Camp Venture: A Story of the Virginia Mountains

A Puzzling Situation

No sooner was the action over and the wounded men attended to than the lieutenant again talked with the revenue officer. That person was more halting and irresolute than ever. He had hidden, in a crouching position behind the barrier during the fight, and Jack, seeing him thus screened, had said to him:

"Perhaps you now begin to understand why we needed our protective work;" but the man made no answer. The lieutenant said to him after the mélee:

"Now that I have two of my own men and three of the mountaineers severely wounded, I cannot march down the mountain. I shall stay here and answer any duty call you may make upon me. But I must have food for my men and for your prisoners. Are you going to provide it or are you not?"

The man who was not only irresolute but an arrant coward as well, hesitated. He pleaded for "time to think."

"But while you are thinking," answered the soldier, "we'll all starve. Are you ready to send one of your men down the mountain under escort or are you not? Yes or no, and I'll act accordingly."

"Well, you see, this fuss will bring all the moonshiners in the mountains down upon us," answered the man, "and really, Lieutenant, I don't think it would be prudent just now, to weaken your force by detaching any of your men. We might all be butchered here at any moment."

The military officer was exasperated almost beyond endurance by the manifest cowardice and obstinacy of the revenue agent. He was on the point of breaking out into denunciation, but he restrained himself and called to a sentinel instead. When the sentinel came he said to him:

"Tell Sergeant Malby to report to me," and when the sergeant touched his hat and stood "at attention," the lieutenant said:

"Go at once and make out a requisition for one month's supplies for all the troops and all the prisoners, and for pack mules enough to bring the stuff up the mountain. Order Corporal Jenkins to report to me with a detail of four men, equipped for active work, immediately."

Then borrowing writing materials from the boys, he wrote a hurried note to his commandant below, relating the events that had occurred and setting forth the circumstances in which he was placed. By the time that this was done, the sergeant returned with the requisition ready for signature, and the corporal reported with his squad. With a few hurried instructions to the corporal, the lieutenant sent him down the mountain, specially charging him to hurry both going and coming. "You see we've got all these prisoners to feed—seven of them, not counting the wounded—as well as ourselves. We'll all be starving in another twenty-four hours. So make all haste."

Then the lieutenant sought out the boys, who had gone to work at their chopping—all of them except the Doctor, who was still busy over the wounded men,—for Ed was now well enough to do a little work each day, under orders to avoid severe strains and heavy lifting.

When the officer sought out Jack and asked him for a conference, Jack called the other boys about him, explaining:

"Our camp is sort of a republic, Lieutenant, in which all have an equal voice, while each does the thing that he can do better than anybody else can. So with your permission I will call all the boys together for our talk."

The lieutenant assented and all sat down on the logs that were lying about.

"We're in a rather awkward position," said the military man. "That revenue agent asked our commandant for some soldiers to protect him in raiding a still up here. He gave us the impression that it would take one day to come up here and do the work, and one day for our return. So I was ordered to take half a company, with three days' cooked rations, and accompany the revenue officers. They knew just where your camp was, and they thought they knew that it was the still they wanted.

"Now the irresolute—Well never mind that. The revenue agent insists upon staying in the mountains for an indefinite time, and now that two of my men and three of our prisoners are severely wounded and in the hands of your good young Doctor, I am not reluctant to stay. But we must have food, and that sublimated idiot has provided none and is afraid even to send after any. So I have myself sent a squad down the mountain with a requisition. They will return just as quickly as possible, but I don't see how it will be possible for them to get back under two, or more—probably three days. So I want to ask you to lend us some provisions, which I will return the moment the caravan gets here."

"But we have no provisions!" said Jack, in consternation. "Our total supply consists of less than two bags of meal and perhaps half a dozen squirrels and rabbits. That wouldn't go far among so many."

"I'll tell you what," broke in Tom. "If the lieutenant will lend me two men to help carry, I'll go foraging and see what I can bring in in the way of game."

Jack explained to the military man that Tom had been from the first the camp's reliance for meat supplies, and that incidentally he had secured all the meal that was then in camp.

"Excellent!" exclaimed the lieutenant. "We have more bread than anything else, and we needn't borrow any of your meal. But if your brother—by the way, it was you who stood by me in the fight out there this morning, wasn't it? Are you much hurt?"

"Oh, no," answered Tom. "One of those moonshiners thought I ought to wear earrings, and so he pierced my left ear with a bullet, that's all," said Tom, whose ear the Doctor had carefully disinfected and bandaged.

"But why aren't you at West Point?" again asked the officer. "I never saw a cooler hand or a boy that the army so clearly needed. Why aren't you at West Point?"

"Because I can't get an appointment," said Tom.

"Why can't you get an appointment?"

"Because I have no political influence. You see my father, while he lived, was very active in politics, and he belonged to a party just the opposite of the one our present Congressman belongs to."

"Would you like to go?" asked the lieutenant.

"Very much, indeed," answered Tom. "I want just the sort of education they give there."

"Could you stand the entrance examinations—say a year hence?"

"Yes. I could stand them now. I went all over that ground when I first tried to get an appointment."

"Well now," broke in Jack, "this isn't getting meat. Tom, go hunting immediately, and keep on going hunting till the famine in this camp is over. I haven't a doubt the lieutenant will lend you the men you want to help carry game."

"Certainly!" answered the lieutenant, beckoning to a sentinel to come to him.

"Tell Sergeant Malby to send me two strong men instantly."

Tom took two guns with him, requiring one of the soldiers to carry the rifle, while he carried the shot gun, double loaded, for big or little game. It was now about noon, and the hunting party did not return till after dark. When they did they brought with them as the spoil of our young Nimrod's guns, a half grown bear, a deer weighing perhaps a hundred and fifty pounds, three wild turkeys and a big string of hares and squirrels. Besides these Tom was laboriously dragging by a string a big wild boar.

"That boar's a disputed bird," he said. "This soldier, Johnson, and I fired at him at the same instant. He set out to rip Johnson open with his tusks, like a vest with no buttons on it, and Johnson fired to protect himself. At the same moment I fired a charge of buckshot into the beast. Johnson's bullet struck him in the neck, just about where I fondly imagine the jugular vein or something else of that sort to be, while my nine buckshot striking him just behind the left fore leg, went through him about where his heart ought to be if it's in the right place. Anyhow the animal gave up the ghost in an astonishing hurry, and possibly the Doctor might find out, by a post mortem examination, which shot killed him. But in my humble opinion the time necessary for that can be better spent in preparing the gentleman for the table. I move that we roast him whole and invite the soldiers to dine with us! He's big enough to go round."

It did not take long to carry that motion or to begin carrying it into effect. The lieutenant ordered the company cook to assist Ed in preparing the wild boar and roasting him. Ed carefully saved the "giblets" for future use, a proceeding which gave the company cook a totally new economic suggestion in the use of animals killed for food. Then the two required the other soldiers to build a great fire out-of-doors, and to erect a pole frame work near it, from which they hung the boar to roast. Ed gave the cook still another good suggestion by thrusting a dripping pan under the hog and catching all he could of the fat that fell from the animal.

"What do you do that for?" asked the company cook.

"For two reasons," answered Ed. "First, because I want all this fat to cook with and to use as butter hereafter. You've no idea how far it goes when people are on short rations. Secondly, because if all this fat fell upon these glowing coals it would blaze up and our hog would be scorched and burned. You are a company cook and I never was anything of the sort. But I honestly believe I could teach you some things about cooking."

"Of course you could," said the soldier. "And perhaps I could teach you some also. I could show you how to bake bread on a barrel head, or even on a ramrod, only we don't have ramrods since these new-fangled breech-loading guns came into use."

Two or three hours later, at ten o'clock, the big porker was roasted "to a turn," and Jack, recognizing the necessity of maintaining military distinctions in all that related to association in military life, invited the lieutenant to take the night dinner with him and his companions inside the house, leaving the soldiers to dine out of doors, in accordance with their custom. So Jack asked Ed to cut off a ham and some other choice parts of the wild boar and send them into the hut. There the boys and the lieutenant dined together, with the three revenue officers for additional guests.

The lieutenant had no very kindly feelings for the chief revenue officer, because he had discovered him to be a coward, and a brave man never likes to touch elbows with a coward, at dinner or any where else. On the other hand the chief revenue officer had no very kindly feelings for the lieutenant, because he knew that the lieutenant had found him out for the coward and incapable that he was, and it is not in human nature for any man to feel kindly toward another who has found him out to that extent.

Nevertheless the dinner passed off pleasantly enough until the lieutenant, at its end, asked of the revenue agent:

"Are you going to raid any stills to-night?"

"No!" angrily answered the officer. "Why do you keep on asking me that question?"

"Only that I may make my dispositions accordingly," calmly answered the lieutenant. "You forget that I am here in an entirely subordinate capacity. I am under no orders to raid stills. I am here only to support you in any raids you may make. You represent the civil arm, I the military, and the military arm is always subordinate to the civil. It is not for me to suggest that you might successfully raid half a dozen stills to-night. It is my duty simply to offer my services and those of my men in aid of any plans you may have formed. And, as it is my duty to consult the comfort of my men, so far as that is possible, I naturally ask whether you want them on marching duty to-night or whether I may order them to make themselves as comfortable as they can in bivouac. As I now understand that you do not contemplate any active operations to-night, I will make my dispositions accordingly. Sentinel!"

This last was a summons to the soldier who always stands guard just outside the door of any house or tent in which a commanding officer may be. The sentinel entered immediately and saluted.

"Call the corporal of the guard," commanded the lieutenant, "and bid him report to me for instructions."

In half a minute the corporal came. The only instructions he received were these:

"Bid the sergeant report to me here." Thus in military life is everything done "decently and in order." The sentinel could not have summoned the sergeant without quitting his post; but he could summon the corporal by a simple guard call, and the corporal could go to the sergeant and summon him to the lieutenant's presence. When he appeared and deferentially saluted, the lieutenant said to him:

"We shall remain where we are till further orders. Dispose the men in the best way you can to make them comfortable and let them build camp-fires. Throw out six pickets up the mountain on the south, one below here on the north, one on the east and one on the west. Send the men on the south as far up the mountain as where the enemy was encountered this morning. Then charge the sentries who are guarding our prisoners to be on the alert and serve as camp guards as well. They are to listen for shots from any of the pickets and report to me as soon as one is heard from any direction. I shall sleep under the bluff, near the spring. The watchword is 'alert;' the countersign 'attention.'"

"But, lieutenant," said Jack, when the sergeant had taken his leave, "why will you not accept our hospitality? Why will you not sleep here in our house? We have five wounded men here, it is true, but there is one spare bunk and you are more than welcome to it."

"I am very grateful, I am sure," said the lieutenant, "but it is the rule of my life that whenever I am in command and my men have to sleep in the open, I also sleep in the open. I have lived up to that rule even in a blizzard on the plains. Besides, this—well, this revenue officer—has done just enough to provoke the moonshiners and their friends, and not half enough to intimidate them. That is why I ordered our pickets thrown so far out to-night. There is a half sunken road running across the ridge up there. They had it for a breastwork this morning. I mean to have it next time. But what I was going to say is this: A man sleeping in a house sleeps soundly; a man sleeping in the open sleeps very lightly. As it is my purpose to visit all my pickets at least three times to-night, I want to sleep very lightly; so with all thanks for your courteous hospitality, I will sleep out under the bluff to-night, and now I must say good night."

A Point of Honor

There was no disturbance that night, and the next morning Tom took his two soldiers and went hunting again. Tom had a positive genius for getting game. This time he brought back no deer, no wild boar, and no half grown bear; but he and his soldiers were loaded down with turkeys, squirrels and hares. There was meat enough in the camp now to last for a day or two, but the bread supply was nearly exhausted, inasmuch as the boys had divided their meal with the soldiers.

In this situation the lieutenant went to Tom and engaged him in conversation.

"Now, I know," he said, "that there are many stills around here. Every one of them has a supply of ground up grain, and I want some of it. You have hunted all over the mountains, and of course you know where some at least of the stills are."

"Yes, I know where several of them are," answered Tom.

"Well, I propose to raid some of them, to get breadstuffs. Will you go with my men and point out the stills?"

"No!" answered Tom, with emphasis on the monosyllable.

"But why not?" asked the lieutenant. "Surely you are not afraid."

"Not the least bit," answered Tom. "But I've entered into an honorable agreement with the moonshiners and I mean to keep it. I've assured them that we boys were not here to spy them out and betray them, and I've pledged them my honor that if they let us alone we would let them alone. You see this illicit distilling is none of my business, or yours either, Lieutenant. It's the business of the revenue officers. Now under our honorable agreement these people, who began by ordering us off the mountain and followed that up by shooting at us for not going, have let us alone for many weeks past, and I am going to keep my promise to let them alone in return."

"But they haven't let you alone," answered the lieutenant. "Their assault upon the camp—"

"Pardon me," answered Tom. "That was not an assault upon us, but upon the revenue officers and their military support. I do not think it absolves me from my promise. Besides that, I doubt if you have any right to raid stills except under orders of the revenue officers, and they are too badly frightened to undertake anything of the kind. You have no warrants. Your sole duty and right and privilege is to go with these revenue officers and protect them in the execution of their duty."

"That is certainly true," answered the lieutenant after a moment's pause for consideration. "I hadn't thought of it in that way."

"And still further," said Tom, "it is very certain that there isn't an illicit still now running on this mountain. The moment you fellows appeared every still was ripped off its furnace and buried somewhere, every mash tub was emptied and sent bowling down the mountain, and every scrap of evidence that there had ever been an illicit still there was completely destroyed. So, even if you find the buildings in which the business was formerly carried on, what right will you have to seize upon the meal or anything else you may find there? You might as well raid a mill and seize all that you find in it."

"But you know, Tom, and I know, that these people are lawlessly engaged in defrauding the revenue."

"Of course," said Tom. "But that doesn't justify you in violating the law and robbing them of their meal. If you could catch them in defrauding the revenue you might perhaps have a right to confiscate their materials, as the law prescribes, though as you're not a revenue officer I doubt that. Just now you can't possibly catch them doing anything of the kind. Understand me, Lieutenant, I am as much devoted as you are to law and order. I know these men to be thieves and upon occasion murderers. But neither of us has a right to convict them without proof of their guilt."

Tom had never made so long a speech in all his life or one inspired by so much of earnestness.

The lieutenant sat silent for a while, thinking the matter over. Presently he arose, took Tom's hand and said:

"I believe you are right, Tom. At any rate you are right on the point of honor that controls your own course in this matter. We are taught at West Point that whenever there is the least or the greatest doubt as to a point of honor, it is an honorable man's duty to give honor the benefit of the doubt. We'll make no raids except under the warrants of the revenue officers. We'll live on meat till the caravan comes up the mountain."

Corporal Jenkins's March

But the caravan did not come. A thaw had set in, reinforced by a rain, and all the mountain streams were torrents again—utterly impassable.

When Tom explained the case the lieutenant said:

"Nevertheless Corporal Jenkins will get here with the supplies. He may be much longer in coming than we hoped for, but he will come. He is a man of resource and he never gives up."

In the meantime Corporal Jenkins was in a very bad way half way up the mountain side. He had passed one torrent while yet it was only half full, and now it was so full that he could not even retreat with his mule caravan. In front was another torrent that it would have been sheer insanity to attempt to cross—a stream fifty feet wide, rushing down through a gorge with a violence that carried great stones with it, some of them weighing many tons, while the water was almost completely filled with a tangled mass of whirling trees that had been torn up by the roots by the on rush of the waters.

"We'll have to go back, Corporal," suggested one of the men.

"We can't go back," he replied. "That last stream we crossed is as full as this one now. Besides we must get these supplies to camp."

"But how?"

"I don't know how! Shut up and let me think the thing out."

After his thinking the corporal ordered the caravan to leave the trail and work its way up the mountain in the space between the two streams. It was a difficult and sometimes a perilous ascent. There were cliffs in the way around and over which a passage was partly found and partly forced by great labor. At some places the pathway was so steep that no mule could carry his load up it. Here the corporal divided the loads and led the mules up with only one-fourth or one-fifth of the burden upon each. Then unloading that he took the animals back again and placed another portion of their load upon their backs, repeating the journey as often as might be necessary. As he had twenty mules in his pack train it sometimes took half a day to get over thirty or forty yards of distance in this tedious and toilsome fashion. But at any rate there was progress made.

Often, too, there were great detours to be made in order to get around obstacles that could not be overcome. Thus day after day was consumed in the tedious climb up the mountain. The corporal knew how anxiously his commanding officer was awaiting his coming, but he could not hurry it more than he was already doing.

"What's your plan, Corporal?" asked one of the men when a bivouac was made one evening.

"Simple enough," answered the corporal. "When you've served in the mountains as long as I have, you'll know that every mountain torrent has a beginning somewhere up towards the top of the mountain. I'm simply following this one up to find its head waters and go around them."

The raging stream had grown much smaller now, as the caravan neared its place of beginning, and the next morning the corporal found a place at which he thought it safe to attempt a crossing. It was perilous work, but after an hour or two of struggle all the mules and all the men were got safely to the farther side.

The corporal knew that he was much higher up the mountain than the site of Camp Venture. But it was no part of his plan to descend until he had passed the head waters of all other streams and reached a point directly south of the camp and above it. So he proceeded westward around the mountain.

Without knowing what the trusty corporal's plans or proceedings would be, the lieutenant felt that he was likely to have difficulty in locating the camp. So he ordered a brush fire kept burning night and day, so that the smoke of it by day and the light of it by night might be seen from a great distance.

Finally, exactly ten days from the time of the corporal's departure, his caravan was seen slowly and toilsomely descending the mountain toward the camp.

A great shout of gladness went up from all the men, who had tasted nothing but meat for a week past, and Tom, seizing his rifle started up the hill at a rapid pace to show the corporal the easiest way down the steep mountain side.

When the corporal reached camp the lieutenant complimented him highly upon his skill and success in overcoming difficulties, and declared his purpose to make a commendatory report of his conduct of the expedition.

"But how did you happen to come to us from up the mountain instead of from down the mountain?" asked the lieutenant, while eagerly devouring an ash cake.

"Why," said the corporal, "when I found my road up the mountain blocked by an impassable torrent, I remembered some of my old soldier experiences and I turned them around. I remembered that when we camp on hills and set out in search of water the rule is to keep always going down hill, because that's the way water runs. If you keep on doing that you'll come to water after awhile. So, turning that around, I said to myself, 'all this water comes from up the mountain. The only way to get past it is to go clear up to where it comes from.' That's what I did, and then I marched straight around the high mountain till I saw your brush fire last night about midnight. I wanted to come right on, but both the men and the mules were exhausted by a terrific day's work and besides it was too dark to see the difficult way; so I bivouacked for the night and started down the hill between daylight and sunrise. There, Lieutenant, that's the whole story, and it isn't much of a story, at that."

"Well, I don't know," said the lieutenant, meditatively. "It's enough of a story at any rate to make a sergeant out of Corporal Jenkins, if my recommendations carry any weight at headquarters. Corporal, you have conducted this affair in a masterly manner, with zeal, skill and discretion. My report will mention these facts."

"Thank you, Lieutenant," was all that the soldier could say. But it was quite enough.

The Lieutenant's Wrath

The lieutenant's faith in Tom's sportsmanship was so great that in making his requisition for thirty days' rations for his men and his prisoners he had asked to have all the meat rations, except a dozen sides of bacon, commuted into rations of flour, meal, maccaroni, rice, potatoes and other starchy foods. His first care, after the mules were unloaded, was to replenish the leader of Camp Venture with such provisions as these in return for the drafts he had been compelled to make upon their supplies. "And besides," he said, "Camp Venture is just now my hospital, with five wounded men in it, to every one of whom ten days' rations are overdue."

Thus at last the boys were abundantly supplied with starchy food and for the rest Tom's gun never failed to provide a sufficient supply of meat.

Now that five of the six bunks in Camp Venture were occupied by wounded men, the boys made for themselves the best beds they could, on the earthen floor. At first it was proposed that the Doctor should occupy the one bunk not devoted to the use of a wounded man, but the Doctor dismissed the suggestion with scorn. Next it was suggested that Ed should still consider himself an invalid and accept the hospitality of the bunk.

"But I'm no longer an invalid," answered Ed, almost angrily. "I'm well enough now to chop down trees, and take cold baths. A pretty sort of sick fellow I am!"

Finally it was agreed that the several boys should occupy the bunk in succession, one each night, and lots were drawn for the order in which they should occupy it. As the soldiers now kept guard it was no longer necessary for the boys to keep a sentinel awake.

The lieutenant's second care after provisioning the boys, was to make another appeal to the revenue officer, or rather to place that person again in his rightful position of responsibility.

"I have provisioned my force," he said. "Are you contemplating any further operations in the mountains? If so I shall be glad to place myself and my men at your disposal. We can march at a moment's notice."

"I don't know," said the officer, "whether further operations just now would yield results commensurate with the risk. What do you think, Lieutenant?"

"Oh, it is not my business to think," answered the military man, "at least not on questions of that kind. I have been ordered up here to give military support to any operations that you may undertake against the illicit distillers. Beyond giving such military support I have no functions whatever."

"But what do you think, Lieutenant?"

"I tell you I am not thinking. I am simply waiting for orders."

"But surely you have some opinion. Won't you give me the benefit of it?"

"Yes," answered the lieutenant. "I have an opinion—several of them, in fact—and as you insist, I will give you the benefit of them. It is my opinion that you have conducted your affairs like an imbecile. You were sent up here to break up the illicit stills and you haven't found one of them yet and never will. You found this camp of wood chopping boys and made me capture it for you. Then the moonshiners took the offensive, while you were pottering around here trying to find a still where a mere glance would have convinced an intelligent man that there was none. Very well, I captured the moonshiners while you were hiding behind the Camp Venture barricade. They are our prisoners, no thanks to you. I think now, as I told you at the time, that then, if ever, was your time to search out the stills and capture them. You would not do it, and it is my conviction that by this time every still in the mountain is so securely hidden that a fine tooth comb couldn't find one of them or any tangible evidence that one of them was ever in existence. You've got the materials for a report, of course,—a report showing so many prisoners captured—but I fancy you'll find it difficult to show either that you captured them or that you had any authority to capture them. I captured them and I had a right to do so, because they attacked a body of regular troops engaged in doing their duty. In other words, they levied war upon the United States and were caught in the act. The charge of treason cannot be sustained against them, probably; if not they are guilty of rioting, assault and battery and all that sort of thing. But what charge can you bring against them? You may say that they are moonshiners, but you can't offer a particle of proof of that, simply because you would not follow up this affair by hunting out the stills. There, you have a few of my leading 'opinions,' and as you don't seem to relish them, perhaps I needn't give you any more."

The revenue agent was dejected beyond measure. For a time he sat still with a flushed and angry face. Then, as he realized the situation in which he had placed himself by his foolishness and indecision, he turned pale. Finally he appealed again to the lieutenant:

"Won't you advise me what to do now at any rate?" he asked.

"I'll advise you as to nothing. When the time to act came I volunteered some advice and you rejected it. I now simply notify you that my force will be held ready to march at a moment's warning to any point where you may feel the need of military support in the discharge of your duty."

"But, Lieutenant—"

"I tell you I have said all I am going to say," broke in the military man, angered quite as much by the man's imbecility as by his obvious cowardice. "I await any requisition you may make upon me for military support, and I will instantly respond to every such requisition. As to advice, I have none to offer. When we go back down the mountain, you doubtless will make your report. I will make mine also. Good night, sir."

And with that the lieutenant strode away to his camp fire out under the bluff, gave his orders for the night and went to sleep with a clear conscience.

A Homing Prospect

The revenue officers and the soldiers remained at Camp Venture, the Doctor caring for the wounded men who were rapidly recovering as the days went by. Meantime the boys were nearing the end of their winter's work and were looking forward rather eagerly to a home-going in the near future. Tom continued to hunt for game, and his diligence in that direction provided a sufficient supply of meat, while the lieutenant's stores furnished enough bread stuffs for all.

The chief revenue officer announced his purpose to take his party down the mountain as soon as the streams should be passable, and Jack announced his intention of taking his party down as soon as they should have finished the work they had laid out for themselves.

"I shan't wait for the streams to get out of the way," he said. "We'll go down the mountain not by the road, but over the cliffs as Tom did that night we were so scared about him. There are no streams to cross there. That's perfectly feasible, isn't it, Tom?"

"Oh, yes," answered Tom, "particularly as we shall have the Doctor along to patch up any broken legs or arms that we may get in dropping down over precipices."

"Is there serious danger of that?" asked Jim.

"Yes, if you are careless; no, if you are careful," answered Tom. "In fact, my experience teaches me that that's usually the case. The man who doesn't look out for himself usually meets with what he calls 'accidents' and blames Luck, or Fortune or Providence with mishaps which a little intelligent care on his own part would have averted. In fact I don't believe there is any such thing as accident, strictly speaking."

"How about that perforated ear of yours, Tom?" asked Ed.

"Oh, that illustrates my point. That wasn't an accident at all. I might have stayed here in the house that morning, and I'd have been perfectly safe. You see, I had no business out there on the line. The work to be done there belonged exclusively to the soldiers. But, with my curiosity to see how such things were managed I went out there and then like a young idiot I stood up by the lieutenant, when all the soldiers were lying down. If I hadn't done that I wouldn't have got my ear pierced. No, there's no such thing as accident in a world that is governed by law."

"But Tom," asked Jim Chenowith, "suppose you are on a railroad train and it runs off the track and you are considerably done up. Isn't that an accident?"

"No. The train would never have run off the track if everybody had done his duty. But somebody laid the rails carelessly, or some engineer failed to discover that a stone was loose on the cliff above and about to drop down on the track, or somebody else failed somewhere; otherwise the train would never have run off the track. I tell you I don't believe there is any such thing as accident, in the strict sense of the word. This world is governed by law. Causes produce their effects as certainly as the multiplication table gives its results. The trouble is we don't take enough care of the causes."

"But sometimes we don't know enough to do that," said Jack.

"Well, ignorance is the cause in that case. I don't say that one is always to blame for the evils that befall him. I only say that they don't befall him by 'accident,' and that with due care we can avoid most of them. That is particularly true in letting yourself down over a precipice by holding on to bushes. Some bushes hold on tenaciously and some give way with the smallest pull. The thing to do is never to let go of the secure one till you have tried the next one and satisfied yourself of its stability—or better still, never to trust yourself to one bush except while making an instantaneous change, but hold by two always. But I say, Jack, how near are we to the end of our job?"

"Well," said Jack, taking out his memorandum book and studying the entries in it, "we have only about sixty more ties to send down. We have already sent a great deal more cord wood than we agreed to, but as to that the railroad people said 'the more the better,' and so with bridge timbers. We did not agree to furnish any particular number of them and I fancy the railroad people didn't expect us to send more than two or three, while in fact we have sent down twenty-nine and have six more nearly ready to send. My plan is to cut the remaining ties which we are permitted to furnish under our contract, send down the bridge timbers that we have ready or nearly so, cut up all the remains of the felled timber into cord wood and send that down, and then go down ourselves. Even if the trail were open, which it isn't likely to be for some weeks to come, I should favor going down over the cliffs instead, because that will land us near where we want to be, while if we went down by the trail we should have to walk fifteen miles to get there."

The camp was early astir next morning, for now that the thought of going home had come to them, the boys were eager to hasten the time for it.

"By working hard," said Jack, "we can turn out ten or twelve ties a day, or under favorable conditions twenty. At three o'clock to-day we'll begin working the chutes and as I reckon it we'll be ready to start down a little before the first of April, and that was the date set. The weather is fine now and growing finer every day."

"Yes," answered Harry, "and the days are growing long enough to enable us to do full days' work."

Under the new inspiration the axes were briskly used that day until three o'clock. Then all hands were called to help roll the big bridge timbers into place and send them down the mountain. Four of them were sent off, the others not being quite ready yet. But the handling of these big timbers was slow work and so night fell before any of the ties or cordwood could be sent down the chute. There were twenty-one ties ready and about thirty cords of wood. But these must wait until three o'clock the next day, and by that time the number of ties and the quantity of cord wood would be considerably increased.

In the Hands of the Enemy

Weary as they were with their over-energetic day's work, the boys went to bed early that night—all of them but Tom. That tireless Nimrod had found a bear's den the day before and was minded to go out and watch for the bear that inhabited it. "Your bear is a night prowler," he said, "and if I can catch this one going out of his den or into it to-night, I'll bring home a supply of meat. We're a trifle short of that commodity just now."

Several of the boys wanted to go with Tom, and the lieutenant, who had dined with them that evening, wanted to send two soldiers as his assistants.

"No," said Tom, "I don't want anybody with me. We'd inevitably talk, and then we'd never see a bear. I'll go alone."

With that he took his rifle and went out into the darkness, while the rest of the boys went to bed and to sleep.

As he neared the bear den which he had discovered during the day and identified by tracks, Tom moved very cautiously, making no noise, and, secreting himself between two rock masses, lay down to await developments.

Hour after hour passed, and there were none. Still Tom maintained an attitude of alert attention.

Presently a great light appeared over a spur of the mountain, in the direction of Camp Venture.

"There's something the matter over there," said Tom to himself, "but with all those soldiers there they don't need me half as much as they need a bear."

Just at that moment—it was about three o'clock in the morning—Tom heard a crackling of sticks near at hand, and a moment later a great black bear came waddling and lumbering along on his way to the den.

With that instinct of humorous perception which was strong in Tom, he could not help likening the belated beast to a convivial gentleman returning from his club in the small hours.

Then it occurred to him that convivial gentlemen under such circumstances are sometimes "held up" at their own door ways, a fact which still further heightened the resemblance between the two cases. It next occurred to Tom that should his shot prove ineffective or imperfectly effective, the bear might get the better of him, as convivial gentlemen sometimes do with footpads. For, from the point at which Tom was lying, there was no avenue of escape except directly in the path of the bear, and a wounded bear is about as ugly an enemy to encounter as it is possible to find anywhere.

"Moral:" said Tom to himself, "Don't shoot till you've got a bead on a vital point. Fortunately this rifle has an 'initial velocity' as they call it, which will send a bullet through the thickest skull that any animal in the world wears as a breastwork to his brains."

Of course Tom would have preferred to shoot at the animal's heart, but there was no chance to do that, for at that moment the great beast discovered his huntsman and presented his full front to him at a distance of less than ten feet. Another second and the bear would make mince meat of the boy. So Tom taking a hasty aim fired at the animal's forehead, and the bullet did its work so well that the beast fell instantly dead.

After waiting for a minute or so to see if any scratching capacity remained in his game, Tom went to the bear and after inspecting it muttered: "I've shot Ursa Major himself," for the bear was of unusual bulk, greatly the largest Tom had ever seen. "I wonder what the stars will look like now that the constellation of the Great Bear is done for."

The beast was much too heavy for Tom to carry or even drag to the camp. So he instantly set out in search of assistance. His plan was to go to the camp and secure three or four soldiers to assist him in transporting his game. But he had not gone far on his campward journey before he was "held up" by three mountaineers. Fortunately one of the party—apparently its leader—was his own particular mountaineer, the one whom he had set free and who had so generously repaid his favor with gifts of corn and rye meal.

"Now set down, little Tom," said the man; "we wants a little talk with you."

"All right," said Tom, "I'm ready."

"Well you see, you done tole me an' I done tole the other folks as how you boys had nothin' whatsomever to do with the revenue officers or the soldiers."

"That's all right," said Tom. "We haven't had anything to do with them, we haven't spied upon you fellows or molested you in any way."

"But there's a big gang o' soldiers an' revenue officers in your camp."

"Yes, I know that," said Tom. "But are we talking fair and square as we did before?"

"Yes, fa'r an' squar'," answered the man.

"Very well then, I'll tell you about this matter. We boys don't like your illegal occupation up here in the mountains, but it is none of our business. We have never spied out your stills and certainly we have given no information to the revenue officers."

"What did they come up here for then?" asked one of the mountaineer's companions.

"They came up to capture us. They had seen the lights of Camp Venture and had located us. So they thought they had a still sure, and they came up here to capture it. The first thing they did was to surround us and fire at us in the dark. I explained matters to them and they searched our camp all over. Then they decided to camp there till they could get some provisions from down below, and while they were waiting, they asked me to tell them where the stills were so that they might raid them for meal. I knew where some stills were of course, for I've seen a lot since I came up here, but I refused to tell them."

"Is that honest Injun, Tom?"

"Yes," answered the boy. "I never tell lies. But you must understand me clearly. I haven't the smallest respect for you moonshiners or for your business. Under ordinary circumstances I should not hesitate to tell the revenue officers where a still was if I happened to know. But I made a bargain with you, Bill Jones. I told you truly that we had come up here to cut railroad ties and not to interfere with you or your criminal business. I told you that if you'd let us alone we'd let you alone. We could have sent a message down the mountain by our chute any day which would have brought the soldiers and the revenue people up at once but we didn't. I had promised you and I have kept my promise."

"Yes," answered Bill Jones, "an' you let me off in a state prison case, jest in time to save my little gal from starvin' to death! I'll never forgit it, an' I tell you fellers you mustn't hurt little Tom. Ef you do, I'll stand on his side an' they'll be some ugly work done before you're through with it."

"Well," said one of the men, "he tells a mighty nice, slick story like, an' maybe it's true. But they's jest one question I'd like to ask him afore we close the conversation like."

"Ask me any question you please," said Tom, "and I'll answer it truly. I have nothing to conceal, and I never tell lies."

"Well," said the man after discharging a quid of tobacco from further service and biting off a new one to take its place, "what I want to know is what you'se been doin', out here in the mounting all night like."

"That's easy," said Tom. "I've been killing a bear."

"Where?" asked the man.

"About a quarter of a mile back. You see we're getting short of meat down there in camp, with all these soldiers quartered upon us."

"Then ef you done got a bear whar is it?" asked the man.

"It is back there, as I tell you, about a quarter of a mile."

"Why didn't you bring it with you?" asked the man.

"Simply because it is too heavy. It is the biggest bear I ever saw. I was on my way to camp, when you stopped me, to get some fellows to come out here and help me drag it."

"Will you show it to us?" asked the man, still incredulously. "Seein's believin' you know."

"Certainly," said Tom. "The little old moon is rising now, and you can get a good look at the bear that I've sat up all night to kill."

He led the way back and at sight of the bear even the incredulous one of the party was satisfied.

"Now," spoke up Bill Jones, "we've got jest one thing to do. Ef this bar is left here it'll be half et up by varmints afore men can be brought from the camp to carry it in. Fellers we've got to carry it in fer Little Tom—him what let me go jist in time to save my little gal from starvin' when her mother was lyin dead in the cabin an' fer two days the little gal hadn't so much as a bite to eat. We'll drag the bar to the camp fer Little Tom!"

One of the men offered an objection: "We'll git arrested ef we do," he said.

"For what?" asked Tom.

"Why fer moonshining of course."

"But you haven't been caught moonshining. Nobody in camp can accuse you of that or any other crime. Anyhow if you fellows will help me to camp with this bear I pledge you my honor that I'll stand by you and see to it that you're not arrested."

"That's 'nuff sed," said Bill Jones. "Little Tom never goes back on his word, an' he knows how to manage things. We'll take the bar to camp."

The men assented but with hesitation and obvious reluctance. Seeing their hesitation Bill Jones spoke again:

"Now I tell you, you needn't worry the least little bit. I know whereof I speak, as the Bible says, when I tell you that you kin bet all you've got on Little Tom Ridsdale. When he says a thing he means it an' when he means it he'll do it ef all the eggs in the basket gits broke."

"Thank you Bill," said Tom. "Anyhow I'll see that you fellows get safely out of our camp or else I'll go with you with my rifle in my hand."

The men seemed satisfied. Seizing the bear they dragged it campwards as the daylight began to grow strong. Before Camp Venture was reached the sun was well above the horizon, and as they approached Tom gained some notion of what had happened there and of what the blaze of the night before had signified. But well outside the camp his mountaineers dropped the bear and bade Tom good bye.

Not a vestige of the house in which the boys had lived all winter remained. Only the smoke of a still smoldering fire marked the place where it had been.

The End of Camp Venture

During the night of Tom's bear hunt, the boys slept soundly, wearied as they were by an especially hard day's work. About three o'clock a soldier from out under the bluff rushed in crying:

"Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! Your chimney's on fire!"

Then came the Lieutenant with a squad of soldiers to remove the wounded men from the hut. This was a work of some difficulty although all the men were now "making satisfactory recovery" as the Doctor phrased it. The Doctor took charge at this point because he knew as no one else did the exact nature and condition of each man's wound, and it was his care to see that none should be improperly handled or in any way injured in the removal. Yet the house burned so rapidly that there was very little time for care and the excited soldiers had to be sharply restrained by the Lieutenant to make them comply with every direction of the Doctor in their handling of the wounded men.

Meantime the boys removed from the house everything of value, including even the "piano," which they would need every day for the sharpening of their axes.

What had happened was this: the upper part of the chimney, as the reader will remember, had been built of sticks, laid in a crib, and daubed all over with mud. The sticks were green, full of sap and almost incombustible when placed in position, and besides that the mud daubing protected them. But little by little the mud had dried and fallen away. While the heat of a fire that was maintained night and day for many months had seasoned the sticks first and then dried and parched them to the condition of tinder, capable of being ignited by the merest spark.

That night the spark did its work. The chimney sticks caught fire and burned with fierce violence. The clapboards forming the roof and the resinous pine timbers that held them in place, had also been roasted into an exceedingly combustible condition, and by the time that the fire was discovered the house was obviously doomed. That was the origin of the light that Tom had seen in the direction of Camp Venture while waiting for his bear.

When he now entered the camp he found the boys getting breakfast by an out door fire, built near the mouth of the chute.

"Poor old Camp Venture!" he exclaimed. "How did it happen boys?"

They hastily explained especially answering Tom's eager questions as to the condition of the wounded men.

"They are quite comfortable," said the Doctor. "All possible care was taken in removing them from the burning house, and my examination discovers no trace of damage done to any of them. But where have you been and what have you brought back with you?" for Tom had no game in possession.

"I've been to the home and headquarters of Ursa Major, and I've killed him," answered Tom. "I want to borrow the Lieutenant's glass to-night to see how the heavens look without the constellation of the Great Bear."

"What do you mean, Tom?" asked the boys eagerly.

"Why simply that I have killed the biggest black bear I ever saw or heard of in these mountains."

"Where is it?" eagerly asked Jack, who had a great longing for fresh meat for breakfast that morning.

"It's out there just beyond the picket lines, and some of you must go after it. You see the mountaineers who 'held me up' and then made friends with me, agreed to bring it to camp under my solemn promise of safe conduct. Bill Jones was at the head of them. But as they drew near the camp and saw the pickets, their courage failed them and even my invitation to come and breakfast with us, could not entice them within the picket lines.

"'We don't want to take no risks,' they said, 'an' you kin bring out some fellers to git the bar, so ef you don't mind, we'll leave it right here an' say good mornin'.' And with that they scurried off up the mountain."

Jack, Harry, Ed and Jim volunteered to go out after the bear, and with no little difficulty they at last got him to camp, where they proceeded to dress him. Tom, in the meantime, ate such breakfast as there was on hand, and, rolling himself in his blanket, stretched his tired limbs before the fire and fell at once into slumber. The other boys left him asleep when they went to their work, but considerably before noon he joined them with his axe.

That night a "council of war," as they called it, was held.

"Now that our house is burned up," said Jack, "we may as well begin to get ready for our descent of the mountain. Of course, we could sleep out of doors in this spring weather, but there is no use in doing it longer than we must. We sent the last two bridge timbers down the chute to-day. We have only twenty more ties to get ready and if we work hard we can do that to-morrow and next day. That will leave us nothing more to do except to work up the waste into cordwood and send it down. My calculation is that we can leave here one week from to-morrow morning if we are reasonably industrious. Tom's bear and the other game he'll get, will keep us in meat for that time, and if the Doctor can leave his patients a week hence, we'll go."

"Oh, as to that," said the Doctor, "I could leave them now. They need nothing now but nursing, and it won't be very long after we leave before the road will be open for the lieutenant to send them all down the mountain."

Thus with glad thoughts of a speedy homing, the boys rolled themselves in their blankets and stretched themselves out to sleep by the fire and under the stars.

"By the way, Tom," said Jim, just as Tom was sinking into slumber, "you forgot to look for that hole in the sky that you made last night."

"Well, you'd better make a hole in your talk pretty quick, Jim, if you don't want a bucket of water poured over you," said Jack. "Lie awake as long as you like, but keep quiet and let the rest of us sleep."

A Start Down the Mountain

Just a week later the boys were ready to quit Camp Venture and proceed down the mountain, or as Tom, quoting the mountaineers, put it, they prepared to "git down out'n the mountings."

They had fully accomplished their mission. They had done a great winter's work. They had sent down the mountain every tie they were permitted by their contract to furnish; they had sent down many noble bridge timbers and greatly more cordwood than they had expected to cut. Their work was done, except that before going home they must go to the headquarters of the railroad contractors, at the foot of the mountain, adjust their accounts and collect the money due them.

As the best mountain climber among them, the one who had met and overcome more mountain difficulties in his time than any other, and the one who best knew how to "look straight at things and use common sense," Tom was chosen to direct the perilous descent over the cliffs.

The boys were all heavily loaded, of course. Each had his axe, his blanket, his extra clothing and four days' rations to carry. Each also had his gun and there was one extra gun—the rifle that Tom had captured from the mountaineer—to be carried. "For," said Tom, "while we have no use for the gun, I've agreed to deliver it to its owner whenever he chooses to call for it at my mother's house, and I tell you, boys, a man's first obligation in this world is to keep every promise that he makes no matter what it costs. I'd take that fellow's rifle down the mountain if I had to leave my own behind in order to do it."

"You are right, Tom," said the Doctor, "and boys, I propose that we take charge of that gun and carry it turn and turn about for Tom, for he is otherwise the worst over-loaded fellow in the party."

For Tom had his skins to carry—the panther's hide, three big bear skins, several deer hides, and a large number of pelts from raccoons, opossums, hares, squirrels and other small game.

"In fact," said the Doctor, "I move that we throw Tom down, take away his load, and divide it equally among the entire party."

"That's it. That's the way to manage it!" cried the boys in chorus. But Tom would hear of nothing of the kind. "You fellows may help me with the mountaineer's rifle, if you choose, but I'll manage my bundle of skins for myself. Thank you, all the same. After all, our luggage isn't going to bother us half so much, going down the mountain this way as it would if we went down by the regular trail."

"Why not, Tom?" asked Jack.

"Well, I'll show you after awhile," said Tom. "And in the meantime, Doctor, I'm going to take all your delicate and expensive scientific instruments, and myself pack them so that they will endure the journey without injury. If carried as you have them, there wouldn't be one of them that wouldn't lie like a moonshiner by the time we 'git out'n the mountings.' Let me have them, please."

The Doctor, curious to see what the boy was going to do, turned his instruments over to him and carefully observed his proceedings. Tom began by selecting a number of the smaller skins, which, instead of drying, he had "tanned" with brains, corn meal-rubbing and other devices known to him as a hunter. These were as limp and soft as so many pieces of muslin, but greatly tougher. With them Tom carefully wrapped each instrument separately, securely tying up each with string, which the boy seemed always to have hidden somewhere about his person in unlimited quantity and variety of sizes and kinds.

"That's a trick I learned in hunting," he said, when questioned. "You can never have too much string with you."

Next he packed these bundles together, interposing dried and stiff hides between the several parcels, and again securely tied them together. Then he took the hide of his "Ursa Major," which was still "green" and limp, and which, as the boys suggested, "smelt uncommonly bad," and rolled the whole bundle in that, "skinny side out," binding it securely with stout twine. Finally he wrapped the stiff dried hide of the first bear he had killed, and the equally stiff panther's hide over all, as a sort of "goods box," he said, and, with a piece of red keel, he playfully marked on the panther's skin, "Glass! Handle with care."

"But now who is going to carry all this load?" asked Jack.

"Tom and I," said the Doctor, quickly. "The skins are Tom's and the instruments are mine. So we'll take some more of Tom's string and rig up some handles by which he and I can carry the bundle."

"You see," said Tom, "we may possibly have to drop it over a cliff now and then, and I've tried to do it up so as to stand that without breaking the instruments. But I think we can manage to avoid that. At any rate, we'll try. Now, come on, boys."

They had already taken leave of the lieutenant, and with four days' rations in their haversacks—for the lieutenant had supplied them with those military conveniences—haversacks—they began the descent of the mountain by that difficult way that Tom had followed on the night when he inspected the stills.

It was nine o'clock when they started. They made their way with comparative ease for nearly an hour. Then they came upon a bluff of formidable proportions and difficulty. Here Tom's experience and generalship came into play for the first time.

"All lay off your loads," he said. "Now, Harry, you are a discreet fellow and a good climber. Strip yourself of everything that can possibly embarrass you, and go down over the bluff. Remember what I have told you about bushes. Some of them cling tenaciously, while some of them give way in their roots at the first serious pull. Never trust one of them, but hold on by two always, and support yourself by your feet on every projection of rock you can find, so as not to overtax the bushes. When you are holding by two bushes, never let go of one to catch another lower down till you have satisfied yourself of the security of the other one by which you are holding on, and then grab the new one as quickly as you can. Make your way to the foot of the cliff, and we'll then let all our baggage and arms down to you with twine. You are to receive it all, untie the twine and let us pull it up again for the next bundle. When all our luggage is down, we'll climb down ourselves. There isn't any serious difficulty about it if we're careful. As I told you boys awhile ago, there isn't any such thing as accident. It is all a question of carefulness."

Harry did his part well in making the descent of this first precipice and the work of lowering the arms and luggage, including every boy's haversack—for it was imperative that in the bush climb down the cliff, no boy should carry a single ounce of unnecessary weight—occupied full two hours' time.

The Doctor was the last to go over the edge of the precipice, and he alone met with mishap. Jack, with his heavy weight, had preceded him, and the bushes, already weakened by the strain the other boys had given them, were some of them almost torn out by the roots from the rock crevices in which they grew. So when the Doctor was about half way down, one of them gave way suddenly, leaving the Doctor's right hand with no support and swinging him around in very perilous fashion. But the Doctor had by this time become a good deal of an athlete, and instantly realizing his danger, he swung himself around on his toes, which rested in a crevice of the cliff, and grasped with his right hand a sharp edge of rock which protruded some inches from the face of the cliff. It was a perilous hold, as the boys, looking on from below, clearly saw, and one that obviously could not be long maintained. But the Doctor had his wits about him, and after a moment's pause, he grasped another bush which held securely, and five minutes later he was on the ledge below.

Here it was decided to halt for the midday meal. A fire was built; the game which had been brought—or at least so much of it as was needed for this meal—was broiled upon live coals, and a pot of coffee was made—for of that sustaining article the original supply had not yet been quite exhausted.