Part 8 (1/2)

”Looks that way to me.”

”If there are buzzards up here a skeleton might look like that in a month or so,” Connie suggested.

”There aren't any buzzards around here.”

”Sure there are,” said Doc. ”Look at Buzzard's Bay-it's named for 'em.”

”It's named for a man who had it wished on him,” said Garry. ”You might as well say that Pike's Peak was named after the pikers that go there.”

”How long do you suppose that aeroplane's been there?”

”Five or six years, maybe,” Doc said. ”The frame'll be as good as that for ten years more. There's nothing more to rot.”

”Well,” said Garry, ”it looks to my keen scout eye as if that wreck had been there for about six months and the skeleton for about six years.”

”Maybe if you had tried shutting your keen scout eye and opening it in a hurry-- Hey, Toma.s.so?” teased Doc.

”Maybe they got here at the same time but the man lived for a while,” Tom condescended to reply.

”You've got it just the wrong way round, my fraptious boy,” said Doc.

”The skeleton's been here longer, if anything.”

”Did you see that hickory stick there-all worm-eaten?” Tom asked. ”It had some carving on it. None of these trees are hickory trees.”

”I saw it but I didn't notice the carving,” said Doc, surprised.

”Didn't you notice there weren't any hickory trees anywhere around there?” Tom asked.

”No, I didn't-I'm a punk scout-I must be blind,” said Doc.

”You're good on first-aid,” said Tom, indifferently.

”How'd you know it was hickory?” Connie asked.

”Because I can tell hickory,” said Tom, bluntly, ”and it's being all worm-eaten proved it-kind of. That's the trouble with hickory.”

They always had to make the best of Tom's answers.

”I don't know where he got the hickory stick,” he said, as he pushed along through the underbrush, ”but he didn't get it anywhere around here, that's sure.”

”And he probably didn't sit down that same day and carve things on it, either,” suggested Garry; ”Tom, you're a wonder.”

”He might have lived up here for two or three years after he fell,” said Doc reflectively. ”Gee, it starts you thinking, don't it?”

Connie shook his head. ”It's a mystery, all right,” said he.

The thought of the solitary man, disabled crippled, perhaps, living there on that lonely mountain after the terrible accident which had brought him there lent a new gruesomeness to their discoveries. And who but Tom Slade would have been able to keep an open mind and to see so clearly by the aid of trifling signs as to separate the two apparent catastrophes and see them as independent occurrences?

”Toma.s.so, you're the real scout,” said Doc. ”The rest of us are only imitations.”