Camp Venture: A Story of the Virginia Mountains

Several of the boys wanted to go with Tom, and the lieutenant, who had dined with them that evening, wanted to send two soldiers as his assistants.

"No," said Tom, "I don't want anybody with me. We'd inevitably talk, and then we'd never see a bear. I'll go alone."

With that he took his rifle and went out into the darkness, while the rest of the boys went to bed and to sleep.

As he neared the bear den which he had discovered during the day and identified by tracks, Tom moved very cautiously, making no noise, and, secreting himself between two rock masses, lay down to await developments.

Hour after hour passed, and there were none. Still Tom maintained an attitude of alert attention.

Presently a great light appeared over a spur of the mountain, in the direction of Camp Venture.

"There's something the matter over there," said Tom to himself, "but with all those soldiers there they don't need me half as much as they need a bear."

Just at that moment – it was about three o'clock in the morning – Tom heard a crackling of sticks near at hand, and a moment later a great black bear came waddling and lumbering along on his way to the den.

With that instinct of humorous perception which was strong in Tom, he could not help likening the belated beast to a convivial gentleman returning from his club in the small hours.

Then it occurred to him that convivial gentlemen under such circumstances are sometimes "held up" at their own door ways, a fact which still further heightened the resemblance between the two cases. It next occurred to Tom that should his shot prove ineffective or imperfectly effective, the bear might get the better of him, as convivial gentlemen sometimes do with footpads. For, from the point at which Tom was lying, there was no avenue of escape except directly in the path of the bear, and a wounded bear is about as ugly an enemy to encounter as it is possible to find anywhere.

"Moral: " said Tom to himself, "Don't shoot till you've got a bead on a vital point. Fortunately this rifle has an 'initial velocity' as they call it, which will send a bullet through the thickest skull that any animal in the world wears as a breastwork to his brains."

Of course Tom would have preferred to shoot at the animal's heart, but there was no chance to do that, for at that moment the great beast discovered his huntsman and presented his full front to him at a distance of less than ten feet. Another second and the bear would make mince meat of the boy. So Tom taking a hasty aim fired at the animal's forehead, and the bullet did its work so well that the beast fell instantly dead.

After waiting for a minute or so to see if any scratching capacity remained in his game, Tom went to the bear and after inspecting it muttered: "I've shot Ursa Major himself," for the bear was of unusual bulk, greatly the largest Tom had ever seen. "I wonder what the stars will look like now that the constellation of the Great Bear is done for."

The beast was much too heavy for Tom to carry or even drag to the camp. So he instantly set out in search of assistance. His plan was to go to the camp and secure three or four soldiers to assist him in transporting his game. But he had not gone far on his campward journey before he was "held up" by three mountaineers. Fortunately one of the party – apparently its leader – was his own particular mountaineer, the one whom he had set free and who had so generously repaid his favor with gifts of corn and rye meal.

"Now set down, little Tom," said the man; "we wants a little talk with you."

"All right," said Tom, "I'm ready."

"Well you see, you done tole me an' I done tole the other folks as how you boys had nothin' whatsomever to do with the revenue officers or the soldiers."

"That's all right," said Tom. "We haven't had anything to do with them, we haven't spied upon you fellows or molested you in any way."

"But there's a big gang o' soldiers an' revenue officers in your camp."

"Yes, I know that," said Tom. "But are we talking fair and square as we did before?"

"Yes, fa'r an' squar'," answered the man.

"Very well then, I'll tell you about this matter. We boys don't like your illegal occupation up here in the mountains, but it is none of our business. We have never spied out your stills and certainly we have given no information to the revenue officers."

"What did they come up here for then?" asked one of the mountaineer's companions.

"They came up to capture us. They had seen the lights of Camp Venture and had located us. So they thought they had a still sure, and they came up here to capture it. The first thing they did was to surround us and fire at us in the dark. I explained matters to them and they searched our camp all over. Then they decided to camp there till they could get some provisions from down below, and while they were waiting, they asked me to tell them where the stills were so that they might raid them for meal. I knew where some stills were of course, for I've seen a lot since I came up here, but I refused to tell them."

"Is that honest Injun, Tom?"

"Yes," answered the boy. "I never tell lies. But you must understand me clearly. I haven't the smallest respect for you moonshiners or for your business. Under ordinary circumstances I should not hesitate to tell the revenue officers where a still was if I happened to know. But I made a bargain with you, Bill Jones. I told you truly that we had come up here to cut railroad ties and not to interfere with you or your criminal business. I told you that if you'd let us alone we'd let you alone. We could have sent a message down the mountain by our chute any day which would have brought the soldiers and the revenue people up at once but we didn't. I had promised you and I have kept my promise."

"Yes," answered Bill Jones, "an' you let me off in a state prison case, jest in time to save my little gal from starvin' to death! I'll never forgit it, an' I tell you fellers you mustn't hurt little Tom. Ef you do, I'll stand on his side an' they'll be some ugly work done before you're through with it."

"Well," said one of the men, "he tells a mighty nice, slick story like, an' maybe it's true. But they's jest one question I'd like to ask him afore we close the conversation like."

"Ask me any question you please," said Tom, "and I'll answer it truly. I have nothing to conceal, and I never tell lies."

"Well," said the man after discharging a quid of tobacco from further service and biting off a new one to take its place, "what I want to know is what you'se been doin', out here in the mounting all night like."

"That's easy," said Tom. "I've been killing a bear."

"Where?" asked the man.

"About a quarter of a mile back. You see we're getting short of meat down there in camp, with all these soldiers quartered upon us."

"Then ef you done got a bear whar is it?" asked the man.

"It is back there, as I tell you, about a quarter of a mile."

"Why didn't you bring it with you?" asked the man.

"Simply because it is too heavy. It is the biggest bear I ever saw. I was on my way to camp, when you stopped me, to get some fellows to come out here and help me drag it."

"Will you show it to us?" asked the man, still incredulously. "Seein's believin' you know."

"Certainly," said Tom. "The little old moon is rising now, and you can get a good look at the bear that I've sat up all night to kill."

He led the way back and at sight of the bear even the incredulous one of the party was satisfied.

"Now," spoke up Bill Jones, "we've got jest one thing to do. Ef this bar is left here it'll be half et up by varmints afore men can be brought from the camp to carry it in. Fellers we've got to carry it in fer Little Tom – him what let me go jist in time to save my little gal from starvin' when her mother was lyin dead in the cabin an' fer two days the little gal hadn't so much as a bite to eat. We'll drag the bar to the camp fer Little Tom!"

One of the men offered an objection: "We'll git arrested ef we do," he said.

"For what?" asked Tom.

"Why fer moonshining of course."

"But you haven't been caught moonshining. Nobody in camp can accuse you of that or any other crime. Anyhow if you fellows will help me to camp with this bear I pledge you my honor that I'll stand by you and see to it that you're not arrested."

"That's 'nuff sed," said Bill Jones. "Little Tom never goes back on his word, an' he knows how to manage things. We'll take the bar to camp."

The men assented but with hesitation and obvious reluctance. Seeing their hesitation Bill Jones spoke again:

"Now I tell you, you needn't worry the least little bit. I know whereof I speak, as the Bible says, when I tell you that you kin bet all you've got on Little Tom Ridsdale. When he says a thing he means it an' when he means it he'll do it ef all the eggs in the basket gits broke."

"Thank you Bill," said Tom. "Anyhow I'll see that you fellows get safely out of our camp or else I'll go with you with my rifle in my hand."

The men seemed satisfied. Seizing the bear they dragged it campwards as the daylight began to grow strong. Before Camp Venture was reached the sun was well above the horizon, and as they approached Tom gained some notion of what had happened there and of what the blaze of the night before had signified. But well outside the camp his mountaineers dropped the bear and bade Tom good bye.

Not a vestige of the house in which the boys had lived all winter remained. Only the smoke of a still smoldering fire marked the place where it had been.

CHAPTER XXXV

The End of Camp Venture

During the night of Tom's bear hunt, the boys slept soundly, wearied as they were by an especially hard day's work. About three o'clock a soldier from out under the bluff rushed in crying:

"Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! Your chimney's on fire!"

Then came the Lieutenant with a squad of soldiers to remove the wounded men from the hut. This was a work of some difficulty although all the men were now "making satisfactory recovery" as the Doctor phrased it. The Doctor took charge at this point because he knew as no one else did the exact nature and condition of each man's wound, and it was his care to see that none should be improperly handled or in any way injured in the removal. Yet the house burned so rapidly that there was very little time for care and the excited soldiers had to be sharply restrained by the Lieutenant to make them comply with every direction of the Doctor in their handling of the wounded men.

Meantime the boys removed from the house everything of value, including even the "piano," which they would need every day for the sharpening of their axes.

What had happened was this: the upper part of the chimney, as the reader will remember, had been built of sticks, laid in a crib, and daubed all over with mud. The sticks were green, full of sap and almost incombustible when placed in position, and besides that the mud daubing protected them. But little by little the mud had dried and fallen away. While the heat of a fire that was maintained night and day for many months had seasoned the sticks first and then dried and parched them to the condition of tinder, capable of being ignited by the merest spark.

That night the spark did its work. The chimney sticks caught fire and burned with fierce violence. The clapboards forming the roof and the resinous pine timbers that held them in place, had also been roasted into an exceedingly combustible condition, and by the time that the fire was discovered the house was obviously doomed. That was the origin of the light that Tom had seen in the direction of Camp Venture while waiting for his bear.

When he now entered the camp he found the boys getting breakfast by an out door fire, built near the mouth of the chute.

"Poor old Camp Venture!" he exclaimed. "How did it happen boys?"

They hastily explained especially answering Tom's eager questions as to the condition of the wounded men.

"They are quite comfortable," said the Doctor. "All possible care was taken in removing them from the burning house, and my examination discovers no trace of damage done to any of them. But where have you been and what have you brought back with you?" for Tom had no game in possession.

"I've been to the home and headquarters of Ursa Major, and I've killed him," answered Tom. "I want to borrow the Lieutenant's glass to-night to see how the heavens look without the constellation of the Great Bear."

"What do you mean, Tom?" asked the boys eagerly.

"Why simply that I have killed the biggest black bear I ever saw or heard of in these mountains."

"Where is it?" eagerly asked Jack, who had a great longing for fresh meat for breakfast that morning.

"It's out there just beyond the picket lines, and some of you must go after it. You see the mountaineers who 'held me up' and then made friends with me, agreed to bring it to camp under my solemn promise of safe conduct. Bill Jones was at the head of them. But as they drew near the camp and saw the pickets, their courage failed them and even my invitation to come and breakfast with us, could not entice them within the picket lines.

"'We don't want to take no risks,' they said, 'an' you kin bring out some fellers to git the bar, so ef you don't mind, we'll leave it right here an' say good mornin'.' And with that they scurried off up the mountain."

Jack, Harry, Ed and Jim volunteered to go out after the bear, and with no little difficulty they at last got him to camp, where they proceeded to dress him. Tom, in the meantime, ate such breakfast as there was on hand, and, rolling himself in his blanket, stretched his tired limbs before the fire and fell at once into slumber. The other boys left him asleep when they went to their work, but considerably before noon he joined them with his axe.

That night a "council of war," as they called it, was held.

"Now that our house is burned up," said Jack, "we may as well begin to get ready for our descent of the mountain. Of course, we could sleep out of doors in this spring weather, but there is no use in doing it longer than we must. We sent the last two bridge timbers down the chute to-day. We have only twenty more ties to get ready and if we work hard we can do that to-morrow and next day. That will leave us nothing more to do except to work up the waste into cordwood and send it down. My calculation is that we can leave here one week from to-morrow morning if we are reasonably industrious. Tom's bear and the other game he'll get, will keep us in meat for that time, and if the Doctor can leave his patients a week hence, we'll go."

"Oh, as to that," said the Doctor, "I could leave them now. They need nothing now but nursing, and it won't be very long after we leave before the road will be open for the lieutenant to send them all down the mountain."

Thus with glad thoughts of a speedy homing, the boys rolled themselves in their blankets and stretched themselves out to sleep by the fire and under the stars.

"By the way, Tom," said Jim, just as Tom was sinking into slumber, "you forgot to look for that hole in the sky that you made last night."

"Well, you'd better make a hole in your talk pretty quick, Jim, if you don't want a bucket of water poured over you," said Jack. "Lie awake as long as you like, but keep quiet and let the rest of us sleep."

CHAPTER XXXVI

A Start Down the Mountain

Just a week later the boys were ready to quit Camp Venture and proceed down the mountain, or as Tom, quoting the mountaineers, put it, they prepared to "git down out'n the mountings."

They had fully accomplished their mission. They had done a great winter's work. They had sent down the mountain every tie they were permitted by their contract to furnish; they had sent down many noble bridge timbers and greatly more cordwood than they had expected to cut. Their work was done, except that before going home they must go to the headquarters of the railroad contractors, at the foot of the mountain, adjust their accounts and collect the money due them.

As the best mountain climber among them, the one who had met and overcome more mountain difficulties in his time than any other, and the one who best knew how to "look straight at things and use common sense," Tom was chosen to direct the perilous descent over the cliffs.

The boys were all heavily loaded, of course. Each had his axe, his blanket, his extra clothing and four days' rations to carry. Each also had his gun and there was one extra gun – the rifle that Tom had captured from the mountaineer – to be carried. "For," said Tom, "while we have no use for the gun, I've agreed to deliver it to its owner whenever he chooses to call for it at my mother's house, and I tell you, boys, a man's first obligation in this world is to keep every promise that he makes no matter what it costs. I'd take that fellow's rifle down the mountain if I had to leave my own behind in order to do it."

"You are right, Tom," said the Doctor, "and boys, I propose that we take charge of that gun and carry it turn and turn about for Tom, for he is otherwise the worst over-loaded fellow in the party."

For Tom had his skins to carry – the panther's hide, three big bear skins, several deer hides, and a large number of pelts from raccoons, opossums, hares, squirrels and other small game.

"In fact," said the Doctor, "I move that we throw Tom down, take away his load, and divide it equally among the entire party."

"That's it. That's the way to manage it!" cried the boys in chorus. But Tom would hear of nothing of the kind. "You fellows may help me with the mountaineer's rifle, if you choose, but I'll manage my bundle of skins for myself. Thank you, all the same. After all, our luggage isn't going to bother us half so much, going down the mountain this way as it would if we went down by the regular trail."

"Why not, Tom?" asked Jack.

"Well, I'll show you after awhile," said Tom. "And in the meantime, Doctor, I'm going to take all your delicate and expensive scientific instruments, and myself pack them so that they will endure the journey without injury. If carried as you have them, there wouldn't be one of them that wouldn't lie like a moonshiner by the time we 'git out'n the mountings.' Let me have them, please."

The Doctor, curious to see what the boy was going to do, turned his instruments over to him and carefully observed his proceedings. Tom began by selecting a number of the smaller skins, which, instead of drying, he had "tanned" with brains, corn meal-rubbing and other devices known to him as a hunter. These were as limp and soft as so many pieces of muslin, but greatly tougher. With them Tom carefully wrapped each instrument separately, securely tying up each with string, which the boy seemed always to have hidden somewhere about his person in unlimited quantity and variety of sizes and kinds.

"That's a trick I learned in hunting," he said, when questioned. "You can never have too much string with you."

Next he packed these bundles together, interposing dried and stiff hides between the several parcels, and again securely tied them together. Then he took the hide of his "Ursa Major," which was still "green" and limp, and which, as the boys suggested, "smelt uncommonly bad," and rolled the whole bundle in that, "skinny side out," binding it securely with stout twine. Finally he wrapped the stiff dried hide of the first bear he had killed, and the equally stiff panther's hide over all, as a sort of "goods box," he said, and, with a piece of red keel, he playfully marked on the panther's skin, "Glass! Handle with care."

"But now who is going to carry all this load?" asked Jack.

"Tom and I," said the Doctor, quickly. "The skins are Tom's and the instruments are mine. So we'll take some more of Tom's string and rig up some handles by which he and I can carry the bundle."

"You see," said Tom, "we may possibly have to drop it over a cliff now and then, and I've tried to do it up so as to stand that without breaking the instruments. But I think we can manage to avoid that. At any rate, we'll try. Now, come on, boys."

They had already taken leave of the lieutenant, and with four days' rations in their haversacks – for the lieutenant had supplied them with those military conveniences – haversacks – they began the descent of the mountain by that difficult way that Tom had followed on the night when he inspected the stills.

It was nine o'clock when they started. They made their way with comparative ease for nearly an hour. Then they came upon a bluff of formidable proportions and difficulty. Here Tom's experience and generalship came into play for the first time.

"All lay off your loads," he said. "Now, Harry, you are a discreet fellow and a good climber. Strip yourself of everything that can possibly embarrass you, and go down over the bluff. Remember what I have told you about bushes. Some of them cling tenaciously, while some of them give way in their roots at the first serious pull. Never trust one of them, but hold on by two always, and support yourself by your feet on every projection of rock you can find, so as not to overtax the bushes. When you are holding by two bushes, never let go of one to catch another lower down till you have satisfied yourself of the security of the other one by which you are holding on, and then grab the new one as quickly as you can. Make your way to the foot of the cliff, and we'll then let all our baggage and arms down to you with twine. You are to receive it all, untie the twine and let us pull it up again for the next bundle. When all our luggage is down, we'll climb down ourselves. There isn't any serious difficulty about it if we're careful. As I told you boys awhile ago, there isn't any such thing as accident. It is all a question of carefulness."

Harry did his part well in making the descent of this first precipice and the work of lowering the arms and luggage, including every boy's haversack – for it was imperative that in the bush climb down the cliff, no boy should carry a single ounce of unnecessary weight – occupied full two hours' time.

The Doctor was the last to go over the edge of the precipice, and he alone met with mishap. Jack, with his heavy weight, had preceded him, and the bushes, already weakened by the strain the other boys had given them, were some of them almost torn out by the roots from the rock crevices in which they grew. So when the Doctor was about half way down, one of them gave way suddenly, leaving the Doctor's right hand with no support and swinging him around in very perilous fashion. But the Doctor had by this time become a good deal of an athlete, and instantly realizing his danger, he swung himself around on his toes, which rested in a crevice of the cliff, and grasped with his right hand a sharp edge of rock which protruded some inches from the face of the cliff. It was a perilous hold, as the boys, looking on from below, clearly saw, and one that obviously could not be long maintained. But the Doctor had his wits about him, and after a moment's pause, he grasped another bush which held securely, and five minutes later he was on the ledge below.

Here it was decided to halt for the midday meal. A fire was built; the game which had been brought – or at least so much of it as was needed for this meal – was broiled upon live coals, and a pot of coffee was made – for of that sustaining article the original supply had not yet been quite exhausted.

CHAPTER XXXVII

Down the Mountain

By this time the boys were excessively tired. Climbing down over bluffs is weary work. So after dinner they stretched themselves out for a nap with their bundles under their heads in lieu of pillows.

An hour later they roused themselves and set out again upon their toilsome journey, carrying their packs as best they could, and scrambling through underbrush and over fragments of rock that had fallen from the cliffs and hills above and now seriously obstructed the passage.

At last they came to the shelving rock, mentioned in a preceding chapter. This was a perfectly bare stretch of rock, extending down the hill for nearly a quarter of a mile, at an angle which made walking upon it impracticable.

"Now, fellows," said Tom, "get your parcels together and slide them down the hill. The thick woods and bush tangle at the bottom of this rocky incline will bring them to a halt. Then I'll go down alone and find out if the way is practicable. If I get down in safety the rest of you can follow, doing precisely as you've seen me do."