Camp Venture: A Story of the Virginia Mountains

"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."