Camp Venture: A Story of the Virginia Mountains

CHAPTER XXIV
In the High Mountains

Tom's second tour of guard duty ended at four o'clock in the morning, and he woke the Doctor to succeed him. Then, without attracting the other boys' attention, he rolled his blanket into a compact bundle and strapped it high upon his shoulders. He next loaded his cartridge belt with twenty buckshot cartridges on one side and twenty cartridges that carried turkey shot on the other. He put a box of matches into one pocket and two thick slices of bear beef into another. Finally, he took one of the empty meal bags, carefully folded it up and thrust it into the breast of his hunting shirt.

Thus equipped he sallied out, and bidding the Doctor good morning as he passed the picket post, started off up the mountain. He had to pick his way very carefully till daylight came, and by that time he had passed well over the side of a ridge and was completely out of sight of Camp Venture.

Selecting a suitable spot where the wind had swept a rock clear of snow, he laid aside his gun and blanket, and set to work to build a little fire and cook one slice of his meat for breakfast. The other he reserved for a late dinner.

As he moved on after breakfast, he came upon a flock of quails – or partridges, as they are more properly called in Virginia. They were helplessly huddled under the edge of a stone and were manifestly freezing to death. For when Tom, who was too much of a sportsman to shoot birds in the covey, tried to flush them, meaning to shoot them on wing, they were barely able to flutter about on the ground, and wholly incapable of rising in flight.

"I may as well have them," said the boy, "seeing that they'll be frozen to death in another half hour." So, after a little scrambling, he caught the eleven birds and quickly put them out of their suffering. Drawing some twine from a pocket, he strung the birds together and threw them over his neck for ease of carrying.

The mountain up here was rugged and uneven, scarred and seamed with chasms and deep hollows. Tom devoted all his energies to peering into these as if searching for something. At one time, as he was hunting for a place from which to get a good view of a small but deep ravine, he flushed a flock of wild turkeys, seven or eight in number, and scarcely more than twenty feet distant from him. Curiously enough, he let them scamper away without so much as taking a shot at them.

That was exceedingly unlike little Tom Ridsdale, and obviously it meant something. But what it meant did not appear. But shooting makes a noise and attracts attention. Tom did not want to attract attention.

About two o'clock in the afternoon, Tom carefully reconnoitered a spot where great blocks of stone had fallen from cliffs above to a ledge below lying loosely there and making small caverns. Having satisfied himself that neither human habitation nor any human being was within miles of this little hiding place, Tom collected some sticks and built a little fire in one of the crevices between the great blocks of stone. Here, he cooked and ate his remaining piece of bear beef. Then he opened his blanket, rolled himself in it, and disposed himself to sleep, in a half sitting, half lying posture with his head and shoulders resting against the rock.

"I must get a little sleep now," he said to himself, "as I didn't get any too much last night, and, of course, can't take any at all to-night. For if I slept without a fire in this weather, I'd freeze to death, and it would never do to build a fire up here at night, when it could be seen for miles away."

Healthy boy that he was, he fell almost immediately into slumber, and it was nightfall when he woke. He took the risk of throwing two or three small sticks on his well-hidden fire, in order to broil one of his partridges for his supper. That done, he repacked his blanket, took up his gun, and set out again on his search for that something for which he had been looking all day.

All night long Tom toiled about, up and down hills, over rocks and cliffs, through snow that was now beginning to soften as the weather was growing milder, but the search resulted in nothing. When morning came, the well-nigh exhausted boy sought out what seemed a safe spot for the purpose, created a little fire, cooked three partridges and ate them, seasoning them with a little salt which he always, on his hunting trips, carried in a little India rubber tobacco bag. Then he stretched himself out for a sleep, no longer fearing to freeze, as the weather had become very much warmer than before.

It was four o'clock in the afternoon when Tom awoke. As he did so, he felt a hand pulling at that part of his blanket in which his head was wrapped – for all huntsmen and all soldiers, when they sleep in the open, even in the warmest weather, find it necessary to wrap up their heads.

"Well, law's sakes!" exclaimed the mountaineer, who, rifle in hand, was bending over him, "Ef it ain't Little Tom! Well, I'm glad I didn't shoot, as I was fust off about to! Why, Tom, I wouldn't have shot you fer another of the Doctor's twenty dollar bills! No, not fer a pocket full of 'em! You don't know what you done fer me an' fer my little gal when you pay-rolled me" – the man always pronounced "parole" "pay-roll." "You see, I got home jest in time to save the little gal from starvin'. Her mother was dead in the cabin – you 'member I tole you she was consumptive like – well, she got to bleedin' one day at the nose an' mouth an' jist quit livin' like. So the little gal was left all alone there, an' there wan't nothin' whatsomever in the place to eat an' of course a little gal only six year old didn't know what to do. So fur two days before I got there she hadn't had a mouthful. Well, I had a little left from what you fellers had giv' me to eat when I left camp, an' I fust off fed her on that. It made her sick like, 'cause she hadn't been used to eatin' as you mout say, an' maybe I give her too much at oncet. But she quick got over that, an' I had that twenty dollar bill! You jest bet I hustled off down into the holler to a still an' brought some o' the ground up corn an' rye an' a gallon of the 'lasses that they uses with it to make whiskey out'n an' took it home fer the little gal to eat."

"I am very sorry," said Tom, "to hear of your wife's death, but very glad you got home in time to save the little girl."

"Well, as to my ole woman, of course I can't help mournin', cause any how she was always a better wife than a no 'count feller like me deserves to have. But you see it wan't unexpected, like. We'd both on us seed it a comin' for a year or two, an' always comin' a little nigher, so it didn't seem so onnateral like as it would ef she'd been strong an' healthy an' laughin' like, as she used to be before I went away to prison."

With that the man buried his face in his hands and sobbed. After all, the well-to-do, the refined, the cultivated people of this world have no monopoly of love or of tender sensibilities.

Tom took the man's hand and pressed it warmly. Then by way of turning the conversation he said:

"I suppose you're wondering what I am doing up here in the high mountains?"

"Well, yes – it's risky of you, like. You see, I've done all the talkin' I could to persuade our people, like, that you fellers ain't here to interfere with 'em, an' lately they've let you alone. But still it ain't safe fer you, an' my earnest advice to you still is to git down out'n these mountings. I'm agoin' to keep on a talkin' in your favor an' a doin' all I kin fer to make it safe fer you to stay, but it won't never be real safe. You see, there's them up here in the high mountings what's suspicious like. They don't want to take no risks. They're always a lookin' out fer tricks, an' they won't believe but what you fellers mout be up to some trick. Anyhow they say 'men that ain't up in the mountings can't tell what's a goin' on up in the mountings,' an' some of 'em says, says they, 'men that's dead don't tell nothin' to the revenue officers.'"

"Nevertheless we're not going to be driven out, as you know," said Tom. "So now let's get to business."

"All right, Tom. Ef there's anythin' in this world I kin do fer you without hangin' fer it, I'll do it."

"Well," said Tom, "I came up here at risk of my life to look for you. I thought I might find your cabin or more probably find you standing guard over some still somewhere, and so I've been looking out for stills."

"Now, that's curious," said the man, "very curious. Fer that's edzactly what you found me a doin'. You see, they's a still near here an' it's about as snugly tucked away as any still ever was in all these mountings. You'd never find it in the world, though you ain't at this minute more'n two hundred yards away from it. Still the folks what runs it don't feel overly safe in spite of their hidin' of the still. So they've give me a job like to climb about over the cliffs an' look out fer spies. That's how I come to find you, Tom."

"Well, I'm glad you did find me," said Tom, "for in all probability I never should have found you, and I stood a good chance of getting myself shot in trying. You said just now that you would do anything you could for me."

"Yes, an' I will!" answered the man, with emphasis. "Jest you try me, Tom, an' see ef I don't."

"Very well," said Tom. "I believe you. Now, what I want isn't much. We boys down there in Camp Venture ran out of something to eat the other day, and we nearly starved for a time. Finally, by good luck, we got a bear, and we have more than half of it left, and of course, now that the snow storm has passed away, I can get more game as we need it. But we haven't had any bread for more than a week, and we're hungry. So I have come out here to look for you, to see if you can't get me a bag of ground-up corn or rye from one of the stills. I have money with me with which to pay for it."

"But you can't pay fer it, Tom," said the man solemnly. "They ain't any body around the still now, 'cause it's knocked off runnin' fer the next week er so, but they's plenty of ground corn an' rye there, an' I'll bring you all you kin carry of it, ef you'll wait here fer fifteen minutes, an' not a cent to pay."

"But it doesn't belong to you?" said Tom.

"No, in course not. I don't own no still. I wish I was rich enough."

"Then of course I can't let you give me the meal. I must pay full price for it or I'll go without it."

"But say, Tom, that stuff ain't never measured up or weighed up, an' nobody'd ever miss a bagful or two. Why, I carry a small bagful of it to my cabin every mornin', jest as a sort o' safeguard like fer the little gal till blackberry time comes. I'll bring you a bagful an' I tell you it shan't cost you a cent."

"And I tell you," said Tom, "that I won't take an ounce of it on any such terms. That meal belongs to other people. I want some of it – just as much as I can carry to Camp Venture with me – but I must pay for every ounce of it or I won't take any of it. I never steal, and I don't intend to let you steal for me."

"Oh, it ain't stealin' like," answered the man; "you see people never care fer what they lose ef they don't know that they loses it."

"I don't suppose I can make you understand," said Tom, realizing the utter inability of the mountaineer's mind to grasp an ethical principle, even of the simplest kind, "but I tell you plainly that I want this bagful of corn meal if you'll let me pay honestly for it, and otherwise I don't want it at all, and won't take it. I would rather see every boy in Camp Venture starve than do a dishonest thing."

"Well, you see, you people from down the mounting draw these things a good deal finer than us folks up here in the mountings kin. I'm a member of the church an' I tries to behave accordin'. You never heard me swear an' you never will. You've done me the greatest favor any body ever done me, an' like an honest man I want to repay it a little, but you won't let me."

Tom saw that there was no use in trying to enlighten the mountaineer's perverted ethical sense and so he gave up the effort and simply said:

"Will you let me have the meal and let me pay for it, or will you not?"

"In course I will," said the mountaineer. "How many bags is you got?"

"Only this one," said Tom. "I couldn't carry more than that. It will hold a hundred pounds of meal."

"Yes, but I kin carry some," said the man, "and I'm a goin' to. I tell you you done me the biggest turn any body ever done me, when you put me on pay-roll, an' I'm bound to get even with you ef I kin. So I'm a goin' to fill your bag an' one that I've got down there of my own, an' I'm a goin' to tote one of 'em while you tote the other. I know easier paths than you do about these mountings an' I'm a goin' to show 'em to you. In some places we kin slide the meal bags down a incline fer a quarter of a mile at a time, jest on the ice, without no totin' at all. So we'll git two big bags o' meal to your camp betwixt this an' mornin'."

"But why not wait for daylight?" asked Tom.

"'Cause then the fellers would lynch me fer carryin' food to the enemy. You see it won't do fer me even to go into yer camp. I'll tote my bag to the top o' that bluff like, that rises this side o' the camp. Then I'll git out quick an' afterwards you kin slip the bag over the bluff like an' I'll git into no trouble."

With that the mountaineer took Tom's bag and disappeared over a sort of cliff. Ten minutes later he returned with the bag full of a rude meal, made by grinding corn in a big coffee mill of the kind that grocers use.

"Now you jest stay here fer ten minutes or so an' I'll be back with the other sack. It's a good deal bigger'n this 'un, but I kin tote a good deal more'n you kin, an' you'll need all the meal you kin git."

"Wait a minute," said Tom. "How much am I to pay for this meal? I have only two dollars with me and perhaps it will not be enough."

"Well, you see, Tom, I done tole you you needn't pay nothin' fer it, but you wouldn't have it that way on no account. So I reckon I'll charge you the same price I pay when I buy that sort o' meal from the still. That's a dollar fer them two bags."

"That's very cheap," said Tom. "Are you sure it's a proper price?"

"Sartin' sure," answered the man. "You see it's a mighty poor sort o' meal – jest soft mounting corn ground up like in a coffee mill to make whiskey out'n. You'll have to wet it up mouty soft like to make it stick together fer bread, an' I'll tell you a trick about that. You jest wet it up with boilin' hot water. That sort o' cooks it like. Make it very wet an' don't mind even ef a little o' the water stan's on top o' the dough in the pan. That'll cook away an' your bread'll be all the better fer it. But a dollar is a high price fer it."

By the time the second bag of meal came it was high time for the pair to start if they were to reach Camp Venture before daylight. But the mountaineer knew all the short cuts, and better still, all the easy cuts – paths that gave a minimum of up-hill work while presenting other advantages of importance. At one point, for example, he led Tom to a spot where there was a steep shelving rock, completely coated with hard ice.

"Now," he said, "You an' me couldn't go down that slide without breakin' every bone we've got. But we kin slip our meal bags down it 'thout no hurt to nobody. Then I'll show you a way round it, so's we kin git the meal agin."

With that he placed his meal bag in position, gave it a little push, and instantly it disappeared down the hill in the darkness. Tom did the same with his bag, and then, striding off to the right, the mountaineer led the way by a difficult but practicable path around the rock to a point quite a quarter of a mile below, where the two found their bags of meal safely reposing in a snow bank.

This was repeated at several points on the journey, while at other points where the bags could not be thus slidden down, because of an insufficient incline, it was easy for the two to drag them as they walked and this they did. As the way was almost entirely down hill, there was very little of what the mountaineer called "toting" to be done.

About three o'clock in the morning the two reached the brow of that cliff under which the boys had made their first temporary encampment, and which constituted the mountainside limit of Camp Venture. There they parted, the mountaineer protesting his eager desire to hurry back and "look arter the little gal."

"Wait a minute," said Tom. "I've paid you for this meal, but I haven't paid you for carrying it down the mountain or for the risk you've taken in doing that."

"I don't want no pay, Tom," protested the man with eagerness. "I hain't fergot that you put me on pay-roll jest in the nick o' time."

"That's all right," said Tom. "But I took two dollars with me and I expected to pay all of it for the meal. Now I want you to take the remaining dollar to the 'little gal' as a present from Tom. There, don't stop to say anything or you'll be late in getting back," added Tom, as he pressed the dollar bill into the man's hands.

"Well, all I'll stop to say, Little Tom," said the mountaineer, "is this: Ef you git out'n meal agin, you come to the same place I found you in. I'll keep a look out fer you there every day. An' ef they's war made on you it won't be long before I'm takin' a hand on your side with my rifle, an' it don't make no difference whatsomever who it is that's a fightin' of you."

CHAPTER XXV
A Difficulty

Little Tom was now in a quandary. He was on the bluff overlooking and south of the camp, but he did not know how to get into the camp. To walk in would be dangerous, of course. The sentinel might mistake him for an enemy and shoot at him. A high wind was blowing from the direction of Camp Venture, so that no call of Tom's could be heard there. It was a little after three o'clock in the morning, very dark, very cold, and Tom was very tired with his labor in bringing the meal down the mountain.

Finally an idea dawned in his mind.

"If I can't go to Camp Venture I can at any rate bring Camp Venture to me," he said to himself. With that he collected some of the dry broom straw that protruded above the snow and such sticks and other combustibles as he could find, and set to work to build a fire.

"When the sentinel sees a fire here," he said to himself, "he'll call the other boys, and they'll all get their guns and come out here to see what's the matter. I'll stand up in the full glare of the light and on the camp side of the fire, so that they can recognize me."

His plan worked to perfection. It was not five minutes after he got a good blaze going before the whole company surrounded him.

"What is it, Tom?" they cried. "Why did you build a fire here?"

"Wait!" said Tom. "There are two bags of corn meal down there just under the bluff. Some of you go and carry them to the house. I'm fearfully tired and cold."

The boys quickly saw how true this was, and they plied the poor, exhausted fellow with no more questions. He strode away to the hut, entered it, threw down his remaining partridges, set his gun in its customary place and stood for a few minutes with his back to the big fire, warming himself. Presently, when the boys all came in with the bags of meal, Jack, seeing the look of almost helpless exhaustion in Tom's face, himself removed the blanket from the boy's shoulders, untied it and spread it out upon the bunkful of broom straw, for by this time Ed had got all their bedding dry again.

Meantime the Doctor went to a kettle that sat near the fire, placed it upon some very hot coals, and a minute later dipped up a tin cup of its contents.

"Here, Tom, drink this," he said. "It'll do you good and give you strength."

It was a soup that Ed had made – or a broth rather – from the bones and scraps of their bear dinners, and to Tom's exhausted system it seemed wonderfully refreshing. Meantime Harry asked:

"Are your feet frozen, Tom?"

"No," answered the boy. "They are scarcely at all cold. You see, I've been using them too vigorously for that. But they are dreadfully sore and tired."

With that Harry filled their one foot tub with hot water and directing Tom to sit down Harry himself removed the boy's boots and socks, felt of his feet to make sure that they were not frosted, and placed them in the hot water. The Doctor applauded the performance and when it was over, and Tom's whole body was warm again, the boys rolled him up, not in his own blanket alone, but in all the other blankets there were in the camp and tumbled him into his bunk.

"There now!" said Jack, "sleep till you wake of your own accord. We'll all keep as still as mice."

"No, don't," said Tom. "I shall sleep better if you go on talking as usual. Then I'll know when I half wake that I'm here in camp and I'll go to sleep again easily." Then, after the boys thought him asleep Tom turned over and said, with much solicitude in his voice:

"Boys, I'm sorry I broke up your sleep so early this morning, but I couldn't very well help myself."

"Never you mind about that," said Jim Chenowith. "You're on duty now, – sleep duty, – and if you don't shut up and go to sleep I'll pour buckets of cold water over you. We're not suffering for sleep just because we were waked up an hour or so earlier than usual."

Tom was too tired to argue or to resist. He turned over on his side and a minute later he was asleep.

Meantime the boys busied themselves with breakfast. Ed was still the head cook, partly because he knew more about cooking than any body else did, and partly because the Doctor still refused to let him work with an axe. But all the boys helped him with this meal, as they always did when they were in the house at the time of the preparation of meals.

"How long will it be, Doctor, before Tom will wake up hungry?" asked Ed solicitously.

"Not more than two hours at farthest," answered the Doctor. "But why?"

"Well, I want to have something ready for him when he wakes – something hot and appetizing."

And Ed accomplished his purpose. He gave the other boys their breakfast of broiled bear's meat and ash cakes and then he set to work on Tom's breakfast. He dressed two of the quails and laid them aside. Then he mixed some of the meal and made pones of it, baking them in a skillet. When Tom began to stir restlessly Ed raked out a fine bed of clean coals and placed the two quails upon them to broil. They required very close and constant attention, of course, to prevent burning, and just as Ed was finally taking them off the fire Tom sat up in his bunk and asked:

"Hello, Ed! what's up? You've got something there that smells mighty good to a hungry fellow like me. What is it?"

"I'll answer your questions one at a time," answered Ed. "'What's up?' Why, you are, of course. 'What is it' – that I'm cooking? You just get out of bed and see."

Tom obeyed. Creeping stiffly out of bed he seized the foot tub that had stood there for two hours or more and felt of the water. It was by this time sharply cold. Tom stripped off his clothing, soused his head into the water and then taking a sponge, sluiced his whole body with the nearly freezing liquid. A rapid rub down followed, and Tom called out:

"Now, Ed, bring on your breakfast as soon as you can. I'm nearly starved."

With that he slipped again into his clothing and a minute later was devouring a quail and a big pone of very coarse corn bread which Ed had buttered with the scant remains of the ante-Christmas bacon drippings.

"Where are the other fellows?" asked Tom, as he ate.

"Out chopping," answered Ed.

"Did they have bacon dripping butter on their bread this morning?"

"Indeed they didn't. That was saved, by unanimous vote, for you. For but for you there wouldn't have been any bread in Camp Venture to butter with anything."

"Oh, well," said Tom, "but you see it isn't fair. You ought to have divided the bacon fat – "

"Now look here, Tom," Ed broke in, "if you'll find a single boy in this company who is growling about the breakfast he got this morning – the best part of it due to your exertions in getting us the meal, – I'll agree to eat that boy and all his complaints. I tell you this bacon fat was saved for you by special request of every fellow in the camp, and that's all there is about it. I foresaw that you'd want to divide it up, so I put it on your bread myself instead of leaving that for you to do. You see you can't help eating it now."

"Ed, you fellows are the very best and kindliest that ever were in this world," said Tom, with so much of emotion that he did not venture to say any more.

"But I say, Tom," said Ed, eager to turn the course of the talk, "where and how did you get this meal?"

"Oh, that's a long story," answered Tom, "and the other fellows will want to hear it, and really I can't tell it twice. Besides, now that I've had my breakfast I'm going out to do my share of the chopping. I'll tell you all about it while we sit around the fire to-night."