Captain Sam Part 4

"No sir," replied Sam, blushing to think how he had been expounding to the general, a nice point which that officer must understand much better than he did. "No sir, I have read no law except a book or two on the laws of nations, which my father said every gentleman should be familiar with."

"A very wise and excellent father he must be," replied Jackson, "if I may judge of him by the training he has given his son."

"Thank you, sir, in his name," answered Sam, rising and making his best bow.

"To come back to the business in hand," resumed Jackson. "You'll need a boat and some camp equipments."

"A boat, yes, but as for camp equipments, I can make out without them very well. I've camped a good deal and I know how to manage."

"Very well, then, you'll be all the lighter. How many of your boys will you need?"

"Two or three,--partly to make a show of a camp, but more because it may be necessary to send some of them back with news. My brother Tom and my black boy, with one or two others will be enough."

"Very well. Now you must be off as soon as possible. I shall march to Mobile in a day or two, and organize for defence there. Send your news there. You had better march directly from this place, so that your arrival will excite no suspicion. I will provide you with a map of the country. Have you a compa.s.s?"

"Yes sir, I brought one with me from home."

"There are boats enough to be had among the fishermen, I suppose, but how to provide you with one is the most serious problem I have to solve in this matter. My army chest is empty, and my personal purse is equally so."

"I can manage all that, sir, if I may take an axe or two and an adze from the shop here."

"How?"

"By digging out a canoe. I've done it before, and know how to handle the tools."

"You certainly do not lack the sort of resources which a commander needs in such a country as this, where he must first create his army and then arm and feed it without money. You'll make a general yet, I fancy."

"At present I am not even a private," replied Sam, "though the boys call me Captain Sam."

"Do they? Then Captain Sam it shall be, and I wish you a successful campaign before Pensacola, Captain. Get your forces into marching order at once. Take all of your boys, unless some of them have already enlisted,--it won't do to take actual soldiers with you, as yours must be a citizen's camp,--and march as early as you can. I'll see that you are properly provided with the tools you need."

CHAPTER VI.

CAPTAIN SAM BEGINS HIS MARCH.

At noon the next day Sam marched away from the camp at the head of his little company, reduced now to precisely six boys in all, counting the colored boy Joe, but not counting Captain Sam himself. Jake Elliott was one of the company, rather against Sam's wish, but he had begged for permission to go, and Sam thought his size and strength might be of use in some emergency. Tommy was of the party of course, and the other boys were Billy Bunker--called Billy Bowlegs by the boys, because he was not bow-legged at all but on the contrary badly knock-kneed,--Bob Sharp, a boy of about Tommy's size and age, and Sidney Russell, a boy of thirteen, who had "run to legs," his companions said, and was already nearly six feet high, and so slender that, notwithstanding his extreme height, he was the lightest boy in the company. The rest of the party had already enlisted and could not go.

The outfit was complete, after Sam's notions of completeness; that is to say, it included every thing which was absolutely necessary and not an ounce of anything that could be safely spared. For tools they had two axes, with rather short handles, a small hatchet, a pocket rule and an adze; to this list might be added their large pocket knives, which every man and boy on the frontier carries habitually. For camp utensils each boy had a tin cup and that was all, except a single light skillet, which they were to carry alternately, as they were to do with the tools. Each boy carried a blanket tightly rolled up, and each had, at the start, eight pounds of corn meal and four pounds of bacon, with a small sack of salt each, which could be carried in any pocket. This was all. They had no arms and no ammunition.

Their destination and the purpose of their journey were wholly unknown to anybody in the camp, except General Jackson and Tandy Walker. The boys themselves were as ignorant as anybody on this subject. Sam had enlisted them in the service, merely telling them that he was going on an expedition which might prove difficult, dangerous and full of hardship. He told them that he could not make them legal soldiers before leaving, but that implicit obedience was absolutely necessary, and that he wanted no boy to go with him who was not willing to trust his judgment absolutely and obey orders as a soldier does, without knowing why they are given or what they are meant to accomplish. To put this matter on a proper basis, he drew up an enlistment paper as follows:--

"We, whose names are signed below, volunteer to go with Samuel Hardwicke and under his command, on the expedition which he is about beginning. We have been duly warned of the dangers and hardships to be encountered; we freely undertake to endure the hardships without shrinking, and to face the dangers as soldiers should; and, understanding the necessity of discipline and obedience, we promise, each of us upon his honor, fully to recognize the authority of Samuel Hardwicke as our Captain, appointed by General Jackson; we promise upon honor, to obey his command, as implicity as if we were regularly enlisted soldiers, and he a properly commissioned officer."

(Signed.)

[Ill.u.s.tration: signatures]

When this paper was signed by all the boys, including black Joe, who insisted upon attaching his name to it in the printing letters which "little Miss Judie" had taught him, it was placed in General Jackson's hands for keeping, and Sam marched his party away, amid the wondering curiosity of the few troops who were in camp. They knew that this party went out under orders of some sort from head quarters, but they could not imagine whither it was going or why. Many of them had tried to get information from the boys themselves, but as the boys knew absolutely nothing about it, they could answer no questions, except with the rather unsatisfactory formula "I dunno."

CHAPTER VII.

SAM'S TRAVELLING FACTORY.

The boys marched steadily until sunset, when Sam called a halt and selected a camping place for the night. He ordered a fire built and himself superintended the preparation of supper, limiting the amount of food cooked for each member of the party, a regulation which he enforced strictly throughout the march, lest any of the boys should imprudently eat their rations too fast, which, as their route lay through woods and swamps in a part of the country scarcely at all settled, would bring disaster upon the expedition of course. Sam had calculated the march to last about ten days, but he hoped to accomplish it within a briefer time. The supplies they had would last ten days, and Sam hoped to add to them by killing game from time to time, for although the party were unarmed, Sam knew ways of getting game without gunpowder, and meant to put some of them in practice.

Toward evening of the first day out, he had stopped in a canebrake and cut three well seasoned canes, selecting straight, tall ones, about an inch in diameter, and taking care that they tapered as little and as regularly as possible. Cutting them off at both ends and leaving them about fifteen feet in length, he next cut three or four small canes, very long and green ones, without flaw.

That night, as soon as supper was over he brought his canes to the fire and laid them down, preparatory to beginning work upon them.

"What are you a goin' to do with them canes, Sam?" asked Billy Bowlegs.

"What do you think, Billy?"

"Dog-gone ef I know," replied Billy.

"Suppose you quit saying 'dog-gone' Billy," said Sam. "It isn't a very good thing to say, and you've said it thirty-two times this afternoon."

"Have I? well, what's the odds if I have?"

"Well, it's a bad habit, and if you'll quit it, I'll give you one of those canes when I get them ready."

"What 'er you goin' to make 'em into?"

"Guns," said Sam, working away as hard as he could with his jack-knife.

"Guns! what sort o' guns? Powder'd burst 'em in a minute, and besides we aint got no powder."

"No, but I'm going to make guns out of these canes, and I'm going to kill something with them too."

"What sort o' guns?"

"Blow guns."

"What's a blow gun, Mas. Sam?" asked Joe, becoming interested, as all the boy were now.

Sam was too busy to answer at the moment and so Tom, who had seen Sam's blow guns at home, answered for him.

"He's going to burn out the joints and then make arrows with iron points and some rabbit fur around the light ends. The fur fills up the hole in the cane, and when he blows in the end it sends the arrow off like a bullet. But Sam!" he cried, suddenly thinking of something.

"What is it?" asked the elder brother without looking up.