Camp Venture: A Story of the Virginia Mountains

"Well, all I'll stop to say, Little Tom," said the mountaineer, "is this: Ef you git out'n meal agin, you come to the same place I found you in. I'll keep a look out fer you there every day. An' ef they's war made on you it won't be long before I'm takin' a hand on your side with my rifle, an' it don't make no difference whatsomever who it is that's a fightin' of you."

CHAPTER XXV

A Difficulty

Little Tom was now in a quandary. He was on the bluff overlooking and south of the camp, but he did not know how to get into the camp. To walk in would be dangerous, of course. The sentinel might mistake him for an enemy and shoot at him. A high wind was blowing from the direction of Camp Venture, so that no call of Tom's could be heard there. It was a little after three o'clock in the morning, very dark, very cold, and Tom was very tired with his labor in bringing the meal down the mountain.

Finally an idea dawned in his mind.

"If I can't go to Camp Venture I can at any rate bring Camp Venture to me," he said to himself. With that he collected some of the dry broom straw that protruded above the snow and such sticks and other combustibles as he could find, and set to work to build a fire.

"When the sentinel sees a fire here," he said to himself, "he'll call the other boys, and they'll all get their guns and come out here to see what's the matter. I'll stand up in the full glare of the light and on the camp side of the fire, so that they can recognize me."

His plan worked to perfection. It was not five minutes after he got a good blaze going before the whole company surrounded him.

"What is it, Tom?" they cried. "Why did you build a fire here?"

"Wait!" said Tom. "There are two bags of corn meal down there just under the bluff. Some of you go and carry them to the house. I'm fearfully tired and cold."

The boys quickly saw how true this was, and they plied the poor, exhausted fellow with no more questions. He strode away to the hut, entered it, threw down his remaining partridges, set his gun in its customary place and stood for a few minutes with his back to the big fire, warming himself. Presently, when the boys all came in with the bags of meal, Jack, seeing the look of almost helpless exhaustion in Tom's face, himself removed the blanket from the boy's shoulders, untied it and spread it out upon the bunkful of broom straw, for by this time Ed had got all their bedding dry again.

Meantime the Doctor went to a kettle that sat near the fire, placed it upon some very hot coals, and a minute later dipped up a tin cup of its contents.

"Here, Tom, drink this," he said. "It'll do you good and give you strength."

It was a soup that Ed had made – or a broth rather – from the bones and scraps of their bear dinners, and to Tom's exhausted system it seemed wonderfully refreshing. Meantime Harry asked:

"Are your feet frozen, Tom?"

"No," answered the boy. "They are scarcely at all cold. You see, I've been using them too vigorously for that. But they are dreadfully sore and tired."

With that Harry filled their one foot tub with hot water and directing Tom to sit down Harry himself removed the boy's boots and socks, felt of his feet to make sure that they were not frosted, and placed them in the hot water. The Doctor applauded the performance and when it was over, and Tom's whole body was warm again, the boys rolled him up, not in his own blanket alone, but in all the other blankets there were in the camp and tumbled him into his bunk.

"There now!" said Jack, "sleep till you wake of your own accord. We'll all keep as still as mice."

"No, don't," said Tom. "I shall sleep better if you go on talking as usual. Then I'll know when I half wake that I'm here in camp and I'll go to sleep again easily." Then, after the boys thought him asleep Tom turned over and said, with much solicitude in his voice:

"Boys, I'm sorry I broke up your sleep so early this morning, but I couldn't very well help myself."

"Never you mind about that," said Jim Chenowith. "You're on duty now, – sleep duty, – and if you don't shut up and go to sleep I'll pour buckets of cold water over you. We're not suffering for sleep just because we were waked up an hour or so earlier than usual."

Tom was too tired to argue or to resist. He turned over on his side and a minute later he was asleep.

Meantime the boys busied themselves with breakfast. Ed was still the head cook, partly because he knew more about cooking than any body else did, and partly because the Doctor still refused to let him work with an axe. But all the boys helped him with this meal, as they always did when they were in the house at the time of the preparation of meals.

"How long will it be, Doctor, before Tom will wake up hungry?" asked Ed solicitously.

"Not more than two hours at farthest," answered the Doctor. "But why?"

"Well, I want to have something ready for him when he wakes – something hot and appetizing."

And Ed accomplished his purpose. He gave the other boys their breakfast of broiled bear's meat and ash cakes and then he set to work on Tom's breakfast. He dressed two of the quails and laid them aside. Then he mixed some of the meal and made pones of it, baking them in a skillet. When Tom began to stir restlessly Ed raked out a fine bed of clean coals and placed the two quails upon them to broil. They required very close and constant attention, of course, to prevent burning, and just as Ed was finally taking them off the fire Tom sat up in his bunk and asked:

"Hello, Ed! what's up? You've got something there that smells mighty good to a hungry fellow like me. What is it?"

"I'll answer your questions one at a time," answered Ed. "'What's up?' Why, you are, of course. 'What is it' – that I'm cooking? You just get out of bed and see."

Tom obeyed. Creeping stiffly out of bed he seized the foot tub that had stood there for two hours or more and felt of the water. It was by this time sharply cold. Tom stripped off his clothing, soused his head into the water and then taking a sponge, sluiced his whole body with the nearly freezing liquid. A rapid rub down followed, and Tom called out:

"Now, Ed, bring on your breakfast as soon as you can. I'm nearly starved."

With that he slipped again into his clothing and a minute later was devouring a quail and a big pone of very coarse corn bread which Ed had buttered with the scant remains of the ante-Christmas bacon drippings.

"Where are the other fellows?" asked Tom, as he ate.

"Out chopping," answered Ed.

"Did they have bacon dripping butter on their bread this morning?"

"Indeed they didn't. That was saved, by unanimous vote, for you. For but for you there wouldn't have been any bread in Camp Venture to butter with anything."

"Oh, well," said Tom, "but you see it isn't fair. You ought to have divided the bacon fat – "

"Now look here, Tom," Ed broke in, "if you'll find a single boy in this company who is growling about the breakfast he got this morning – the best part of it due to your exertions in getting us the meal, – I'll agree to eat that boy and all his complaints. I tell you this bacon fat was saved for you by special request of every fellow in the camp, and that's all there is about it. I foresaw that you'd want to divide it up, so I put it on your bread myself instead of leaving that for you to do. You see you can't help eating it now."

"Ed, you fellows are the very best and kindliest that ever were in this world," said Tom, with so much of emotion that he did not venture to say any more.

"But I say, Tom," said Ed, eager to turn the course of the talk, "where and how did you get this meal?"

"Oh, that's a long story," answered Tom, "and the other fellows will want to hear it, and really I can't tell it twice. Besides, now that I've had my breakfast I'm going out to do my share of the chopping. I'll tell you all about it while we sit around the fire to-night."

CHAPTER XXVI

The Doctor's Talk

Tom went at once to his chopping, for being, as the Doctor said, "a healthy young animal," his sleep, his bath and his breakfast had completely cured him of his exhaustion.

At noon the boys made a hasty dinner, as was their custom when chopping, for the days were still short and they liked to utilize as many of the daylight hours as they could.

They had contracted to deliver a specified number of ties by the first of April or sooner, and they had already completed that part of their task; but their contract permitted them to send down as many more ties, doubling the number if they could; while, as for cordwood and bridge timbers, there was no limit set upon their deliveries. They were anxious to cut all they could and thus to make their winter's work as profitable as possible, and so they were not disposed to waste any part of a day so fine as this one was.

While they were chopping in the afternoon, just as a big tree on which the Doctor was at work began swaying to its fall, a large raccoon which had been hiding in the hollow of one of its upper limbs leaped to the ground. The Doctor, who had become almost as "quick on trigger" as Tom himself, seized a shotgun and fired. The animal fell instantly, riddled with turkey shot, and a minute later the Doctor held it up by the tail, saying:

"Here's a supper for us, boys! It'll be a change from bear beef, any how, and you are to have the skin, Tom."

The boys shouted for joy, for they were growing exceedingly weary of bear meat by this time, and there are few things more appetizing than a fat raccoon. So the Doctor carried his game to the house, where Ed proceeded at once to dress it for supper.

It was not until after supper that Tom related the story of his mountain adventure, and as he was an expert mimic, he succeeded in so presenting the mountaineer's part in the conversation as to cause a deal of laughter, in which Tom himself joined heartily, although his own memory of his difficult journey was anything but ludicrous.