Читать книгу Tom Slade in the North Woods - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 5

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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.