Percy Keese Fitzhugh

“ He had denounced the ways of the Scout and had come to find that he could not count on the help of those that he had ridiculed and belittled.
This was the state of things when Spiffy had made his memorable call at the cabin. He had returned to camp after that call, resolved that he would win merit badges according to program and without help. But he had not made out. You cannot annihilate the past with a knock-out blow—unless it is a tremendous knock-out blow. Spiffy had scorned to wear his sumptuous four-jewelled pin, his cry for help, as Tom had called it, and had tried to win out alone. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ My intention now was to cross the reservation to the Hudson and continue my journey to Kingston along the shore road up the river.
I doubt if there is any drive hereabouts more interesting and picturesque than this Seven Lakes Drive, as they call it, which takes one in and out among those clustering heights and skirts the shores of tranquil waters. Half hidden in the surrounding woodland may be seen camping shacks and cabins whose rustic architecture consorts well with the wild surroundings. ”

“ 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, “nut is 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. ”

“ Not that she ever defied an outlaw or dug for buried treasure, for she is one of the mildest and sweetest old ladies that ever lived. But if she had not insisted on my making good the old, neglected promise to visit her in her little cottage in that quaint old city up the Hudson, why there would have been nobody to confront Slick Somers and send him sprawling to the ground. I am fond of telling my Aunt Martha that she was really the one who did that. Then she always lays down her knitting and tries gently to show me how my reasoning is defective. ”

“ It was, as one might say, a gulch within a gulch. Only the larger gulch is not so easy to present to the mind’s eye. I find myself writing of these places in the past tense, for they seem to me now all as part of a tale that is told. You must, somehow, be made to see this wild section clearly, if you are to understand what happened there.
If some wide railroad cut were overgrown and cluttered with rock and crazy trees and tangled brush for a couple of hundred feet or so, that would be something like the immediate neighborhood of old Buck’s cabin. ”

“ The rock moved, he lost his balance and went sprawling down into the foul débris. He felt his senses slipping from him. But in his ebbing consciousness he knew that the reptile was now free and that presently its deadly fangs would be buried in his flesh. Even as his senses left him he could feel that sinuous body relax and unwind around his leg. Well, whatever happened, he would not know it.... ”

“ Adventure is better than money, when it comes to a showdown. Because it’s a blamed sight more scarce, I suppose.”
“Money does not always bring happiness, Tom,” said Brent, with a whimsical look on his funny face.
“There you go, joking again,” said Tom.
“What are we going to do with the box when we go fishing?” Brent said. “It would be a shame to take the money out of the box, it wouldn’t look like treasure any more, it would just look like plain, common, everyday money.”
“Plain, common, everyday money is right,” said Tom. “What do you say we have a game of checkers? ”

“ Tom knew that he was facing a wildcat. He knew that he was not in danger so long as the animal was not at bay. It is no longer the fashion for wildcats to chase young heroes as they used to do in the Dan Dreadnaught and Slickshot Sam Series. But, just the same, an encounter with a wildcat at bay is no pink tea. Personally, I prefer golf. If that wildcat had been able to listen to reason all might have been well, but he seemed to have an hallucination that Tom was advancing against him. ”

“ Who were the hardy folk who had reared their simple homes so near to Nature’s heart—so far removed from civilization? The thought of them suggested pioneers of old. For no cabin of a restless Daniel Boone in the depths of the Kentucky wilderness would seem more remote than these same little ramshackle houses must have been less than a score of years ago, before the dedication of this region to the revival of woods-lore and pathfinding. I wondered whether these original inhabitants or their descendants had been ousted in the interests of the reservation. ”

“ A camp without coffee (whatever you may hear to the contrary notwithstanding) is as sad a thing as a camp without a camp fire.
“I don’t see but what we’ll have to bust into civilization,” said Brent. “I wonder if we look like a couple of Rip Van Winkles. Where do you suppose is the nearest grocery store?”
“Sandyfield? Scout Headquarters?”
“Let’s hike to Sloatsburg,” said Brent, “and that will give me a chance to buy a sweater. I’d like to explore the country southwest of here anyway. Let’s see if we can find a way out to the south and come back along the Sloatsburg road.” ”

“ You’re on your way to Sloatsburg. So far you managed to stumble in the right direction; you’re not a half bad Scout. I’m not handing you any bouquets for licking a fellow, but that’s better than being licked by one.”
“You said it,” vociferated Spiff. “I’d like to stay here with you, that’s what I’d like to do.”
“We’re not taking any boarders this season,” said Brent, then added in an undertone to Tom, “It wouldn’t be half bad having him around at that.”
Tom arose, stepping over to the boy, and in a humorous, friendly way lifted the four-jewelled pin out of the youngster’s scarf. ”

“ A dubious détour had been provided, which went down into a very wallow of muck where great trucks were emptying their loads of crushed stone and blocking even this temporary way.
“Worse than when we drove in, hey?” said Tom.
“Guess we won’t try to drive out this way,” Brent commented; “unless we get an airplane. They stamp out lakes these days like cookies, don’t they? You can’t depend on geography any more at all—build a dam and start a lake. They’ll be selling mountains and valleys in the five and ten next. Nature’s getting to be a regular quantity production proposition, like Fords.” ”

“ Brent, I would say that you at 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.” ”

“ On he sped, stumbling, pausing in doubt, then plunging forward again with maniacal desperation. He had been denied the pathfinder’s badge, this boy. It was quite all right and according to the handbook. Only they took credit afterward for his fine spirit. But it was not the Bear Mountain camps that stirred the soul within him as he ran headlong through the night. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There were men wallowing knee-deep in mud, drilling rocks for blasting, sifting stone, and so forth. There were a couple of tents in the chaotic neighborhood and an old hut seemed to have been converted into a camp. There was something attractive about the whole confused scene as there always is about any kind of camp life. Several of the men, a fine, intelligent type, Tom thought, were guiding an apprehensive and fearful motorist through the worst part of the détour and explaining to him how he could accomplish the impossible and pass around a mammoth truck whose swinging body hung on end. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Brent said.
“That’s funny,” Tom commented. “Well, come ahead.”
Their hike back took them along the road by which they had originally entered the reservation and down through the woods which the gallant Ford had penetrated. The aggressive little car looked lonely and neglected under its tattered and soiled old covering. It seemed to be more buried than ever in foliage.
“See if there’s a can of soup left in the car,” said Tom. “I feel just like having a dish of soup to-night. Wonder if Lawton likes soup? Guess those government workers eat about anything, hey?” ”

“ 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. ”

“ Tom asked, all interest.
“Let’s see if we can’t get up in the world,” said Brent. “I feel as if I’d like to be a rising young adventurer. Did you get my other shoes out of the car?”
“Wait till you hear about the car.” ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ I kind of suspected you weren’t a tree dentist, but I never knew you were a doctor. That’s a good front name you’ve got—Slicksby. Mother’s maiden name? I’ll always think of you as Slick—Slick Somers. Here you go, Tommy, glance at this, that I picked up under Conner’s elm.”
In the funniest way he handed the paper and flashlight to Tom (for it was now dusk) as if they were two parts of something to be used. And all the while he kept his eye on the discomfited Somers.
“Just a minute, alias Lawton,” said Brent. “This is turning out to be a real adventure after all. You found the money for us. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ For you know my Aunt Martha had never in her life been in an automobile and I was thinking what an adventure it would be for her to have a ride at thirty miles an hour or so in the fragrant, blooming country. ”

“ I think it must be in the neighborhood of Sloatsburg that the country to the east thickens into a mountainous wilderness. Beyond that flows the lordly Hudson whose general course I was following. I suppose those intervening wooded heights are what they call the Hudson Highlands. I knew that zigzagging in and out among those dense hills, this way and that, was the freakish boundary line of the Interstate Park, which forever sets a resolute limit against the sneaking advance of civilization. ”