Camp Venture: A Story of the Virginia Mountains

"Oh, yes, I understand all that now. I was only tellin' you how as I didn't know fust off."

"Well, now that we're 'talking fair and square,' as you say, I want to say that I think you ought to go to state prison for a long term for shooting Ed, and I intended at first to send you there. Perhaps I may do so yet. But now, if Ed will forgive you for shooting him – I'll ask him presently – I'm going to put you on parole, just because of your sick wife and your little girl. You have been in our camp for several weeks now. You know what we are here for. You know that we are not here to bother your friends or to interfere with them in any way."

"Oh, any fool could see that!" exclaimed the man.

"Very well, then. I am going to make you sign a parole and then send you home, but mind, if you violate your parole I'll go down the mountain and bring enough soldiers up here to capture the last one of your gang and send all of you to prison. I know where some of your stills are, and I can find all the others. So you had better keep your parole, and your friends had better let us alone. Are you ready to sign the parole?"

The man rose from the chair on which he was sitting and threw his arms about Tom.

His expressions of gratitude were rude in the extreme, but at least they were genuine, and he finished in tears as he exclaimed:

"Oh, thank goodness I can go back now an' look after the wife an' little one, an' you kin bet your bottom dollar ef the other fellers makes any trouble fer you fellers, Bill Jones'll be here to help you agin 'em. I'm a goin' to explain things to 'em. I'm agoin' to give it to 'em straight, an' then ef they make trouble fer you, I'll be with you."

Tom drew up the parole and Jones signed it with extraordinary pride in his ability to write his own name in clumsy printing letters, with the "J" turned backwards. But strong man as he was, the tears kept coming into his eyes as he said over and over again:

"You're mighty good to me, Tom! All you fellers is mighty good to me. An' I'm agoin' to teach that little gal o' mine when she says her 'now I lay me' to wind it up with 'God bless Tom an' the other fellers.'"

With that he wiped away his tears with the back of his hand for lack of a handkerchief.

The next morning the mountaineer insisted upon departing in spite of the Doctor's assurance that he was not yet well enough to make the journey.

"I must, Doctor," he said. "You see, I don't know what's happened to my wife an' my little gal while I've been gone."

"Very well," answered the Doctor, "only I want to add a promise to your parole. I want you to promise me that if your wounds give you trouble you'll either come here yourself, or if you can't do that, you'll send for me to go to you and dress them." Then seeing that the man was about saying something emotional the Doctor quickly added:

"You see, I'm a Doctor, and it hurts my pride to have a case that I attend go bad. So if you have any trouble with your hurts you are to come to me or send for me at once."

Then after such rude adieus as the mountaineer could make, he started off up the mountain, the Doctor accompanying him a part of the way, upon pretense of wanting to see whether or not he was really fit to walk and carry his gun, which had of course been restored to him. But the Doctor had another purpose in view. Just before parting with the mountaineer he took a twenty dollar bill from his pocket and pressed it into the man's hand.

"There!" he said. "Perhaps that will keep meat and bread in your cabin till the blackberries get ripe," and with that he suddenly turned on his heel and rapidly strode back toward the camp, giving the man no chance to refuse the gift or to thank him for it.

But while the Doctor had taken every possible precaution to prevent any of his comrades from seeing what he did, the sentry on the platform saw and reported the facts. So when the Doctor returned to camp and set to work with his axe, the boys were quietly discussing a little plan of their own, talking in low tones, as they worked.

That night at supper Jack opened the subject, saying:

"Doctor, we shall be very sorry to part with you, but you have forfeited your right to remain in our camp. You have violated your parole."

"Why, how? What can you mean?" asked the Doctor in bewilderment.

"Why, you agreed to be one of us boys, and to 'share and share alike' with us in work and in everything else. Now, this morning you gave that mountaineer some money out of your own pocket, basely trying to conceal the fact from us. Even yet we don't know the amount of your gift. Now, we have unanimously decided not to submit to any such proceeding."

"But my dear Jack," interrupted the Doctor —

"But my dear Doctor," broke in Jack, "hear me out. What we have decided is to require you to tell us the amount of your benefaction to that man, so that we may owe you our share of it until we go down the mountain in the spring and collect our money. We are sharing and sharing alike in every thing or nothing, so out with it! How much money did you give the man?"

"But Jack, permit me to explain," said the Doctor. "You see, if I gave that fellow any money, it was of my own impulse and without any consultation with you. It was a bit of personal almsgiving in which I have no right to let you share. I did it solely to relieve my own mind, not yours. It wasn't a company transaction at all, and besides I could well afford it inasmuch as by coming up here with you boys and sharing your camp life this winter I have cut off nearly the whole of my personal expenses and am actually saving money."

"Now listen!" said Jack. "We all wanted to give that poor fellow some money with which to feed his wife and little girl 'till blackberries get ripe' next summer, and we should have done so if any of us had had any money. So in relieving your own mind you have relieved ours just as much. We all shared alike in the cost of fitting out this expedition. We have all shared alike in the building of our house and in all the other camp work. We have all shared alike in guard duty, in danger and in everything else, and we're going to do so to the end of the chapter. So we're going to share alike in this gratuity of yours, our shares to be paid to you as soon as we collect our money down below. So you must tell us how much you gave the man, or else our whole partnership and comradeship will be at an end. Come, Doctor, tell us all about it!"

"Well," said the Doctor, "I don't think it fair to let you boys share in what was a purely personal bit of almsgiving, done without any sort of consultation with any of you, but as you insist I will say that I gave the man a twenty dollar bill."

"All right," said Tom. "That gives us a chance to impose upon you. It is three dollars and thirty-three and a third cents apiece for us. We'll never pay that third of a cent, doctor, and so you'll be out a cent and two-thirds besides your own share in the gift. That will help to buy another doll for 'the little gal,' and I suppose you won't mind the expense."

"No," said the Doctor, "but what can be done to relieve these people's wretchedness and lift them up?"

Not one of the boys could answer the question. Perhaps there was no answer. There often is none to questions of that kind.

CHAPTER XIX

A Stress of Circumstances

The next few weeks brought nothing of adventure to the boys. Their work went on wonderfully well. They sent down the mountain innumerable ties and all the cordwood that the trees yielded after the ties were cut. They sent down also a large number of great timbers for use in bridge building and the like, but nothing occurred to justify the name of their camp – Camp Venture.

Their firelight conversations were briefer and less spirited than before, because they were working so strenuously now that they were over-weary when supper was done, and they went to bed at least an hour earlier than they had done before. The earlier novelty of camping had at last worn out and with it the excitement that tends to keep people awake.

Nevertheless they constituted a happy company, all the more so because their work was producing larger results even than they had anticipated. They were sending down the mountain more ties, more cordwood and many more of the high-priced bridge timbers than they had expected to send.

Looking over the accounts one evening in February, when the snow was beginning to melt, Jack said:

"Boys, we've already accomplished more than we expected to do during the whole winter and spring. If we keep it up at the same rate we shall earn quite twice the money we expected to make. So Camp Venture is clearly a success. It is getting so well along in the year now that we need not fear deep snows or avalanches, or anything of that sort to bother us or interfere with our work."

"Nevertheless," said the Doctor, returning from an examination of his scientific instruments, "we're in for a snow storm to-night. It is already beginning and so far as my instruments are to be trusted, it is likely to be very heavy, with high winds."

The boys all went out and took a look at the sky. There was as yet no wind of any consequence, but the snow, in fine, dry, meal-like flakes, was coming down in a way that promised a heavy fall.

About nine o'clock the boys went to bed – all but Harry Ridsdale, who stayed outside as the sentry. About ten o'clock the wind rose to a gale and the roaring of it awakened the Doctor, who instantly arose and with a brand from the fireplace to serve as a torch, went out to consult his instruments. When he returned his stamping and brushing off of snow aroused the others, and the howling of the tempest brought them all into a very wide-awake condition.

"I say, boys," said the Doctor, throwing the brand he had carried into the fire again, "this is an awful night. The snow is coming down in blankets, the wind is blowing at a rate which is between a whole gale and a hurricane, and of course the snow is drifting terribly."

"All right," said Jack. Then he went to the door and called, – "Come in here, Harry! We shall have no use for pickets to-night."

In answer to some questions he said:

"No mountaineer is going to prowl about the hills in such a storm as this. If he did he would be smothered in a snowdrift before he got a hundred yards from his cabin door. We're perfectly safe for this night without a sentry, so we'll all crawl into our bunks and go to sleep."

The soundness of Jack's opinion was obvious enough, and so no more sentries were posted that night. The fire was reinforced with some big logs and all Camp Venture ventured for once to go to sleep.

The hours passed on. The wind howled more and more fiercely, and but for the solidity of its thick log walls the house would have shaken in a way to wake the heaviest sleeper. As it was the boys slept on undisturbed. Finally the fire burned low, so that it gave very little light in the cabin. Little Tom waked and feeling no need for further sleep he got up and piled on some additional logs. Then he went back to bed, but somehow his eyes would not close again. The other boys also waked up, and, turn over as they might, could not go to sleep again. Finally Harry, seeing that all were awake, called out:

"I say, fellows, let's get up and have some breakfast. I for one am hungry."

"So am I," answered Jack, springing out of bed.

"So say we all of us," responded Tom. "By the way, what time is it?"

Harry fumbled among the Doctor's belongings and looked at that gentleman's watch.

"Doctor, you forgot to wind your watch last night. It has run down at a quarter past nine."