Chapter XI: Alone

As the days passed I thought less and less about Brent’s rather ingenious deduction. For, to be sure, it made no difference how many persons had been at Leatherstocking Camp at the time of the fatal accident. As for Brent, he was always snooping around, adopting the pose of an amateur sleuth, but I think he did not take himself or his discovery too seriously. He seemed amused at the confusion he had caused in poor Tom’s mind. “Maybe they used to have the hermit down for week ends,” he suggested. But that did not satisfy Tom.

“I think the hermit is like the mock-turtle,” I said. “There ain’t no such animal.”

“Well, it’s blamed funny,” Tom commented. He and I were strolling around the lake after a strenuous day of log hauling; he seemed never weary. “I always understood that there were only three here--the old gent and his son and the man Weston. Now it looks as if there were four. Did you ever know anybody like Brent for mixing things up? He’s uncanny, that’s what he is.”

“It doesn’t seem to be worrying him,” I said.

“Well, I’d like to know who the other one was,” said Tom. “I asked about it down in Harkness, but nobody seems to know any more about it than we do. It’s got me. I don’t like anything I can’t understand,” he went on in his vehement way. “When I get a thing settled in my mind I don’t like to have somebody come along like an old spook and set everything endways. There were four people here all right and I’d gol blamed like to know who the other one was and why we never heard anything about him. It was darned funny, that shadow we saw outside the window the night you and Brent came. I can’t get it out of my noodle. Hang it all, wherever Brent goes there are mysteries and shadows; they seem to follow him around. And he’s so plaguy calm about it all.”

“The hod-carrier sleuth,” I commented.

“That’s him,” Tom said. “Well, we’ve got some realities anyway. My arm is sore from chopping logs. There’s no mystery about how we’re getting ahead anyway. I’d like to have that mysterious fourth person here now to help. I could use him drilling for end pegs. These cabins are going to stand when the pyramids of Egypt are in the ash heap. Eats pavilion is going to look nice, huh? Heinie says we ought to have more eats-boards, but that’s the way it is with Germans, they don’t think of anything but eats.”

“Heinie’s a good worker,” I said.

“I’ll say,” enthused Tom. “They’re all good--nice bunch. I can’t make Charlie Rivers out, but he sure gets through with the work.”

“I think he doesn’t like Brent and me,” I said.

“Nonsense!” Tom exploded. “He’s just quiet, that’s all--kind of--what d’yer call it--taciturn?”

“Inscrutable is the word,” I said.

“Well,” he rattled on, “we’re going to have our holiday pretty soon. I hear the fish are so thick in the Ausable River that they have to have traffic regulations over there. I thought we might all close up shop this Friday and drive over through the Ausable Chasm--that’s worth seeing, you know--and then stay over till Monday, fishing. I think we all need a little outing. Brent says this city life is killing him. The way I figure, we’ll be held up here for a few days till the boards come from the sawmill so it’ll be a good time for a little recess. You know Tot Burke is crazy about fishing. Brent says he’d rather we’d bring the Ausable Chasm here and let him look at it, but of course he’ll go. He’ll always do anything anybody wants him to do.”

“Sounds good to me,” I said.

“Sure,” Tom enthused, “the boys want to see the Chasm before they go home and now’s our chance.”

I had not the heart then to tell Tom that the absence of this hustling group would afford me just the opportunity I wanted to be alone at my writing for a day or two. To tell you the truth, I abhor fishing. The fish never bite on my hook. I not only do not catch any fish, but I invariably drive my companions to distraction with my restlessness. I therefore indulged a secret hope that I might excuse myself from this excursion and in the quiet of our lonely retreat finish two magazine articles on which I had been working.

I broke the news gently while we were at supper the night before they started. “If you don’t mind,” I said, “I think I’ll spend a quiet few days here and try to get my writing up to date. I’m not much of a sightseer and I haven’t the patience to fish.”

“Fishing is my ideal sport,” said Brent. “You don’t have to do anything all day; the fish does all the work. You’d better come along and see America first. All work and no play----”

“Sure, come ahead,” said Tom.

“Vot diffrence if ve don’t got no fish?” Heinie said. “Och, anyvays ve do see-sighting mitt Tommy. Ve don’t got nuttings here till it comes der planks yet.”

“I think I’ll stay here and work,” I persisted. “It’s really just what I want, to be alone for a few days. I’ll watch the camp.”

Tom threw up his hands in despair and shook his head ruefully at Tot Burke and Skipper Tim. But I had my way. The next morning they all started off in Tom’s flivver. It was a chill, bleak, rainy day. Yet I came very near to envying them as they rode away, they were so full of the spirit of their long promised excursion. Brent carried a brief-case and looked funny enough in a little worsted skull-cap which one of the others had offered him. Tom laughed at him and protested against the umbrella which Brent also carried.

“Here!” he laughed, snatching it from him. “Are you afraid of getting wet?”

“It isn’t myself I’m thinking of, it’s the fish,” said Brent.

“I guess I don’t want this either,” said Charlie Rivers, handing me the old coat which lay across his knees.

So there I stood in the drizzling rain holding Brent’s umbrella and Charlie’s coat as the merry little caravan went rattling off along the woods trail. For a few moments the sequestered camp did seem gloomy enough. The great, rugged mountain which towered above the spot looked wild and somber enough in pleasant weather, but in that chill haze it seemed to me almost unearthly in its forbidding aspect. Surely no human being had ever penetrated its black and trailless wilderness. What prowling beasts, I wondered, paced the unknown fastnesses high in its precipitous reaches? Even as I gazed at it and noted how the drenched trees near its rock-ribbed base were all merged in the heavy gloom, I heard that dismal wailing afar off, somewhere on those jungle-covered slopes. Tom said it always came from the depression beyond the second ridge. I don’t know why he thought so; it seemed to me to be the very voice of the whole wild mountain. The lodge seemed cozy indeed as I entered it and threw the coat and umbrella on the table. I went out again and dragged in a couple of good-sized logs so that they might dry in time to keep me company with their crackling blaze throughout the lonely evening.