Read "Tom Slade at Bear Mountain" by Percy Keese Fitzhugh online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Into the Hawkeye Spoke Trail he sped, hatless, abandoned. And they followed, not because they trusted him, but because he seemed possessed. At least they would see the fun of an anti-climax. Over the edge of Pine Hill he sped and across the Sloatsburg road and past Breakneck Pond and into the valley. He had picked his way at night before, the unruly little rascal, and he knew his ground now. No one asked him where he was going, but the moon beyond the signal hill smiled upon him and guided him.
On he sped, stumbling, pausing in doubt, then plunging forward again with maniacal desperation. He had been denied the pathfinder's badge, this boy. It was quite all right and according to the handbook. Only they took credit afterward for his fine spirit. But it was not the Bear Mountain camps that stirred the soul within him as he ran headlong through the night. What bore him on in this perfect frenzy was a spirit from another camp, the personality of Tom Slade of Temple Camp which had knocked him flat and set him on his feet again. He knew what he knew. And he sped on.