Camp Venture: A Story of the Virginia Mountains

It was true enough. As the boys shook off the cobwebs of their dreams, they discovered what it was that had been overheating them in their sleep. The whole bank under which they had built their fire was ablaze and throwing out an intense heat.

The Doctor was the first to grasp the situation.

"Drag the fire away from the bank as quickly as you can, boys!" he cried. "Fortunately the wood is nearly burned out."

That done, the cliff continued to blaze and sputter and the Doctor, who had seized authority and taken control of affairs, called for water.

"Bring it in your hats, boys, or anything else that will hold water, but bring it quick!"

The boys obeyed with alacrity, and when the water came, the Doctor made them cast it only upon the lower parts of the burning cliff.

"We get a double advantage that way," he explained. "We put out the source of the fire, which originates at the bottom, and the steam that rises from water thrown there helps to dampen the fire above."

But the burning had made such progress that it required quite two hours to put it out. When that was done, daylight having completely come, the boys addressed themselves to the work of getting breakfast, by a new fire kindled at some distance from the lately burning bank. The Doctor, meanwhile, was pottering around the bank, breaking off bits of the formation with his little geological hammer, and seriously burning his fingers in efforts to examine them critically.

Finally he seized his axe and with an entirely reckless disregard of its edge, he began chopping into the bank. Even when breakfast was announced, he would not quit his exploration for a time.

"The Doctor seems interested in that cliff," said one of the boys.

"Yes, and he's ruining the edge of his axe upon it," said another. "I suppose he has found something of geologic interest there."

Just then the Doctor quitted his work on the bank, removed his hunting shirt, tied it up by the neck and filled it full of the blocks he had chopped out of the bank. It held about half a bushel. Going to the fire, he emptied the mass upon it, and watched for results with eagerness. The slate rock, as the boys had called it, – burned slowly and gave out a good deal of heat.

Then the Doctor addressed himself to his breakfast, but he ate in silence. After he had done, he said to Tom – for he and Tom had become special cronies – "Tom, I wish you would take two of the boys with you this morning, go down to the railroad camps and buy four or five picks and four or five shovels."

"Certainly, Doctor," answered Tom. "But what is it you want with the picks and shovels?"

"I want to dig into that bank. I want to find out whether what I suspect is true or not."

"What is it you suspect, Doctor?" asked Jack eagerly.

"I suspect that that slate rock bank is the outcrop of one of the very richest coal mines in America. I may be wrong, but if you'll go down and get the picks and shovels, we'll soon find out."

"But why not all go down and bring back some miners with us?"

"Because we don't want any miners and especially we don't want anybody to 'jump our claim' – that is to say, to come here and claim a royalty on the plea that he first discovered the mine. Boys, I don't think we'll any of us get home as soon as we expected. This is something worth staying for, and fortunately we are now within easy reach of supplies."

"But we haven't any money with which to pay for them," said Harry.

"I'll take care of that," said the Doctor. "Do you happen to remember that the contractor who is to pay you boys for your ties and cordwood and bridge timbers, is named Latrobe?"

"Why, yes, certainly," said Tom. "But I never thought of that. Is he a relative of yours?"

"Only my father," answered the Doctor. "I don't think we shall have any difficulty in purchasing any supplies we need while guarding this 'slate rock' mine."

After further conversation it was arranged that the Doctor should send a note by Tom to the elder Latrobe, asking him to send up tools and food supplies. He wrote the letter on a leaf or two torn from his note book and delivered it into Tom's hands.

"Now, Tom," he said, "as you go down, suppose you study the ground carefully and see if you can't pick out a route by which you can bring a wagon up. If so, my father will load it with provisions and it will carry much more than many pack mules could. On the whole, I think you'd better go alone. I suggested taking two others with you, to help carry the tools, but you'll bring them in a wagon, or if you can't find a wagon path, you'll bring them on pack mules. But find a wagon track if you can. Take your time going down. You can't get back much before to-morrow night, anyhow, and it is important to secure a wagon way if possible."

"All right," said Tom. "But, Doctor, why do you think this is good coal? It looks to me like very poor stuff, and certainly it doesn't burn like good coal."

"O, that's because it is outcrop, and outcrop coal is always poor stuff. It has been so long exposed to the weather that it has lost most of its combustible constituents. Sometimes it will not burn at all. But I think this the outcrop of a very fine vein of coal, because from its location and from what I can discover of its formation by examining pieces of it, I think I know the 'measure,' as they call it, to which it belongs. If I am right in this, we have here a vein of the very best and purest coal in the world for making steam, for direct furnace uses and for making coke. But come, we have no leisure now for talking about coal or anything else. We want picks and provisions the first thing. So pack your haversack, Tom, and hie you away."

"I will on one condition," said Tom.

"What is that?" asked the Doctor.

"That you won't talk about Old King Coal to the other fellows till I get back," answered Tom. "I have at least ten thousand questions to ask, and I simply won't go for provisions if you're going to answer any of them while I am gone."

"I promise, Tom," answered the Doctor, laughing. "I won't even mention His Majesty King Coal, till you return and I'll scalp any boy in the party who asks me a question on that subject while you are away. Now, be off. Take plenty of time. We'll kill a little game now and then, and we have enough flour to last us till you get back. The important thing is for you to get a wagon load of supplies up here, and you must do it if it takes a week."

"I'll do it," answered Tom. "Good by, fellows!" and the boy started off down the hill.

CHAPTER XXXIX

The Doctor Sings

AS soon as Tom was gone, the Doctor turned to the others and said:

"Come, boys, we must get to work."

"What have we got to do?" asked Jack.

"Why build the new Camp Venture, to be sure. Don't you understand that we're to stay here perhaps for a month, and must protect ourselves against the spring rains? We must build a shelter before Tom gets back."

"But, Doctor," interrupted Harry, "why should we stay here for a month?"

"Why, don't you understand," said the Doctor, "that we have discovered, right here on your mother's land, a coal mine that will certainly make her comfortable all her life and probably make you boys rich. We've got to find out enough about it to enable us to exploit it, and that will take a month at least."

"But tell us about the coal," said Jack.

The Doctor replied by singing:

"Old King Coal
Was a jolly old soul,
And a jolly old soul was he;
He called for his pipe and he called for his bowl,
And he called for his fiddlers three.
Every fiddler had a fine fiddle
And a very fine fiddle had he,

but," continued the Doctor, "not a man jack of them would tune up for Old King Coal till little Tom got back, because they had promised Tom not to set the fiddles going in his absence. That's a parable. It gives you fair warning that I'm going to keep my promise to our dearest comrade, Little Tom, and tell you nothing about this or any other coal till he comes back. But I tell you we shall have to stay here for a month at least, and that we need some sort of shelter against the heavy spring rains. So come, Jack, you are our architect. Tell us what sort of house to build."

Jack thought a few minutes, after which he said:

"We shan't need a house; at this time of year all we need is a shelter, closed in on three sides and open to the fire in front. We can build it of poles and cover it with a thatch of pine branches and other brush thick enough to shed the rain."

"But if we have only three sides to our house," said Jim, "how are we to keep the ends of the poles in place?"