THE GREATER MYSTERY


Since there was no solution of this singular puzzle, Tom did not let it
continue to trouble him. He was too busy with his duties incidental to
the closing season to concern himself with mysteries which were not
likely to reveal anything of value. The kidnapping was a serious affair,
and the curious discovery which he had made in the woods was soon
relegated to the back of his mind by this, which was now the talk of the
camp, and by his increasingly pressing labors.

[Illustration: "DID EITHER OF YOU FELLOWS DO THAT?" TOM ASKED.

_Tom Slade on Mystery Trail. Page_ 151]

Moreover he believed that some scout or other had visited this now
memorable spot and marked his initials on the mud, squatting on the log
the while. To be sure, the absence of footprints close by, save those
easily recognizable as Skinny's, was perplexing, but since there was
no other explanation, Tom accepted the one which seemed not wholly
unlikely. At all events, what other explanation was there?

For an hour or more that same night Tom lay under Asbestos' elm
pondering on his singular discovery. Then realizing that his duties were
many and various, he put this matter out of his head altogether and went
to work in the morning at the strenuous work of lowering and rolling up
tents.

The papers which the boys brought up from Catskill that afternoon were
full of the kidnapping. Master Harrington's distracted mother was under