Chapter XXVII: Mystery Upon Mystery

We decided to think no more that night about the letter. It was far too deep a problem for us to solve and I suggested letting the matter drop. That is, until we heard from Mrs. Northrop or Mrs. Boardman.

Tom roused Brent and me next day at dawn. A faint gleam of pink had broken through the dull gray horizon and we took heart immediately. At least it would be a clear day.

We started out well supplied in the event of meeting with any further contingencies. In fact, we were beginning to feel like thoroughly seasoned mountain climbers.

The first slope was reached in no time, it seemed, but of course we were giving one another help. Tom then went ahead showing us the footprints he had discovered two days before.

“Are there any new ones, Tommy?” Brent asked.

“Not that I’ve seen yet. That proves then it’s the hermit, in the gully all right. Doesn’t it?”

“Not necessarily,” Brent replied, as adamant as ever.

We fell into a continued silence the rest of the way. Our purpose was gruesome enough and the less we talked, the less we would be reminded of it before-time.

I shall never forget the beauty of that morning. The sun had risen as we reached the cleft and was playing its bright golden shadows in and out among the trees. The glistening dew had transformed the entire mountain into one huge, lacy coverlet, with millions of tiny iridescent bubbles like sparkling jewels dancing upon it. A good omen, I thought, or rather hoped.

The brook was gushing after the heavy rains and as we looked down the water seemed to have risen about eight or more inches. Brent thought it was considerably more than that, and as I have a poor eye for measuring anything I accepted his decision.

On account of jutting rocks and overhanging trees, we were unable to see the brook at the point where the cleft ended. I think we were all equally thankful for that and deliberately wished we could postpone the awful errand.

Taking no chances this time, we crossed the gully in true mountaineer style, protected by the rope which Tom had lassoed to a stump on the farther side.

“I wonder how much rope we’ll need to reach down there,” Tom said uncoiling it deftly. I knew he hated looking over. So did I.

“Brent could tell you,” I suggested. “He has the mathematical eye.”

“Someone has to do it,” Brent said, with an air of resignation, “so it might as well be I!” He went toward the edge quickly and just as suddenly turned about, facing us again. The color of his face had turned an ashen gray.

“_It’s not there!_” he cried.

“_Not there?_” Tom echoed. We all looked over together.

True, it was gone!

Only an occasional twitter of young birds sounded from the dim woods. The wild cry of a large bird of prey greeted our ears as it flew over the gully and disappeared through the trees. All was silent then, except for the brook tripping gaily over its rocky bed. As it turned to leave the gully and leap over the rocks and down the mountainside, I fancied it made a moaning sound as if to mock our tragic stricken faces above.

“You can let me down,” Brent said quietly. “I’ll look about.”

I held the rope firmly and Tom helped Brent over the edge and let him down slowly. Pretty soon he shouted up that he was all right. We watched him go back and forth over the rocks and then disappear under a huge boulder.

He probably hadn’t been out of sight more than sixty seconds, but it seemed like sixty minutes to us waiting for his reappearance. Tom shouted. He answered for us to wait; and then emerged, waving his readiness to come up.

“We’ll never see him again,” Brent said as he clambered over the top.

“Where do you think it’s gone?” Tom asked.

“I guess the water rose just high enough since we were here to carry him away. And there’s a space under that boulder where the water leaves the gully. It’s just wide enough to permit any ordinary-sized man’s body to pass through. It’s safe to say that by now the hermit, or whoever it was, is divided into some hundred pieces. The rocks and the water below the gully wouldn’t even leave a button whole.”

“We’ve been spared that much distress at any rate,” I said, as we proceeded to leave the cleft and gully behind us.

“Yes,” Tom agreed. “I suppose it’s a selfish way to feel, but I think we have enough to do, without taking upon our shoulders the full responsibility of a hermit’s dead body. Fate is kind after all.”

Gloomy people we were that morning. Walking back in the midst of glorious green earth and sunshine, we should have been full of the joy of living. But we were not.

Mystery upon mystery. Tainted death! All had succeeded in wearing down fragile human nerves. We were even getting irritable with one another. Brent had lost his quiet composure and drawling humor. Tom was morose. And I was completely unnerved.

“As long as this funereal spirit is so rampant among us,” Tom said, “we’ll visit the grave. It can’t put us in a much worse humor than we are now.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Brent said, in dull tones.

“I’m beginning to feel that I can stand most anything now.”

There being no wind that morning to blow the tall grass aside, we did not see the clearing until we were almost upon it.

Tom flung the coil of rope to the ground when we reached there. One by one we sat down upon it, crowding close together. We were tired and it was preferable to the damp ground.

I know that Tom and Brent saw it as quickly as I! The place was in an extraordinary condition! The little mound seemed to have sunken and chunks of fresh earth were lying about the clearing. The wooden cross had fallen.

The circumstance that had made that grave necessary was tragic enough. The unfortunate boy, buried in the midst of that vast solitude of sky and mountain, his last resting place in such a deplorable state--it was pathetic indeed.

Tom got up and kicked around the edges of the grave with the toe of his stout shoe. Then he dug his heel in the brown earth; and whistled with surprise.

“Someone has been digging here,” he said. “Within the last few days, too!”

“Digging?” I repeated.

“Yes, digging.” Then, “Brent, had me that shovel!”

We went over to Tom and watched him as he took a few shovelsfull of loose dirt from the left side of the grave. It came away like sand.

“You see?” he said, shoving the sharp spade into the earth. Lifting his foot up on the top edge he rested it heavily there. With the movement, we heard plainly the hollow sound that falling stones and dirt will make when hitting some solid object.

“And did you hear _that?_” Brent almost whispered it.

“Certainly I did,” Tom said, tersely. He moved his foot and tried to pull the shovel out.

He couldn’t get it out. It seemed stuck fast into something, and we each took a turn at it without any success. It wouldn’t budge an inch.

“Wait a minute,” Tom said. He got down on his knees and started scooping up the dirt around the spade by the handful and flung it aside.

In a few moments we saw to our bewilderment that the shovel was wedged tightly in a slight fissure of some wooden obstruction, directly underlying the few layers of earth.

“We might as well uncover this,” said Tom, grimly, and gradually loosened the spade from the wood.

It was hardly five minutes’ work. Brent and I scooping up the dirt with our hands and Tom with the shovel, uncovered what proved to be a rough board.

It was the kind of wood that is generally used for packing boxes. Printed in large letters and written in indelible ink across the board was

TO—MR. HARRISON McCLINTICK,
P. O. ADDRESS—HARKNESS,
CLINTON COUNTY, NEW YORK.

CARE OF
LEATHERSTOCKING CAMP.

Brent stooped and lifted the board gingerly. A stifled cry escaped his lips as he flung it awkwardly from him. For in that act, he had unwittingly laid bare the opening of the grave.

Speech was impossible! We stood transfixed, humbled, on that ground that death had hallowed.

There seemed to be something unholy in letting our curious, mortal eyes peer down into that dark tomb. But on the other hand, ours was a curiosity born of mercy, whereas our unknown predecessor had come to despoil and desecrate what should have been a chamber of eternal peace.

Our eyes were dazzled and blurred from the bright sun. Gradually though, we became accustomed to the darkness and beheld the coffin lying opened, the lid standing against the side of the grave.

It was empty!