“We might, that’s a fact,” agreed Tom. “Hello, here’s another page to Jack’s letter. I didn’t see it at first. Well, what do you know about that?” he cried.
“More news?” asked Dick.
“I should say so! Bert Wilson – he was my other chum with Jack, you know, at Elmwood Hall – Bert will come with Jack and me if we go somewhere, so Jack says. By Jove! I have it!” cried Tom, with sparkling eyes.
“What’s the game?”
“We’ll go camping! We talked of it this spring, just after I got back from Australia, but we couldn’t seem to make our plans fit in. Now this will be just the cheese. Jack, Bert and I will go off camping together in the deepest woods we can find. It will be great sport.”
“It sure will,” said Dick enviously.
Something in the tone of his chum’s voice attracted Tom’s attention.
“Say, look here!” he exclaimed suddenly. “Wouldn’t you like to go camping with us, Dick?”
“Would I? Say, just give me the chance!”
“I will! Do you suppose your folks’ll let you?”
“I’m sure they would. When can we start?”
“Oh, soon I guess. I’m glad this letter came at the beginning of the summer, instead of at the end. I’m going home, tell dad and mother, and see what they say. Maybe dad can suggest a good place to go.”
Tom’s motorboat, though making good time on the home trip, did not go half fast enough to suit him, as he was anxious to get back and tell the news. But finally he did reach his house, and, while Dick hurried off to see what arrangements he could make with his family, Tom sought his parents.
“Go camping; eh?” mused Mr. Fairfield when Tom broached the subject to him. “Why of course. That will be a good way to spend the summer. Where will you go, the seashore or the mountains?”
“Mountains, of course!” exclaimed Tom. “It’s no fun camping at the seashore. Mountains and a lake for mine! I thought maybe you might know of some good place.”
“Well, I’ve done some camping in my time,” admitted Mr. Fairfield, “and come to think of it, I don’t know any better place than up in the northern part of New York state. It’s wild enough there to suit anyone, and you can pick out one of several lakes. There’s one spot, near a little village called Wilden, that would suit me.”
“Then it will suit us,” declared Tom. “Tell me all about it. Were you ever camping there?”
“No, but I used to live near there when I was a boy. So did your mother. It’s a beautiful country, but wild.”
“Then I’m for Wilden!” cried Tom. “I’ll write to the fellows at once. I’m going to take Dick Jones along with us. Hurray for Wilden!”
Mrs. Fairfield came into the room at that minute, and at the sound of the name she started.
“Wilden!” she repeated. “What about Wilden, Tom?”
“Nothing, only I’m going camping there, mother.”
“Camping at Wilden! Oh, Brokaw, do you think that’s safe for Tom?” and the lady looked apprehensively at her husband.
“Safe? Why shouldn’t it be safe?” asked Tom quickly.
“Well – Oh, I don’t know but – Oh, well, I suppose it’s silly of me,” his mother went on, “but there’s a sort of wild man – a half insane character – who roams through the woods up there, and you might meet him.”
“How did you hear that?” asked Tom.
“I had a letter from a lady with whom I used to go to school in Wilden years ago,” explained Mrs. Fairfield. “She wrote me the other day, and mentioned it. I told you at the time, Brokaw.”
“Yes, I remember now. Old Jason Wallace. Let’s see, didn’t Mrs. Henderson say he stayed part of the time in the old mill?”
“Yes, he’s trying to solve the secret of it, Mrs. Henderson said, and that’s one reason why he acts so strange, as if he was crazy. Oh, Tom, I wish you’d go camping some other place!” finished his mother.
“What, mother! Pass up a place like that, with all those attractions – a wild man – a mysterious old mill? I guess not! What is the secret of the old mill, anyhow?”
“Ask your father,” advised Tom’s mother. “He knows the story better than I do.”
“Let’s have it, dad,” begged our hero. “Say, this is great! A mystery and a wild man in camp! Maybe the boys won’t like that! I must write and tell ’em to hurry up and come on. Oh, I can see some great times ahead of me this summer, all right!”
CHAPTER II
THE STORY OF THE MILL
“Let me see if I can remember the story of the old mill,” mused Mr. Fairfield, as Tom stood expectantly waiting. “It’s quite some years since I heard it,” and he gazed reminiscently at the ceiling.
“This is better luck than I expected,” murmured Tom, and, while he is thus waiting to hear the story of the secret of the old mill, I will take the opportunity to tell you something more about him and his friends, and the two previous books in this series.
My first volume was entitled, “Tom Fairfield’s Schooldays,” and in that I related how our hero came to go to Elmwood Hall. It was because his parents had to go to Australia to claim some property left by a relative of Tom’s father.
As Tom could not go to the land of the kangaroo with his folks they decided to send him to a boarding school, called Elmwood Hall.
Tom at once entered into the activities of the school. He made a friend and an enemy the same day, the friend being Jack Fitch, with whom Tom roomed, and whom I have already mentioned, in this story. Of course Tom had other friends at the school, one being Bert Wilson.
Sam Heller, and his crony Nick Johnson, made it unpleasant for Tom, but our hero managed to hold up his end. It was harder work, however, in regard to Professor Skeel, who was a most unpleasant instructor. He was unfair to the boys, and Tom proposed a novel plan to get even.
He suggested that they all go on a “strike” against Mr. Skeel, refusing to recite to him unless he changed his manners. The unpopular professor did not change, and Tom headed the revolt against him. This took Doctor Pliny Meredith, the head master of the school, and all the faculty by surprise. They did not know what to do until Mr. Skeel proposed that the whole Freshman class, of which Tom was a member, be kept prisoners in their dormitory, and fed on bread and water until they capitulated.
Among the pupils at Elmwood Hall was Bruce Bennington, a Senior, and Tom was of great service to him in securing a forged note that Mr. Skeel held over the head of Bennington, threatening to expose the student and ruin his career. Tom put an end to the illegal acts of the professor, who unexpectedly withdrew from the school.
Tom and his mates, after that, greatly enjoyed their life at Elmwood Hall, and matters were more to their liking, but Tom was not at an end of having adventures.
As I have said, Mr. and Mrs. Fairfield had gone to Australia to look after some property. When Spring came they started for home, coming in a sailing vessel for the sake of the long sea voyage.
Unexpectedly, one night, one of Tom’s chums saw a note in a paper telling of a vessel picking up wreckage from the Kangaroo, the ship on which Tom’s parents had sailed. This at once plunged Tom into the depths of despair, but he did not give up hope. He at once decided to go to Australia himself, and if necessary charter a small steamer and cruise about in the location where the wreckage was picked up, hoping his parents might still be afloat on some sort of life raft, or in an open boat.
In the second volume of this series, entitled “Tom Fairfield at Sea,” I related the details of his most exciting trip. For Tom’s vessel, the Silver