Camp Venture: A Story of the Virginia Mountains

CHAPTER XV
Two Shots that Hit

The days passed rapidly now, as they always do when people are busily at work, and little by little the boys sent a great number of ties and timbers and many cords of wood down the chute.

One evening Tom and Ed were "playing on the piano." That is to say they were grinding axes by the firelight. For when the grind-stone was provided with a proper frame and set up in the house, Tom insisted upon calling it the piano, though some of the boys wanted to consider it as a sewing machine or a typewriter. One thing was certain, it must be kept in doors. Otherwise the water would freeze upon it, rendering it useless.

As Tom and Ed played upon the piano immediately after supper, Tom said to the Doctor:

"Tell us some more about beans?"

"I don't clearly catch your meaning," answered the Doctor.

"Why you once began telling us how valuable beans were as human food," said Tom, "and as those that I ate for supper are sitting rather heavily upon my soul, I want to be encouraged by hearing some more about how good they are for me."

"Wait a minute," said the Doctor. Then he went to his medicine case and put a small quantity of something white into a tin cup. After that he opened the camp box of baking soda and added half a teaspoonful of that article; then he dissolved the whole mixture in a cupful of water and handed it to Tom.

"There! Drink that!" he said, "and I think you will be in better condition to listen to what I may have to say about beans."

Tom swallowed the mixture and then insisted upon hearing about beans.

"Well," said the Doctor, "the most interesting thing I know about beans is that without them the great whaling industry which brought a vast prosperity to this country a generation or two ago, would have been impossible."

"How so?" asked Jack.

"Why you see in order to make whaling voyages profitable the sailing ships that carried on the business, had to be gone for four years at a time, and of course they had to carry food enough to last that long. For meats they carried corned beef and pickled pork. For vegetables they had to carry beans because they are the only vegetable product that will keep so long. There were no canned goods in those days, so it was beans or no whaling."

"Didn't they get fearfully tired of four years' living on nothing but beans and salt meats?"

"Of course. And of course they managed sometimes to pick up some fresh food, like sea birds' eggs or the sea birds themselves – though they are very bad eating because of their fishy flavor; and sometimes, too, the whaling ships would stop at ports on their way to the North Pacific whaling waters and buy whatever they could of fresher food. But in the main the men on whaling voyages had to live on salt meat and beans, and one of their most serious troubles was that they suffered a great deal from scurvy. By the way, that's something that we must look out for."

"That was caused by eating too much pickled meat, wasn't it?" asked Tom.

"They thought so then," said the Doctor, "but we have another theory now. That's a very curious point. For a long time it was confidently supposed that there was something in the salt meats that gave men scurvy. After a while it was discovered that it was something left out of the pickled meats that produced that effect. It seems that the brine in which meat is pickled extracts from the meat certain nutritious principles which are necessary to health, and that it is the lack of these nutritious principles that gives men scurvy. So an old whaling captain, with a sound head on his shoulders, concluded that the thing needed to prevent scurvy was for the men to consume the brine in which the meat was pickled. He ordered that the brine should be used instead of water in mixing up bread, cooking vegetables and the like."

"Did the thing work?"

"Yes, excellently, and the plan was adopted in all the Canada lumber camps where scurvy was as great an enemy to success as it was on the whaling vessels themselves. Another thing they do in the lumber camps is to quit cooking their potatoes the moment that symptoms of scurvy appear. Raw potatoes seem to have a specific effect in preventing and even in curing scurvy."

"Scurvy is a sore mouth, isn't it?" asked Tom.

"Not by any means," answered the Doctor. "Sore mouth is one of the earliest and mildest symptoms of the disease, and nobody knows what sore mouth means till he has had a touch of scurvy. It means that the mouth in all its membranes is afire, and that everything put into the mouth, – even though it be a piece of ice – burns like so much molten iron. But the mouth symptoms are only a beginning. Presently the knees and other joints turn purple and become excruciatingly painful. Then they suppurate, and in the end amputation becomes necessary. There are few worse diseases than scurvy, and we boys must protect ourselves against it by every means in our power. It threatens us with a much more serious danger than any that the moonshiners can bring upon us."

"By the way," said Jack, "the moonshiners seem to be letting us alone now. Perhaps they have given us up as a bad job."

"That's just what they want us to think," responded Tom. "They are lying low, in the hope that we'll accept precisely that idea and relax our vigilance. That is the one thing that we mustn't do on any account. That reminds me that it's time for me to go and relieve Jim Chenowith on guard duty."

"Well, before you go, Tom," said the Doctor, "I want to suggest that you take a day off to-morrow and get some fresh meat for us. We have lived on salt meat for five or six days now, and a big snow may come at any time to cut us off from fresh meat supplies. Besides our provisions are very sharply limited in quantity and we mustn't use them up too rapidly. We don't want scurvy in the camp and we don't want a starving time. So boys I propose that Tom, as the best huntsman in the party, be detailed and ordered to devote to-morrow to the duty of getting some game for our larder."

The suggestion was instantly and unanimously accepted. Then spoke up Harry Ridsdale:

"It'll be a hard day's work for Tom, as there's a slippery, soaplike snow on the ground, and he needs to be fresh for it. So I volunteer to take his turn on guard to-night and let him get in a good, straightaway sleep."

"Good for you, Harry," said Jack. But Tom protested that he was perfectly ready to stand his turn of guard duty and insisted upon doing so. The others unanimously overruled him, however, and so Harry shouldered his gun and went to relieve Jim Chenowith as picket. Before going he said:

"Now, fellows, there is to be no more talking to-night, for when the Doctor talks I want to listen. I've a whole catechism of questions to bother him with, but it's bed time now and you fellows must crawl into your bunks at once, without any further chatter. To bed, every one of you!"

As it was full ten o'clock the boys accepted the suggestion, and in a few minutes afterward, Camp Venture sank into silence, while Harry stood guard out there under the cliff, and the stars glittered above him in a wintry sky. Meantime the logs blazed and sputtered lazily in the great fireplace, and the night wore on, with no disturbance in the hut except when a sentinel came in, woke up his successor, replenished the fire and crept into his broomstraw bed.

About four o'clock the boys were startled out of sleep by the crack of a rifle, and the instant response of both barrels of a shotgun.

They were up and out in a moment, for it was their habit just then to sleep in their clothes and even in their boots, and for each to keep his gun by his side ready for instant use.

Running as fast as possible, they quickly joined Ed Parmly, who was on picket at the time, and hurriedly questioned him.

He reported that the rifle shot had come from the edge of the cliff over which the road down the mountain led. He added:

"I sent two charges of buckshot in that direction, but without aim, of course, as it is too dark to see. I reloaded at once, and while I was doing so I heard a groan off there. Perhaps we'd better look the matter up."

Just then came another groan, and, at Tom's suggestion, torches were lighted and an exploration made.

Just over the edge of the little cliff they found a mountaineer. He was in a state of collapse, nine buckshot having passed through the fleshy part of his thigh, cutting arteries and big veins enough to cause profuse hæmorrhage.

"The man is badly hurt," said the Doctor. "We'll carry him to the hut at once and see what can be done for him."

Willing hands lifted and carried the fainting man, and once in the hut the Doctor called for all the torches that could be lighted. Hurriedly he inspected the man's wounds, taking up an artery and putting a compress on a severed vein as he went. Finally he said:

"Fortunately none of the buckshot struck the bone. It is only a flesh wound though it is a very bad one. By the way" – the Doctor was seized with a kindly thought – "Ed Parmly is probably more anxious about this thing than any other boy in the party, and he is still out there on picket. Suppose one of you fellows goes out there to relieve him and let him come in to find out the amount of damage done by his shot."

The thought appealed at once to the kindly feelings of the boys and they all instantly volunteered, but Jack, as the next in order on the sentry list, claimed the privilege of relieving Ed.

When Ed came in he first of all wanted to hear whether or not the man he had shot in the darkness was likely to die of his wounds.

The Doctor promptly reassured him on that point.

Then Ed said:

"Well, Doctor, if you are quite through with him, suppose you look at a little scratch that he gave me. I didn't want to say anything about it, but maybe it is better to have it attended to."

The Doctor turned instantly and began stripping off the boy's clothing. He found that a bullet, striking him in the left side, had passed between two ribs, almost penetrating the hollow of the lower chest, but without quite doing so. It was one of those wonderful vagaries of bullet wounds that would kill in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, but which in the hundredth case do a minimum of damage.

The Doctor having satisfied himself that no vital organ had been touched, carefully disinfected the wound and swathed it in bandages. As he did so he said to the boy:

"Why didn't you tell us at the start, Ed, that you were wounded?"

"Well you see," said Ed, "I was more concerned about the other fellow. It isn't a pleasant thing to kill a man, even when you've got to do it in self defence. So as I knew by his groans that he was worse hurt than I was, I didn't say anything about what his bullet had done till you were through with the job of dressing his wounds."

"Will you permit me to remark," said the Doctor, "quite casually and in parentheses as it were, that you, Ed Parmly, are a hero? I haven't met a great many heroes in my time, but you are one of the few. Now you're going to bed, and I'm going to play tyrant over you till this wound gets well. But upon my word, I never knew two shots fired in darkness that did their work so effectively as yours and that mountaineer's did."

With the instinct of his science the Doctor had no thought of questioning the wounded moonshiner. But Tom had no scientific training and no particular scruples concerning the matter. So he turned to the mountaineer, who was occupying his bed, and asked in a peremptory voice:

"Why did you shoot Ed? What harm had he done you? What right had you to shoot at him."

"Well, you see," said the mountaineer, taking up the familiar parable, "we fellers what lives up here in the mountings can't afford to have no intruders around. You fellers is intruders, and we're agoin' to drive you out'n the mountings. You mout as well make up your minds to that fust as last. We's done give you notice to quit, fair and square. You won't quit. So all they is fer it is to kill you an' that's what we've set out to do."

"But, my friend," said the Doctor, whose training had taught him to regard reason as the ultimate court of appeals in human affairs, "we are here with a perfect right to be here. We have in no way interfered with you or your friends. You have absolutely no right to interfere with us."

"All that don't make no difference whatsomever," answered the mountaineer. "We fellers what lives up here in the mountings don't want no spies an' nobody else up here. You fellers has got to get out'n the mountings an' that's all about it."

"But what right have you?" asked the Doctor, "to drive us out?"

"Well, we ain't a discussin' of rights now," answered the mountaineer. "We're a talkin' business. You fellers has got to git out'n the mountings."

Here Tom broke in, with his hot temper:

"So that's your last word, is it? Well, now let me give you our last word. We are going to stay here. We are going to defend ourselves in our rights, and now that you've threatened to kill us, and tried to kill us, we've a perfect right to do a little shooting on our own account, and I give you warning that if any one of you is caught in this camp, or anywhere near it, we'll understand that he has come here to carry out your threats, and we'll shoot him without waiting to ask any questions. As for you, we ought to send you to jail for shooting one of our party. I for one vote to do that. We can lock you up in the penitentiary for that offense, and we're going to do it. Just as soon as the Doctor says you're able to travel, I'm going to take you down the mountains at the muzzle of a gun, and put you in jail. I'm tired of this thing."

This aspect of the case had not presented itself to the minds of the other boys, but they approved Tom's plan instantly. The right thing is always and obviously to appeal to the law for redress where a wrong has been done, and perhaps the jailing of the mountaineer, under a charge of "assault with intent to kill" – an offense punishable by a long term of imprisonment, – might deter the others from like offenses.

"Well, it's pretty hard," said the mountaineer. "I've just got out only three months ago, after a year in prison, for nothin' but helpin' some other fellers to make a little whiskey without a payin' of the tax; an' now I've got to go back to grindin' stove lids for nothin' but shootin' at people that stays in the mountings in spite of all our warnin's."

Obviously the man was utterly incapable of realizing the nature or the atrocity of his crime. Obviously, also, he was incapable, as his comrades were, of seeing that anybody but themselves had a right to stay in the mountains when they objected.

But Tom was bent upon carrying out his idea of taking the man down the mountain and bringing him to trial for shooting Ed, and the other boys fully sanctioned it.

"It may teach these people," said Jack, "that there are other people in the world who have rights. That will be a civilizing lesson."

"Yes," said Tom, "and besides that, it will lock up a man who seems to know how to shoot straight even in the dark. Anyhow, I've made up my mind. As a 'law-abiding and law-loving citizen' I'm going to put that fellow into jail, and send him afterwards to the penitentiary for a ten years' term, if I can, for shooting Ed Parmly with intent to kill him. It will be a wholesome reminder to the rest of these moonshiners that they had better not shoot at us fellows. So, just as soon as the Doctor says he's able to travel, I'm going to escort him down the mountain and deliver him to the sheriff of the county. In the meantime, daylight is breaking and it's time for you fellows who have the job in charge to begin the preparation of breakfast."

So, after all, Tom did not get much sleep as a preparation for his game hunting trip of the coming day.

CHAPTER XVI
The Doctor Explains

Ed's wound did not incapacitate him for the task of standing guard over the wounded and captured mountaineer. Ed was able to get out of bed and sit about the house with a gun slung casually across his knees or his shoulder, as the case might be, and the mountaineer perfectly understood that Ed did not mean for him to escape, by any possible chance, even when his strength should return. So he was content to lie still and reflect as he did, that "this is better than the prison anyhow."

Tom went hunting, as the Doctor had suggested that he should. Three of the boys continued the chopping, while one stood guard – a duty that had been made more imperative than ever by the mountaineer's declaration of the fixed purpose of the moonshiners.

When Tom returned in the evening he was overladen with game, as it was his custom to be on his return from a hunting expedition. He had two big wild turkey gobblers, a great necklace of fat squirrels, nearly a dozen hares and a small deer which he had dragged down the mountain because of his inability to carry it with his other load upon him.

"Here's meat enough," he said, "to last till Christmas anyhow," for it was now well on into December, "and I've seen a big turkey gobbler that I mean to get for our Christmas dinner. He can't weigh less than twenty or twenty-five pounds, and he's a shy, wise, experienced old boy; but I've found out what his usual rambles are and if the Doctor will lend me that long range rifle of his, I'll promise to get that bird for Christmas. I don't believe it would be possible to get within shot gun range of him."

"Oh, you can take that gun, Tom, whenever you please," answered the Doctor. "In fact, I'm going to give it to you right now. Only I'll ask you when you go down the mountain with our prisoner, to mail a letter for me, in which I will order another gun of the same sort."

"But, Doctor," said Tom, in protest, "I didn't mean – "

"Of course you didn't," answered the Doctor. "If you'd meant anything of the kind, I wouldn't have thought of giving you the gun. As it is, I don't know anybody living that could make a better use of such a gun than you can. So it is yours, and I'm going to send for another just like it for myself. In the meantime, I'll borrow your shotgun for such casual uses as our camp life may require. Of course, you'll need the shot gun also, sometimes, but the rifle's yours, and I am sure it could not be in better hands."

The boy made his acknowledgments as best he could, and the best part of them was his fondling of the rifle itself in loving appreciation. But in his embarrassment over the Doctor's generosity, he wanted to turn the subject of conversation, and as supper was by this time over, he said:

"Now, Doctor, you were telling us the other night something about the old-time whaling ships. Won't you tell us to-night something about the modern ocean steamers?"

"Yes," broke in Jack. "You see, you are the only 'boy' among us who has ever seen a ship, and I believe you have crossed the ocean several times."

"Yes, many times," answered the Doctor, meditatively, "and there are many points of interest about a great modern ocean steamship, which it will please me to tell you about if it will interest you to hear."

The boys expressed an eager desire to hear, and so the Doctor proceeded.

"In the first place," he said, "there is nothing in the world so complete, so independent, so self-reliant, as a first-class steamship. She has everything on board that she can possibly need, or else she has the means of making it for herself. She makes her own electric lights, and every stateroom is supplied with them. She does not carry fresh water for drinking and cooking use, because she has a distilling apparatus capable of producing all needed fresh water from the salt water of the sea. This is a great advantage. If you have ever read sea tales, you know that in cases of long detention, one of the worst of troubles in the old days was that the water became foul and the use of it bred disease. The modern steamship always has a supply of perfectly pure distilled water."

"But, Doctor," asked Ed, "suppose one of the big steamers should break down at sea, with her machinery out of order, and wallow around out there on the waves for a month or two, wouldn't the crew and passengers all starve to death?"

"That could hardly happen," said the Doctor, "for reasons which I will explain presently. But even if it did happen, the crew and passengers would not starve, for the reason that every great ocean liner carries in her hold enough food to last her passengers and crew for fully six months, although I believe the law requires them to carry only one month's supply."

"How many are there on board usually?"

"Oh, that varies with every voyage. The big ships often carry three or four hundred first-class passengers and have crews numbering from seventy to one hundred men. But some of them carry, also, a large number of steerage passengers. I once crossed from Italy on the North German Lloyd's steamer Ems, when we had only twelve first class passengers, five second class and fifteen hundred in the steerage."

"And she carried food enough for all those people for six months?" asked Jack, in wonder.

"Yes, and more."

"What sort of food was it?"

"Beans by scores of tons; corned beef and mess pork by hundreds of barrels, and an almost unlimited supply of canned meats and vegetables," answered the Doctor.

"Now, as I said," the Doctor resumed, "no great steamer is ever likely to be delayed for a month or anything like a month, at sea. In the first place, each of them carries a skilled chief engineer and a corps of competent assistant engineers, a force of blacksmiths and machinists, and better still, duplicates of all those parts of her engines that are liable to break down. I remember one voyage on the American liner Berlin, when in midocean one of our cylinders cracked and threatened to burst under the steam pressure. The captain stopped the ship and the engineers and machinists cut that cylinder out. We lay there for twenty hours in a surging sea, and then proceeded, running with only two of our three cylinders in use."

"But what an awful bobbing about you must have got," said Ed, "lying out there on the sea, with no headway."

"Oh, no!" answered the Doctor. "Our bow was kept always toward the oncoming waves, so that we rode rather more easily than if we had been running under steam, for if we had been running we should have laid our course straight for New York, taking the waves from any direction. As it was, we got them dead ahead."

"But how did they hold the bow always toward the coming waves?" asked Ed.

"By the use of what they call 'sea anchors.' These are great hollow cones, made of iron. At the big end of each a cable is fastened, and the anchors are thrown overboard, usually three or four of them. Of course, it is impossible in deep seas to send an anchor down to the bottom, but these big cones catch the water, and by their dragging in it, they hold the ship pretty nearly stationary, and, more important still, they keep her head always pointed toward the wind and waves, so that she rides easily. Whenever a ship breaks down at sea she hoists three great black disks into her rigging. These mean to any ship that may approach, that the steamer is 'not under control' – that is to say, that as she is not running, she has no power to steer to one side or the other or in any other way to keep out of the path of the approaching vessel. Then, the approaching vessel steers clear of the disabled steamer, and usually she hoists a set of signal flags, asking if the steamer needs or wants any assistance, and the steamer replies with another set of flags giving her response to the offer. The flag signalling system has been so completely perfected by international agreement that two captains can carry on any conversation they please by means of it, even though neither can speak a word of the other's language.

"Now this is the other reason why no steamer is ever likely to lie crippled on the ocean for a month or any thing like it. There are regular pathways on the ocean over which all the regular line steamers pass. So, while the ocean is so immense that you may steam over it for days without seeing a vessel of any kind, nevertheless no steamer is likely to lie disabled for more than a few days without sighting some other that stands ready to render assistance. If the disabled steamer needs anything the other furnishes it. If she is too far broken down in her machinery to repair it at sea, the other will generally take her in tow. If she is likely to sink – the most unlikely of all things – the other will take off her crew and passengers and leave the ship to her fate."

"Why do you say, Doctor, that sinking is the most unlikely of all things?" asked Jack. "I should think it the most likely."

"Not at all," the Doctor replied. "The modern steamship is perhaps the most perfect product we have of scientific precision in construction. As well as you know that twice two makes four, the builders of a modern steamship know to the uttermost pound the amount of strain that any wave blow can put upon any part of the ship, and they provide for it four times over. Except in case of collision in a fog, the great ocean liner simply cannot sink at sea. If you took her out to mid ocean and there abandoned her, she would float securely until some current should drive her on rocks or some other sort of shore. At sea, she is absolutely unsinkable, except as I say by collision, and that is as true when she is carrying thousands of tons of freight as at any other time."

"It is very wonderful," said Jack.

"Of course it is. If I were called upon to name the modern seven wonders of the world, I should unhesitatingly put the ocean greyhound first in the list. But come boys! It is past our bed time, and we've heavy work to do to-morrow in getting those three great timbers ready to send down the chute."

"I'm awfully sorry," said Tom.

"Sorry – for what?" asked the Doctor.

"Why, now that you've told us so much about the great ships, I want to hear more. I've at least a hundred questions to ask you."

"Very well," said the Doctor. "The winter will be long and we'll have abundant opportunities of evenings to ask and answer all the questions we please. But just now our business is to get to bed and to sleep, or rather that's the business of you other fellows. My business is to go out and relieve Jim Chenowith as our picket guard. So good night boys, and good, refreshing slumbers to you!"

With that the Doctor shouldered a gun, first carefully examining its cartridges, and strode out into the bitterly cold night to do his turn at guard duty. He had indeed made himself a boy among boys, and he had won all hearts.