CHAPTER II
_A Picket Shot_
The three Ridsdale boys and their comrades lived in a thriving, bustlinglittle town in one of the great valleys which divide the VirginiaMountains into ranges each having its own name. Their ages ranged fromJack's nineteen years down to Jim Chenowith's sixteen. Little Tom was socalled not so much because he was rather shorter than his overgrownbrothers, as because his father had been also Thomas Ridsdale and forthe sake of distinguishing between them the family and the neighbors hadfrom his infancy called the boy "Little Tom." He was next to Jack in agebeing now nearly eighteen years old, and as a voracious reader and asingularly keen observer he was perhaps better informed than any otherboy in the party. He was not really little by any means, being five feetseven inches high and of unusually stalwart frame. From his tenth yeartill now he had spent his vacations mainly in hunting in thesemountains. His knowledge of wood craft and of all that pertains to thechase was therefore superior even to Jack's.
The father of the Ridsdale boys had been the foremost young lawyer inthe town, but he had died at a comparatively early age, leaving hiswidow a very scanty estate with which to bring up the three boys whowere her treasures. The boys had helped from the earliest years in whichthey were capable of helping. They had chopped and sawed and split wood,worked in the hay fields, dropped and covered corn, pulled fodder anddone what ever else there was to do that might bring a little wage toeke out the good mother's scant income. In brief they had behaved likethe brave, manly, mother-loving fellows that they were, and they hadgrown into a sturdy strength that promised stalwart manhood to all ofthem.
Among the widow's meagre possessions was a vast tract of almostworthless timber land up there on the mountain. It was almost worthlesssimply because there was no market for the timber that grew upon it. Butnow had come the railroad enterprise, whose contractors wanted ties andbridge timbers and unlimited cordwood for use in their engine furnaces.So Jack and his brothers had decided to omit this winter's attendanceupon the High school, and to devote the season to the profitable workof wood chopping on the mountain. There was an exceedingly steep descenton that side of the mountain, on which their timber lands lay, so thatby building a short chute to give a headway they could send theirrailroad ties and the other products of their chopping by a steep slideto the valley below by force of gravity and without any haulingwhatever. Two of their schoolmates--Jim Chenowith and Ed Parmly hadasked to join in the expedition. An arrangement had been made with therailroad people to pay a stipulated price for every railroad tie shotdown the hill, a much higher price for every piece of timber big enoughfor use in bridge building and a fair price for all the cordwood sentdown the chute. This latter was to be made of the limbs of trees cutdown for ties or bridge timbers--limbs not large enough for other uses,and which must otherwise go to waste. The two boys who did not belong tothe Ridsdale family--Ed Parmly and Jim Chenowith--were to pay to Mrs.Ridsdale a small price agreed upon for each tie or timber, or cord ofwood that they should cut on her land, the rest of the price going tothemselves.
During the last week before their departure Dr. LaTrobe had asked theprivilege of joining the expedition. He was a man of means whose homewas in Baltimore, but who had come to the town in which the boys livedin search of health and strength. He was a tireless student of science,and in the course of his duty in one of the charity hospitals ofBaltimore he had contracted a fever. His recovery from it was so slowand unsatisfactory that he had abandoned his work and wandered away intoSouth Western Virginia for purposes of recuperation and had been forsome months boarding with Mrs. Ridsdale. In pursuit of health andstrength therefore he asked to join the Ridsdale boys in their mountainexpedition.
"I have quite all the money I want," he explained, "and so the ties andtimbers and cordwood that I may cut will be counted as your own. All Iwant is the life in the open air, the exercise, the freedom, thehealth-giving experience of a camping trip."
Thus it was that the party had come together. They knew perfectly thatonce in the mountains after winter should set in in earnest theircommunication with the country below must be very uncertain. Theytherefore, took with them on their own backs and on the backs of theirpack mules those necessaries which would most certainly render themindependent of other sources of supply. The Doctor had largely directedthe selection of food stuffs, bringing to bear upon it an expertknowledge which the boys, of course, did not possess.
"The basis will be beans," he said.
"But why beans?" asked Jack.
"For several reasons. First, because beans will keep all winter. Second,because beans are very nearly perfect food for robust people. They havefat in them, and that makes heat, and they have starch and gluten inthem too, so that they are in fact both meat and bread. Pound for pound,dried beans are about the most perfect food possible. To make thempalatable we must take some dry salted pork along. We can carry thatbetter than pickled pork in kegs and we shall not have to carry a lot ofuseless brine if we take the dry salted meat."
The Doctor added some dried beef, a few hams, some bacon and a supply ofsugar.
"Sugar," he explained, "is almost pure nutriment. It is food soconcentrated that it ought never to be taken in large quantities in itspure state."
"That's why they were so stingy with me in the matter of candy when Iwas a little chap," soliloquized Tom.
The total supply of meat taken along was small, but it was quite wellunderstood that the party must rely upon its guns mainly for that partof its food supply.
For bread there was a small quantity of "hard tack" and a large supplyof corn meal.
The salt was securely encased in a water-tight and even moisture-proofoil-cloth bag. One big cheese was taken by special request of Ed'smother, who had made it a year before, and the Doctor approved itsinclusion in the list.
"It weighs fifty pounds," he said to Jack who from the first had chargeof the expedition, "but it is pure food and we couldn't put in fiftypounds of any thing else that would go so far to ward off starvation incase we get into difficulties. Next to a supply of coffee, nothing couldbe more useful."
There were only four pack mules to carry these things, but every memberof the party carried a heavy pack on his shoulders, besides his gun andaxe, so that altogether the expedition was reasonably well provisioned,in view of the fact that it was going into the mountains where game ofevery kind abounded.
No provender was carried for the pack mules. There was grass enough forthem to live upon during the journey of two days and at the end of thattime they were to be turned loose to find their own way down themountain, cropping grass and herbs as they went.
There was a grind stone for the sharpening of the axes, and one of theboys carried a long cross-cut saw. The ammunition supply was large, andbesides cartridges loaded with turkey shot it included several scoresthat carried full sized buck shot. The ammunition, added to the rest,very seriously over-loaded the mules. On a long journey those animals,large and brawny as they were, could not have endured the burdens laidupon them. But the trip up the mountain was to occupy a good deal lessthan two days and so the owner of the mules readily consented to theoverloading.
That is how it came about that the five boys and Doctor LaTrobe werecamping up there in a little mountain glade, on the night on which ourstory opens. They had less than a mile to go on the next day in order toreach their permanent camping place, but the journey was mainly a verysteep up-hill one, and, their halt on the mountain side was in every waywise.
Healthily weary as they were it did not take the boys long to fallasleep after they had wrapped themselves in their blankets and lain downwith feet toward the great blazing fire.
It was understood that the one on sentry duty should replenish the firefrom time to time, but at Jack's wise suggestion the sentry was himselfto remain well away from the blazing logs, and in the shadow of thewoodlands beyond.
"Otherwise," explained Jack, "an enemy approaching in the dark mighteasily pick off our sentry, sitting or st
anding in the firelight, andthen slip away in the darkness without the possibility of our seeinghim."
The hours wore away, however, with no disturbance in the camp. One afteranother sentry aroused his successor and himself lay down to sleep.
It was nearing daybreak, and little Tom was on duty. There was already arime of white frost on the grass and leaves and the atmosphere waschill. Tom looked longingly at the great blazing fire as he walked hisbeat in the woodland shadows far beyond reach of its comfortingradiance.
"Any how this snappy air keeps a fellow from sleeping on post," he saidto himself, "and they punish that crime with death in the army. Whew!how my ears ache!
"What's that?" he ejaculated under his breath as he heard a stealthynoise. Listening he heard a sound as of some one creeping up through thewoods. He cocked both barrels of his shot gun, each of which carriednine buck shot, and breathlessly waited, listening and looking.Presently he fired, and instantly every member of the party was on hisfeet, gun in hand, for they were all sleeping with their pieces besidethem.
"What is it?"
"Where is it?"
"Who is it?" and so on with question after question they bombardedlittle Tom.
"It's breakfast," said little Tom, calmly walking to the foot of a treeand there picking up a fat opossum.
There was a laugh, for half asleep as the boys were they saw the humorof the situation and realized under what a nervous strain they had beensleeping.
"Now go to sleep again," said Tom, "and when I wake you next timebreakfast will be ready."
He went away into the woods and there dressed the opossum. Then he sofar disregarded orders as to go to the fire and rig up a device forcooking the dainty animal. He cut two forked sticks, sharpened theirlower ends and drove them firmly into the earth. Across these he laidanother stick and from it he hung the opossum by a bit of twine which hetwisted till it set and kept the roast revolving. Then he returned tothe shadows, but every now and then he came back to the fire to inspecthis roast and to set the string twirling anew.
Finally, just as day was breaking, little Tom aroused the rest with ademand that some of them should make some bread, brew some coffee and"make themselves generally useful," as he phrased it.
The sun was not yet up when the last bones of the pig-like little animalwere picked clean and the final drop of coffee was drunk.