Batman #7 - Story 3
August 13, 1941
"The North Woods Mystery"
Our third story opens with Bruce having dinner one evening with socialite Nora Powell. She is given a newspaper with news of the death of her uncle and the lumber camp he owned being turned over to an adopted son, Jack. Jack was suspected of the uncle's death, but was released as there wasn't enough evidence.
Nora reaches out to Jack and offers her condolences and help. He turns her down, reassuring her she will still get her monthly check from her shares in the camp so she can buy more furs. This upsets her, making her determined to prove she is more than that. She asks Bruce to accompany her to the log camp.
Bruce has Dick follow in disguise. First, he gets on the train the two take as a boy selling snacks. Later, he poses as a hungry kid who works for his meals at the camp.
Meanwhile, Bruce and Nora arrive and are nearly killed by a falling tree. Jack greets them curtly and has a foreman take them to their cabin. They proceed to spend some time observing the operation of the camp. Nora is fascinated with it all and Bruce keeps up his bored playboy persona. But he does note it odd that Jack shows kindness to Dick, a stranger, while he is so cold to what amounts to family.
That night Batman and Robin interrupt an attempt at sabotage. They hear the saboteurs talking about how the act will get Nora to sell her shares to Jack. They are quick to stop the two, with one escaping and the other ready to answer questions until a hanging hook drops on him and kills him. Batman and Robin race off as the rest of the camp approaches to investigate.
Nora is determined to hold on to her shares despite the accidents and despite the pressure to sell from Jack and another owner of a nearby logging company, Asher. She wants to ride on the train transporting the latest felled lumber. Bruce, in typical bored fashion, wants to nap.
On the train, Nora is knocked out and placed on top of one of the lumber cars. It's detached and travels back. Batman arrives and rescues Nora in time. She confronts Jack, but he continues to deny he had anything to do with his adopted father's death. He arranges though for Nora to be pushed into the lumber chute.
Dick hears her cries of pain as she broke her arm and he proceeds to attempt to rescue her, but he is caught in a struggle rolling logs with a couple of Jack's men. Robin's log is pushed toward the waterfalls while Nora finds herself back on the chute leading to the log cutter.
Batman rescues both of them, but the story takes an odd turn at the end. It turns out it was Asher who murdered Nora's uncle and made it look like Jack did it. Jack is an ex-con, so the police were likely to believe that he did it, but Asher didn't stick enough evidence to have Jack charged, so he went to Jack with the scheme of making up the accidents so that Nora would sell her share and eventually Jack would sell the whole thing to Asher.
