Camp Venture: A Story of the Virginia Mountains

"Not the least bit," answered Tom. "But I've entered into an honorable agreement with the moonshiners and I mean to keep it. I've assured them that we boys were not here to spy them out and betray them, and I've pledged them my honor that if they let us alone we would let them alone. You see this illicit distilling is none of my business, or yours either, Lieutenant. It's the business of the revenue officers. Now under our honorable agreement these people, who began by ordering us off the mountain and followed that up by shooting at us for not going, have let us alone for many weeks past, and I am going to keep my promise to let them alone in return."

"But they haven't let you alone," answered the lieutenant. "Their assault upon the camp – "

"Pardon me," answered Tom. "That was not an assault upon us, but upon the revenue officers and their military support. I do not think it absolves me from my promise. Besides that, I doubt if you have any right to raid stills except under orders of the revenue officers, and they are too badly frightened to undertake anything of the kind. You have no warrants. Your sole duty and right and privilege is to go with these revenue officers and protect them in the execution of their duty."

"That is certainly true," answered the lieutenant after a moment's pause for consideration. "I hadn't thought of it in that way."

"And still further," said Tom, "it is very certain that there isn't an illicit still now running on this mountain. The moment you fellows appeared every still was ripped off its furnace and buried somewhere, every mash tub was emptied and sent bowling down the mountain, and every scrap of evidence that there had ever been an illicit still there was completely destroyed. So, even if you find the buildings in which the business was formerly carried on, what right will you have to seize upon the meal or anything else you may find there? You might as well raid a mill and seize all that you find in it."

"But you know, Tom, and I know, that these people are lawlessly engaged in defrauding the revenue."

"Of course," said Tom. "But that doesn't justify you in violating the law and robbing them of their meal. If you could catch them in defrauding the revenue you might perhaps have a right to confiscate their materials, as the law prescribes, though as you're not a revenue officer I doubt that. Just now you can't possibly catch them doing anything of the kind. Understand me, Lieutenant, I am as much devoted as you are to law and order. I know these men to be thieves and upon occasion murderers. But neither of us has a right to convict them without proof of their guilt."

Tom had never made so long a speech in all his life or one inspired by so much of earnestness.

The lieutenant sat silent for a while, thinking the matter over. Presently he arose, took Tom's hand and said:

"I believe you are right, Tom. At any rate you are right on the point of honor that controls your own course in this matter. We are taught at West Point that whenever there is the least or the greatest doubt as to a point of honor, it is an honorable man's duty to give honor the benefit of the doubt. We'll make no raids except under the warrants of the revenue officers. We'll live on meat till the caravan comes up the mountain."

CHAPTER XXXI

Corporal Jenkins's March

But the caravan did not come. A thaw had set in, reinforced by a rain, and all the mountain streams were torrents again – utterly impassable.

When Tom explained the case the lieutenant said:

"Nevertheless Corporal Jenkins will get here with the supplies. He may be much longer in coming than we hoped for, but he will come. He is a man of resource and he never gives up."

In the meantime Corporal Jenkins was in a very bad way half way up the mountain side. He had passed one torrent while yet it was only half full, and now it was so full that he could not even retreat with his mule caravan. In front was another torrent that it would have been sheer insanity to attempt to cross – a stream fifty feet wide, rushing down through a gorge with a violence that carried great stones with it, some of them weighing many tons, while the water was almost completely filled with a tangled mass of whirling trees that had been torn up by the roots by the on rush of the waters.

"We'll have to go back, Corporal," suggested one of the men.

"We can't go back," he replied. "That last stream we crossed is as full as this one now. Besides we must get these supplies to camp."

"But how?"

"I don't know how! Shut up and let me think the thing out."

After his thinking the corporal ordered the caravan to leave the trail and work its way up the mountain in the space between the two streams. It was a difficult and sometimes a perilous ascent. There were cliffs in the way around and over which a passage was partly found and partly forced by great labor. At some places the pathway was so steep that no mule could carry his load up it. Here the corporal divided the loads and led the mules up with only one-fourth or one-fifth of the burden upon each. Then unloading that he took the animals back again and placed another portion of their load upon their backs, repeating the journey as often as might be necessary. As he had twenty mules in his pack train it sometimes took half a day to get over thirty or forty yards of distance in this tedious and toilsome fashion. But at any rate there was progress made.

Often, too, there were great detours to be made in order to get around obstacles that could not be overcome. Thus day after day was consumed in the tedious climb up the mountain. The corporal knew how anxiously his commanding officer was awaiting his coming, but he could not hurry it more than he was already doing.

"What's your plan, Corporal?" asked one of the men when a bivouac was made one evening.

"Simple enough," answered the corporal. "When you've served in the mountains as long as I have, you'll know that every mountain torrent has a beginning somewhere up towards the top of the mountain. I'm simply following this one up to find its head waters and go around them."

The raging stream had grown much smaller now, as the caravan neared its place of beginning, and the next morning the corporal found a place at which he thought it safe to attempt a crossing. It was perilous work, but after an hour or two of struggle all the mules and all the men were got safely to the farther side.

The corporal knew that he was much higher up the mountain than the site of Camp Venture. But it was no part of his plan to descend until he had passed the head waters of all other streams and reached a point directly south of the camp and above it. So he proceeded westward around the mountain.

Without knowing what the trusty corporal's plans or proceedings would be, the lieutenant felt that he was likely to have difficulty in locating the camp. So he ordered a brush fire kept burning night and day, so that the smoke of it by day and the light of it by night might be seen from a great distance.

Finally, exactly ten days from the time of the corporal's departure, his caravan was seen slowly and toilsomely descending the mountain toward the camp.

A great shout of gladness went up from all the men, who had tasted nothing but meat for a week past, and Tom, seizing his rifle started up the hill at a rapid pace to show the corporal the easiest way down the steep mountain side.

When the corporal reached camp the lieutenant complimented him highly upon his skill and success in overcoming difficulties, and declared his purpose to make a commendatory report of his conduct of the expedition.

"But how did you happen to come to us from up the mountain instead of from down the mountain?" asked the lieutenant, while eagerly devouring an ash cake.

"Why," said the corporal, "when I found my road up the mountain blocked by an impassable torrent, I remembered some of my old soldier experiences and I turned them around. I remembered that when we camp on hills and set out in search of water the rule is to keep always going down hill, because that's the way water runs. If you keep on doing that you'll come to water after awhile. So, turning that around, I said to myself, 'all this water comes from up the mountain. The only way to get past it is to go clear up to where it comes from.' That's what I did, and then I marched straight around the high mountain till I saw your brush fire last night about midnight. I wanted to come right on, but both the men and the mules were exhausted by a terrific day's work and besides it was too dark to see the difficult way; so I bivouacked for the night and started down the hill between daylight and sunrise. There, Lieutenant, that's the whole story, and it isn't much of a story, at that."

"Well, I don't know," said the lieutenant, meditatively. "It's enough of a story at any rate to make a sergeant out of Corporal Jenkins, if my recommendations carry any weight at headquarters. Corporal, you have conducted this affair in a masterly manner, with zeal, skill and discretion. My report will mention these facts."

"Thank you, Lieutenant," was all that the soldier could say. But it was quite enough.

CHAPTER XXXII

The Lieutenant's Wrath

The lieutenant's faith in Tom's sportsmanship was so great that in making his requisition for thirty days' rations for his men and his prisoners he had asked to have all the meat rations, except a dozen sides of bacon, commuted into rations of flour, meal, maccaroni, rice, potatoes and other starchy foods. His first care, after the mules were unloaded, was to replenish the leader of Camp Venture with such provisions as these in return for the drafts he had been compelled to make upon their supplies. "And besides," he said, "Camp Venture is just now my hospital, with five wounded men in it, to every one of whom ten days' rations are overdue."

Thus at last the boys were abundantly supplied with starchy food and for the rest Tom's gun never failed to provide a sufficient supply of meat.

Now that five of the six bunks in Camp Venture were occupied by wounded men, the boys made for themselves the best beds they could, on the earthen floor. At first it was proposed that the Doctor should occupy the one bunk not devoted to the use of a wounded man, but the Doctor dismissed the suggestion with scorn. Next it was suggested that Ed should still consider himself an invalid and accept the hospitality of the bunk.

"But I'm no longer an invalid," answered Ed, almost angrily. "I'm well enough now to chop down trees, and take cold baths. A pretty sort of sick fellow I am!"

Finally it was agreed that the several boys should occupy the bunk in succession, one each night, and lots were drawn for the order in which they should occupy it. As the soldiers now kept guard it was no longer necessary for the boys to keep a sentinel awake.

The lieutenant's second care after provisioning the boys, was to make another appeal to the revenue officer, or rather to place that person again in his rightful position of responsibility.

"I have provisioned my force," he said. "Are you contemplating any further operations in the mountains? If so I shall be glad to place myself and my men at your disposal. We can march at a moment's notice."

"I don't know," said the officer, "whether further operations just now would yield results commensurate with the risk. What do you think, Lieutenant?"

"Oh, it is not my business to think," answered the military man, "at least not on questions of that kind. I have been ordered up here to give military support to any operations that you may undertake against the illicit distillers. Beyond giving such military support I have no functions whatever."

"But what do you think, Lieutenant?"

"I tell you I am not thinking. I am simply waiting for orders."

"But surely you have some opinion. Won't you give me the benefit of it?"

"Yes," answered the lieutenant. "I have an opinion – several of them, in fact – and as you insist, I will give you the benefit of them. It is my opinion that you have conducted your affairs like an imbecile. You were sent up here to break up the illicit stills and you haven't found one of them yet and never will. You found this camp of wood chopping boys and made me capture it for you. Then the moonshiners took the offensive, while you were pottering around here trying to find a still where a mere glance would have convinced an intelligent man that there was none. Very well, I captured the moonshiners while you were hiding behind the Camp Venture barricade. They are our prisoners, no thanks to you. I think now, as I told you at the time, that then, if ever, was your time to search out the stills and capture them. You would not do it, and it is my conviction that by this time every still in the mountain is so securely hidden that a fine tooth comb couldn't find one of them or any tangible evidence that one of them was ever in existence. You've got the materials for a report, of course, – a report showing so many prisoners captured – but I fancy you'll find it difficult to show either that you captured them or that you had any authority to capture them. I captured them and I had a right to do so, because they attacked a body of regular troops engaged in doing their duty. In other words, they levied war upon the United States and were caught in the act. The charge of treason cannot be sustained against them, probably; if not they are guilty of rioting, assault and battery and all that sort of thing. But what charge can you bring against them? You may say that they are moonshiners, but you can't offer a particle of proof of that, simply because you would not follow up this affair by hunting out the stills. There, you have a few of my leading 'opinions,' and as you don't seem to relish them, perhaps I needn't give you any more."

The revenue agent was dejected beyond measure. For a time he sat still with a flushed and angry face. Then, as he realized the situation in which he had placed himself by his foolishness and indecision, he turned pale. Finally he appealed again to the lieutenant: