“It was just another of those fatal accidents that happen in the gaming season,” Tom said. “Most every year you read of some such thing.”
I shook my head; his recital had almost unnerved me. “No, it was horrible,” I mused aloud. “I never read of another accident just like that—no. I’ve heard of a man aiming at a deer and shooting a comrade somewhere beyond. But never anything like this. I think the poor man must have gone crazy afterward.”
“Well,” said Tom, “the story as I heard it from the surveyors was that he did go to pieces. When he shot at the object, suddenly there was a kind of splash and something reached up; he thought it was an arm. Well sir, he wouldn’t let himself believe that he had⸺”
“Awful, frightful,” I said, shudderingly. “Tom,” I added, “I don’t know whether I feel sorrier for the man or for the father. How would you feel in the man’s place?”
Tom shook his head. “The game wardens up there told my friends, the surveyors, that Mr. Weston couldn’t bring himself to go into the lodge and see if young McClintick was there asleep. He knew the old man never went in the lake and that there wasn’t anybody else for miles around. You see there were just three of them there. I understood Mr. Weston was an old friend of Mr. McClintick. He did think that maybe a game warden or a fire-ranger had happened into the neighborhood and gone in the water. All he had to do was to go into the lodge and see if young McClintick was there in his bed. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He just waited around, all gone to pieces, for an hour or so.”
“I would say that must have been the most terrible half hour that ever passed in any human life,” I reflected. “Well, what then?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Tom said. “Of course, both he and Mr. McClintick knew the worst before long. It sort of broke up the friendship. Naturally would, don’t you think so? Yet I guess the old man wasn’t—that is, didn’t exactly hold it against him.”
“Just an accident,” I mused. And Tom and I sat silent for a few moments, both musing.
“Just an accident,” he said. “They didn’t succeed in getting the body for several weeks; it was caught in an old seine at the bottom of the lake. I understand the poor old fellow thought the world of his son. He just went down to his place in Long Branch and got through with it somehow. He’s got a big place down there, I understand, and another in Newport. Lives in New York winters; has a mansion there too, I suppose. Poor old gent, they said he cared more about his Leatherstocking Camp than all his other places put together. But he won’t go there now; won’t look at the place; won’t hear about it. Just wants to sell it and he won’t haggle about the price. I suppose fifteen or twenty thousand bucks would buy the whole outfit. Oh, boy, that’s some wonderful place! I was telling Mr. Temple all about it. He just patted me on the shoulder and said he’d have to talk with the Scout people about it. I think he was just letting me down easy. But there’s a chance! There’s the place for a training camp for scoutmasters! Take it or leave it—but there’s the spot! There won’t be another bargain counter chance like that, not till Gabriel blows his horn—no sir!”
“Did you talk to Mr. Temple like that?” I queried.