TOM IS TROUBLED
If Whalen had any apprehension that the name of Dyker was familiar to
Tom it must have been dispelled in Tom’s purposely desultory, cheery
talk.
But Tom went back to the cottage that night with a burden on his mind.
Ned Whalen, his friend and rescuer, was Anson Dyker, he felt sure of it.
He had been sitting on a rock talking with the grandson of his little
old friend down at Temple Camp, the fugitive murderer of Henry Merrick
in Kingston. Here upon this lonely mountain the derelict had been cast
up and he, Tom, had found him gazing down afar at the vast reservoir
which covered the home of his boyhood.
Could there be any doubt of it? Tom thought not. He recalled the look
and features of old Caleb as he had seen them in the straining,
momentarily aged countenance of his own rescuer. He had ceased to think
of that. But now he thought of it in the light of the new discovery.
Whalen had searched for that mold-covered record of a visit to the
mountain when a boy. And he had been agitated and for a moment had
thought of concealing his discovery upon Tom’s approach. Oh, there could
be no doubt of it in Tom’s mind.
He knew who Joe Ganley was. He recalled the day he had walked to Temple
Camp with old Caleb and they had passed a man in the darkness who the
old man had thought was Joe Ganley, a former neighbor in the old
village. Joe Ganley. So he and the grandson must have been pals. At
least in their boyhood they had made the journey up the mountain
together.
Now that he had seen the name cut in the rock along with young Dyker’s,
Tom tried to recall what old Caleb had told him about Ganley, that he
had settled in the west and prospered and sent money back to his mother
with which to build a new house. Tom recalled that he had thought lithe
young man must have been exceptionally prosperous to do that. The talk,
he recalled, had been occasioned by the erratic little old man mistaking
an emaciated, shabby stranger for Joe Ganley.
And that was about all that he remembered of the trivial incident. Now
here was this same name carved with that of the grandson on a rock on
the mountain top. These two boys had climbed the mountain in nineteen
hundred and seven. That was before the murder, before the valley was
flooded.
Tom did not sleep that night. The shock of his conviction that Whalen
was none other than the fugitive Anson Dyker kept him awake. And in
sequel of his discovery, he lived over the story, as he knew it, of the
tragedy which had shocked the countryside so long ago.
How different the lives of those two boys who had trudged up the
mountain together fifteen years before. When the reservoir drove them
out, one went out west, prospered, married, sent money home. In his
accustomed surroundings far away did he ever think of his name carved on
the top of Overlook Mountain?
And the other. What a botch had he made of his young life! Killed a
kindly generous old man and fled. Killed him in futile and insane
frenzy. Struck him down in misguided passion born of the worthy love of
his grandparents and his boyhood home. How could any person capable of
such feelings, such love and loyalty, do such a horrible thing? And this
solitary, taciturn man, Ned Whalen, had been that boy.
In his musings, Tom thought of poor old Caleb and his cane, of his
wanderings, and of himself, Tom, finding a haven for him at last. He
thought of the old man’s sturdy hatred and defiance of the great
reservoir and of his resolute conviction of his grandson’s innocence.
But Tom knew more about it than poor old Caleb did, and this train of
musing turned his thoughts to Brent Gaylong, good old Brent, and how he
had sat on the stool in the newspaper office in Kingston with the full
account of the whole business open before him.
He thought (he did not know why) of something that Brent had said to
him. He was always recalling things that Brent said. “_You can have
anything you want if you’re willing to pay the price. I can have the
gold cup in Administration Shack but I’d go to jail and that would be
the price._”
Tom had laughed at the time but now he was appalled at the awful truth
of it. For he knew now—as he lay there wide awake in the little cottage
on the summit of Overlook Mountain—he knew that the sprightly
_Goodfellow_ was his, that he could stand upon its deck and look about
and say, “She’s mine!” That he could raise his owner’s pennant and sail
away in her _if he really wanted to_. Two thousand reward....
Price!
Good old ramshackle, lanky, whimsical Brent. How Tom Slade wished that
he could see him now. So that he could tell him the price didn’t
interest him....