For why? Because the good old rule,Sufficeth them. The simple plan.That he shall take who has the power,And he shall keep who can.
For why? Because the good old rule,Sufficeth them. The simple plan.That he shall take who has the power,And he shall keep who can.
For why? Because the good old rule,Sufficeth them. The simple plan.That he shall take who has the power,And he shall keep who can.
For why? Because the good old rule,
Sufficeth them. The simple plan.
That he shall take who has the power,
And he shall keep who can.
And anyway, the most conspicuous thing about Long Buck Sanderson was his love for his little orphan granddaughter, and his concern for her when she should find herself alone in the world. So I think he could never have been very bad, any way you look at it....
I am now approaching the point of my withdrawal from this narrative to make way for the grand hero, Tom Slade. I think you know him. I take pleasure in setting down here that of all the crack-brained disciples of adventure he is positively the most hopeless. Brent Gaylong is not quite so bad, but bad enough.
I spent two very pleasant weeks with my Aunt Martha in Kingston and I took her driving here and there. I shall never forget the drive around the great Ashokan Reservoir nor the luncheon we had at the picturesque little Watson Hollow Inn. It was restful to be in company of a sweet old-fashioned lady like Aunt Martha. Why in goodness’ name I had neglected her for so many years I can’t imagine.
She told me that the old hunters who had lived back in the Catskills when she was a young girl in that same quaint little house, had been a rather questionable lot. It seemed that many of them carried on banditry as a sort of sideline. It was interesting to hear her talk of those old days and the wild surrounding country. I can’t for the life of me guess why people always turn their thoughts to the Far West when they feel the need of trappers and bandits and such. In the Ramapo Hills south of Central Valley there lived not sixty years ago an outlaw band who robbed stage-coaches and buried their booty in the ground.
Well, the very first evening of my return to Bridgeboro up came Tom Slade and Brent Gaylong (whose folks have lately moved to town) and as we sat on the porch I told them in detail of my pleasant encounter with Long Buck Sanderson. They made a funny picture, those two, as they sat together in the swing seat, Tom in the khaki that he always wears in deference to his official connection with Temple Camp, and Brent, long and lanky, with his steel spectacles halfway down his nose. He placed them that way because I suppose it pleased him to have them thus absurdly adjusted while listening to a thrilling tale of adventure. He looked soberly receptive.
“Proceed with your narrative,” he said.
So I proceeded with my narrative, and when I had finished Tom said, “That’s all pretty good. But let me tell you one thing. I know more about these things than you do. I’ve met in with some shyster hunters in my camp work and I’ve met a lot of game wardens and rangers, too. You’ll find game wardens a pretty decent set of men—straight and clean. If a man’s going to go in for graft he doesn’t hit the woods—you can chalk that up on your score-board. They never took the old codger’s money—no siree!”
“What do you know about game wardens in those old days?” I said. “You’re only twenty-three years old. Those were rough, lawless times. These are the times of daily good turns.”
“And three thousand dollars is a lot of money to come home with,” said Tom.
“It’s more than I ever came home with,” said Brent.
“All right,” said I, waxing interested in the point. “Let’s say that Long Buck was wrong. Let’s say that that gang⸺”
“They were no gang,” Tom shot back at me; “they were there to protect the wild life—for you and for me!”
“For me too,” said Brent.
“All right,” I said, undaunted. “Let’s say that Barney Wythe and his associates didn’t knock Mink Havers on the head and get the money.Where is the money, then?It isn’t there in the well. Where is it? What became of it?”
“Did you look under the Victrola when you were up there?” Brent asked soberly.
“How about Havers?” Tom suggested.
“You mean he put something over on his partner?” I shot back. “Let me tell you, if you can defend your game wardens, I can defend my woodsmen; they weren’t that kind and you can chalkthatup on your score-board.”
“Maybe we don’t know the whole story,” Tom said. “Three thousand bucks was a lot⸺”
“Oh, it was payment for much stock and service, I suppose,” I said. “I dare say those old hunters let their accounts run up. You don’t think old Buck was a highwayman, do you? They had a lot of rugged honesty, that old race.”
“Law one, a scout is trustworthy,” said Brent.
“Then, now, and always,” I added more seriously.
So then we all sat in silence, the two of them swinging in the seat.
“So there you are,” I said. “I don’t see that you’ve helped matters any, you’ve simply created a mystery.”
“What could be nicer?” said Brent.
“If the officials didn’t get their fists on the money, and if Mink Havers didn’t get it (which of course he didn’t), why, then, it’s still up there somewhere.”
“We’ll go and get it,” said Brent. “With my share I’m going to get a Ford sedan—don’t try to talk me out of it, I always wanted a Ford sedan.”
“Then, it’s still up there,” I said, with a complacent show of triumph.
No sooner were the words out of my mouth than I was sorry I had said them. For there sat Tom Slade staring at me as if seized by a sudden thought.
“Sure it’s up there,” he said. “But it won’t be, not when we get through.”
“Good heavens, you’re not going hunting for buried treasure?” I gasped. “I always knew you were a bug, but I never supposed you’d go in for the Captain Kidd stuff.”
“Have you got a couple of shovels you’re not using?” Brent asked.
“You’ll have to take off those spectacles first,” I said.
“Anyway, let’s go up and call on the old fellow,” said Tom. “I’d kinder like to see him. We can go in my flivver⸺”
“Speaking of rattles,” said Brent; “that is, rattlesnakes.”
“We don’t have to go way up to Tuxedo,” said Tom. “I’ve got a map of that region. We can shoot in at Sloatsburg. I bet that’ll let us right into the section you’re talking about. They’re building a dam in there; there’s going to be a new lake. I’ve been in that way a mile or so already, it’s a pretty punk road.”
“In that case we’ll go in your flivver,” I said. “That will have the advantage of making it unlikely that we’ll ever get there. I am not in favor of this trip. I’d like to show you my old settler but I don’t want to start anything.”
“Come ahead, we’ll bang up there,” said Tom.
I might have known it.
Now thereisa way that you can get into the Interstate Park reservation by turning in at Sloatsburg. It was by some such route that Long Buck had entered that region on his memorable return from New York. But this route is so little known that even a state trooper in that very neighborhood told me he had never seen or heard of it.
That was the way we went in Tom’s flivver. We turned in at Sloatsburg and went in past what they call Burnt Sawmill Bridge. They are building a dam there now to flood the section west of Brundige Mountain, and by the time this chronicle is in your hands there will be a fine new lake there which I am afraid will swallow up the old cave below the mountain.
Pretty soon we hit into a road going southeast and went through about the most unfrequented country that ever a road traversed. Then we came to St Johns, which is a picturesque little church (I can’t imagine who attends it). The rest of the municipal furniture seems to consist of a girl, a house, a turtle, and four cows. Then we came to Sandyfield, approaching it from the west instead of from the north. This obscure route had taken us through about the loneliest section of country that I have ever known within a stone’s throw of civilization.
We parked the flivver exactly where I had parked my car, and I modestly resigned to Tom the task of piloting us through the woods. I was astonished at his skill in doing this. Like old Buck, he seemed to recognize a trail where there was no trail, and at times he would be always looking to right and left trying to discover the path of least resistance. Now and then he asked me questions, and once or twice my memory came to his aid. It is wonderful what a scout and woodsman he is. As for Brent, he moved along soberly. I don’t know whether his soberness is altogether a humorous pose; with his steel spectacles and his intentness on the pathfinding he seemed to me excruciatingly funny.
One familiar thing (trail signs, I think they call them) I did see, and I have thought of it often since. I plucked from a bush a little wisp of gingham that was fluttering like a tiny pennant in the breeze. No doubt it was torn from the simple dress of my little friend June Sanderson, perhaps upon that very trip when she and old Buck accompanied me back to Sandyfield. “We’re on the right track,” I said, waving it at Tom. But in a way we were not exactly upon the right track either.
“Look here, Tomasso,” I said to Tom; “I don’t want you to get into an argument with the old man. I don’t want you to crack up game wardens. Above all, I don’t want you to tell him that those fellows never got his money. He knows they did and that’s enough.”
“If it makes him happy to think they got his money, let him think so,” said Brent. “He might be disappointed if he thought it was safe and secure now.”
“Well, you mind what I say,” I repeated to Tom. “You can never convince or change a person of his age; especially one of his type. We’ll just make a little call. Barney Wythe got the money whether he got it or not and game wardens are varmints.”
“Absolutely,” said Brent.
But, indeed, there was no need to coach Tom in the matter of handling my old chance acquaintance. There was no need of my concern for the old man’s feelings. I need not have troubled myself about respecting his sturdy prejudices. Indeed, there was no need of our following that obscure trail at all. For Long Buck Sanderson’s cabin was closed up tight with a rough board nailed across the door. He had gone where there were no game wardens—or only good game wardens. And it mattered very little where his precious three thousand dollars were after all.
They told us at Sandyfield that old Buck had died of pneumonia and been buried somewhere near Mt. Ivy. As the old hunter had anticipated, and dreaded I think, June had been sent to an orphanage in the neighborhood of Haverstraw.
Sandyfield, it seemed, was independent of the reservation, notwithstanding that it was within its boundaries; it was part of the township of Haverstraw. I suppose that this fact operated in the choice of an asylum for the girl. I had an idea of hunting the place up and going to see her, but you know how it is—good intentions.
I was relieved to learn that old Buck had not been laid to rest in some potter’s field but in a quiet little rural cemetery in the region which he knew so well. He was the last inhabitant of Rattlesnake Gulch.
“So that’s that,” I said, as we drove back down the state road. “I wish now that you could have seen him.”
I don’t suppose I would have gone to see him again myself, but now that I couldn’t I felt that I would miss him.
“Well, there’s one thing,” Tom said. “I’m going up there to camp and hunt for that money.”
“Treasure, you should call it,” said Brent.
“Well, then, treasure,” said Tom.
“And when it comes to using the right words,” I said, “nutis the word to use for a treasure hunter. I’ve known you to do many reckless things, but until now I’ve never known you to make yourself ridiculous!”
He just drove along, lickety split, in his old Ford; I never was so shaken in my life.
“It’s a stirring ride, isn’t it?” said Brent, in his funny way. “Don’t you feel all stirred up?”
“You’re not in with me, then?” Tom asked.
“I? I should hope not! Do you think I want to get my picture into the Pathé News, digging treasure? Do you suppose I want all the boy scouts up that way laughing at me?”
“You coming?” he asked Brent.
“If I thought I’d get into the Pathé News I’d certainly go,” Brent said. “I’ve seen so many airplanes and dirigibles in the Pathé News that it would be a pleasure to dig into the solid earth. What they need in the Pathé News is more underground stuff. I rather think I’ll go.”
“Well,” I said, “all I can say is that I’m sorry I ever told you anything about it—either one of you. Brent, I would say thatyouat least have too much sense of humor to go hunting for hidden treasure.”
“That’s just what you need, a sense of humor,” said Brent.
“Well, I don’t know but what you’re right,” I added half-disgustedly.
“We’ll go up there,” said Tom, intent upon his breakneck driving, “and we’ll camp right in old Buck’s cabin; I can get permission from the Interstate Park bunch, all right. We won’t have to say what we’re there for. We’ll have the whole summer to hunt.”
“How about Temple Camp?” I asked him.
“I can get leave all right,” he shot at me.
“And what are you going to do with the—thetreasure—when you get it, if I may ask?”
“We’re going to turn it over to June Sanderson,” said Tom.
“Then we’re going to marry her and live happily forever after,” said Brent. “With the money from the Pathé News I’m going to get my laundry.”
I said, “Tom, if you ask for leave of absence from Temple Camp to spend the summer in such a fool enterprise you put yourself on a level with freaks and fanatics the country over. You’ll have every boy scout up in that place laughing at you⸺”
“Let ’em laugh,” said Tom decisively.
“Let me ask you,” I continued, “did you ever know of any one finding hidden treasure? Did you ever know any one that knew any one that ever heard of any one who was personally acquainted with anybody that ever really found any hidden treasure—did you?”
Brent said, “That’s rather a long question; let me think a minute.”
“If you could just name me one person,” I said. “Why, there was a young fellow, a millionaire’s son, who fitted up a yacht and went down off the coast of South America fishing for a sunken Spanish galleon. He ended in an insane asylum. There was a man in Massachusetts who had some inside dope on where Captain Kidd bunked some bars of gold and stuff—Baxter, his name was. They wouldn’t take him for service overseas because he was mentally deficient.”
“Thanks muchly,” said Tom. “You don’t have to be connected with this.”
“Heaven forbid,” I said.
“If it’s a question of reason and common sense⸺”’ he began.
“Will youpleasedrive a little slower?” I begged.
“If it’s a question of reason and common sense,” he continued, “whereisthe money if it isn’t somewhere up there? You think the game wardens cracked Munk or Mink, or whatever his name was, on the head and got it somehow. I don’t believe that; I say those men were on the level—I know the type. All right, then,yousay Mink didn’t pull a game on his partner—youknow that type. Well, then, Mink left the moneysomewhere, didn’t he? Do you see anything so ridiculous about that? Where is it?”
“I was wondering,” Brent said; “of course, this is only a suggestion⸺”
“That’s what I want—suggestions,” said Tom.
“I was wondering if the rattlesnakes could have eaten it. No?”
“Tom,” I said, “I’m going to ask you seriously, now before we get to Bridgeboro, don’t fly out of your senses and go hunting for treasure—that’s old stuff. I wouldn’t even put it in a story. The way to get money is to earn it⸺”
“Now you’re making a noise like a papa,” he said.
“You go up to Temple Camp and work on your job and earn your salary,” I told him; “don’t be a quitter. At least don’t be a quitter to go chasing a rainbow. Everybody respects you in town; don’t make a fool of yourself. I’m sorry I told you. If you get a leave of absence from Temple Camp to go treasure hunting, why, Temple Camp is paying for the treasure hunt. If that tastes good in your mouth, all right.”
That got him. I honestly believe that it was the only thing I said that had any weight with him. In any case, weeks went by and I never heard any more about treasure hunting in Rattlesnake Gulch. I saw Tom about town and once he told me that he had been up to Temple Camp and was back in Bridgeboro to see Mr. Temple about something or other. He seemed to be in a hurry, as he usually is, and I assumed that he had come safely through the treasure-hunting peril. Anyway, he did not speak of it.
As for Brent, I don’t think he was disappointed at all. I don’t think it makes much difference to him what he does; he seems always to be whimsically ready for anything. That’s the funny thing about him.
So there you are. I was out of it and I was glad to think that Tom and Brent were out of it. I felt almost as if I had incited a couple of boys to go hunting Indians. Though, to be sure, Tom and Brent are “grown-up fellows,” as boys say. I went in for golf at the North Bridgeboro Country Club and a couple of times I went fishing up the river. And in my work and summer diversions I forgot all about Long Buck Sanderson and his deserted, sequestered home. After all, the episode had loomed large only while it lasted.
Then, all of a sudden, Tom Slade had a fatal relapse. Up he came to my house one evening waving a newspaper in my face. I should tell you that Temple Camp (the big Scout community up in the Catskills) is advertised in newspapers all over the land. Tom attends to these matters along with six million other duties, and I never in my life knew any one so thoroughly well posted on Scout activities the country over as he. He is all the time foraging in western dailies, and this paper with which he now confronted, or rather menaced, me was theSt. Louis Star.
“Here’s something to open your eyes,” he said, all excitement. “Nowwho’s a freak and a bug? Read that!”
The news item which confronted me was headed, SKULL CURE SUBJECT DISAPPEARS, and was as follows. I copy it word for word from the old yellowed clipping with the red stain on it which Tom has carried in his wallet these many months.
The Missouri Institution of Physicians and Surgeons is greatly interested in the case of an inmate of the State Hospital for the Criminally Insane who escaped yesterday. The man was known as John Mink and he had been in the institution for the last fourteen years where he was taken following the failure of a St. Louis jury to convict him of theft upon the ground of insanity. He was pronounced a typical case of aphasia, or amnesia, which is that phase of the former disorder characterized by loss or morbid impairment of the memory.The man’s history and antecedents were not known to the authorities, and he came to be known as Treasure Jack because he was forever making vague references to a bait-box full of money which he had once put in the ground. He was harmless and amiable and able to work with his hands at making baskets in the institution.Recently the man was the subject of an experimental operation by Doctors Calloway and Waring which resulted in certain encouraging signs pointing to complete success. A piece of bone which was pressing against the brain was removed. Shortly afterward the old inmate made one or two rational and very interesting references to his boyhood but seemed unable to recall any significant details which might have enlightened his keepers as to his history prior to the time of his arrest.Following his operation, John Mink was placed in the observation department of the institution where he showed an encouraging inclination to read, something which he had never done before. His case attracted a good deal of attention. He was lately given a copy of Stevenson’sTreasure Islandto read in the hope that the title and subject matter dealing with hidden treasure might recall certain episodes in his own life. He did not react to this except to remember that he had been to sea, and he has the tattooed design of an anchor on his arm which he had never before been able to explain.The apparent convalescence of this interesting subject was interrupted on Monday last by the departure for Europe of the young physician who has been personally caring for him and watching his case. He suffered a nervous attack on the following day, and that evening, evidently under the spell of a delusion that he was pursuing someone, jumped from a second-story window of the institution and has not been seen or heard of since.His disappearance has been broadcasted by western radio stations and it is hoped that some trace of him may be secured in that way.
The Missouri Institution of Physicians and Surgeons is greatly interested in the case of an inmate of the State Hospital for the Criminally Insane who escaped yesterday. The man was known as John Mink and he had been in the institution for the last fourteen years where he was taken following the failure of a St. Louis jury to convict him of theft upon the ground of insanity. He was pronounced a typical case of aphasia, or amnesia, which is that phase of the former disorder characterized by loss or morbid impairment of the memory.
The man’s history and antecedents were not known to the authorities, and he came to be known as Treasure Jack because he was forever making vague references to a bait-box full of money which he had once put in the ground. He was harmless and amiable and able to work with his hands at making baskets in the institution.
Recently the man was the subject of an experimental operation by Doctors Calloway and Waring which resulted in certain encouraging signs pointing to complete success. A piece of bone which was pressing against the brain was removed. Shortly afterward the old inmate made one or two rational and very interesting references to his boyhood but seemed unable to recall any significant details which might have enlightened his keepers as to his history prior to the time of his arrest.
Following his operation, John Mink was placed in the observation department of the institution where he showed an encouraging inclination to read, something which he had never done before. His case attracted a good deal of attention. He was lately given a copy of Stevenson’sTreasure Islandto read in the hope that the title and subject matter dealing with hidden treasure might recall certain episodes in his own life. He did not react to this except to remember that he had been to sea, and he has the tattooed design of an anchor on his arm which he had never before been able to explain.
The apparent convalescence of this interesting subject was interrupted on Monday last by the departure for Europe of the young physician who has been personally caring for him and watching his case. He suffered a nervous attack on the following day, and that evening, evidently under the spell of a delusion that he was pursuing someone, jumped from a second-story window of the institution and has not been seen or heard of since.
His disappearance has been broadcasted by western radio stations and it is hoped that some trace of him may be secured in that way.
“Well,” said Tom, “what do you think of that? Is that Mink Havers or not?”
“Why, it may be,” I answered. “Mink is an unusual name, but this man was known as John Mink.”
“Treasure Jack,” urged Tom. “And let me tell you something,” he added, waxing very excited. “Mink was probably the only name he remembered. When a person who runs foul of the law doesn’t know his name or refuses to give it or gives a name that they know isn’t right, they put him down in the records as John. Public insane asylums are full of Johns. It’s sort of—a name they use like John Doe. Why, anybody with any sense at all would know this was Mink Havers!”
“Well,” I laughed, “I suppose I haven’t any sense, then. Idon’t knowthat this is your unknown friend of long ago, Mink Havers—I tell you frankly. But it may be, for all I know.”
“He talked of treasure and they called him Treasure Jack,” said Tom, conclusively.
“All right, Tomasso,” I laughed, “if we’re going to match facts, the man seems likely to have been a sailor; he had an anchor tattooed on his arm.”
“He might have been a sailor once upon a time,” Tom shot at me.
“Do sailors become hunters?” I ventured.
“Why not?”
“All right, then,” I said, “here’s another. He spoke of money he hid away as being in a bait-box. Bait-boxes, all that I’ve ever seen, are quite large and made of metal. Did old Buck carry his precious money from New York in a metal bait-box and hand that over to his partner? Is that the way you carry your money? You can put three thousand dollars in a wallet.”
“Maybe they had only coin in those days.”
“And maybe they hadn’t,” I laughed. “Look here, Tomasso,” I added, folding the newspaper up and rapping him on the head with it. “If you want to go treasure hunting, go ahead and do it. So far as I can see, the matter stands about as it did a month ago.”
“Then you don’t think that that man out west there may have had an inspiration about his treasure—that he may remember where he put it? You don’t?”
I shook my head skeptically, sorry at the same time that I had not the assurance and enthusiasm of youth.
“And that he may be on his way east—to Rattlesnake Gulch?”
“Clearly he is not capable of enterprise yet,” I said; “even assuming him to be Havers, which is possible, of course. I doubt if he would get so far—without money.”
“Half of it belongs to the child, doesn’t it?” he shot at me.
“Yes, I suppose so,” I conceded.
“Of course, you don’t think it’s there,” he said. “You think old Sanderson was right about what became of it.”
“Yes, I’m afraid I do,” I laughed.
“All right,” said he. “Here’s one for you, and I didn’t read it in a newspaper. I did some investigating while you’ve been playing golf.”
I smiled, “Yes?”
“Barney Wythe, game warden in that section, lived in old Tappan and died there in 1916. I wrote to the Fish and Game Commission and learned that much. He had been head game warden for thirty-nine years—he was a character. He was a respected citizen, a church member, and as square and honest and clean an old codger as ever lived; one of those blunt, old-fashioned, honest, adventurous countrymen that it’s refreshing to hear about. Old Squire Wythe—that’s what they called him—wasn’t any grafter like you think. I talked to his grandson. Old Buck was wrong there, you can bet on that!”
I confess this somewhat took the wind out of my sail. “Well,” I said, “I’m glad to hear that; poor old Buck did him an injustice. And I’m sorry that I dishonored his memory. You’re quite a Sherlock Holmes, Tom.”
“That isn’t the point,” said Tom vehemently. “The point is that if the law’s men didn’t get the money,it’s up there yet.”
“So you said a month ago.”
“And Brent and I are going to find it.”
“Well, I can’t stop you,” I laughed. “What does Brent think?”
“Oh, he says he rather likes the idea, he likes the western element in it,” Tom said. “He says that with the anchor tattooed on his arm, Mink may turn out to be a nephew of Captain Kidd himself—you know how he talks.”
“Well, it would be fun with him along,” I confessed.
“And you won’t go?”
“To live in Rattlesnake Gulch? Not so you’d notice it,” I said.
The whole thing seemed so preposterous—sostory like, in this prosaic age. As I see the whole thing now I realize that the trouble was with me and not with Tom. Anyway, what actually did happen in that wild, remote spot up in the Bear Mountain Reservation was a great deal more thrilling and astonishing than what Tom believed might happen. He who laughs last, laughs best; though to be sure it was no matter for laughter.
A few days after I saw the newspaper article, Tom and Brent went up to camp in Rattlesnake Gulch. I believe they obtained permission from the authorities up there to use poor old Buck Sanderson’s deserted cabin. Perhaps Tom’s position at Temple Camp made this easy to secure. There could not have been much objection, I think, for of all the remote and forlorn places that ever were, Rattlesnake Gulch was certainly the most uninviting. It certainly had real wildness, primitive wildness indeed, and held out, I suppose, that attraction to the camper. No one was likely to molest the sojourner there.
I believe that the first honors are due to Tom’s dilapidated Ford, which the two adventurers succeeded in driving to within a mile of their destination. To me this has always seemed one of the triumphs of the whole business. They had at first thought of hiking to the lonely scene of their enterprise but decided that they had too much luggage for that. It was necessary to take provisions for a lengthy sojourn.
On the other hand, they preferred not to leave their car at Sandyfield where it might be a continual reminder to the few inhabitants of their presence in the neighborhood. They wished not to be disturbed. For the same reason, I understood, they did not leave it at the Scout Headquarters up at the lakes, where it might advertise their presence to curious and enterprising Boy Scouts. For the camping season was then in full swing.
What they did was to drive in from Sloatsburg, and at a point short of Lily Pond (which is west of the hamlet) they succeeded in finding an old, overgrown wagon trail which wound through the woods and was sometimes completely obscured by brush. I suppose it might once have been used for ox teams. It petered out completely in the hills north of Breakneck Pond. Here Nature set her wild face to the lusty little Ford and said, “You shall not pass.”
So they left the Ford there, sheltered by an old canvas tent thrown over it, and I will here record that when the big adventure was over, the shabby and redoubtable little car started off as if nothing had happened, backed around into a swamp, delivered a masterly assault upon an oak tree, broke her bumper and one fender and one light, then proceeded triumphantly back along a trail which I was never able to see with my eyes. Two cylinders were missing—probably stolen, as Brent remarked.
From this strategic base of supplies Tom and Brent, with all the provisions they could carry, made their way south to the Gulch.
I did not see my young friends again until fall, when the whole affair was over. Several post cards reached me, mailed I suppose at Scout Headquarters, and one letter from Brent which I here copy:
Dear Friend:We are located very comfortably in Rattlesnake Gulch and as yet nothing has happened except I lost my spectacle case down the well. We expect to investigate the well to-morrow and then I hope to recover it. We are boarding with a very respectable family of rattlesnakes, mother and father and two sons, and I like them because they let us alone. Last night we heard a noise after turning in; it sounded like someone approaching stealthily. But on sneaking out of the cabin I found it was only an empty shredded wheat box which I had carelessly left about after supper; it was blowing hither and yon in the breeze and disturbing some dried leaves. I pursued and captured it.This cabin is a very primitive little bunk; there are two rooms but no improvements except an old cook stove, which I suppose you saw. We remind ourselves of Daniel Boone and William S. Hart. The place is very wild, much more thickly grown than when you were here. Tom will not have a light burning at night, for he wishes to take our friend from the West unawares; I don’t know why. So I cannot work on my cross-word puzzles after sundown.Mr. Mink has not showed up yet, though he has had a couple of weeks since his escape to get here; I suppose he is coming by the Erie.Tom sends regards and says he will write. How is the golf coming on? Sometimes I am sorry I ran away from home—vain regrets. I have decided to subscribe to theLiterary Digestwith my share of the treasure.Best wishes,Brent.
Dear Friend:
We are located very comfortably in Rattlesnake Gulch and as yet nothing has happened except I lost my spectacle case down the well. We expect to investigate the well to-morrow and then I hope to recover it. We are boarding with a very respectable family of rattlesnakes, mother and father and two sons, and I like them because they let us alone. Last night we heard a noise after turning in; it sounded like someone approaching stealthily. But on sneaking out of the cabin I found it was only an empty shredded wheat box which I had carelessly left about after supper; it was blowing hither and yon in the breeze and disturbing some dried leaves. I pursued and captured it.
This cabin is a very primitive little bunk; there are two rooms but no improvements except an old cook stove, which I suppose you saw. We remind ourselves of Daniel Boone and William S. Hart. The place is very wild, much more thickly grown than when you were here. Tom will not have a light burning at night, for he wishes to take our friend from the West unawares; I don’t know why. So I cannot work on my cross-word puzzles after sundown.
Mr. Mink has not showed up yet, though he has had a couple of weeks since his escape to get here; I suppose he is coming by the Erie.
Tom sends regards and says he will write. How is the golf coming on? Sometimes I am sorry I ran away from home—vain regrets. I have decided to subscribe to theLiterary Digestwith my share of the treasure.
Best wishes,Brent.
Best wishes,Brent.
Best wishes,
Brent.
The balance of this story, as I shall tell it to you, was gleaned from the detailed accounts given me by Tom after his return to Bridgeboro. Brent’s story would have been interesting, but, alas, no sprightly characteristic narrative was to come from him. Somewhat I have fallen back on the newspapers, but only when their rather highly colored accounts were confirmed by bare facts coming from other sources.
Knowing Tom Slade as I do, I am able to record not only his adventures but his reaction to the extraordinary things which happened. I know how he felt and thought and acted and so I can give you, I think, a well-rounded yarn which, albeit true, shall have a little of the pleasing color of romance. For I know Tom Slade as I know a book. And what is more, he knows that I know him....
You will remember the story that Long Buck Sanderson told me: how he was returning from New York with a sum of money. His partner, Mink Havers, was waiting for him near a swamp some distance from their cabin to advise him of the visit of Barney Wythe and others. Mink wished to hide the money and they agreed upon Conner’s well as a safe place. Nothing could be more certain than that Mink started off to hide the money there.
Now, when I read that newspaper article which Tom brought me, I noted that this mysterious John Mink out in a western asylum had spoken of some treasure or other in a bait-box. I thought it altogether unlikely that Long Buck would carry his money from New York in any such container. But on thinking it over afterward, I saw that here one thing hitched up plausibly with another. Perhaps Mink had taken such a box to the meeting place when he went to wait for his partner. They had intended to secrete their money for only a few days at most. Yet clearly a wallet would not be a suitable thing to leave in a swamp or in the bottom of an old well. So, after all, the metal box was not a false note in the story.
As soon as Tom had gone away I began to have a little respect for his enthusiastic reasoning. He had certainly scored a triumph over me in his investigation of that old game warden of bygone times. In face of this it seemed a rational supposition, at least, that the money was still secreted in that forsaken fastness. I had to admit as much.
Therefore, it seemed to me altogether sensible for my adventurers to begin by an exhaustive exploration of the old well. “Tom has some sense, at that,” I said to myself on reading Brent’s letter. To be sure, old Buck must have explored that black hole more than once; I could picture him visiting it again and again in those weary last years of his. Still, mud and débris accumulate in such a place, and it was barely possible that even within a day or two of the secreting of a box there, it might have been swallowed up in the oozy bottom of the dank hole.
It was Brent who volunteered to descend into that forbidding place, and he insisted on having his way. They first took the precaution of getting some wood on fire and throwing it in so that they might see the bottom. They found the place to be very deep and the bottom covered with stones and rotten wood. Together they tumbled a heavy rock in to ascertain if the bottom was solid. Of course, the material below yielded under the weight of the rock, but Tom and Brent decided that there was no treacherous quicksand or even a perilous accumulation of mud below.
Brent then let himself down, sliding over the edge and clinging to the branches of root which projected into the well through crevices in the rough masonry. Those damp, earthy tentacles were not pleasant to the touch. Here and there he could find a foothold on some slight projection of rock. But, after descending a few feet, he found himself with no dependable foothold below him and he was still a considerable distance from the bottom.
“Don’t see how I’m going to make it,” he called.
“Don’t drop,” Tom warned; “it’s too far.”
“There’s a rock sticking out if I can only reach it with my foot,” Brent called. “I wish I was a few inches taller.”
“Come back and I’ll try it,” Tom said.
“I can’t get back, either,” answered Brent; “that piece of root I had hold of broke off. They don’t put the material into roots that they used to—quantity production, I suppose. I’m stranded—also sanded; my eyes are full of earth and woods and mountains and things. I bet that rock landed right on my eyeglass case.”
“Watch your step,” Tom called down.
“I haven’t got any step,” Brent answered. “Is this a time for joking?”
At last, by a series of perilous acrobatics, he reached the bottom. “Here I am on terra cotta, or firma, or whatever they call it,” he shouted. “If we don’t find the money I’m going to climb buildings—Harold Lloyd. I’d climb the Woolworth Building for five and ten cents. Well, here I am; I wonder what property’s worth down here?”
“Is it solid?” Tom called down.
“It’s nice and springy,” said Brent. “I think I can be very happy down here; I suppose I’ll have to be, for I don’t know how I’m going to get up again. The root of the trouble, or I should say the trouble with the root⸺”
“Oh, that’s easy,” Tom called. “I’ll get a rope.”
“I’ll be the old oaken bucket,” called Brent,
“The Bridgeboro woodsman,The boy scout explorer,The lonely young camperThat hung in the well.
“The Bridgeboro woodsman,The boy scout explorer,The lonely young camperThat hung in the well.
“The Bridgeboro woodsman,The boy scout explorer,The lonely young camperThat hung in the well.
“The Bridgeboro woodsman,
The boy scout explorer,
The lonely young camper
That hung in the well.
I’m glad I brought the clotheslines from our yard; they’ll have to send the stuff to the laundry, but they’ll have their son back.”
“Don’t worry,” Tom called; “dig around and see what you can find.”
“Here’s my eyeglass case,” Brent announced. “Do you want me to dig in the mud?”
“Sure, see what’s what.”
“Well,” Brent called, “there’s an old, rotten vine and some stones—and, oh, here’s a tin wagon, a kid’s tin wagon. Or maybe it’s a Ford—no, it’s a toy wagon, all rusty.”
I have often thought of that tin wagon eaten and brittle with rust in the bottom of Conner’s well in Rattlesnake Gulch. Did the unknown Conner “fetch” it from “Noo York” to some little Conner, perhaps? At Christmas time? Christmas time in Rattlesnake Gulch!
“Strike a light,” Tom called down. “Have you got plenty of matches? Is there anything else down there?”
“I think there’s malaria down here,” Brent called. “You go ahead and get the rope and I’ll reconnoiter. I’ve got my flashlight. Don’t worry about me: I may be down but I’ll never get out. Go and get the rope while I’m hunting.”
“I’m afraid it’s in the car,” Tom called down.
“All right, go and get it—no hurry. I’m going to systematize my search. If you think of a word meaning treasure and ending with qzx jot it down in my cross-word puzzle book. Try the car and see if you can get it started just for fun—it may start, at that.”
“I may be an hour,” Tom called.
Tom looked in the cabin but, as he had suspected, the coil of rope had not been brought from the car. So he set forth through the woods to their obscure parking place.
Meanwhile, Brent proceeded with a systematic exploration of the old well. Directing his flashlight at the crevices in the masonry of the shaft, he scrutinized and removed every removable scrap of stone which might have concealed something. This inspection he carried as high as his arms could reach. He searched, not only for a metal box, but also for any remnants of a smaller and perishable container. Here and there where a stone in the wall looked as if it might easily be dislodged, he worked it out and scrutinized the hollow place it left. He proceeded upon the supposition that, if the money were there at all, it would be secreted in the wall somewhere. It was there, of course, that in all likelihood no absolutely complete search had ever been made.
And here was a point which his humorous but keen mind took cognizance of. I thought it was rather skilful reasoning. It occurred to him that to search the wall was better than to direct his attention to the mud and débris below him, because the section of wall he was searchinghad probably never been examined before. If old Buck had examined the walls he had done so standing on the bottom. But now the bottom was elevated by many years’ accumulation of nature’s rubbish. Perhaps it was elevated six or eight feet. So Brent carried on his inspection in a previously uninspected area of masonry.
It was possible that Mink Havers had reached down from the surface and slipped his treasure in somewhere. And it was more than probable that his partner had searched that area, as also the area near the bottom. But was it not possible that Havers had descended part way, secreted his treasure behind some loose stone, and then climbed out? If he had, it seemed likely that there was still an uninspected belt in that crude masonry. Brent believed (so he said) that the accumulation of débris in the bottom raised the floor of the well to a point enabling him to explore this area. It was good reasoning and showed his real intelligence.
He had not scrutinized the wall for long, nor removed many suspicious stones, before he noticed something which gave him a thrill. This was a stone with a rough cross cut upon it. And you will understand that this was at a point in the well which must have been several feet above the head even of Long Buck as he stood on the bottom many years before. You will remember, too, that the old hunter had no glaring flashlight to aid him in his search.
With these thoughts in his mind it was with a thrill that Brent’s eye fell upon this rough cross cut in a stone of the masonry. With his jackknife he began digging at the plaster around it and his hope ran high as he found that it crumbled readily. He thought that clay might hastily have been introduced there in place of the dislodged plaster.
At last with trembling hands he got a hold upon the stone and worked it out. I can well imagine his excitement (young philosopher though he is) as he removed this stone with its telltale mark. He had to reach somewhat above him to do this and had slipped his flashlight under his armpit to use both hands, when suddenly the flashlight slipped from its place and fell upon the enmeshed and rotted accumulation on which he had been keeping a precarious foothold. Instantly there was an appalling rattling sound (emphasized, I suppose, by that dark echoing shaft) and Brent’s blood ran cold as he beheld almost at his very feet a coiled snake hissing with darting tongue at the area of brightness shed by the flashlight.
Brent still held the stone in air and his thoughts of hidden treasure vanished at the horrible spectacle below him. Should he drop the stone upon the enraged reptile? Suppose it should not fall right? And how long would this frightful thing, hated by man and bird and beast—how long would it wait?
It was angry at the flashlight, not at Brent. But if Brent moved, stirred ... And, meanwhile, the seconds passed. A crumbling bit of plaster fell. The hissing continued. The little ball of light burned brightly and cast a luminous circle on the dank, oppressive débris. Six, seven, eight seconds. And Brent Gaylong did not stir—not a hair. He stood like a statue. But his blood was cold. Nine, ten, eleven seconds.
We are all subject to insane impulses. Who has not felt the impulse to jump off a roof? For a moment Brent was in the spell of a strange impulse to stoop leisurely, lay down the stone and pick up his flashlight. But he did not do that. He did not budge. He still held the stone above his head, like a piece of Roman statuary. The reptile did not budge either, but he rattled and hissed, and his tongue darted like lightning. And meanwhile the seconds passed—twelve, thirteen, fourteen....
Now something happened, trivial and barely perceptible, but it relieved the frightful situation of the moment. The flashlight flickered; it was less than a flicker; a scarcely visible flutter of the light for the fraction of a second. But the alert reptile projected its head like lightning. Its appalling rattle sounded in the hollow shaft; it hissed and its tongue darted.
Brent Gaylong knew what that suggestion of a flicker meant; he had tinkered often enough with the defective connection in that troublesome flashlight. Should he cast the stone down on the horrible thing’s head? Suppose he should miss? Again the light flickered. Fortunately, that hideous, flat head was in the circle of brightness cast by the flashlight. It was poised menacingly a few inches above a flat bit of rock.
Like lightning, Brent raised his right foot and planted it on the reptile’s neck. He had intended to crush the head but missed it, and there was the dreadful writhing thing pinned down but not killed. Though Brent’s foot had missed its mark and left him in a terrible predicament, still, the move had been well considered. Considering all the chances, it was better than casting down the rock.
Brent’s shoes were equipped each with a triangular metal plate upon the sole, with corners bent up so as to form three spikes. They were running shoes and Brent had worn them thinking that they might serve him best in descending into the well. Though he had not stamped out the serpent’s life, still he might have done worse than he did, for one of the metal plates with its bent corners pinned the snake more effectually than a shiny piece of sole leather could have done. Brent believed that this plate, though its turned corners had not stabbed the snake, held the squirming reptile firmly within it. He did not relax the pressure and the snake seemed unable to do more than writhe and squirm with horrible contortions.
Soon, in the course of its frantic maneuvers, the snake coiled itself around Brent’s right leg and he felt the embracing pressure of the loathsome, winding, tightening body. He pressed harder with his foot and this pressure seemed to communicate itself to the snake, for it coiled tighter around its captor’s leg and its menacing rattle sounded hollow in the dank well.
It was like a tug of war, the snake braced, by its coiled position, around its captor’s leg and pulling desperately to free its neck from the trap which held it fast. And as Brent tightened the pressure, so the snake drew harder, and as it drew harder, Brent could feel its pressure on his leg. The situation was appalling.
One advantage the loathsome, coiling thing had in this fearful encounter; it had no nerves to give way under the harrowing strain. Its effort seemed easier, less frantic, less fatiguing than Brent’s. Such a situation could not last. Brent thought the reptile was not suffering, that the plate on his sole held it only but did not squeeze it much; certainly did not crush it.
The flat, mottled head with its lightning tongue rested on the rock, and the beady little eyes looked at the ball of light. The snake’s head and Brent’s foot lay in the circle of brightness. Comparative darkness withheld from view the body coiled around Brent’s leg.
Once he felt of the reptile; it seemed smooth and damp. He took his hand away shuddering and pressed tighter with his foot. As he did so the snake hissed. Then Brent heard the awful rattle near his knee. Should he touch the tail? It was harmless but he could not touch it. He just pressed tighter with his foot and set his leg like a brace. And the snake adjusted its winding body to this straightening and increased pressure, this tautness of the leg. And the tongue darted incessantly.
Then the flashlight went out.
The circle of brightness had disappeared. Brent’s foot and the rock and the snake’s head were blotted out. He could see nothing now, only feel the coiled reptile around his leg. Instinctively, he pressed more firmly. The snake relaxed a trifle, being probably less agitated in the darkness.
Even in his frightful predicament, Brent noted with interest how every instinctive impulse of the snake was evidenced in the pressure and relaxation of its coiling body. But he was all but panic-stricken now in the enshrouding darkness; he could only feel and hear his would-be assailant. The sudden failure of that little flashlight was like the sun going out of his life.
The rank growth on the surface above overflowed into the deep hole and had taken root here and there in crevices of the loose or fallen masonry. Looking up Brent had not even an unbroken view of the little area of sky above the shaft. He could only see little glints of light through the brush. This unwholesome growth, starved of open sunlight, was damp and emitted a pungent, sickening odor. He wondered whether this horrible deadlock would end in his falling in a faint from the unwholesome air, and being attacked during unconsciousness. Well, in that case, he reflected, he would never know the feeling of the serpent’s fangs.
There was no light below now, and only checkered glints of light above. He wondered what time it was and why Tom did not come. Tom, all-round scout that he was, could have told him that one loses all sense of time in a predicament occurring in darkness. He could have told him (as he later told me) of the hunter who was imprisoned by a rock falling against the mouth of a cave in the Rockies and was rescued after three hours’ waiting. He thought he had been in the cave two days.
But, in any case, it was getting dark above: Brent could see that. The failure of the flashlight had confounded several moves he had been considering. They had not been pleasant moves to think of, but they had been less unpleasant to think of than death. He had thought of trying to reach his knife, which had dropped in among the dank growth in the well, and stab the snake with it. He had feared that if he stooped and dealt with the head his action might result in a certain relaxation of his foot’s pressure with instant fatal results. So nicely did he calculate in the dreadful position he was in. He had hesitated to jeopardize his safety by any kind of action. So, also, stooping and groping in that enveloping mesh for his knife might cause the imprisoning foot to stir—relax. So he had done nothing. And now, in darkness, he did not dare to try anything. He could only hold on.
And he feared he was not doing even that. In the uncertainty of the darkness he thought that the wriggling neck was making some headway. Suppose that smooth, incessantly wriggling and struggling snake should succeed in working enough of its neck through the trap which held it, to enable the creature to turn its head and dart its fangs into the shoe. Could it do that? Could it possibly contrive by its constant wriggling to reach the unprotected ankle? Brent was glad that his were high shoes. But his fears were now manifold.
The darkness and the inaction and the waiting and the sickening odor were sapping his morale. His imagination was turning against him and playing him false. He could not, as before, check up the situation with his eyes. He felt that the snake was wriggling little by little through the vise which held it. In that awful darkness he had a feeling that any second he might feel the sting of deadly fangs in his foot or ankle. He was panic-stricken—plunged in ghastly apprehension and horror.
In his growing terror he could not bear the feel of those moving coils upon his leg; he would have given anything to be able to free himself of that living, spiral mass. Yet here his impulse eclipsed his good sense. If the snake had known enough to free its body it might indeed have had a chance to free itself, or at least move a few inches in the vise which held it. By following its blind instinct to coil, it had placed itself in a position where it could not contribute the full measure of its strength to pulling and wriggling. It exerted adeadpull but not anagitated and spasmodicpull.
If that horrible rattlesnake had possessed the intelligence of a fox it would have got its poisonous fangs into Brent in short order. But it coiled in blind instinct, as they always do, and made the conflict a mere tug of war instead of a wrestling match, as one might say. It could have lashed Brent and squirmed frantically until it got free. For the pressure of his foot was not invincible. But a snake has no brains, and there you are.
Yet this constant pulling, pulling, pulling under his foot was bad enough. It was appalling in the darkness. Again and again he looked above and listened. Would Tom never come? Each time he looked the light through the overflowing brush seemed fainter. Then there seemed no light at all. And again the sun seemed to go out of his life. Light, blessed, cheering, companionable light, had been snatched from beneath him, then from above him. And Brent Gaylong was alone in the world, in a deep, dank hole crowded with unsavory débris, vines and smelling moss and loathsome fungus and deformed toadstools. Nature’s outcasts. And mud and rock.
The gathering night above him had no cheering voice; not even a cricket or a locust could he hear; they did not patronize such places. Only darkness. He pressed harder with his foot; his whole leg was aching. Could the fatal poison be in his veins? How? Absurd.... It was just the pressure that made his leg ache. And must this pressure go on all night? Until he dropped?
Just then the rock which was the little theatre of his terrible deadlock, the rock on which his weary feet pressed, sank a little in the oozy bottom of the dark well....
When Tom Slade started to go to the Ford for the rope he tried to cut off a little of the distance by taking a new route through the hills. That is Tom all over; always exploring, always experimenting. He got into a fine mess doing this. Soon he found himself in a dense thicket and had to retrace his steps and hunt for the more familiar way. He thinks he lost “maybe half an hour or so” in this way. I dare say it was nearer to an hour. I thought it was a poor time to be seeking new routes with his companion in the bottom of an old well, and I told him so. “Brent had plenty to do,” he said. He was certainly right about that!
The car, as you will remember, had been left some distance from the Gulch in the country north of Breakneck Pond. Its parking spot marked, I dare say, the farthest point in roadless, undeveloped country ever penetrated by the gallant and redoubtable Ford car. I say this advisedly, knowing Tom and his driving, and something of his bizarre advances through swamp and wilderness. I am quite ready to believe that his lusty little flivver could not have been urged one inch nearer to the camp. It must have looked lonesome enough as he approached it where it stood wrapped in the old, rotten canvas which gave it somewhat the appearance of a deformed tent.
Now, as Tom approached it through the woods, he saw the hanging canvas gather somewhat, so that the effect was the same as when one grasps a portiére on the side away from the beholder. Something (and that a hand, it seemed) was holding it closed or was about to part it, making an opening. The appearance, or rather the concealed presence, of a hand thus disguised is unmistakable. The hand was holding the canvas, perhaps only to keep it from blowing.
Suddenly, as Tom approached, the covering undulated as if something within were moving where there was little room to move. Something was, indeed, moving and seeking a point of exit where escape and flight might not be seen.
Tom paused behind a tree. Then for a few seconds there was neither sound nor stir. Suddenly, beyond the car—that is, beyond the end of it which was farthest from Tom—he saw the shadow of something moving. It was shadow time in the woods, early twilight; the witching hour when Nature masquerades in a score of ghostly forms, and trees conceal lurking specters.
Through the soft-toned quiet woods stole a figure, running silently. It was a figure clad in khaki and was hatless, exposing a wealth of thick, gray, curly hair. The playing light fell upon this and brightened it to a lustrous iron gray. Yet the figure sped with great agility, with the buoyancy of youth.
Tom paused in astonishment. His first impulse was to pursue. But instead he walked up to the car, lifted the old canvas, and climbed into the Ford. On the floor in back some canned goods and other things were lying loose; he thought nothing had been taken. The rope was there. The camera (carelessly left) was still there. It was an expensive little collapsible camera and worth stealing. If anything had been taken it must have been some small container of food. He could not check up on these things because he did not know exactly what they had brought or how much of it had been taken to the cabin. But, anyway, the leaving of the camera indicated that the fugitive was not a wanton thief.
He now saw that the stranger had slept under the car. A couple of old cushions and a blanket which he and Brent had not yet taken to the cabin were lying there. In picking these up, he saw a khaki hat lying just inside the canvas. It had evidently been left by the fugitive, perhaps knocked off as he crawled out under the lifted canvas. It was after the fashion of a scout hat and on the inside of the crown was stamped