Читать книгу Tom Slade in the North Woods - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 7

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Once the proposition of the new camp was settled, and Tom and his hardy adventurers had gone to brave the winter in those howling wilds, I forgot all about the enterprise which now seems likely to mean so much to scouting. Tom wrote me twice, mailing his letters at Harkness on the Ausable River, about eight miles east of the camp. He told me that they had a storehouse and two cabins up. His letters breathed a warmth of enthusiasm which I suppose helped to palliate the rigors of the biting winter. I inferred that they were working hard and withal having a good time of it. He wrote that the game wardens made free with his hospitality and were always welcome with their fireside yarns.

I must confess that when I thought of the spot at all it was as the deserted camp of the bereaved leather king; not all the pother about the new enterprise could drive from my memory the vivid picture of the tragic accident which had occurred there. To me, that would always cast a shadow over the place. That fine youth (fond of sport and the great outdoors, as I pictured him, and with a vast fortune to make the path of life easy) shot through the head as he took an early morning swim in the lake! And the bereaved father, to whom the spot was now become a place of sorrowful memory! It seemed almost like taking advantage of his grief to buy the property at a sacrifice figure. But Mr. Temple only laughed at me when I spoke to this effect.

Now toward the end of the winter I did something which I suppose was a trifle presumptuous. This was, I think, a couple of months before I went up to the camp. I have a little place in Cedarville, a slight distance inland from Long Branch which, as you know, is on our New Jersey coast. Here I while away the summer months playing golf. At that time the Cedarville Golf Club was having a campaign for membership, for its exceptionally fine course had begun to attract the attention of golf enthusiasts in other communities.

Well, not to make a long story of it, I was struck by an inspiration. Tom had mentioned that Mr. Harrison McClintick had a place at Long Branch. Here would be a fine name to juggle with in our campaign. Surely he played golf; all millionaires play golf. He must join the Cedarville Club, and lend his name to our intensive drive.

So when I was down at my little place on a week-end I ran over to Long Branch. I only suspected that Mr. McClintick would be there; finding millionaires in their homes is a kind of hunting sport in itself. I was somewhat crestfallen to learn that Seven Towers, his magnificent place, had been sold. I have seen few houses so palatial. It was a young man on the adjoining estate, a gardener or perhaps superintendent, who told me of the sale of the place. And he told me of other matters which somewhat changed the color of my thoughts.

Leaning against my car with one foot on the running board he chatted quite freely about the McClintick fortune. “Why, as I understand it, he sold out because he couldn’t keep it up,” said he. “He used to have a place in Newport too, but I heard that’s been sold. Easy come and easy go, you know. He made it all in the war.”

“So I heard,” I said. “I happen to know the interests that bought his camp in the Adirondacks. He had a sadder reason for selling that.”

To my astonishment the young man only pursed his lips and looked rather quizzical. “Guess the old gent was glad enough to get the money,” he said.

“He’s had reverses then?”

“That’s what they say,” my informant replied.

“Hard luck,” I mused aloud in a kind of half interest. “To lose his son that way was bad enough——”

“Sure was,” the young fellow agreed. “Rolly, he didn’t amount to much though. It was a terrible thing just the same.”

At this casual observation I experienced almost a shock. Perhaps I have a too ready fancy, but I had pictured young McClintick as a splendid and beloved son cut down by a horrible accident in the bloom of youth.

“So?” I queried. “Why,—what was the matter with him? He certainly had a sad enough end.”

“Come through the fighting on the other side all right, and then got shot,” my chance acquaintance commented. “That’s the way it is,” he added. Then, as if to modify his criticism of the victim, he said, “Oh, I don’t know; Rolly wasn’t so bad, I suppose. They had their place here when we got into the war, only it wasn’t anything like the way you see it now; that whole left wing and both towers were added. Yes, the old man made quite a place of it. He sure knew how to spend it.”

By way of prolonging our casual chat I offered him a cigarette and lighted one myself. And so we both lingered for still a few minutes, he with a foot on the running board, I resting my arms on the steering wheel.

“You connected with this other estate?” I queried.

“Oh yes.”

“What was the matter with young Mr. McClintick?” I ventured.

“Well, I don’t know as there was anything much. I remember once he was in some kind of a raid—gambling place down in Atlantic City, I think it was—and he gave the name of the family’s butler. They came up here after the butler, I remember.” He recalled the incident with a chuckle. “Worked out all right,” he added. “The McClinticks paid the fine and I heard they gave the butler a good fat tip for his wounded feelings. I guess Pete was satisfied. Oh, Rolly wasn’t so bad, I suppose; guess he was like a good many millionaires’ sons.”

“Just a little skittish,” I commented.

“Hm, ’bout the size of it. Then there was some trouble when he was drafted for service; I don’t know just what it was. Old man tried to get him off on the grounds of his being in war work already—leather. But they didn’t put it over. I guess Rolly made out all right enough on the other side. I was over there myself when he was drafted. Let’s see, Rolly would have been—he must have been—maybe a little over thirty when he was killed. Funny, huh, how a fellow goes through a war and then comes back and gets bumped off by some fool of a hunter.”

“It’s a funny world,” said I.