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TOM SLADE AT BEAR MOUNTAIN

I have often reflected that if it had not been for my long promised visit to my aunt up in Kingston, New York, these very extraordinary events which I purpose to narrate would never have occurred. To be sure, the silent stranger, as we called him, would still have pursued his grim course in the tragic business. But I would have been none the wiser for that. And Tom Slade would not have had the thrilling experience of participating in it.

I have found some amusement in speculating on just what might have happened if I had not stumbled into the prelude of that black drama; or rather, I should say, plunged my young friend headlong into it. For to tell you the truth I was either sitting in my wicker chair on the porch or playing golf while the whole strange affair was unfolding.

More particularly have I derived amusement from thinking how my Aunt Martha was, as one might say, remotely involved in the story. Not that she ever defied an outlaw or dug for buried treasure, for she is one of the mildest and sweetest old ladies that ever lived. But if she had not insisted on my making good the old, neglected promise to visit her in her little cottage in that quaint old city up the Hudson, why there would have been nobody to confront Slick Somers and send him sprawling to the ground. I am fond of telling my Aunt Martha that she was really the one who did that. Then she always lays down her knitting and tries gently to show me how my reasoning is defective.

Well, in any case, I started to spend a quiet, restful week with her, and I landed plunk in the middle of the eighteenth century. For here you shall find outlaws quite as bold as Jesse James or Robin Hood, and treasure too, if those are the kind of things you care about. And it all began with my trip to see Aunt Martha up in Kingston.

So I shall begin the tale of these adventures with a certain fair morning in the springtime when I set forth from my home in New Jersey and drove up the state road past the picturesque old water wheel at Arcola, and so on through Allendale and Ramsey to Suffern, which is just across the New York state line. North of this point the Ramapo Hills close in about the road and soon the highway takes a winding course among rugged mountains. Now the road is shadowed by precipitous heights, now a fair expanse of rolling country unfolds before the eye.

I think it must be in the neighborhood of Sloatsburg that the country to the east thickens into a mountainous wilderness. Beyond that flows the lordly Hudson whose general course I was following. I suppose those intervening wooded heights are what they call the Hudson Highlands. I knew that zigzagging in and out among those dense hills, this way and that, was the freakish boundary line of the Interstate Park, which forever sets a resolute limit against the sneaking advance of civilization.

As I glanced over that way I said to myself, "Master Progress, with all your fine claptrap, you may not enter here."

For in those magnificent wilds a holy circle has been drawn where trees and trails and wild flowers and all the beauteous furniture of nature are eternally safe. "That is a fine thing in this twentieth century turmoil," I reflected.

The birds were making a great chorus in the trees as I drove along, and I noticed a hawk poised in air above the woods. I wondered whether he was in fact within the limits of the reservation.

Then, suddenly, the spirit of the spring and the outdoors caught me and I was glad I was off on my visit. I was glad, particularly, because I had decided to drive to my destination. For you know my Aunt Martha had never in her life been in an automobile and I was thinking what an adventure it would be for her to have a ride at thirty miles an hour or so in the fragrant, blooming country.

Little I thought how that trip would mean real adventures--adventures dark and perilous. Little did I dream of the secret which lay hidden among those neighboring hills. Little did I dream of the dark story which the region to which Bear Mountain has given its romantic name, had to tell.

There seemed to be no roads crossing the highway I was journeying on which might lead into that mountainous reservation. I knew of the popular entrance to it on the shore of the Hudson. But I wondered whether it might not be entered at some inland point in this neighborhood. The reader who is familiar with this region will bear with me for the sake of those who live at a distance from it.

On making inquiries at Tuxedo I learned that I could enter the tract by a bridge over the Ramapo River several miles north of the village. I was told that this was the only way of entering the reservation, which information I later found to be incorrect. I know now an obscure and unfrequented route into those hills which you shall hear about later.

Soon I was over the bridge, and passing a little log shelter where a couple of state troopers loitered, I knew I was within the precincts of the region dear to scouts. My intention now was to cross the reservation to the Hudson and continue my journey to Kingston along the shore road up the river.

I doubt if there is any drive hereabouts more interesting and picturesque than this Seven Lakes Drive, as they call it, which takes one in and out among those clustering heights and skirts the shores of tranquil waters. Half hidden in the surrounding woodland may be seen camping shacks and cabins whose rustic architecture consorts well with the wild surroundings.

There were men painting rowboats as I drove along, and others repairing picturesquely rough structures by the wayside. The camping season had not yet opened and there was an alluring air of preparation as I drove along.

At Kanawauke Lakes, about a third of the distance to the Hudson, is the Boy Scout Headquarters, from which point, I understand, the various camps are provisioned and supervised. A lonely boy scout in a reefer jacket was lolling here; I did not ask him his business thereabouts so early in the spring; he seemed like the first robin to reach the north.

As I drove along the winding way, up hills and down, I noticed primitive country roads here and there, and I wondered where they could lead to in that hilly wilderness. Clearly they were not incidental to the making of the Park; they had an old country look about them, and I wondered to what remote habitations they might lead.

Not so much as a hamlet is there along that scenic course, but now and again I could see embowered in the woods or standing upon distant hillsides quaint little old-fashioned houses, the humble abodes of old settlers, I supposed. There could never have been any community life in that region, for these primitive abodes were secluded and widely scattered among the mountains.

Who were the hardy folk who had reared their simple homes so near to Nature's heart--so far removed from civilization? The thought of them suggested pioneers of old. For no cabin of a restless Daniel Boone in the depths of the Kentucky wilderness would seem more remote than these same little ramshackle houses must have been less than a score of years ago, before the dedication of this region to the revival of woods-lore and pathfinding. I wondered whether these original inhabitants or their descendants had been ousted in the interests of the reservation. That would seem a pity, I told myself. They must have been a bold, adventurous race.

It was quite interesting, the contrast between these dwellings as I saw them hidden here and there in the distance, and the consciously primitive architecture of those modern camps. I could not help it, my fancy wandered to the old life of the district, and I conjured up visions of the hardy adventurers who must once have lived there. What did they do for a living? There was no village life. There was one of these houses, two hundred years old I should say, standing a little distance back from the road, and against its unpainted, weather-beaten side rested a motorcycle. I suppose perhaps one of those clanking, decorated paragons of romance, a state trooper, lived there.

Well, I mused, you cannot make modern camping and outdoor life and all that anything like the life of real scouts and pioneers; you can't do it. The motorcycle sneaks in when you are not looking, they have machinery for making logs correctly rough, and when they are pressed for time they put up cabins in the glare of an arc light. You cannot link up the past with the present. The one is the one thing and the other is quite another, and there you are. But they are both very interesting, and the aggressiveness of one and traces of the other one were to be seen in this wild territory extending in from the Hudson Highlands.

Then suddenly, just as this historic name of Hudson Highlands was in my thoughts, I went rolling down-hill and around sweeping turns till the majestic river opened in full view before me. And soon I was skirting an extensive lawn where games are played, I suppose, and was making a circuitous approach to the picturesque rubble-stone building which is known as the Bear Mountain Inn. This is the neighborhood of Bear Mountain, one of those frowning giants that guards the noble river in its course. In popular usage its name has been used for the whole region through which I had passed.

If I had been truly of the spirit of those hardy folk to whom I was pleased to attach so much romance and tradition I suppose I should have climbed the mountain or done something of that sort. But instead I fell back into the modern way and parking my car in front of the attractive Inn I went inside for a hearty luncheon.

There were some scout officials lunching at the Inn; I suppose they had come up from the city. They wore khaki and ate chicken salad and talked about some Council or other; that and a new store-house. Not many others were lunching; it was too early in the season.

On my way out I stopped and asked these gentlemen if they could tell me anything about the history of that region. They expressed regret that they could not, but were able to advise me about the road I should take in continuing my journey northward. I learned that I would pass through West Point and so on over the scenic Storm King Highway up through Cornwall and on to Newburgh.

I was just pondering on how long it would take me to reach Kingston by this unpremeditated route when I noticed standing near my car the strangest looking man I have ever seen in my whole life. He looked queer enough where he stood, amid rural surroundings; how he would have impressed one if met with in the city it was amusing to contemplate.

He wore a corduroy jacket which might have done duty in pre-revolutionary days. I suppose it was once yellow; it was a sort of drab when I first saw it. I do not know what his dirt-colored trousers were made of, but it was not khaki; he and all that pertained to him were of the pre-khaki era.

He had a pointed nose and even this was deeply wrinkled. Somehow it gave me the impression of a fox, though I do not mean that there was anything suggestive of slyness in his expression. His old eyes were gray and of a shrewdness which only the wilderness can breed. He wore hanging about his neck a discolored old cartridge shell of a considerable size; why I do not know. But I later learned that with the aid of this ancient trophy he could reproduce the voices of birds and beasts at will and fool them with his mimicry.

I could not repress the temptation to inspect rather frankly so strange a figure, and he, on his part, watched me with a kind of easy observation as I felt one of the front tires of my car to make sure that it was hard.

"She's a-leakin'," he said.

"No, she isn't," I said, "but she needs a little air."

"She's a-leakin'," he repeated, unperturbed by my superior knowledge.

"All right, feel of it," I laughed. "Come around here and feel of it."

"I ain't got no call to feel it," he drawled; "I can hear it."

"Standing there?" I laughed. "You must have better ears than I have."

I went and stood beside him, in front of the car, and heard nothing.

"Hear it?" he asked.

"I certainly don't," I told him.

"Them ears o' yourn is stopped up like a ole ground-hog hole," he said.

"Thank you," I said, and by way of closing the matter finally I stooped and listened at the tire valve. As sure as life there was a faint hissing there, a slow leak. I dare say at the rate of leakage that was going on the tire might have stood up till I reached Kingston, though I changed it then and there to be on the safe side. What astounded me was that this stranger had heard at ten or twelve feet that all but inaudible hissing which bespoke the slow emission of air out of the tire. It was nothing less than miraculous.

The stranger smiled, which multiplied the wrinkles about his firm old mouth. "Them ears o' yourn is 'baout's clear as a ole filled up skunk hole," he drawled.

"First it was a ground-hog, then it was a skunk," I complained good-humoredly.

He disregarded me entirely and moved about the car squinting at it as if it did not belong to me at all. I felt quite an outsider, the comrade of skunks and ground-hogs. He seemed to think I would wait till he completed his leisurely inspection.

"If I'd a had all wuz belongin' ter me," he observed carelessly, "I might o' had one o' them pesky contraptions."

I answered with that insincere phrase which motorists are so fond of using to the uninitiated. "You're very lucky not to have one," I said: "they're a lot of trouble." And I smiled inwardly at the thought of his driving one. "You going my way?" I added.

"Yer ain't goin' by south road, mebbe?" he asked.

"South road; where is that?" I said.

"Yer know Hawkeye Spoke them youngsters got?"

"I don't," I said, "but it's a bully good name all right. Hawkeye. I'm going north up to Kingston."

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