Left to ourselves that day, Brent and I enjoyed the freedom of the camp. In the daylight I saw how the camp was situated on an area of flat woodland between the somber lake and the great Hogback Mountain. This frowning giant was steep and densely wooded. I longed to ascend it, yet knew full well that I would not attempt the climb.
After luncheon (we had been given the absolute freedom of the larder) we fell to making a casual sort of inspection of the cupboard and its contents in search of evidence which might confirm the rather doubtful evidence of the targets. But we could not find one thing which even remotely suggested the number of persons at the camp in that last fatal autumn. We found many mementoes of the former occupants; indeed, it seemed as if they had taken nothing away. But not all of Brent’s whimsical snooping around revealed a single sign which suggested anything.
We examined the markings in the hearth, which had certainly been made by the front part of a naked human foot before the cement had hardened. But of course this imprint told us nothing. It might have been anybody’s footprint. The fact that it was the print of a naked foot was not a matter for remark. A bather about to go to the lake, or returning from it, could have inadvertently made that impress.
“It seems to me that we’re going a long way out of our course hunting for a mystery,” I said. “What difference does it make whether there were three or four persons here just before the place was finally deserted?”
“Not the slightest,” Brent said.
So there was an end of his little deductive triumph in connection with the targets. It seemed bright and observant of him, but it signified nothing. He and I fell into the busy life at camp, helping in our unskilled way, to make the place ready for opening. We painted the new rowboats, and after the men had widened the footpath in to camp, we cleared away the roots and brush so that wagons and Tom’s precious Ford could enter. I think I never worked so hard in my life, but I dare say it did me good. It was amusing to see lanky Brent at these strenuous labors.
In this wholesome, arduous work Leatherstocking Camp ceased to have any pathetic associations. We were all too busy to think of the tragedy and it was seldom mentioned. On an early stroll one morning, I paused on the shore of the lake and my thoughts did wander back to the ghastly mistake that to me had cast a shadow over the place. A gauzy cloud hung over the lake and as I gazed out on the misty waters a bobbing object, probably some drifting log, moved in the partial concealment of that hazy curtain. I could not help torturing myself with the appalling thought of how I would feel if after an ill-considered shot I saw a human arm raised up out of the water. How long would I linger in torturing suspense before going to the room of my young friend to learn the truth?
But, as I said, we were too busy to talk or even think of these things. Even Harrison McClintick was seldom mentioned. We wondered how the authorities in New York were progressing with the case. But we seldom saw a New York paper, and that dreadful crime, like the mishap at camp, was a thing of the past. On the other hand, Leatherstocking Camp was a reality. Soon there were seven cabins up and enough logs hauled for two more. We were waiting for planking from the sawmill in Rogers Gap, so that we could begin work on the “grub” pavilion and the commissary shack which were to be of a less primitive construction. I can say now that I hope never to see another axe as long as I live. I still dream of chinking spruce logs with sphagnum moss and laugh as I recall Brent bringing in this growth in an improvised hod, with which he went wandering about the neighboring forest. He was our hod-carrier, humorous, leisurely, lanky. Sometimes he chipped the logs for binding and he says now that he cannot play cards with any pleasure, because the chips remind him of his “pioneer days” as he calls them.
CHAPTER XI—ALONE
As the days passed I thought less and less about Brent’s rather ingenious deduction. For, to be sure, it made no difference how many persons had been at Leatherstocking Camp at the time of the fatal accident. As for Brent, he was always snooping around, adopting the pose of an amateur sleuth, but I think he did not take himself or his discovery too seriously. He seemed amused at the confusion he had caused in poor Tom’s mind. “Maybe they used to have the hermit down for week ends,” he suggested. But that did not satisfy Tom.