CHAPTER XXXIV—WE CAMP UNDER THE TREE
Brent led the way over to the railroad tracks, then he began poking his foot against the big spikes that hold the tracks down on the ties.
He said, “See there? What do you make of that, Sherlock Holmes?”
Harry said, “I don’t see anything unusual. What’s the matter?”
Brent went back along the track a little way and began walking along the ties. “There’s a spike, there’s another, there’s another, there’s another,” he kept saying, “and here’s another—with a different kind of a head. Notice? More square—see?” He kept walking along. “Now there are one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight” and he kept walking along and counting up to about eleven or twelve “of those square headed spikes. See? They’re different from the others and they were driven in after the others. Can’t foil the old Newburgh Sleuth. This is where the train was derailed.
“The way I see it is, those robbers ripped up the tracks for about ten or fifteen feet and set the ends apart and spread some leaves over the break. When the railroad people spiked the rail down again, they just happened to use spikes with heads of a little different shape. Then there was a lapse of twenty-five years—that’s what they usually call it, isn’t it, Pee-wee?—and, presto, along came the Boy Scouts. Nothing to it. Right here is where that hold-up occurred—you can take it from the Church Mice Patrol. Flowers and testimonials should be addressed to First B. S. Troop, Newburgh and sent prepaid.”
I just blurted out, “Brent, you’re a wonder!”
“You’re some scout,” Grove said.
Harry just kept shaking his head and then he said, “Brent, we’ve got to hand it to you fellows. Pee-wee did a pretty good little stunt in deduction himself, and the fact that these spikes are on the left side bears out what he said.”
Then he told Brent about what Pee-wee had said, and Brent said, “Well, it seems we haven’t got anything on Scout Harris, when it comes to deducing.”
“Did you hunt for the tree?” Harry asked him.
Brent said, “No, because we weren’t sure of there being any tree; and you weren’t either. We came up the track hunting for signs of a derailed train, and we found them. It was as easy as pie.”
“Some pie isn’t so easy,” Willie Wide-Awake said.
Brent said, “Alas, ’tis true!” in that funny way he has. I guess little Bill had had some experience, hey?
“Now come back to the tent and I’ll show you something else,” Brent said; “we found it in the bushes when we were collecting firewood. How about you? Are you game for camp-fire to-night?”
“You bet we are,” I said; “I’d rather have a camp-fire any day than an auto trip.”
“You mean any night,” Skinny spoke up.
“Isn’t he getting just too clever for anything!” Grove said.
We went back to the tent under that great big tree, and Brent got out an old bar of iron with a flat end. It was all rusty and the rust had eaten into it so that Brent just pulled it against his knee and bent it. He said, “That’s what they did the trick with. Seems funny, doesn’t it, to find that after all these years?”
“You bet it does,” I said.
“Wonder just what happened here, hey?” he said.
We all sat down around outside the tent and it was awful nice there. It was just beginning to get dark. That gold colored place up at the point of the tree was kind of turned to brown. It was awful quiet all around. It was so still that I could hear something fall out of the tree and hit the ground. When I picked it up, I found it was just an acorn. I guess maybe it belonged to that squirrel.
“I like it under here,” Skinny said; “I like it better than being in a house.”
Harry took out the big envelope that had those secret papers (that’s what Pee-wee called them) in it; and he just kind of glanced them over. He read the newspaper articles and Brent listened. Then he said, “Let’s see—oh, this is about the tree. We called it the Dahadinee poplar, because that’s what old what’s-his-name called it. I can hardly see, it’s getting dark so fast … ‘trunk diameter of five or six feet … irregular, pyramidal open top … as moved by the wind … makes a handsome object….’ Some old tree, huh?”
“It’s a peach of a tree,” Brent said.
Then for a little while none of us said anything. Gee, I don’t know what we were all thinking about. Brent just held that old piece of bent, rusty iron, and kept marking in the ground with it. I know I was thinking about how funny it was, that away back years and years ago a robber should bury two bags of gold that had some seeds in them, and that a great big tree like this should grow up over the very place, just like we thought. A big tree that didn’t belong there—that belonged away up in the north. I guess I must have been sort of dreaming, because all of a sudden, I knew Harry was reading from that old letter that Pee-wee had found in the car. They were all listening, while he skimmed over it.
“‘So … have lost all I have by this outrage of scoundrels … but I paid him in good measure … Watertown to care for dying … say I am rough diamond but human life sacred even more than gold…. So I will come back to you and home with no riches for all this work but much love which no scoundrel can steal. The best reason I would pay this scoundrel … in one of these bags … for you to plant … nuthing but an adventure. I think more about how we can’t have our bench under our Dahadinee poplar ... with much love … Thor.’
“Pretty good letter, hey?” Harry said. “Who do you suppose he was?”
Brent just shook his head. Then he said, “He was a rough and ready old scout with a heart as big as a ham. When it came to a showdown, he cared more about a tree for he and his precious Ann to sit under, than he did for a couple of bags of gold dust. He was one lollapazuzza!”
Harry just said, “When it came to a showdown.”
“Probably on his way back from the Klondike, hey?” Brent said. “Lots of them came down across Canada. Maybe he and Ann lived up along the Dahadinee River when they were kids.”
“No telling,” Harry said.
Then nobody said anything, except Grove said we had better be starting our fire.
“And he was bringing these seeds home to her,” Harry said, very quiet, “so they would grow up and they could have some kind of a tree at home—— Oh, I think he was just splendid!”
I knew he was just imitating Grace Bronson.
All of a sudden he jumped up and said, “Let’s have one of those shovels. Pee-wee, and I’ll make a dig—just for a tryout. Then we’ll get down to business in the morning.”
Pee-wee got up kind of slow and got a shovel out of the tent and handed it to Harry.
“Of course, we’ll have to chop the whole business down to-morrow,” Harry said, “and dig in around the roots.”
“The gold dust will be pretty well mixed up with the earth right plunk under the tree. It’ll be pretty hard to get at. But there are plenty of us to do the work and we’re all scouts—except me. We’re not afraid of work. We’ve got a wireless outfit to get, and a bicycle painted green. Are you all game for a hard day’s work to-morrow?”
Brent was sitting there on the ground with his knees drawn up and he just said, “We’re all scouts when it comes to a showdown.”
“Righto,” Harry said; “when it comes to a showdown.”