[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?”