Camp Venture: A Story of the Virginia Mountains

Tom handed over his gun and led the sergeant and his squad into Camp Venture. As daylight had now fully come, the soldiers had little trouble in satisfying themselves that there was no still there, and that the company consisted only of five boys and the Doctor. The sergeant so reported to the lieutenant and that officer was disposed to be satisfied. Not so the three revenue agents, however.

"It's a fishy story these fellows tell," said the chief of them, "and I for one don't intend to be drawn into a trap. There may be no still and only a small company of boys in that cabin, but who knows how many stills there may be hidden around here, or how many moonshiners may be hiding about us, ready to massacre us?"

"All right," said the lieutenant, in some disgust at the revenue officer's timidity. "I'll settle all that. Stay here, men, and wait for orders."

With that he strode off alone to the cabin and entered it. He there explained the situation to the boys and said:

"I'm afraid I shall have to ask you fellows to go out there and stack your arms, considering yourselves under arrest till our timid friends of revenue officers can make a tour of inspection all about your camp under the armed escort of my men. They were so sure that they had surprised a still here that they can't get over the notion. So we must humor them."

The boys readily consented to the plan. They marched out to a point designated by the lieutenant and there stacked their arms, over which the lieutenant summoned two of his men to stand guard. Then he bade the revenue officers come on, and under escort of his file of soldiers they minutely scrutinized the entire camp. The felled trees not yet chopped into shape for sending down the mountain; the large quantity of ties and cordwood that were piled near the chute; the multitude of stumps from which timber had been recently cut; the great piles of brush left over from the chopping; and finally the chute itself, now nearly worn out with use – all these attested the character of the camp and indicated an industry on the part of its occupants, such as no company of moonshiners ever displayed.

At last the Lieutenant said to the chief revenue officer, with some show of impatience:

"Aren't you satisfied, yet? Why don't you look under these boys' finger nails? How do you know they haven't some stills secreted there?"

"Yes, I'm satisfied with all but one thing," answered the agent of the excise.

"What's that?" asked Jack. "Whatever it is, I'll try to satisfy you concerning it."

"Why, I don't understand, if you aren't engaged in any crooked business, what you built that fortification for. If you didn't feel the need of resisting the government agents, what need had you for a barrier like that to shoot behind?"

"We built that to protect ourselves against moonshiners," answered Jack.

"But why should moonshiners disturb you?" asked the still incredulous revenue agent.

"Because they believed when we first came up here that we were spies of the internal revenue and most of them still believe it. They began by ordering us to quit the mountains and when we wouldn't they sent men to shoot at us. One of our party is still suffering from a bullet wound received at their hands. When we found that we must defend ourselves we erected that barrier to help us. Now that you have come up here we'll need it you may be sure."

"Why?" asked the revenue officer.

"Because they'll never believe now that we didn't send for you and bring you here. They'll make ceaseless war on us now."

Meanwhile the Lieutenant was examining the fortification. Presently he turned to Jack and said:

"Will you allow me to suggest an improvement in your defensive work?"

"Certainly," answered Jack. "We shall be very glad."

"Well the top of your parapet is level. Whenever you shoot over it you must expose your head, neck and shoulders above it. Now if you raise it by ten or twelve inches and then cut embrasures or notches in the top of it to shoot through you can put up a fight with far less exposure of your persons."

The suggestion was so obviously a good one that Jack determined on the instant to adopt it.

"I'll do that, Lieutenant, as soon as you release us from arrest and let us have our guns again."

"Oh, I forgot that," answered the Lieutenant. "Here sentinel," to the man who had been posted outside, "tell Sergeant Malby to send those guns back to the house, and to withdraw you from duty here. Young men, you are released from arrest."

Then turning to the chief revenue officer, for whose timid lack of sagacity he had obviously the profoundest contempt, he asked:

"What's your program now?"

"Well I'm going to clear this whole mountain of stills."

"How long do you reckon it will take?" asked the Lieutenant.

"Well a week or two weeks perhaps."

"And what provisions have you made for your commissariat for such a length of time?"

"What do you mean?"

"Why, I have forty men here and I'm under your orders, to do whatever you say, but every one of my forty men has a mouth to feed, and under my orders I brought only three days' rations in the haversacks. If you intend to keep us up here for a week or two, ought you not to have made some provision for a food supply?"

"Why didn't you look after that?" asked the revenue officer.

"Because it was none of my business. I'm a soldier. I obey orders. My orders were to take three days' cooked rations and march my men up here to support the revenue officers in whatever they undertook."

"That's always the way," said the revenue man. "The troops always fail us at the critical moment. That's why our efforts to break up moonshining always come to nothing."

"Pardon me, sir," answered the officer rising in his wrath. "I'll trouble you to take that back. The troops under my command have not failed you and they will not. We have nothing to do with collecting the revenue. That's your business. Ours is merely to fight anybody that resists you. That duty we are ready to do just so long as you may desire. We'll force a way for you to any part of these mountains that you may desire to visit and we'll keep it up for a year if you wish. But in the meantime somebody must provide my men with food!"

"If that's the way you look at the matter," said the revenue officer, "we might as well go down the mountain at once."

"It isn't a question of how I look at the matter," answered the lieutenant, impatiently. "I tell you I'm ready and my men are ready for any service you may assign to us. But I tell you also that we must have something to eat, and it is your duty to arrange it."

"But how can I?"

"Would it be impertinent in me to suggest," asked the lieutenant, "that you ought to have thought of that before you began your raid? If you had said to the commandant that your expedition was likely to occupy a week or two he would have ordered the commissary to furnish me with two or three weeks' provisions and the quarter-master to supply enough stout pack mules to carry them. As it was, you represented this as a two days' trip and he ordered me to carry three days' rations in the haversacks."

"Well, we'd better retreat at once," answered the revenue officer.

"But why? It isn't even yet too late to repair your blunder. Why can't you send one of your men down the mountain at once to bring up a train of pack mules loaded with provisions? He can be back here in less than two days if he hurries."

"But I don't know – " began the man.

"I don't care what you know or don't know," answered the young West Pointer. "I simply tell you that as soon as my men run out of rations I'll march them down the hill again. It is my duty to see that they don't starve."

"But if I send a man down the mountain," answered the revenue agent, "some moonshiner might shoot him on the way."

"Very probably," answered the lieutenant. "That's a risk that men engaged in the revenue service are bound to take, I suppose. But if you request it, I will send a squad of four soldiers to guard your man on the way down and to protect the pack train on its way back."

Manifestly the revenue officer was anxious to "git down out'n the mountings," but he feared the report which in that case the angry and disgusted lieutenant would probably make, even more than he feared the moonshiners. Still he hesitated to detail one of his men to go down the mountain under escort of a corporal and three men.

This matter being still unsettled, the lieutenant said:

"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.