Tom Slade in the north woods

by Percy Keese Fitzhugh

HIS SPECTACULAR CAREER

The McClintick millions were a product of the world war. The rise of Harrison McClintick in that period was Napoleonic. He began life at a bench in a shoe factory in New England. Later he went west and worked in a tannery, subsequently becoming foreman, and in time owner. He was a prosperous, moderately wealthy man when the war broke out. Almost as if by magic the McClintick tannery became the center of a group of factories in which were turned out every variety of leather article used by the war department. During their period of intensive production, the McClintick plants fell under the frowning scrutiny of the government and charges of gross profiteering resulted in an investigation which put the leather king on the front page of the public prints.

McClintick’s profits were beyond the dreams of avarice and he spent and gave lavishly. His magnificent Wave Crest Villa at Newport was only one of his bizarre extravagances. His palatial yacht was seized by the government for use in the navy. His estate at Long Branch, New Jersey, was the scene of hospitality out of keeping with the tragic drama from which his princely fortune was drawn. His camp in the Adirondacks with its rubble-stone hunting lodge was a model of a wilderness retreat. It was here that a year or two ago, his only son lost his life in one of those tragic accidents that occur in the hunting season. On a misty morning he was shot while swimming in the lake, the shooter mistaking his bobbing head for a wild duck.

Misfortune fell heavily on the head of McClintick after the war. His wife died in 1921. Already the spectacular fortune was ebbing away. The place at Newport, and later, the place at Long Branch, was given up. His town residence on Riverside Drive was sold and the culminating tragedy of his death occurred in a comparatively unpretentious apartment where he was living in reduced circumstances with his widowed sister and one servant.

So that was the story of Millionaire McClintick. And such was his tragic end. I was shocked by his death, as the heedless public could not have been, for I felt almost as if I had known him. At least I could have added one item to the newspaper report; I could have told the curious that Leatherstocking Camp, the last of his properties, had been sold also, and was at that very time being made over to meet the requirements of a scout camp.

So, you see, two of my mind pictures were smashed. The noble son had been, to say the least, not without his faults. And the quiet camp, harboring only sorrowful memories for a bereaved father, had been sold not so much because of grief as because of pressing need. Well, well, that was quite a little dose for a story-book dreamer like myself.

But, after all, was the whole business any the less sad? Here was this crude, strong man forging his way ahead and making a vast fortune. The “tumult and the shouting died” and his house of cards began to fall about his head. His wife gone. One estate, then another, sold. Perhaps it was to get away from all his trouble just for a little season that he and his party, his son and their friend, went up to their wilderness retreat. Perhaps, after all, the quiet woods beckoned to this shrewd old hustler.

And there, in this remote lakeside camp, his only son was taken from him. What matter why he sold his camp? Poor man, the story was sad enough in any case, thought I. The newspaper had printed a picture of him which showed him a stolid looking man; a man with indomitable will printed on his hard rugged features. He had an uncompromising jaw. But, I thought, it is just these wilful and triumphant men who suffer keenest when fate shows itself more powerful and relentless than they.

It was about a month after the tragedy, and the newspapers were still full of false alarms about an arrest, when Brent Gaylong and I went up to the camp where Tom and his crew were working with might and main in the heroic hope of getting the place in some sort of shape during the late spring.

CHAPTER VII—INTO THE DEPTHS

At Tom’s request I asked Brent Gaylong to go with me and I’m glad I did, for I think he supplied just what was needed in our camp family. Perhaps you know him. He lives with his people here in town and is a very intimate friend of Tom’s. People, speaking likingly of Brent, say there is something funny about him. I think I know what it is. He is long and lanky, and wears old-fashioned spectacles and is physically lazy. Hence he always seems funny against the background of strenuous outdoor life; in camp he seems particularly amusing. He is sometimes excruciatingly funny by contrast with Tom’s untiring energy and enterprise. He will do anything you want him to do with a whimsical air of resignation. He will climb mountains, hunt for treasure, or trail an animal with an absurdly serious air. The funny thing about Brent is that, owing to Tom, his lot is cast in the theatre of adventure, while he looks for all the world like an old-fashioned schoolmaster. He must be twenty-two or three by now. He’s good company.

“You’ll go, won’t you?” I asked, alluding to Tom’s message. “Come and bring your knitting; that’s what he told me to tell you. I’m going to drive up as far as Harkness and Tom will meet us there with his flivver.”