Camp Venture: A Story of the Virginia Mountains

"Now, what next?"

"How do you mean?"

"Why, what is your next move?"

"Well, I suppose we must remain here till the provisions come, if we decide to send for them," answered the man.

The lieutenant shrugged his shoulders, and for the moment remained silent. Presently he said:

"Of course that's for you to determine. But for myself I can't see why you should deliberately waste two days giving the moonshiners time in which to rip out their stills and bury them where even your sagacity will never find them. I don't see why you shouldn't utilize the time of waiting for supplies in finding and capturing stills. However that is none of my business. Will you tell me where you wish to make your headquarters, so that I may pitch my camp accordingly?"

At that moment bullets began pattering in the camp and the lieutenant instantly leaped to his feet and hurried to the platform of the parapet. Using his field glass he presently located the points from which the firing came. Then calmly but quickly he descended and called to Sergeant Malby:

"Form the men in open order out there under the bluff."

Then he strode away hurriedly to the bluff and hastily examined it, selecting the points at which it was easiest of ascent. With a few quietly given orders, he mounted to the top of the rock, and in half a minute more his men, crouching down to shield themselves from the fire, were in line of battle by his side.

"I'm going to see that," said Tom, seizing his rifle and hurrying to the line of troops. "It's better than a game of chess."

By this time, under the lieutenant's calmly uttered instructions – for there seemed to be no suggestion of excitement in his voice or manner – two small squads had been thrown forward from the right and left of the line, and were rapidly creeping up the mountain, with the evident purpose of getting to the rear of the moonshiners. Meantime the lieutenant stood up with his glass to his eyes, minutely observing the progress of his flanking parties. By his orders his men all lay down, taking advantage of every rock and inequality of the ground for protection, and delivering a steady fire all the time.

Presently the lieutenant lowered his glass and turning, saw little Tom standing erect by his side.

"This will never do, my boy!" he exclaimed. "Lie down quick or one of those mountaineers will pick you off with his rifle."

"I can stand up as long as you can, Lieutenant," answered Tom, "even if I am not a soldier."

"But it is my duty to stand just now," said the lieutenant. "I must direct this operation and strike from here the moment my flanking parties reach proper positions."

"And it is my pleasure to stand," answered Tom, "to see how you do it."

The lieutenant again brought his glass to his eyes. Then he lowered it and looked earnestly at Tom, who still stood erect by his side, paying no heed to the rain of bullets about him.

"Why aren't you at West Point?" he asked. "You're the sort we want in the army."

Then, without waiting for an answer, the lieutenant again looked through his glass and seeing that his flanking parties had gained the positions desired in rear of the mountaineers, he ordered the whole line to advance as rapidly as possible. At the same time the flanking parties closed in upon the rear of the mountaineers, and five minutes later the action ended in the surrender of all the moonshiners.

Tom saw it all, but when it was over he discovered a pain in his left ear, and, feeling, found that a small-bore bullet had passed through what he called the flap of it, boring a hole as round as if it had been punched with a railroad conductor's instrument.

The captured mountaineers were brought at once to Camp Venture. Two of them were dead and three severely wounded. To these last and to two of the lieutenant's men who had also received bullets in their bodies, the Doctor ministered assiduously. The unwounded mountaineers were placed in a hastily constructed "guard house," built just under the bluff.

CHAPTER XXIX
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."

CHAPTER XXX
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."