Hudson Bay. It had a picture of trappers on it and
everything and he didn’t say anything about this fine diagram. When he
came back he brought my father a bull moose’s head.
I never saw that diagram, and I should worry about it, that’s what I
said. Because anyway the money didn’t belong to me. I always heard it
was in a big portfolio with a lot of other maps and things in
Administration Shack. I guess they kept it as a kind of a curiosity.
Anyway nobody ever said anything about it. The buried treasure was dead
and buried and we should worry about it because, believe me, there’s
plenty to do at Temple Camp these days without going fishing with
grappling irons. I’d rather be jollying Pee-wee than doing that.