A CAMP-FACTORY.
Breakfast was finished before daylight that morning, and when it was
over the three companions resumed work upon their fortification. Ned
stopped long enough to catch some shrimps for dinner, but with that
exception there was no break at all in the morning's work, and
dinner-time found the boys tired as well as hungry. The afternoon was
spent quite as industriously, and when night came the fort, though still
incomplete, was well advanced toward security.
"Now," said Ned, when supper-time came, "we have had rather too much of
shrimps, I think, and of oysters too. I'm going out with the net
to-night to catch some fish for to-morrow. What do you two propose to
do?"
"I'm going to make some more clubs," said Charley. "We've something
like a fort now, and the next thing is to provide an abundance of
ammunition."
"By the way," said Ned, "why can't we make some better arms?"
"Of what sort?" asked Jack.
"Well, bows and arrows, for example. We can make arrow-heads out of some
of our copper bolts, and they are weapons not to be despised--what are
you smiling at, Charley?"
"Oh! nothing; I was only wondering what good bows and arrows would do
without bowstrings."
Ned's countenance fell; then he joined in the smile of his companions,
and admitted that his little plan had been very imperfectly worked out
in his head.
"I might make some blow-guns out of the canes," he said, "but they're
not worth making. I have killed birds with them, but I've tried them
thoroughly and they won't shoot hard enough to drive an arrow-head half
an inch into a pine plank; so they would be worthless for our purposes."
"Yes," said Jack, "I think we may make up our minds that we've got to
get on with no better weapons than our clubs for general use, with the
axe, hatchet, and digging tools to fall back upon as a last resort. To
use such things means to kill, and of course we don't want to do that."
"No, of course not. We only want to protect ourselves and make these
squatters let us alone. We don't want to do the poor creatures any
unnecessary harm."
Saying this, Ned took the net and went away in search of fish. When he
had gone Jack said:
"Charley, let's build a platform to fight from."
"I don't quite understand you," said Charley.
"Well, you see the stockade is ten feet high, and slopes outward, and so
it won't be easy for anybody to scale it; but it isn't impossible,
particularly if one has time to put up a pole or two to climb on. My
notion is that we must be prepared to interfere with anybody who tries
to do that. We must build a sort of platform all around inside the
stockade, about six feet from the ground; it needn't be any thing more
than a row of poles laid against the stockade and supported by some
forked stakes. We can then stand up on these poles and look over the top
of the stockade. If anybody tries to climb up, we can beat him back
from there, while if we were on the ground inside here, we should be
nearly helpless. It won't take you and me more than half an hour or so
to rig the thing up."
"That's a good idea," replied Charley; "and we need the platform more
to-night than we shall at any time hereafter."
"Why?"
"Because if those fellows mean to attack us they will do so at once. If
we escape to-night we're not likely to be attacked at all."
"I don't know about that," answered Jack. "On the contrary, I think
they'll let us alone to-night, because they'll expect us to be on the
lookout for them. They have no special fancy for getting their heads
broken, and when they come they will try to take us by surprise. At
least that's my notion."
"Then you think they are likely to attack us later this week or next?"
"Yes, at any time except to-night. They will wait for us to make up our
minds that they aren't coming at all."
"Well--that _fabula docet_ that we mustn't make up our minds in that
direction at all."
"Exactly. We must be as alert two weeks hence as we are now--if we're
here so long. But come, let's get to work."
Cutting some forked stakes, which did not need to be driven far into the
ground, because they were to be leant toward the sloping stockade, the
boys placed them in position, and laid poles from one to another until
the line stretched all the way around the enclosure. It was easy to walk
upon these poles all the way around, and when standing upon them the
boys' shoulders were above the top of the stockade.
Near the water, on each side, an entrance to the stockade had been made,
and a movable piece of timber, with a notch in it and a brace behind,
served to close each of these gates; and when thus closed and fastened
from the inside, the gates were as secure as any other part of the
fortress.
Jack's prediction that the enemy would not appear on Monday night was
verified. The whole of that week, indeed, was passed in complete
quietude.
Having made their fortress reasonably secure, the boys resumed work upon
the boat on Monday and continued it throughout the week; but they gave
only one half of each day to that task, devoting the other half to the
work of strengthening their fort. The posts, as we know, were originally
set six inches apart for the sake of hurrying the work, but this was not
intended to be a permanent arrangement. As fast as they could the boys
filled up the spaces thus left, and by Saturday night the fort was
complete, so that its inmates felt entirely confident of their ability
to beat off any attack the negro squatters might choose to make.
Meantime the boat approached completion, though there was, perhaps, a
week's work, or a little less, still to be done upon her.
"We must caulk her seams," said Ned on Sunday, as the boys sat chatting
round their fire, "with moss instead of oakum, and then we'll coat her
all over with pitch."
"By the way," answered Charley, "we've got to make the pitch. Do you
know how, Ned?"
"Not very well," replied Ned, "but I think we can make out."
"I know," said Jack; "I've seen tar made in the North Carolina tar
country, and pitch is only boiled tar."
"Very well, then, you shall superintend that job," said Ned; "you know
that was our bargain, to make each fellow manage the things he
understood best."
"You'd better make a lot of salt, then, right away, beginning to-morrow
morning."
"Why? You don't use salt in making pitch, do you?"
"No; but I shall want the big kettle to boil the tar in, and it won't be
fit for use as a salt kettle after that."
"Then we must cook up all our rice too," said Charley.
"No, we needn't," said Ned; "it would spoil if we did, and we can cook
it, as we need it, in the coffee-pot."
Early the next morning these preparations were begun. Charley got his
salt factory at work, Ned worked at the boat, and Jack made preparations
for tar-burning. He began by digging a pit about four feet square and
two feet deep. Then--at a distance of about a foot--he dug another pit
about three feet square and four feet deep. He packed the wall of earth
that separated the two pits as firmly as he could, and then, cutting a
long joint of cane for a tar pipe, he passed it through this wall, from
a point exactly at the bottom of the shallow pit. He inclined it
downward a little, so that the tar might easily run though it and fall
into the deeper pit.
Having finished this part of his work, Jack went into the woods near the
camp and prepared a large quantity of "fat" pine for burning. Piling
this in the shallow pit, and heaping it two or three feet above the
level ground, he took the shovel and covered the pile with earth to a
depth of a foot or more, leaving a single opening through which he could
set fire to the mass. His object was, by smothering the flames in this
way, to make the fat, resinous pine burn slowly, creating a roasting
heat under the earth, and thus, as it were, melting the tar out of the
pine. If he had not covered the wood with earth, it would have blazed up
and burned to smoke, resin and all, making no tar at all.
When all was ready the pile was set on fire, and as soon as it had
caught well, Jack covered the single opening with earth, and the mound
smoked like a volcano. Pretty soon a little stream of smoking-hot tar
began trickling through the cane-tube into the deep pit.
Night had now come on, and the smoke from the tar-kiln, catching the
light from the camp-fire, glowed with a peculiar red color, and gave a
picturesque air of strangeness to the camp.
"You've started a young volcano, Jack," said Charley, as he looked at
the smoking mound.
"Yes. An improvement on Crusoe," said Ned; "he had no volcano on his
island. But what a quantity of smoke the thing does make. It looks as if
more material came out of the mound in that way than you put into it in
the shape of wood."
"Yes, and so a gallon of water will fill a big room if you make it into
steam."
"What is smoke anyhow?" asked Charley.
"It is composed of several things," answered Ned, "but chiefly of
carbon. Indeed, all that you can see in smoke is carbon."
"Then why doesn't it burn?"
"It would if it were kept in the fire long enough; but the light vapors
that rise from the fire carry the particles of carbon with them, and so
they get out of the fire before they are burned. The smoke is simply so
much wasted fuel, and many plans have been made to save it in factories
where the cost of fuel is great."
"There's a big waste in making tar, then," said Charley.
"Not half so much as you think," said Jack. "They don't waste the smoke
up in the North Carolina tar country."
"How do they burn it?"
"They don't burn it, but they catch it and sell it."
"How do you mean?"
"Why, they have wire screens stretched over the tar-kilns, and as the
smoke strikes them the fine particles of carbon stick to them. I have
seen masses of them hanging down many inches from the screens, and very
pretty they are too."
"But what do they do with the stuff?" asked Charley.
"Sell it. It is called lamp-black, and it brings a pretty good price."
"That is close economy, isn't it?"
"Yes, but it is frequently by just such 'margins' as that that
manufacturing becomes profitable. It is a very poor and desolate-looking
country up there in the tar-making districts, and I remember hearing a
man say once, as we passed through it: 'This is the country where they
waste nothing; they bark the trees to get resin: they distil the resin
and make turpentine; what's left is rosin; when the trees die they burn
them to make tar, catch the smoke for lamp-black, and there aren't any
ashes.'"