CHAPTER XXXIII
_A Homing Prospect_
The revenue officers and the soldiers remained at Camp Venture, theDoctor caring for the wounded men who were rapidly recovering as thedays went by. Meantime the boys were nearing the end of their winter'swork and were looking forward rather eagerly to a home-going in the nearfuture. Tom continued to hunt for game, and his diligence in thatdirection provided a sufficient supply of meat, while the lieutenant'sstores furnished enough bread stuffs for all.
The chief revenue officer announced his purpose to take his party downthe mountain as soon as the streams should be passable, and Jackannounced his intention of taking his party down as soon as they shouldhave finished the work they had laid out for themselves.
"I shan't wait for the streams to get out of the way," he said. "We'llgo down the mountain not by the road, but over the cliffs as Tom didthat night we were so scared about him. There are no streams to crossthere. That's perfectly feasible, isn't it, Tom?"
"Oh, yes," answered Tom, "particularly as we shall have the Doctor alongto patch up any broken legs or arms that we may get in dropping downover precipices."
"Is there serious danger of that?" asked Jim.
"Yes, if you are careless; no, if you are careful," answered Tom. "Infact, my experience teaches me that that's usually the case. The man whodoesn't look out for himself usually meets with what he calls'accidents' and blames Luck, or Fortune or Providence with mishaps whicha little intelligent care on his own part would have averted. In fact Idon't believe there is any such thing as accident, strictly speaking."
"How about that perforated ear of yours, Tom?" asked Ed.
"Oh, that illustrates my point. That wasn't an accident at all. I mighthave stayed here in the house that morning, and I'd have been perfectlysafe. You see, I had no business out there on the line. The work to bedone there belonged exclusively to the soldiers. But, with my curiosityto see how such things were managed I went out there and then like ayoung idiot I stood up by the lieutenant, when all the soldiers werelying down. If I hadn't done that I wouldn't have got my ear pierced.No, there's no such thing as accident in a world that is governed bylaw."
"But Tom," asked Jim Chenowith, "suppose you are on a railroad train andit runs off the track and you are considerably done up. Isn't that anaccident?"
"No. The train would never have run off the track if everybody had donehis duty. But somebody laid the rails carelessly, or some engineerfailed to discover that a stone was loose on the cliff above and aboutto drop down on the track, or somebody else failed somewhere; otherwisethe train would never have run off the track. I tell you I don't believethere is any such thing as accident, in the strict sense of the word.This world is governed by law. Causes produce their effects as certainlyas the multiplication table gives its results. The trouble is we don'ttake enough care of the causes."
"But sometimes we don't know enough to do that," said Jack.
"Well, ignorance is the cause in that case. I don't say that one isalways to blame for the evils that befall him. I only say that theydon't befall him by 'accident,' and that with due care we can avoid mostof them. That is particularly true in letting yourself down over aprecipice by holding on to bushes. Some bushes hold on tenaciously andsome give way with the smallest pull. The thing to do is never to let goof the secure one till you have tried the next one and satisfiedyourself of its stability--or better still, never to trust yourself toone bush except while making an instantaneous change, but hold by twoalways. But I say, Jack, how near are we to the end of our job?"
"Well," said Jack, taking out his memorandum book and studying theentries in it, "we have only about sixty more ties to send down. We havealready sent a great deal more cord wood than we agreed to, but as tothat the railroad people said 'the more the better,' and so with bridgetimbers. We did not agree to furnish any particular number of them and Ifancy the railroad people didn't expect us to send more than two orthree, while in fact we have sent down twenty-nine and have six morenearly ready to send. My plan is to cut the remaining ties which we arepermitted to furnish under our contract, send down the bridge timbersthat we have ready or nearly so, cut up all the remains of the felledtimber into cord wood and send that down, and then go down ourselves.Even if the trail were open, which it isn't likely to be for some weeksto come, I should favor going down over the cliffs instead, because thatwill land us near where we want to be, while if we went down by thetrail we should have to walk fifteen miles to get there."
The camp was early astir next morning, for now that the thought of goinghome had come to them, the boys were eager to hasten the time for it.
"By working hard," said Jack, "we can turn out ten or twelve ties a day,or under favorable conditions twenty. At three o'clock to-day we'llbegin working the chutes and as I reckon it we'll be ready to start downa little before the first of April, and that was the date set. Theweather is fine now and growing finer every day."
"Yes," answered Harry, "and the days are growing long enough to enableus to do full days' work."
Under the new inspiration the axes were briskly used that day untilthree o'clock. Then all hands were called to help roll the big bridgetimbers into place and send them down the mountain. Four of them weresent off, the others not being quite ready yet. But the handling ofthese big timbers was slow work and so night fell before any of the tiesor cordwood could be sent down the chute. There were twenty-one tiesready and about thirty cords of wood. But these must wait until threeo'clock the next day, and by that time the number of ties and thequantity of cord wood would be considerably increased.