Tom Slade in the north woods

One of the surest signs of approaching autumn in this suburban town of ours, is the reappearance in the main thoroughfares of my adventurous young friend Tom Slade after his sum...

It is now midwinter and more than a year has passed since Tom ran up here early in September to see me after his return from Temple Camp. For reasons you are to know about he di...

Seated comfortably in my library, Tom at once plunged into what I suppose might be called the human interest side of his story. I must confess I am not greatly interested in lea...

I wish not to intrude into this narrative. Of the extraordinary adventures which I am now to record, Tom was unquestionably the hero. But since I am a trustee of the new camp an...

Once the proposition of the new camp was settled, and Tom and his hardy adventurers had gone to brave the winter in those howling wilds, I forgot all about the enterprise which...

Well, I reflected as I drove away, I hadn’t learned anything so very shocking after all. What surprised me most was that the leather king had lost his fortune. I thought that To...

At Tom’s request I asked Brent Gaylong to go with me and I’m glad I did, for I think he supplied just what was needed in our camp family. Perhaps you know him. He lives with his...

Tom had been right when first he told me of the spot. Surely there is not in the wide world a better site for a camp. Harrison McClintick had chosen well. Embosomed in the dense...

We looked all about before returning to the lodge and entered all the completed cabins, but no sign was there of anything amiss. We thought that one tree sheltered a lurking pre...

Brent’s discovery (if it was a discovery) did not trouble my slumber. I could understand Tom’s reaction to what Brent had shown us. He was familiar with the story of the camp, t...

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...

I must now tell you of an incident which shook me as nothing else in my whole life has ever shaken me, and the meaning of it was not clear to me till long afterward. I suppose t...

I retraced my difficult way down the mountain, scratched, soaking, and utterly weary. The lodge, which had seemed gloomy enough before, was a cheery refuge now. I was all but un...

In the glow and satisfaction of at last finishing my article I was stimulated by wholesome, even humorous thoughts. It was nearly two o’clock in the morning and I had completed...

I had made no progress in solving these mysteries when, on the second evening after my startling discovery, Tom and the others returned. The weather was cold for that time of ye...

I arose and took from him the envelope which he held in his extended hand; he was too lazy to get up and hand it to me. It was very much the worse for its travels, almost in shr...

We had chopped down a number of trees to open a better wagon trail to camp and the stumps of these stood at intervals along this improved approach. Tom had hit on the idea of us...

So that was that. I told Tom of my encounter with Rivers and he said, “Well, I suppose that settles it.” Brent was even more brief. “Hmph, funny,” he said.

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....

Tom had gone when we arose in the morning and there were no questions asked. He often went to Harkness and sometimes to the sawmill at Rogers Gap and was gone all day, so there...

Somewhere not far off was the sound of falling water and ten or fifteen minutes more of difficult progress brought us to a long, narrow cleft crossing our line of travel. Into t...

“But how?” I couldn’t seem to grasp the meaning of it all. It seemed inconceivable for Tom to come to such an end. “Why, he’s too cautious to have made such a ghastly error!” I...

“Why, I got back here right after you left,” he explained. “In fact, I could hear the echo of the flivver from the woods as I got to the Lodge. I thought you fellows had taken a...

“Do any of the boys know of our morning excursion?” I asked Tom. No, he hadn’t told them. Neither had they any idea but that Tom had returned safely the previous night from Hark...

“Naw, I never seen nothin’ o’ the McClinticks’,” he replied, as though it was something he sincerely regretted. “I’ve always been sorry the old man had the Lodge locked up so ti...

“I guess he felt he had the power to act as medium and relay the ghost’s message to Mr. McClintick, had he been able to answer the phone!” Brent teased.

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....

“That board,” Tom said, listlessly, “is the one that Heinie tried his paints out on. He told me he laid it up against the eats shack, night before last. It was gone in the morni...

Even the lake seemed rippling with joy under a cloudless, blue sky. Surely, that morning long ago had never been. Or it was only a hideous dream when that young man’s life was s...

“Nothing of the kind,” Tom said. “But I went up to that garage. Mighty nice country fellow has it. Just keeps a helper during the day so the job was handed over to him. There wa...

“I think,” Brent said, soberly, “that Tom has given us conclusive evidence as to Roland McClintick being alive. That is up until a few nights ago, if we don’t find the hermit.”

Tom left for Harkness shortly after breakfast next morning. He didn’t expect to be gone long, so Brent and I set about straightening up the Lodge. With our activities and worrie...

Brent sighed. “With all McClintick’s ability to make money,” he said, “and his supposed strength of will, the son, with his apparent weakness for gambling and draft-dodging, pro...

With surprising agility for one so frail he really had the advantage over Rivers from the start, for Charlie had been too stunned to resist after the hermit had identified himself.