"Sure," Harry said; "I guess it's just a nickname for one of thoseskyscraper pines that you never see south of Canada. I shot a Canadalynx up one of them on Hudson Bay; they puncture the sky, those things."Cracky, that fellow's been everywhere.
Grove said, "How is it going to do us any good?"
"Well, I don't know that it is," Harry said; "and I'm not buying a yachton the strength of it, either. But I had a kind of an idea that we mightbang into the woods north of Steuben Junction--that's up near theCanadian border about forty or fifty miles north of Watertown."
I said, "I guess that's a pretty lonely country, hey?"
"Oh, the people wear clothes up that way and live in houses," he said,"but it isn't exactly like Broadway and Forty-second Street."
Pee-wee looked kind of disappointed; I guess he thought that it was likeSouth Africa up there. "Maybe it isn't so terribly civilized," he said.
"Well, it's more civilized than where the Dahadinee poplar grows, youcan be sure of that," Harry said, "so don't think that we're going topull any Christopher Columbus stunt. Everything up there has beendiscovered."
"Not the treasure!" Pee-wee shouted.
"Now you kids listen to me," Harry said, "and don't fall off therailing--especially Pirate Harris." He said that, because we were allsitting along the railing of the porch. He was sitting in a wickerchair, tilted back, and his feet stuck up on the railing.
"When I was in the city to-day," he said, "I went into the big librarysituated in the dark morass on Fifth Avenue. Groping my way along itsdark passages, I escaped the savage bookworms and ferocious authors whofrequent its silent lairs, and made my way unobserved to the undergroundcave where the newspaper files are. Shh!
"There I examined the _New York Chronicle_ of March eighth and ninth andtenth, eighteen ninety-five. You remember that old Hickory wrote hisletter on March seventh? Well, here's a sort of condensed version of anewspaper article that I found. Don't fall backward Pee-wee, or you'llgo plunk into the rose bush. Now listen."
Harry took out some pages in lead pencil writing and read them to us.This is what he read, because he gave me the pages afterward and Ipasted them in our troop-book:
CANADIAN SPECIAL WRECKED NEAR BORDER.
FATAL DISASTER FOLLOWS HOLD-UP.
A fatal accident occurred yesterday morning to train number 37 of the Canadian Grand Valley Railroad, when the bridge south of Steuben collapsed with the locomotive and four cars which fell in a mass of wreckage into the deep gully which the bridge spanned. It is supposed that the old fashioned trestle of wood had been weakened by the charring effect of the forest fires which had devastated the immediate neighborhood. Engineers are endeavoring to determine the exact cause with the view to fixing responsibility.
Two cars at the end of the train were not yet upon the bridge when the fatal plunge occurred and while the first of these hung in a precarious position, the brakeman and passengers of the last car had the presence of mind to release the coupling before the last car of the train was dragged into the chasm of the burning wreckage below. Several of the passengers of this last car, however, were in the car ahead at the time of the disaster and lost their lives.
A wrecking crew with physicians and nurses was immediately dispatched from Watertown, the nearest place of any size, but as yet, no survivor has been found amid the charred wreckage, and it seems likely that the only passengers to escape death were four women and two men who were in the last car at the time of the disaster.
They were Mrs. Thomas Ellerton and daughter, of Fawnsboro, New York, Mrs. Manners of New Orleans, and a Miss Elsie Bannard. The two men were Thomas and Frederick Worrel, brothers.
The fatal catastrophe came as a termination to an adventurous trip, for the train was speeding with all steam for Watertown to secure medical treatment for several victims of a bold hold-up by two armed robbers, one of whom was killed by a passenger, who himself was later killed in the wreck.
"Guess that's about all of that one," Harry said, "and that was the endof our old pal Thor." Then he said, "Now here's part of another articlethat I copied out of the paper of the day after, so you see there werequite some happenings before the Boy Scouts started."
Pee-wee said, "Gee, I can't deny that a lot of things happened beforethe Boy Scouts started--look at Columbus, what he did."
"Now listen," Harry said.
BANDIT DIES AFTER CAPTURE EDDIE TRENT, NOTORIOUS HOLD-UP MAN ENDS CAREER AFTER DARING TRAIN ROBBERY
Edward Conners, alias Eddie Trent, notorious through the Canadian northwest for his career of murder and robbery, paid the penalty of his last escapade in the hayloft of a barn near Evans Mills in upper New York, yesterday, where he was discovered by a sheriff's posse.
Trent had sought refuge in the barn after the killing of his companion, Wister, in their hold-up of the Canadian Special train. It is supposed that the two quarrelled in the woods north of Steuben Junction, and that Trent killed his pal in an altercation over their booty and was wounded himself in the affray.
The desperado was suffering from loss of blood and exposure at the time of his discovery, and lived but a short while. He had no booty, and died refusing to confess how much he had secured in his desperate enterprise.
A pistol and knife were found upon him, the latter crusted with dried earth, which led to the supposition that he may have buried his booty in the woods near where the body of his pal was found. But a careful search of the locality revealed no sign of any recent digging. Trent, or Conners, was the robber who held up the Californian--and so on, and so on, and so on.
That's the way Harry finished up. There was a lot more about thatrobber, only Harry hadn't bothered to copy it.
"So there's the romance of an old railroad car for you," he said, "andif you can beat that with your Robin Hoods and Rob Roys and CaptainKidds and Jesse Jameses, why then you're some dime novelist. And I'vegot a kind of a hunch that the real truth about the little StrawberryFestival has never really been solved. A whole lot of things happened onthat----"
"Momentous day," Pee-wee piped up.
"Right the first time," Harry said, "and then came a--what-d'ye-call-it,a lapse of twenty-five years. _Lapse_ is right, isn't it?"
"Sure, that's it--lapse," Pee-wee said.
"And meanwhile, the automobile was invented and the Boy Scouts werestarted and Scout Harris was wished onto the world. Now comes the lastact of the drama--revealing the mystery--and the first thing to do."
"_Shh_, don't talk so loud," Pee-wee said; "the first thing to do----"
"Is to get a new tire and have the carburetor fixed. Then we'll wait fora favorable tide and sail away in the good ship _Cadillac_. What do yousay?"
CHAPTER VII--WE PLAN OUR TRIP
That was always the way it was with Harry Donnelle; he'd laugh and makea joke about everything and jolly Pee-wee, but anyway, one thing wassure, and that was that we knew more about what happened away back onthat day before any of us was born, than the man that wrote that lastnewspaper article. We knew that that fellow Trent didn't kill his pal,and we knew that he wasn't shot by his pal, either. We knew that someman who signed his name Thor did that, and we knew that there was acouple of bags of gold, too.
I said to Harry, "I wish you'd please be serious and tell us what youthink."
"I think we'll take an auto trip up toward Lake Ontario and the St.Lawrence," he said.
"Can Skinny go?" I asked him.
"Surest thing you know," he said; "Skinny'll go as first mate. You'll goas ship's cook, Grove will be a common seaman, and Pee-wee'll be a verycommon seaman. If the wind is fair and we don't have any squalls orblow-outs, I don't see why we shouldn't make the desert island ofSteuben Junction by Tuesda
y or Wednesday."
"Oh boy!" I said, "that'll be _great_."
Then he got kind of more serious and he said, "Now you kids listen tome. There may be a sequel to that affair, and then again there may notbe. We're going on an automobile trip, the five of us. On the way back,I'll drop you off at Temple Camp, if you say, so you can join the restof the bunch.
"We'll take the Adirondack tour up as far as Watertown and see if we candig up Steuben Junction, and then we'll bang around in the woods.There's just about chance enough of our finding something, to make thetrip interesting. But we're out for a good time, not for gold, justremember that. Then none of us will be disappointed. Understand,Pee-wee?"
Grove said, "Yes, but there were two bags of gold and when that fellowwas discovered, he didn't have them. They must be somewhere."
"Unless he gave them to some poor family or to a hospital or an OldLadies' Home," Harry said, awful funny like, "and I don't just think hedid. I don't believe he was that kind of a train robber. I think thedirt on his knife meant something. It proved _what_, but it didn't prove_where. I_ think that when he found he couldn't do much more than crawland was getting weaker and weaker, he may have dug a hole and buried hisgold, so he wouldn't be caught with the goods. If he did, he buried someseeds, too. And that was twenty-five years ago. There may possibly besome sign now where there wasn't any then. Get me? If we should happento see a big tall pine in a neighborhood where there aren't _any_ otherpines, why----"
"Oh boy, we'll buy a big cabin cruiser," Pee-wee yelled, "and we'lldonate about ten thousand dollars to Temple Camp and----"
"We'll pay off the National Debt and start a line of airplane jitneys tothe moon," Harry said. "Only first we've got to find the tree. And we'renot going to hunt for it in somebody's backyard, either. All we know is,there are some woods up around a place called Steuben Junction; theremay be miles of woods."
"What's a mile--that's nothing," Pee-wee said. "I'll get a couple ofspades from our gardener."
Harry said, "All right, I've been promising some of you an auto trip,and the sooner it's over the better. So now you'd better trot along andsquare matters with your scoutmaster and your folks. I don't want to becharged with kidnapping. I hope they won't let you go, but if they do,I'll see it through."
"Don't you worry," Pee-wee said, "I have my mother and father trained."
I guess we were all glad of one thing, anyway, and that was thatvacation began the very next day. Some fellows don't bother much aboutschool, but I never cut anything--not even vacation.
CHAPTER VIII--WE PLAN OUR ITINERARY
(I BET YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS)
So that's just how it was that we went off on the Adirondack automobiletour with Harry Donnelle, in his big seven passenger Cadillac, and someof this story is going to be all about that trip. I bet you'll like it,because we pretty nearly got killed and had a lot of other adventures.The best part of it is where Pee-wee was dashed to pieces from a cliff;he says that's the principal thing in the story. Believe _me_, we hadsome fun that night.
We didn't tell the rest of the troop anything about those newspaperarticles or about our going in what-do-you-call-it--quest of--buriedtreasure, because we knew they'd only laugh at us. If we found anything,that would be time enough to tell them, that's what Harry said.
Now maybe you don't know anything about the Adirondack tour, but anyway,it's all planned out on a map for motorists. The way you go is up theHudson to Albany and then you hit out west and go up through Utica toSyracuse. Then you go up north right close to Lake Ontario till you cometo Watertown and then you go up along the St. Lawrence River till youget to Ogdensburg. There's a dandy big apple orchard near Ogdensburg.
After you leave Ogdensburg, you go east again and you come to a placenamed Malone. Then pretty soon you get to Lake Champlain--that's a peachylake. It was invented by a man named Champlain--I mean discovered. Thenyou go across into Vermont--that's where the Green Mountains are, onlythey're blue. Then you go down through Vermont into New York and prettysoon you get to Albany again. I'm a regular Cook's Tours, hey? There's aplace right near the station where you get four jawbreakers for a centin Albany. Mostly you get only three. After that you go down the riveruntil you get to Hudson and then you go over on the boat to Catskill.
And, oh boy, believe _me_, I know the way from there to Temple Camp. Thebest way is to go up through Bridge Street, because Warner's Drug Storeis on Bridge Street. He's a nice man, Mr. Warner is, he charges only tencents for ice-cream sodas. Temple Camp isn't on the tour map, but thecamp should worry.
The way you get to New York from Temple Camp is down through Kingstonand Newburgh to Jersey City. But, gee whiz, I don't know why anybodyshould want to go to Jersey City. I know a fellow that comes from JerseyCity--every time he gets a chance.
On the very day that we started on our trip, the rest of the troop wentto Temple Camp to stay for a month, so it was pre-arranged (I thought upthat word pre-arranged) that Harry would put us off there on the wayback. He said he'd even do more than that--that he'd throw us off. Butjust the same, he likes Temple Camp, too.
So now to get the automobile started.
CHAPTER IX--WE HEAR ABOUT "EATS"
When we cleared port (that's what Harry called it) we had the ship'spapers secreted in one of the door pockets of the good brig _Cadillac_.Those papers were the two newspaper articles published in March,Eighteen Ninety-five, and the letter of the man who had been killed inthe wreck, and the description of the poplar that We had copied out of abook. Pee-wee sat next to that pocket and kept his eye on it. Skinny satbetween us and Grove sat in front with Harry.
Pretty soon I said to Harry, "There's one fellow I wish was on thistrip, and that's Brent Gaylong."
Harry laughed, and then he said, "It would be right in his line."
"He was crazy for adventure," I said. "Do you remember how he told usabout digging up a bottle full of gold paint?"
"Wonder what ever became of him and those kids?" Harry said.
It was while my patrol was on the long hike home from Temple Camp withHarry Donnelle last summer, that we met Brent Gaylong and the fivelittle fellows that he called his patrol. They were on a hike to find amissing person. They belonged in Newburgh and they were awful poor. Theywere so poor that Brent named their patrol the Church Mice.
But one thing, that fellow was crazy for adventures and he had an awfulfunny way of telling things. Gee, he had us laughing a lot on the nightthat we all camped together. Pee-wee and Grove and Skinny had never methim, because they weren't with us on that trip--momentous trip.
"I'd like to see little Willie Wide-Awake again," Harry said.
I said, "It's too bad we didn't think of it in time; we might have gonethrough Newburgh."
"Too late now," Harry said.
Now I'm coming to the first adventure of that trip and it's mostly aboutPee-wee, but it has something to do with being hungry, too. That's onething Scouts like better than dinner and that's supper. EspeciallyPee-wee is always hungry; Harry says he's a whole famine all by himself.
It was dark when we left Albany, because we had to stay there to get ourradiator fixed, and while the machine was in the garage, we went to themovies. It was nice skimming along the road to Utica, and we could smellthe country. Gee whiz, when that smell gets in the air, I always beginthinking about Temple Camp.
Pretty soon we came to a sign and Grove got out and read it by hisflashlight. It said "_Welcome to Crystal Falls. Automobile lawsenforced._"
"The pleasure is ours," I said.
"I wonder if there's any place in this berg where we can put up for thenight?" Harry said. "Hanged if I know what's the matter, but we'rerunning on five cylinders. That intake isn't working right, either."
"Believe _me_, my intake is all right," Pee-wee shouted, "only it hasn'tgot anything to take in."
"Always thinking about eats," I said.
"How about _you_, Alf?" Harry said to Skinny. "Hungry?"
Skinny s
aid, "Yes, sir."
"Well then," Harry said, "we'll see if we can run her under coversomewhere and get something to eat and a place to bunk in. I doubt ifthere's a garage in this thriving metropolis, but if there is, themechanics are probably home in bed. This machine seems to have an acuteattack of the pip. The gas isn't feeding right."
"You should worry, the rest of us will feed all right," I told him.
Ever since we left Albany the engine hadn't been running right and twoor three times Harry had tried to get it running smooth, but he said hecouldn't do anything in the dark. So now we turned into the main streetof Crystal Falls and crept along very slow, the engine pounding all thewhile. There wasn't anybody to enforce the laws and there wasn't anybodyto welcome us, either. The principal thing about the restaurants wasthat there weren't any. And the same with the hotels--they were verynice, only they weren't there.
"We should have kept out of that garage at Albany," Harry said; "go to agarage and then your troubles begin. The good ship _Cadillac_ will haveto be close-hauled, I'm afraid."
We stopped alongside the curb and Harry tried to find out what was thematter. I guess there were a lot of things the matter. Anyway, wecouldn't get started again. After about half an hour he gave it up andsaid he couldn't do anything until daylight.
"She's at the mercy of the wind and storm," he said; "I guess we'll haveto take to the small boats. Do you see that light up the street,Pee-wee? Suppose you hike up there and see if there's anybody about, andif there is, find out where we can get something to eat and a place tosleep. Tell them we're wrecked on the treacherous rocks of Main Street."