Chapter XIX: Guesswork or Action

My star exhibit, the footprint, was as clear as when I had first seen it, and I permitted myself to gloat a little as Tom, and even Brent, gazed at it with riveted astonishment. “And there is the word,” I said, as I indicated each crazy letter of the topsy-turvy printing. “S-T-R-A-N-G-L-E.”

Tom only shook his head, amazed, bewildered. “Three of them,” he said. “Yep, they’re all prints of the same foot. Gosh, I don’t know _what_ to think. But one thing is certain. Somebody who was at camp a long while ago has been here lately. That’s _dead sure_.”

“And doesn’t want it known,” said Brent.

“Righto,” Tom agreed.... “Well,” he added, arousing himself to action, “how about this trail? I wonder where it goes from here, anyway? All the way up, do you suppose? What do you say, shall we follow it along?”

“I don’t see how we can do that, it’s getting dark,” I said. “We certainly couldn’t reach the summit to-night even if it can be done at all.”

“Trouble is, I’d rather the boys wouldn’t know anything about this business,” Tom said. “It’s pretty hard to get away without them knowing something about it.” He paused, seeming to consider. “This is a blamed mysterious kind of business if you’re asking _me_,” he mused aloud. “And the only theory _I_ have--well somehow that chap Northrop sticks in my mind.” In his obvious bewilderment he turned upon Brent. It was interesting to see how this indomitable scout and pathfinder turned instinctively to his friend about a question not involving scout skill and physical prowess. “What do _you_ think about it, Brent? Will you please for once give us a serious answer? What do you think about this business? This spook-ridden camp we’re in. Blame it all, I wish I knew something about that Northrop.”

Brent glanced about in the little rocky shelter as if looking for something to sit on, and it was amusing to note how Tom always reacted to this leisurely habit of his friend. “What do you want, a steamer chair?” he asked.

Brent slowly seated himself on a rock. “Are you sure you’ve told us all you know--all you heard--about this place, Tommy?” he asked.

“Why, sure,” said Tom.

“Well, it’s a puzzle,” said Brent. “Here’s what we actually do know. We know somebody lately passed down through here and left a footprint. We _don’t_ know that the same person scratched that word--now wait a minute, Tommy, don’t interrupt. I’m talking about what we _know_. Let’s stand on the ground----”

“Or sit down,” I playfully suggested.

“All right,” said Brent. “We _know_ that a footprint just like this was left in a room in the lodge the other night. And we _know_ that these two footprints match another one that was left in the hearth a long time ago. So we _know_ that some one who was here a long time ago, has been around here lately. Now that’s what we actually do know, because footprints can mean only one thing. If we want to find out who’s hanging around here, the best thing to do is to hunt for him, or at least watch for him. When we find him, if we do, we’ll find out who he is and why he’s here.”

“There’s one thing more that we know,” I said.

“We don’t know for an absolute certainty that there were four people here,” Brent said. “We have what they call presumptive evidence, that’s all.”

“That isn’t what I mean,” I said. “But we do know----”

“Cut out the dream,” said Tom.

“We do know,” I continued, “that the person who entered the lodge the other night had a key.”

“Yes, that’s right,” Brent said thoughtfully.

I paused before expressing a thought--something less than a thought--that was lurking in the back of my mind. “Do you suppose that this Northrop, whoever he is or was, might have been mixed up in some way with the murder of Mr. McClintick? Whoever returned here the other night had a key. It was some one familiar with the place. He was interested in that article about McClintick’s death--took it away with him. This man Northrop has been missing from his home. McClintick was strangled, and there’s the word scratched up on the rock.”

“Why should he scratch it there?” Brent asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “But it’s rather interesting to find that particular word scratched there--right where one of the footprints is.”

“It seems to me,” Brent said, “that whoever scratched that word there wasn’t exactly in his right mind. Nice, intelligent, normal murderers don’t do things like that. Why pick on our missing friend, Peter? How about absent-minded Wes, the young duck-shooter?”

“If you mean Mr. Weston why don’t you say so?” Tom snapped.

“He might have gone crazy at that,” Brent said. “Maybe he--didn’t you say he went to pieces after popping little Rollie?”

“Roland,” said Tom.

“Well, as long as we’re giving guesses,” Brent continued, “Weston was the one who had the best reason to go to pieces. Maybe in that state he fancied the old gent would kill him, so he beat him to it. One guess is as good as another. All we know about Northrop is that he didn’t go home.”

“And that he wasn’t mentioned as being here at all at the time of the accident,” I said.

“That’s one thing I can’t understand,” Tom exclaimed.

“Well,” said Brent, rising, “here we are part way up a mountain playing _guess, guess_ and night coming on. The thing to do is find out who’s been around here if we can. Come on, let’s go down home.”

Before descending, Tom examined the land above the rocks and found that the trail, such as it was, continued on up the mountain. As I glanced up there it seemed to me quite incredible that any one could ascend to the summit. Surely, I thought, the trail could not be continuous and must encounter many obstacles. But Tom argued that the footprint at the rocks proved that our mysterious visitor had descended the mountain, since there was no evidence of any one having camped in the little rocky shelter. He was all for action and resolved to follow the trail to the very summit, if that were possible, the next day.

How to do this without the others of our party knowing about it was a question. Tom thought it would seem less significant if he went alone, and his determination to do this was the more easily reached because of the rather poor opinion he held of Brent and me as scouts.

“That’s the only thing to do,” he said, as we made our way back to camp. “There’s no use wasting time in guesswork, and I can’t sit around, or even work, knowing that there’s maybe somebody lurking around the place. Somebody came down that trail or the footprint wouldn’t be there on the mountain, that’s sure. I’m going to find out where the blamed thing leads to.” He seemed full of resolve, restive for action, and rattled on in his hearty, vigorous way as we picked our path down the mountainside.

“I don’t want either of you to go along,” he exclaimed. “It isn’t necessary and the boys will only wonder what we’re up to. I’m going to start out to-morrow at daylight; I always wanted to get to the top of the mountain anyway. Now if anybody asks any questions about me just let them think I went to Harkness on foot; you can sidestep questions all right. Probably that’s what they’ll think anyway, because they know the flivver doesn’t work half the time. When I come down to-morrow afternoon, I may have something to tell you. If somebody came down the mountain I ought to be able to go up. I’ll punch a hole in this blamed mystery and be done with it. The plaguy thing’s getting on my nerves.”