Camp Venture: A Story of the Virginia Mountains

"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."