Roy Blakeley's Adventures in Camp

by Percy Keese Fitzhugh

And I heard him say, as if his voice was muffled and far away, "All right, so far."

I said to myself, "Poor little kid, he isn't very heavy, that's one thing." Then I started off.

It wasn't hard to swim across the old creek bed, because the water was flowing easier now, and pretty soon I was hiking it up through the mountains. Now, the way I went was through those mountains west of Nick's Valley. And I went south toward the lake. You look at the map and you'll see just the way I went.

The woods are pretty thick up in those mountains and a couple of times I got rattled about which way to go. But most of the time I could look down and see the valley and the water in the bottom of it, just like a river. It wasn't rushing any more and I guessed that whatever happened, the worst of it was over.

Pretty soon I came out where I could look down and see the lake all spread out before me. It was there all right But first I didn't get the hang of things, because Nick's Cove wasn't there at all. There was just a kind of a river flowing from where Nick's Cove used to be, right through the valley. There were lots of trees, all uprooted, down there, too, and the place was so different that I couldn't even tell where the Gold Dust Twins' tent had been. Anyhow, it wasn't there any more, that was sure. All around the lake was a kind of gray border and I guess it showed how much the water had gone down. But, gee, there was enough lake left to satisfy anybody. A scout that wouldn't be satisfied with what was left must be a hog. But, oh, boy, when that flood started, it must have piled up in Nick's Valley. Anyway, I could see Temple Camp all safe across the water, but the spring-board was way up in the air— gee, it looked awful funny.

There were half a dozen or so of the Temple Camp boats with fellows in them, flopping around near the old cove. It was almost dark, but I could see them plain. I guess they had rowed across just to look around and see how things looked there. A couple of hours before they would have been carried right through on the flood, but when I looked down it was pretty calm there.

I shouted to them and started down the mountainside for the shore. I could see Westy and Pee-wee and a couple of Portland scouts in one of the boats. All the while I was coming down I kept shouting and when I got to the shore, there were half a dozen boats to meet me. Mr. Elting and Uncle Jeb were in one of them. Besides, I could see half a dozen fellows plodding around on shore. I knew they were looking for Gold Dust Camp.

"Don't bother hunting for those fellows," I shouted, all out of breath; "they're all right; they're down at Catskill or somewhere. Bert Winton started through the passageway from an old pit—he's got Skinny—take me in and row down to Rebels' Cave. Anybody got a lantern?"

I guess they thought I was crazy, appearing from up in the mountains like that and shouting about pits and passageways and Rebels' Cave. But as soon as Mr. Elting and Uncle Jeb took me into their boat, I told them about all that happened.

Uncle Jeb just looked at Mr. Elting and Mr, Elting looked awful serious. Then Uncle Jeb shook his head and said, "It daon't come out through Rebels' Cave, I reckon. I ain't never explored Rebel's Cave, but it daon't come out thar, nohow."