Westy Martin in the Rockies

Westy Martin in the Rockies

Westy Martin in the Rockies, by Percy Keese Fitzhugh, follows Westy Martin, a dedicated Boy Scout from Bridgeboro, New Jersey, whose steadfast loyalty to Uncle Jeb Rushmore, an aging western scout and guide at Temple Camp in the Catskills, earns him a remarkable reward. At a Labor Day banquet closing the camp season, Mr. John Temple, the camp's founder, announces that Uncle Jeb will return to his cabin in the Rocky Mountains of Montana and that the old scout has chosen Westy to accompany him, with the privilege of selecting one companion for the adventure. Westy wants to invite his troop mate Artie Van Arlen, a capable and likable patrol leader who has often helped Uncle Jeb with trail-building, but he hesitates because he fears his cautious, conservative father will refuse permission. His concern about Mr. Martin proves well founded, as his father views the western trip as reckless adventure incompatible with the steady, business-minded path he envisions for his son, represented in his eyes by a young commuter named Archibald Captroop. Mr. Martin proposes that Westy may go only if Captroop accompanies him as a responsible chaperone, a compromise Westy finds both humiliating and unfair to Artie. The situation changes dramatically when a runaway bus threatens the lives of several passengers, including Mr. Martin himself. Westy leaps onto the moving vehicle, seizes the emergency brake, and brings it to a halt, saving his father and others while Captroop is observed frozen with panic. Mr. Martin, recovering from a serious head injury sustained in the incident, is moved by his son's courage and finally grants permission for the original plan, allowing Westy to invite Artie. After months of anticipation, Westy, Artie, and Uncle Jeb travel west, arriving at a remote inn run by Old Pop Burrows near Eagle Pass in the Rockies. They settle into Uncle Jeb's isolated mountain cabin, where they explore the wilderness, learn woodcraft, and discover a pair of eagles nesting in a hollow beneath a dramatic cliff above Eagle Lake. In an effort to rescue what they believe is an injured eaglet, Artie descends into the hollow on the cliff face and becomes trapped when the surface proves too smooth to climb out. Westy races for help but finds Uncle Jeb caught in an old bear trap and injured in a fall. Managing simultaneously to rescue Uncle Jeb and devise a clever ruse using the dead bird and a trail of his own blood to lure the eagles away, Westy eventually hauls Artie to safety. Exhausted from blood loss, Westy faints on the trail, and it is Artie who carries him back to the cabin and then returns alone through the dark to drag the delirious Uncle Jeb home before dawn. As summer continues, mysterious signs accumulate. Westy notices fresh footprints on the forbidden cliff trail. Uncle Jeb glimpses what appears to be a moving light on the precipice at night. The silent, blank-faced inn servant Ollie Baxter, long regarded as harmless and inscrutable, is revealed to be the source of these disturbances. Old Pop Burrows, still recovering from scarlet fever, is chloroformed, bound to his bed, and left to burn when Ollie sets fire to the inn after extorting from Pop the location of his hidden savings, which Pop had concealed inside the cliff hollow. Westy spots the fire's glow in the night sky, alerts the others, and the three rush to the inn. Finding every door and shutter barred, Westy climbs onto the roof and breaks in through an upper window, locating Old Pop unconscious and bound. He cuts him free and passes him out the window moments before the interior collapses in flames. Old Pop survives and reveals that Ollie knew about the hollow because Pop had confessed its use under threat. Westy realizes that Ollie descended into the hollow by rope to retrieve the money and is now trapped there because Westy had earlier discovered and cut the rope. The following morning, Westy and Artie approach the cliff armed with Uncle Jeb's rifle and confront Ollie. When Westy bluffs that police are coming, Ollie panics and plunges from the precipice into Eagle Lake, where he disappears. That night, paddling alone on the moonlit lake in quiet reflection, Westy's canoe strikes something in the water. He discovers two skeletons floating on the surface, disturbed from the lake bottom by the force of Ollie's fall. Around the neck of one is an oilskin wallet containing a partially legible land agreement bearing Mr. Temple's name, granting railroad right-of-way across property belonging to a man named Ezra Knapp. The skeletons are understood to be those of the surveying party that vanished in Eagle Pass ten years earlier, a disappearance that had long haunted Mr. Temple and resulted in significant financial loss. The recovered agreement makes it possible to proceed with the long-stalled railroad project. Mr. Temple travels to Bridgeboro to thank Westy personally and to inform Mr. Martin that his son's discovery represents one of the most significant business developments of the day. A humbled Mr. Martin concedes that his romantically inclined son has proved himself a better man of affairs than he had ever credited. The cliff and its hollow, the scene of so much danger and mystery, is to be dynamited to make way for the new rail line, closing the chapter on Eagle Pass and the fate of those who vanished within it.

By Percy Keese Fitzhugh · First published 1912 · Genre: Adventure, Young Adult Fiction, Coming of Age · 42 chapters · 42,556 words

First lines

Westy Martin sat speechless in utter consternation. He glanced about him as if dazed. He seemed to be trying to make sure that he was awake, that the whole thing was not a dream. Then a sudden burst of shouting and applause recalled him to the reality of the clamorous scene.

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Westy Martin in the Rockies is listed on Textopian as a novel by Percy Keese Fitzhugh, dated 1912 CE.

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Tags

juvenile fiction · adventure story · Boy Scouts · wilderness survival · mountain setting · Rocky Mountains · outdoor adventure · friendship · camping · hiking · travel · mystery

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