Seated comfortably in my library, Tom at once plunged into what I
suppose might be called the human interest side of his story. I must
confess I am not greatly interested in leather, nor even in
millionaires’ camps. Nor was I altogether carried off my feet by Tom’s
vision of a new camp. But I listened with rapt attention to his account
of the tragic incident which had made Leatherstocking Camp a place of
bitter memory to its owner.
“The reason why he wants to get rid of it,” Tom said, “is because he
can’t bear the sight of it; he wants to put it out of his life; doesn’t
ever want to hear of it again. Those game wardens up there told the
surveyors all about it. Last year Mr. McClintick and his son and a man
who was an old friend--Weston, I think his name was--were up there duck
shooting. Well, one morning young McClintick got up early and went out
to take a swim in the lake. It happened that Mr. Weston was out early,
too, looking for ducks. I guess it was pretty early, and misty. Anyway,
Mr. Weston saw a dark object moving through the water out in the middle
of the lake. He thought it was a duck and he _aimed his gun and shot at
it_.”
I drew a quick breath. “It wasn’t young McClintick?”
“It was young McClintick.”
“Heavens!” I said. “That was terrible.”
Tom paused before continuing. I could only shake my head, drawing a long
breath and repeating, “Terrible--_terrible_!”
“It was just another of those fatal accidents that happen in the gaming
season,” Tom said. “Most every year you read of some such thing.”
I shook my head; his recital had almost unnerved me. “No, it was
_horrible_,” I mused aloud. “I never read of another accident just like
that--no. I’ve heard of a man aiming at a deer and shooting a comrade
somewhere beyond. But never anything like this. I think the poor man
must have gone crazy afterward.”
“Well,” said Tom, “the story as I heard it from the surveyors was that
he did go to pieces. When he shot at the object, suddenly there was a
kind of splash and something reached up; he thought it was an arm. Well
sir, he wouldn’t let himself believe that he had----”
“Awful, _frightful_,” I said, shudderingly. “Tom,” I added, “I don’t
know whether I feel sorrier for the man or for the father. How would
_you_ feel in the man’s place?”
Tom shook his head. “The game wardens up there told my friends, the
surveyors, that Mr. Weston couldn’t bring himself to go into the lodge
and see if young McClintick was there asleep. He knew the old man never
went in the lake and that there wasn’t anybody else for miles around.
You see there were just three of them there. I understood Mr. Weston was
an old friend of Mr. McClintick. He did think that maybe a game warden
or a fire-ranger had happened into the neighborhood and gone in the
water. All he had to do was to go into the lodge and see if young
McClintick was there in his bed. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it.
He just waited around, all gone to pieces, for an hour or so.”
“I would say that must have been the most terrible half hour that ever
passed in any human life,” I reflected. “Well, what then?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Tom said. “Of course, both he and Mr. McClintick
knew the worst before long. It sort of broke up the friendship.
Naturally would, don’t you think so? Yet I guess the old man
wasn’t--that is, didn’t exactly hold it against him.”
“Just an accident,” I mused. And Tom and I sat silent for a few moments,
both musing.
“Just an accident,” he said. “They didn’t succeed in getting the body
for several weeks; it was caught in an old seine at the bottom of the
lake. I understand the poor old fellow thought the world of his son. He
just went down to his place in Long Branch and got through with it
somehow. He’s got a big place down there, I understand, and another in
Newport. Lives in New York winters; has a mansion there too, I suppose.
Poor old gent, they said he cared more about his Leatherstocking Camp
than all his other places put together. But he won’t go there now; won’t
look at the place; won’t hear about it. Just wants to sell it and he
won’t haggle about the price. I suppose fifteen or twenty thousand bucks
would buy the whole outfit. Oh, _boy_, that’s some wonderful place! I
was telling Mr. Temple all about it. He just patted me on the shoulder
and said he’d have to talk with the Scout people about it. I think he
was just letting me down easy. _But there’s a chance! There’s the place
for a training camp for scoutmasters!_ Take it or leave it--_but there’s
the spot!_ There won’t be another bargain counter chance like that, not
till Gabriel blows his horn--_no sir!_”
“Did you talk to Mr. Temple like that?” I queried.
“Yes, and he said, ‘It’s always good to see you, Tommy.’”
“Tom,” I said, “do you know, if I were that man--Weston, was it?--do you
know, I think I’d feel worse than if I had murdered. You see a murderer
is defective, he doesn’t see straight, his mind isn’t right, he has no
imagination, he doesn’t suffer remorse. A man who has deliberately
killed doesn’t suffer because he’s abnormal.”
“Highbrow stuff?” Tom commented.
“But a perfectly normal man who takes careful aim and shoots another to
death, in a ghastly accident----”
“I know,” Tom said.
“What must be his feelings?” I mused. “I think I would be a complete
wreck after that. I think I would be forever haunted by the thought of
my ghastly blunder. After all, the most horrible thing may be just a
mistake. I wonder how Mr. Weston was affected.” For a few moments I sat
musing; I could not think of the possibilities of that deserted camp. I
could only think of the tragic occurrence which cast its shadow over it.
To go there after poor Mr. McClintick had turned his grief-wrung face
from it forever would seem almost like wearing a dead man’s shoes.
Tom aroused me out of my reverie by saying, “Sure, I suppose he was
broken--naturally. But what I’m thinking about now is getting hold of
that property--just wait till you see it--and starting it as a scout
camp. Why Mr. Temple made a speech up at Temple Camp only this summer
and said what a wonderful thing it would be to have a sort of training
camp for scoutmasters. Goodness knows, a lot of them need it. And now
here’s a millionaire’s camp in the wilds of the Adirondacks that can be
had almost for the asking----”
“Oh, hardly that, Tommy,” I said. “Besides, it would cost money to put
it in shape. You can’t turn a rich man’s hunting lodge into a scout camp
overnight, you know. You’d have to build shacks and a dormitory; you’d
have either to build or transport boats and canoes there; you’d have to
spend a lot of money, in short. According to your account this place is
in the wilderness. Mr. Temple is a very rich man, my boy; but he’s also
a very shrewd and practical man.”
“Well, talk is cheap,” Tom complained. “But here’s a _chance_.”
“Oh, you shouldn’t talk like that about Mr. Temple,” I said. “Mr. Temple
is as good as his word every time, and you know it. For my part--maybe
I’m more sentimental than you--I’d have a kind of a queer feeling about
the place. Sort of spooky--no?”
“Sure not,” Tom laughed. “Why, two boys have lost their lives at Temple
Camp since the place opened up.”
“Well, I guess you’re right at that,” I confessed. “Now I’ll tell you
what I’ll do,” I added rather more briskly, for to tell you the truth
the story Tom had told affected me so keenly that I found it hard to
think of any other phase of the matter. Perhaps that is because I am a
writer and am apt to see the dramatic element of a thing to the
exclusion of everything else. “I’ll go up and see Mr. Temple; he can’t
do more than throw me out. He and I have one thing in common anyway,
that’s golf----”
“And scouting.”
“Yes, and scouting. I’ll tell him I think the more scout camps there
are, the better. I’ll tell him I think that _his own idea_ about a
training camp for scoutmasters is a bully idea. And I’ll tell him I
believe in you; that I think you know more about the real outdoor stuff
than anybody this side of Mars. Of course, I can’t put myself in the
position of asking him to start and endow a new camp. But I’ll sound him
out, and I think I’m old enough so that he won’t just pat me on the
back.”
“You’re young enough,” Tom said with spirit. “All you need is to sleep
outdoors in the summer.”
“Thank you, I have a home to sleep in,” I said.
“And if we get this thing started, you’re going to come up there,” he
declared.
“And while you’re careering around doing a hundred things at once, I’ll
have to wander around the lake and think about the tragedy that made the
new camp possible.”
“Oh, try to forget it,” said Tom.
“And there’s another thing,” I said. “What would Temple Camp ever do
without you?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t cut out Temple Camp,” he exclaimed. “I’d just take a
summer off to get this new camp started.”
I just shook my head. I’d give a good deal to have his fine spirit and
energy.