Tom Slade's Double Dare Part 11

Good scouts that they were, they needed no more than these few words.

Temple Camp usually took new boys as it found them, anyway, concerning itself with their actions and not with the history of their lives. Half the scouts in the big summer community didn't know where the other half came from, and cared less. From every corner of the land they came and all they knew or cared about each other was limited to their intercourse at camp.

"You don't suppose that's true, do you?" one of them asked when Mr.

Carroll had gone.

"What? About Willetts?"

"Sure."

"Dare say. He's about due for the G. B., I guess. But if you want to cook a fish you've got to catch him first."

"Where is he, anyway?" one asked. "I thought his foot was so bad."

"I saw him limping off this morning, that's all _I_ know," another said.

"It would take more than a lame ankle to keep _him_ at camp," said Dorry Benton of Roy's patrol. "Did you see that crazy stick he was using for a cane?"

"The wandering minstrel," another scout commented.

"He stands pat with Slady, all right."

"Gee, you can't help liking the fellow."

"I have to laugh at him," Westy said.

"You can't pal with him, that's one thing," another observed.

"That's because you can't keep up with him; even Mr. Denny has a sneaky liking for him."

"Do you know what one of his troop told me? He told me he always wears that crazy hat to school when he's home. Some nut!"

"Reckless, happy-go-lucky, that's what he is."

"Come on over and let's look on the bulletin board."

They all strolled, half idly, to the bulletin board which stood outside the main pavilion. It was a rule of camp that every scout should read the announcements there each afternoon. Then there would be no excuse for ignorance of important matters pertaining to camp plans. Upon the board were tacked several announcements, a hike for the morrow, letters uncalled for, etc. Conspicuous among these was the following:

Hervey Willetts will report _immediately_ to his scoutmaster at troop's cabin, upon his arrival at camp.

WM. C. DENNY.

CHAPTER XVII

TOM'S INTEREST AROUSED

On that same day a solemn little procession picked its way carefully down the trail from the storm-wrecked summit of the mountain. Four of the county officials bore a stretcher over which was tied a white sheet.

With the party was Tom Slade who had guided the authorities to the grewsome discovery of the previous night. In this work, and in the subsequent a.s.sistance which he rendered, he was absent from camp throughout the day. This unpleasant business had not been advertised in camp.

Of the tragic end of Aaron Harlowe nothing more was known. Several days previously he had come to the neighborhood in his gray roadster, a fugitive, with the stigma of cowardice upon his conscience. He had tried to compromise with his conscience, as it appeared, by enclosing a sum of money in an envelope and addressing it to the father of the child he had run down. But his death had prevented the mailing of this. The telltale finger of accusation was pointed at him from the newspaper which was in his car.

His ident.i.ty was established to the satisfaction of the authorities by the name upon the license and registration cards found with his body.

Why he had ascended the mountain and remained there several days only to be crushed to death in the storm, no one could guess. The conclusion of the authorities was that he was crazed by fear and remorse. This seemed not improbable, for his weak attempt to make amends with money showed him to be not altogether bad.

With the taking of the body by the authorities, Tom's partic.i.p.ation in the tragic business ended. Yet there were one or two things which stuck in his mind and puzzled him. There had been a light on the mountain before ever this Harlowe had gone up there. There had been a crude shack near the summit. The light had disappeared amid the storm. The boys, watching the storm from the pavilion, had seen the light disappear. Did Harlowe, therefore, climb the mountain to _escape_ man or to _seek_ man?

Harlowe's life went out in that same tempestuous hour when the light went out. But how came the light there? And where was the originator of it?

One rather odd question Tom asked the authorities and got very little satisfaction from them. "Do you notice any connection between that article in the newspaper and the letter the dead man got from England?"

he asked.

"No manner uv connection; leastways none as I kin see," said the sheriff. "The paper showed what he done; the map showed whar he went; the license cards showed who he was. And thar ye are, sonny, whole thing sure's gospel."

"It's funny about the light," said Tom, respectfully.

"I ain't botherin' my head 'baout no lights, son. I found Aaron Harlowe 'n that's enough, hain't it?"

It was in Tom's thoughts to say, "You didn't find him, I found him." But out of respect for the formidable badge which the sheriff wore on one strand of his suspenders, he refrained.

The next morning the newspapers told with conspicuous headlines, the tragic sequel of Aaron Harlowe's escape. "_Found on lonely mountain_,"

they said. "_Fugitive motorist killed in storm_," one of the write-ups was headed: "_Storm wreaks vengeance on autoist_," which was one of the best headings of the lot. "_Sheriff's posse makes grewsome find_" was another. And all told how Aaron Harlowe, fleeing guiltily from his crime, had met his fate in the storm-tossed wilds of that frowning mountain. They dwelt on the justice of Providence; they made the storm a kind of avenging hero. It was pretty good stuff.

And that, as I said in the beginning, was where the public interest in Aaron Harlowe ended. The rest of the strange business was connected with Temple Camp and the scouts, and never got into the papers....

It was exactly like Tom Slade that something should interest him in this tragic episode which did not interest the authorities. He left them, quite unsatisfied in his own mind, and with some kind of a bee in his bonnet....

CHAPTER XVIII

TRIUMPH AND----

_At_ about the time that Tom was starting back to camp, rather thoughtful and preoccupied, Hervey Willetts was arriving at camp, not at all thoughtful or preoccupied.

His ankle was strained and bruised, and he limped. But his rimless hat of many holes and b.u.t.ton-badges was perched sideways toward the back of his head and had a new and piquant charm by reason of being faded and water soaked. Putting not his trust in garters, which had so often, betrayed him, he had fastened a string to his left stocking by means of an old liberty loan pin. The upper end of this string was tied to a stick which he carried over his shoulder, so he had only to exert a little pressure on the stick in front to adjust his stocking.

He had evidently been to see one of his farmer friends, for he was eating a luscious red tomato, and fate decreed that the last of this should be ready for consumption just as he was pa.s.sing within a few yards of the bulletin board. For a moment a terrible conflict raged within him. Should he despatch the remainder of the tomato into his mouth, or at the bulletin board? The small remnant was red and mushy and dripping--and the bulletin board won.

Brandis.h.i.+ng the squashy missile, he uttered his favorite pa.s.swords to good luck,

One for courage One for s.p.u.n.k One to take aim And then----

Suddenly he bethought him of an improvement. Sticking the remnant of tomato on the end of his stick, he swung it carefully.