скачать книгу бесплатно
“Nothing, but isn’t it near Crystal Lake?” asked Jack, a curious look on his face.
“Yes,” answered Tom. “But Crystal Lake is a small one. Why, what has that to do with our going camping?”
“Nothing much, only we’ve got some curious news for you. Who do you think is going to camp at Crystal Lake?”
“I can’t imagine, unless it’s Sam Heller and that sneaking crony of his, Nick Johnson.”
“Worse than that,” declared Bert. “It’s our old enemy, Professor Skeel!”
CHAPTER IV
OFF TO CAMP
“What’s that?” cried Tom. “Are you joking? Professor Skeel going to camp near us?”
“I’m not joking a bit,” declared Bert. “You can ask Jack.”
“It’s true enough,” put in Tom’s roommate at college. “We heard it the other day – just before we came on here – from your old friend, Bruce Bennington. I don’t know why we didn’t think to tell you before, except that I didn’t recall that Crystal Lake, and the one where we’re going camping, were so near together.”
“They’re about five miles apart,” said Tom. “But how is it that Mr. Skeel is going up there? The last I saw of him was when the ship picked us up from the derelict, the time we were wrecked, and he went on to Honolulu. What brought him back from there?”
“It seems the place didn’t agree with him,” explained Jack. “He tried to get into some business there but he failed. I guess he didn’t play fair. Anyhow his health failed, and the doctor said he had to get back to the United States. So he came.”
“Then he heard of a relative of his who was going up to camp in the New York woods, and he decided to go along. In some way Bruce Bennington got word of it. You know Mr. Skeel tried to play a mean trick on Bruce once.”
“Sure he knows it,” put in Bert. “Didn’t Tom show up old Skeel?”
“Oh, yes, I forgot about that,” admitted Jack. “Well, anyhow, our old enemy Skeel is going to camp near us, it seems.”
“It won’t bother me,” spoke Tom. “I don’t believe he’ll come near our place, and, if he does, we’ll just politely ask him to move on.”
“Sure,” said Jack. “But it’s rather odd that he should be so near us.”
“It is,” agreed Tom. They discussed, for some time, the possibility of meeting the former Latin teacher, who had been so unpleasant to them, and then they resumed work on making the cradle, or crate, for the motorboat.
There were busy times ahead of the boys. Their camp equipment had to be gotten together, packed for shipment, and then came the details of arranging for a food supply, though not much of this could be done until they reached Wilden.
“And maybe we’ll come across the fortune that’s hidden in the old mill,” suggested Jack, laughing.
“Or we may make friends with the wild man.”
“Don’t build too much on that,” advised Tom.
“Anyhow, we won’t want to be puttering around the old mill much,” said Dick. “We’ll be out in the boat, or fishing, or going in swimming, or something like that most of the time.”
“Or else hunting,” suggested Tom. “I hope you fellows brought guns.”
“We sure did,” spoke Jack.
The boys packed their kits of clothing, taking only as much as was absolutely necessary, for they were going to rough it. A small quantity of the most needful medicines were put up, and some other supplies were included.
Their grips and guns they would carry with them, but the tent, a portable cooking stove, and a case of canned provisions, as well as some in pasteboard packages, were to be shipped by express. The motorboat, which had been well crated up, was to go by freight.
By letter Tom had arranged for a supply of gasolene which was to be left at a small settlement at one end of the lake. They could also get additional provisions there and some supplies, and they hoped to get fish enough to help out on the meals.
Finally everything had been packed up. The motorboat had been shipped, with the other things, and the boys were to leave the next morning. They would have to travel all day, reaching the town of Wilden at night. They would sleep there, and go on to camp the next day.
The evening mail came in, and there was a letter for Mrs. Fairfield. It was from her former school chum, Mrs. Henderson, and as soon as Tom’s mother read it she exclaimed:
“Oh Tom! That old Jason Wallace is worse than ever.”
“How so?” asked Tom.
“It seems the other day that some campers who were staying near the old mill went in the ruins and began digging about. He saw them and had a quarrel with them. Now he’s got an old army musket and he keeps going about the place like a sentinel, Mrs. Henderson says. He threatens to shoot anyone who comes near. Oh, I don’t want you to go there!” and Mrs. Fairfield was seriously alarmed.
“Don’t worry, mother,” spoke Tom. “I won’t take any chances. I guess us fellows can make friends with old Wallace, and we’ll have him so tame that he’ll eat out of our hands, and show us all the interesting places in the woods and about the old mill.”
“Oh, Tom, you will be careful; won’t you?” asked his mother.
“Sure I will,” he promised, and she had to be content with that.
Later, when Tom told Jack and Bert about the news from the place where they were going camping, Jack said:
“I wonder if it could have been Mr. Skeel who bothered the old man?”
“It can’t be,” declared Bert. “Why he’s hardly up there yet.”
“He might be,” spoke Jack. “If he is, and he hears anything about treasure, I’ll wager that he gets after it. And he’ll make trouble whereever he goes – he’s that way.”
“He sure is,” agreed Tom, thinking of how the former professor had hidden away a secret supply of food and drink when the others were trying to save themselves from starvation in the lifeboat.
“Well, anyhow, we don’t need to worry,” said Dick, who had come over to Tom’s house to have a last talk before the start in the morning.
“That’s right,” agreed Tom. “Now let’s go over everything, and see what we’ve forgotten.”
This took them the best part of the evening, and having found that they had omitted a few things, they packed them into their grips and went to bed, Dick promising to come over early in the morning to go with the three chums to the train which they were all to take to reach Wilden.
Mr. and Mrs. Fairfield went to the station with the boys. The baggage was checked, and Tom had to spend some time saying good-bye to a number of his town chums.
“Hey, wish you’d take me along,” said Dent Wilcox, as he shuffled along the depot platform. He seemed to have forgotten his little feeling against Tom for not taking him in the motorboat, the day our hero got the letter from his chum. “Can’t you take me, Tom?”
“I might if you’d promise to chop all the wood, go for all the water, do the cooking, wash the dishes, make the beds, sweep up, and run for gasolene.”
“Huh!” exclaimed Dent, looking for a place to sit down. “I guess I don’t want to go.”
“And we don’t want you,” spoke Tom in a low voice.
There was a toot of the whistle, a puffing of smoke, and the train that was to take our lads to camp, pulled in. The last good-byes were said, Mrs. Fairfield made Tom promise about a dozen things that he would be careful about, and gave him so many injunctions that he forgot half of them. Mr. Fairfield shook his son’s hand, and those of his chums, and there was a trace of moisture in the eyes of father and son as they said farewell.
“Be careful, Tom,” said his father. “Don’t be tempted too much by the fortune in the old mill.”
“I won’t dad, but – er – that is, I think I’ll have a try for it – wild man or not.”
“Well, I supposed you would, after you heard the story. But don’t worry your mother.”
“I won’t. Good-bye!”
“All aboard!” called the conductor, and the boys hurried into the car. They waved their hands out of the windows and, a moment later, the train pulled out. Tom had a last glimpse of his mother with her handkerchief to her eyes, and he felt a lump coming into his throat.
“Oh, here, this won’t do!” he exclaimed half aloud. “I must send her a postal from the first post office, to cheer her up,” and he carried out that intention.
As the cars clicked along the rails, Jack, who had been looking into the coach just ahead of the one in which he and his chums were riding, uttered an exclamation.
“What’s the matter – forget something?” asked Tom.
“No, but I just saw someone I know.”
“Oh, if that’s the case, go ahead up and talk to her,” laughed Bert. “He’s the greatest chap for girls I ever saw,” he confided to Tom. “He’ll spot a pretty girl anywhere. And he knows so many of ’em.”
“This isn’t a girl,” said Jack in a low voice.
“No? Who is it then?” asked Tom, curiously.
“It’s our old enemy, Sam Heller; and Nick Johnson is with him!”
CHAPTER V
LAUNCHING THE BOAT
For a moment Tom did not answer, but stared at Jack as if he could not believe what his chum said. Then our hero asked:
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I am. Take a look for yourself,” and Jack moved over so that Tom could have a glimpse into the other car.
“It’s those chaps, sure enough,” spoke Tom. “This is a great go! Sam Heller and that nuisance Nick Johnson on the same train with us, and the prospect of meeting Professor Skeel when we get to camp. I don’t like this!”
“Neither do I,” agreed Bert. “But we can’t help it.”
“Do you think those two fellows are going to meet that mean professor you spoke of?” asked Dick.
“I hardly imagine so,” answered Jack. “Mr. Skeel wasn’t any too friendly with even Sam Heller, though Sam was more in his class than the rest of us. No, I guess it’s just a coincidence, that Sam and his crony are on this train. But I’d like to know where they got on, and where they’re going.”
“They must have boarded the train before we did,” explained Bert, “for I’ve been looking out of the window at every station we came to since Briartown, and I didn’t see them hop on.”
“That’s right,” agreed Jack. “Come to think of it now, Sam lives in Newtonville, and that’s not far below your town, Tom. Nick was probably visiting Sam, and the two are off on a trip together.”
“Yes, but where are they going?” persisted Tom. “I hope, if they’re going camping, that they don’t pick out any spot near us. There’ll be sure to be trouble if they do. I won’t stand for any more nonsense from either Sam or Nick.”
“And I don’t blame you,” declared Bert.
“There’s one way to find out where they’re going,” suggested Dick Jones.
“How?” asked Tom.
“Ask ’em.”
“That’s right!” laughed Tom. “Only I don’t like to do it. There’d be sure to be a quarrel if I did, for Sam and I never got along well together.”
“I’ll ask ’em,” offered Jack. “While I’m not any too friendly with them I think I can get into a conversation with ’em, and learn what’s up. Shall I?”
“Go ahead,” spoke Tom; and Jack sauntered into the next coach. Sam and Nick were surprised to see him, of course, and they probably suspected that Tom was somewhere about, but they did not admit it, or show much curiosity regarding Jack’s presence, so unexpectedly manifested.
“Going far?” asked Jack.
“Oh, not so very,” replied Sam, coolly. “And yet we may make quite a trip of it before we finish; eh, Nick?”
“Sure. Where are you bound for, Jack?”
“Oh, we’re just going camping – Tom Fairfield, Bert Wilson and a friend of Tom’s.”
“No camp life for ours!” exclaimed Sam. “It’s too much work. We stop at hotels.”
“Yes, and you miss half the fun,” rejoined Jack.
There was some more conversation, and then Jack went back to join his chums.
“Did you learn anything?” asked Tom.
“Not much. They were as close-mouthed as clams. I did my best to pump them without showing too much curiosity as to where they were going, but there was ‘nothing doing,’ as our friend Shakespeare might say. I guess they thought I wanted to know, and so they took special pains to keep mum. But we won’t let it make any difference to us.”
“That’s right,” agreed Tom. “Maybe there won’t be any trouble after all.”
The boys traveled all that day, the journey being a pleasant one for the four chums, who had much to talk about. They took an observation now and then of the forward car, and saw that Sam and his crony were still aboard.
“Well, we’ll soon be at Wilden,” remarked Tom, as the day was drawing to a close.
“Where are we going to stop?” asked Jack.
“At a hotel, of course,” put in Bert.
“Hotel nothing!” exclaimed Tom. “In the first place there isn’t any, and in the second place mother’s friend, Mrs. Henderson, would feel hurt if we didn’t put up at her house. She wrote specially to invite us when she heard we were going camping near Lake Woonset. So we’ll go there, and proceed to make ourselves at home.”
The train pulled into a station a few miles below Wilden, and to the surprise of Tom and his chums, Sam Heller and his crony got off. Our friends watched them.
“What do you know about that!” exclaimed Jack, as he leaned out of a window to look. “The expressman is pulling off some tents and other camping stuff, and Sam is telling him where to place it. Say, those fellows are going camping after all their high-flown talk about a hotel, and I’ll wager we run across them again before the summer’s over!”
“I shouldn’t wonder,” spoke Tom. “No matter, we’ll have a good time anyhow. We’d better be getting ready to leave on our own hook.”
