TOM SLADE IN THE NORTH WOODS
[Illustration: CARRYING PART OF OUR PROVISIONS WE PROCEEDED SINGLE
FILE.]
TOM SLADE
IN THE NORTH WOODS
BY
PERCY KEESE FITZHUGH
Author of
THE TOM SLADE BOOKS
THE ROY BLAKELEY BOOKS
THE PEE-WEE HARRIS BOOKS
THE WESTY MARTIN BOOKS
ILLUSTRATED BY
HOWARD L. HASTINGS
Published with the approval of
THE BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS : : NEW YORK
Made in the United States of America
Copyright, 1925, by
GROSSET & DUNLAP
CONTENTS
I. Perhaps You Have Met Before
II. Who Is That Man?
III. A Tragic Episode
IV. The New Venture
V. A Neighbor’s Story
VI. The End of One Trail
VII. Into the Depths
VIII. Shadows
IX. The Sign of the Four
X. The Work Progresses
XI. Alone
XII. Signs on the Mountain
XIII. The Steady Gaze
XIV. The Apparition
XV. Out of the Past
XVI. Somebody’s Son
XVII. Baffled
XVIII. Seeing Is Believing
XIX. Guesswork or Action
XX. Suspense
XXI. Despair
XXII. Tom
XXIII. Strange Partners
XXIV. And “Peters” Drops in
XXV. A Ghost on the Wire
XXVI. Whose Letter?
XXVII. Mystery upon Mystery
XXVIII. This Is Brent’s Suggestion
XXIX. Rivers Is Delighted
XXX. The Threads Unravel
XXXI. An Evening of Deductions
XXXII. The Letter Comes Back
XXXIII. Face to Face
XXXIV. It Can’t Rain Forever
TOM SLADE IN THE NORTH WOODS
CHAPTER I—PERHAPS YOU HAVE MET BEFORE
One of the surest signs of approaching autumn in this suburban town of
ours, is the reappearance in the main thoroughfares of my adventurous
young friend Tom Slade after his summer sojourn in the mountains. When I
see that familiar form in brown negligee attire careering down Main
Street in the outlandish flivver which seems to be a very part of him, I
know that Temple Camp has closed for the season, that the schools are
again open, and that soon I shall be raking up dried leaves on the front
lawn. The return of Tom Slade is just as much a harbinger of autumn as
the coming of the first robin is a harbinger of spring.
My first glimpse of that dilapidated Ford always arouses a cheery
feeling in my heart and I am not offended at the rather perfunctory wave
of the hand with which Tom recognizes and greets me as he hurries by. I
know that when he gets around to it he will run up to see me and beguile
me with an account of the summer up at the big scout camp of which he is
the very spirit.
Sometimes I think that there is no single character in this whole
thriving town who would be as much regretted as Tom Slade, if he should
go away. There is a breezy kind of picturesqueness about him that sets
him apart and makes him a sort of local celebrity. I think I have never
in my life seen him wearing a regular suit of clothes. He goes hurrying
about town in the winter months quite hatless; he seems always on the
go. I have seen a good many boys in this town, who were scouts not so
long ago, grow up and become absorbed in the seething business of the
growing community. Some of them are grown into ingratiating young
fellows in banks, some are in the real estate “game” as they call it;
they are all driving around in good cars and exhaling a distressing
atmosphere of sophistication.
When I go into the Trust Company and am welcomed patronizingly by young
Ellis Berrian I could almost choke him for his self-sufficiency. He used
to caddie for me over at the Warrentown course. These white-collared
young gentry are cutting a great swath and producing nothing. They buy
cars on the installment plan and talk glibly about the rise in values
when the new bridge shall span the Hudson.
The first I ever knew of Tom Slade was when he was a hoodlum down in
Barrel Alley (since obliterated, praise be) and he got his name in our
local newspaper for knocking down a heroic official who was placing the
few Slade belongings in the street by way of executing a court order of
eviction. Tom, then fourteen, knocked the official in the gutter--I
think it was the gutter.
Then the local scout troop got hold of him and found (as the official
had found) that he had an uncanny way of doing what he set his heart on
doing. He made a record in scouting. His mother and father both died,
and the scouts took him up to camp with them. His heroism up there
brought him to the attention of Mr. John Temple, of whom this town may
well be proud, and the outcome of the whole business was that Mr. Temple
founded Temple Camp up in the Catskills which has grown into one of the
biggest scout communities in this country.
When the war cloud broke Tom enlisted, and came back when it was over
with a record that made him a celebrity in this young city. He was right
then at the parting of the ways. He might have got a job in one of the
banks or studied law (so I understand) on Mr. Temple’s bounty, and
become another hapless member of that group of young ghouls who haunt
the court-house and are sometimes driven back on real estate and title
searching. It must be confessed Tom would have made a wretched lawyer.
But the spirit of adventure was in him, the wind blew in his face, the
woods called to him. He went up to Temple Camp and became a sort of
assistant there.
I do not know exactly what are his duties, but when I visited Temple
Camp a couple of years ago, he seemed to form a kind of link between the
management and the scouts. He invited me up there and I hardly laid eyes
on him during my whole week’s stay. All I can say is that he was always
in a hurry, always hatless, and always had a group of scouts following
him about. He had what none of the councilors or scoutmasters had, and
that was picturesqueness. I think he is the only official up there who
has anything bizarre about him. I suppose a big camp like that must have
its hero, and he is that.
Temple Camp has a small office in this town, where there is a manager, a
bookkeeper, and two or three girls who send out circulars and
prospectuses. During the winter months, Tom identifies himself with this
prosy department of the romantic scout community in the Catskills, and
in the spring he is off again to get the boats in the water and repair
the springboard or the observation tower, and fell trees for new cabins,
and heaven knows what all. During his season in Bridgeboro I am likely
to see him to talk with a dozen times more or less. He stays down at the
old County Seat Hotel and comes up here for dinner occasionally. He is
always welcome. Sometimes we play chess and I can always beat him at
that. We talk into the wee hours.
In our fireside chats this winter we shall have more serious matters to
recall than heretofore. The adventures we will discuss will seem like
things seen in a dream. And when February gales whistle around the bay
window in this cozy library, my little sanctum will seem the more secure
and cheery because of our harrowing recollections of a wind-swept
mountain in the north woods, where a wild voice that haunts me even now
was drowned in the fury of the gale as it echoed in the ghostly
fastnesses of that eery wilderness. We will live over again the chilling
terrors of a night when wild eyes stared into mine, and clawing fingers
groped toward my throat, and the wind moaned and was never still.
Perhaps we may even fancy that we see the poor departed spirit that is
said to haunt the neighborhood of Weir Lake over which the towering
Hogback casts its brooding shadow; the wandering shade that is ever
searching and never finding a living soul in whom to confide the
appalling truth about the tragedy of Leatherstocking Camp.
If you would know this story as Tom and I know it, you may come here in
imagination to my little sanctum, and welcome you will be. You may fancy
that you have tumbled the books and papers from that littered couch
before the open fire plunk on to the floor as Tom himself is wont to do.
Then you may fancy that you are reclining comfortably among my numerous
cushions listening to a winter’s tale about the lonely spaces of the
North.