Camp Venture Part 27

"Because I can't get an appointment," said Tom.

"Why can't you get an appointment?"

"Because I have no political influence. You see my father, while he lived, was very active in politics, and he belonged to a party just the opposite of the one our present Congressman belongs to."

"Would you like to go?" asked the lieutenant.

"Very much, indeed," answered Tom. "I want just the sort of education they give there."

"Could you stand the entrance examinations--say a year hence?"

"Yes. I could stand them now. I went all over that ground when I first tried to get an appointment."

"Well now," broke in Jack, "this isn't getting meat. Tom, go hunting immediately, and keep on going hunting till the famine in this camp is over. I haven't a doubt the lieutenant will lend you the men you want to help carry game."

"Certainly!" answered the lieutenant, beckoning to a sentinel to come to him.

"Tell Sergeant Malby to send me two strong men instantly."

Tom took two guns with him, requiring one of the soldiers to carry the rifle, while he carried the shot gun, double loaded, for big or little game. It was now about noon, and the hunting party did not return till after dark. When they did they brought with them as the spoil of our young Nimrod's guns, a half grown bear, a deer weighing perhaps a hundred and fifty pounds, three wild turkeys and a big string of hares and squirrels. Besides these Tom was laboriously dragging by a string a big wild boar.

"That boar's a disputed bird," he said. "This soldier, Johnson, and I fired at him at the same instant. He set out to rip Johnson open with his tusks, like a vest with no b.u.t.tons on it, and Johnson fired to protect himself. At the same moment I fired a charge of buckshot into the beast. Johnson's bullet struck him in the neck, just about where I fondly imagine the jugular vein or something else of that sort to be, while my nine buckshot striking him just behind the left fore leg, went through him about where his heart ought to be if it's in the right place. Anyhow the animal gave up the ghost in an astonishing hurry, and possibly the Doctor might find out, by a post mortem examination, which shot killed him. But in my humble opinion the time necessary for that can be better spent in preparing the gentleman for the table. I move that we roast him whole and invite the soldiers to dine with us! He's big enough to go round."

It did not take long to carry that motion or to begin carrying it into effect. The lieutenant ordered the company cook to a.s.sist Ed in preparing the wild boar and roasting him. Ed carefully saved the "giblets" for future use, a proceeding which gave the company cook a totally new economic suggestion in the use of animals killed for food.

Then the two required the other soldiers to build a great fire out-of-doors, and to erect a pole frame work near it, from which they hung the boar to roast. Ed gave the cook still another good suggestion by thrusting a dripping pan under the hog and catching all he could of the fat that fell from the animal.

"What do you do that for?" asked the company cook.

"For two reasons," answered Ed. "First, because I want all this fat to cook with and to use as b.u.t.ter hereafter. You've no idea how far it goes when people are on short rations. Secondly, because if all this fat fell upon these glowing coals it would blaze up and our hog would be scorched and burned. You are a company cook and I never was anything of the sort.

But I honestly believe I could teach you some things about cooking."

"Of course you could," said the soldier. "And perhaps I could teach you some also. I could show you how to bake bread on a barrel head, or even on a ramrod, only we don't have ramrods since these new-fangled breech-loading guns came into use."

Two or three hours later, at ten o'clock, the big porker was roasted "to a turn," and Jack, recognizing the necessity of maintaining military distinctions in all that related to a.s.sociation in military life, invited the lieutenant to take the night dinner with him and his companions inside the house, leaving the soldiers to dine out of doors, in accordance with their custom. So Jack asked Ed to cut off a ham and some other choice parts of the wild boar and send them into the hut.

There the boys and the lieutenant dined together, with the three revenue officers for additional guests.

The lieutenant had no very kindly feelings for the chief revenue officer, because he had discovered him to be a coward, and a brave man never likes to touch elbows with a coward, at dinner or any where else.

On the other hand the chief revenue officer had no very kindly feelings for the lieutenant, because he knew that the lieutenant had found him out for the coward and incapable that he was, and it is not in human nature for any man to feel kindly toward another who has found him out to that extent.

Nevertheless the dinner pa.s.sed off pleasantly enough until the lieutenant, at its end, asked of the revenue agent:

"Are you going to raid any stills to-night?"

"No!" angrily answered the officer. "Why do you keep on asking me that question?"

"Only that I may make my dispositions accordingly," calmly answered the lieutenant. "You forget that I am here in an entirely subordinate capacity. I am under no orders to raid stills. I am here only to support you in any raids you may make. You represent the civil arm, I the military, and the military arm is always subordinate to the civil. It is not for me to suggest that you might successfully raid half a dozen stills to-night. It is my duty simply to offer my services and those of my men in aid of any plans you may have formed. And, as it is my duty to consult the comfort of my men, so far as that is possible, I naturally ask whether you want them on marching duty to-night or whether I may order them to make themselves as comfortable as they can in bivouac. As I now understand that you do not contemplate any active operations to-night, I will make my dispositions accordingly. Sentinel!"

This last was a summons to the soldier who always stands guard just outside the door of any house or tent in which a commanding officer may be. The sentinel entered immediately and saluted.

"Call the corporal of the guard," commanded the lieutenant, "and bid him report to me for instructions."

In half a minute the corporal came. The only instructions he received were these:

"Bid the sergeant report to me here." Thus in military life is everything done "decently and in order." The sentinel could not have summoned the sergeant without quitting his post; but he could summon the corporal by a simple guard call, and the corporal could go to the sergeant and summon him to the lieutenant's presence. When he appeared and deferentially saluted, the lieutenant said to him:

"We shall remain where we are till further orders. Dispose the men in the best way you can to make them comfortable and let them build camp-fires. Throw out six pickets up the mountain on the south, one below here on the north, one on the east and one on the west. Send the men on the south as far up the mountain as where the enemy was encountered this morning. Then charge the sentries who are guarding our prisoners to be on the alert and serve as camp guards as well. They are to listen for shots from any of the pickets and report to me as soon as one is heard from any direction. I shall sleep under the bluff, near the spring. The watchword is 'alert;' the countersign 'attention.'"

"But, lieutenant," said Jack, when the sergeant had taken his leave, "why will you not accept our hospitality? Why will you not sleep here in our house? We have five wounded men here, it is true, but there is one spare bunk and you are more than welcome to it."

"I am very grateful, I am sure," said the lieutenant, "but it is the rule of my life that whenever I am in command and my men have to sleep in the open, I also sleep in the open. I have lived up to that rule even in a blizzard on the plains. Besides, this--well, this revenue officer--has done just enough to provoke the moonshiners and their friends, and not half enough to intimidate them. That is why I ordered our pickets thrown so far out to-night. There is a half sunken road running across the ridge up there. They had it for a breastwork this morning. I mean to have it next time. But what I was going to say is this: A man sleeping in a house sleeps soundly; a man sleeping in the open sleeps very lightly. As it is my purpose to visit all my pickets at least three times to-night, I want to sleep very lightly; so with all thanks for your courteous hospitality, I will sleep out under the bluff to-night, and now I must say good night."

CHAPTER x.x.x

_A Point of Honor_

There was no disturbance that night, and the next morning Tom took his two soldiers and went hunting again. Tom had a positive genius for getting game. This time he brought back no deer, no wild boar, and no half grown bear; but he and his soldiers were loaded down with turkeys, squirrels and hares. There was meat enough in the camp now to last for a day or two, but the bread supply was nearly exhausted, inasmuch as the boys had divided their meal with the soldiers.

In this situation the lieutenant went to Tom and engaged him in conversation.

"Now, I know," he said, "that there are many stills around here. Every one of them has a supply of ground up grain, and I want some of it. You have hunted all over the mountains, and of course you know where some at least of the stills are."

"Yes, I know where several of them are," answered Tom.

"Well, I propose to raid some of them, to get breadstuffs. Will you go with my men and point out the stills?"

"No!" answered Tom, with emphasis on the monosyllable.

"But why not?" asked the lieutenant. "Surely you are not afraid."

"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 a.s.sured 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 a.s.sault upon the camp--"

"Pardon me," answered Tom. "That was not an a.s.sault 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 sc.r.a.p 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.