CHAPTER XXXV
_The End of Camp Venture_
During the night of Tom's bear hunt, the boys slept soundly, wearied asthey were by an especially hard day's work. About three o'clock asoldier 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 woundedmen from the hut. This was a work of some difficulty although all themen were now "making satisfactory recovery" as the Doctor phrased it.The Doctor took charge at this point because he knew as no one else didthe exact nature and condition of each man's wound, and it was his careto see that none should be improperly handled or in any way injured inthe removal. Yet the house burned so rapidly that there was very littletime for care and the excited soldiers had to be sharply restrained bythe Lieutenant to make them comply with every direction of the Doctorin their handling of the wounded men.
Meantime the boys removed from the house everything of value, includingeven the "piano," which they would need every day for the sharpening oftheir axes.
What had happened was this: the upper part of the chimney, as the readerwill remember, had been built of sticks, laid in a crib, and daubed allover with mud. The sticks were green, full of sap and almostincombustible when placed in position, and besides that the mud daubingprotected 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 manymonths had seasoned the sticks first and then dried and parched them tothe condition of tinder, capable of being ignited by the merest spark.
That night the spark did its work. The chimney sticks caught fire andburned with fierce violence. The clapboards forming the roof and theresinous pine timbers that held them in place, had also been roastedinto an exceedingly combustible condition, and by the time that the firewas discovered the house was obviously doomed. That was the origin ofthe light that Tom had seen in the direction of Camp Venture whilewaiting for his bear.
When he now entered the camp he found the boys getting breakfast by anout 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 tothe condition of the wounded men.
"They are quite comfortable," said the Doctor. "All possible care wastaken in removing them from the burning house, and my examinationdiscovers no trace of damage done to any of them. But where have youbeen and what have you brought back with you?" for Tom had no game inpossession.
"I've been to the home and headquarters of Ursa Major, and I've killedhim," answered Tom. "I want to borrow the Lieutenant's glass to-night tosee 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 orheard of in these mountains."
"Where is it?" eagerly asked Jack, who had a great longing for freshmeat for breakfast that morning.
"It's out there just beyond the picket lines, and some of you must goafter it. You see the mountaineers who 'held me up' and then madefriends with me, agreed to bring it to camp under my solemn promise ofsafe conduct. Bill Jones was at the head of them. But as they drew nearthe camp and saw the pickets, their courage failed them and even myinvitation to come and breakfast with us, could not entice them withinthe picket lines.
"'We don't want to take no risks,' they said, 'an' you kin bring outsome fellers to git the bar, so ef you don't mind, we'll leave it righthere an' say good mornin'.' And with that they scurried off up themountain."
Jack, Harry, Ed and Jim volunteered to go out after the bear, and withno little difficulty they at last got him to camp, where they proceededto dress him. Tom, in the meantime, ate such breakfast as there was onhand, and, rolling himself in his blanket, stretched his tired limbsbefore the fire and fell at once into slumber. The other boys left himasleep when they went to their work, but considerably before noon hejoined 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 toget ready for our descent of the mountain. Of course, we could sleep outof doors in this spring weather, but there is no use in doing it longerthan 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 dothat to-morrow and next day. That will leave us nothing more to doexcept to work up the waste into cordwood and send it down. Mycalculation is that we can leave here one week from to-morrow morning ifwe 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 hispatients a week hence, we'll go."
"Oh, as to that," said the Doctor, "I could leave them now. They neednothing now but nursing, and it won't be very long after we leave beforethe road will be open for the lieutenant to send them all down themountain."
Thus with glad thoughts of a speedy homing, the boys rolled themselvesin their blankets and stretched themselves out to sleep by the fire andunder the stars.
"By the way, Tom," said Jim, just as Tom was sinking into slumber, "youforgot 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 youdon't want a bucket of water poured over you," said Jack. "Lie awake aslong as you like, but keep quiet and let the rest of us sleep."