_A Picket Shot_
The three Ridsdale boys and their comrades lived in a thriving, bustling
little town in one of the great valleys which divide the Virginia
Mountains into ranges each having its own name. Their ages ranged from
Jack's nineteen years down to Jim Chenowith's sixteen. Little Tom was so
called not so much because he was rather shorter than his overgrown
brothers, as because his father had been also Thomas Ridsdale and for
the sake of distinguishing between them the family and the neighbors had
from his infancy called the boy "Little Tom." He was next to Jack in age
being now nearly eighteen years old, and as a voracious reader and a
singularly keen observer he was perhaps better informed than any other
boy in the party. He was not really little by any means, being five feet
seven inches high and of unusually stalwart frame. From his tenth year
till now he had spent his vacations mainly in hunting in these
mountains. His knowledge of wood craft and of all that pertains to the
chase was therefore superior even to Jack's.
The father of the Ridsdale boys had been the foremost young lawyer in
the town, but he had died at a comparatively early age, leaving his
widow a very scanty estate with which to bring up the three boys who
were her treasures. The boys had helped from the earliest years in which
they were capable of helping. They had chopped and sawed and split wood,
worked in the hay fields, dropped and covered corn, pulled fodder and
done what ever else there was to do that might bring a little wage to
eke out the good mother's scant income. In brief they had behaved like
the brave, manly, mother-loving fellows that they were, and they had
grown into a sturdy strength that promised stalwart manhood to all of
them.
Among the widow's meagre possessions was a vast tract of almost
worthless timber land up there on the mountain. It was almost worthless
simply because there was no market for the timber that grew upon it. But
now had come the railroad enterprise, whose contractors wanted ties and
bridge timbers and unlimited cordwood for use in their engine furnaces.
So Jack and his brothers had decided to omit this winter's attendance
upon the High school, and to devote the season to the profitable work
of wood chopping on the mountain. There was an exceedingly steep descent
on that side of the mountain, on which their timber lands lay, so that
by building a short chute to give a headway they could send their
railroad ties and the other products of their chopping by a steep slide
to the valley below by force of gravity and without any hauling
whatever. Two of their schoolmates--Jim Chenowith and Ed Parmly had
asked to join in the expedition. An arrangement had been made with the
railroad people to pay a stipulated price for every railroad tie shot
down the hill, a much higher price for every piece of timber big enough
for use in bridge building and a fair price for all the cordwood sent
down the chute. This latter was to be made of the limbs of trees cut
down 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 to
the 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 of
wood that they should cut on her land, the rest of the price going to
themselves.
During the last week before their departure Dr. LaTrobe had asked the
privilege of joining the expedition. He was a man of means whose home
was in Baltimore, but who had come to the town in which the boys lived
in 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 of
Baltimore he had contracted a fever. His recovery from it was so slow
and unsatisfactory that he had abandoned his work and wandered away into
South Western Virginia for purposes of recuperation and had been for
some months boarding with Mrs. Ridsdale. In pursuit of health and
strength therefore he asked to join the Ridsdale boys in their mountain
expedition.
"I have quite all the money I want," he explained, "and so the ties and
timbers and cordwood that I may cut will be counted as your own. All I
want is the life in the open air, the exercise, the freedom, the
health-giving experience of a camping trip."
Thus it was that the party had come together. They knew perfectly that
once in the mountains after winter should set in in earnest their
communication with the country below must be very uncertain. They
therefore, took with them on their own backs and on the backs of their
pack mules those necessaries which would most certainly render them
independent of other sources of supply. The Doctor had largely directed
the selection of food stuffs, bringing to bear upon it an expert
knowledge 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 have
fat in them, and that makes heat, and they have starch and gluten in
them 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 them
palatable we must take some dry salted pork along. We can carry that
better than pickled pork in kegs and we shall not have to carry a lot of
useless brine if we take the dry salted meat."
The Doctor added some dried beef, a few hams, some bacon and a supply of
sugar.
"Sugar," he explained, "is almost pure nutriment. It is food so
concentrated that it ought never to be taken in large quantities in its
pure state."
"That's why they were so stingy with me in the matter of candy when I
was a little chap," soliloquized Tom.
The total supply of meat taken along was small, but it was quite well
understood that the party must rely upon its guns mainly for that part
of its food supply.
For bread there was a small quantity of "hard tack" and a large supply
of corn meal.
The salt was securely encased in a water-tight and even moisture-proof
oil-cloth bag. One big cheese was taken by special request of Ed's
mother, who had made it a year before, and the Doctor approved its
inclusion in the list.
"It weighs fifty pounds," he said to Jack who from the first had charge
of the expedition, "but it is pure food and we couldn't put in fifty
pounds of any thing else that would go so far to ward off starvation in
case we get into difficulties. Next to a supply of coffee, nothing could
be more useful."
There were only four pack mules to carry these things, but every member
of the party carried a heavy pack on his shoulders, besides his gun and
axe, so that altogether the expedition was reasonably well provisioned,
in view of the fact that it was going into the mountains where game of
every kind abounded.
No provender was carried for the pack mules. There was grass enough for
them to live upon during the journey of two days and at the end of that
time they were to be turned loose to find their own way down the
mountain, cropping grass and herbs as they went.
There was a grind stone for the sharpening of the axes, and one of the
boys carried a long cross-cut saw. The ammunition supply was large, and
besides cartridges loaded with turkey shot it included several scores
that 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 laid
upon them. But the trip up the mountain was to occupy a good deal less
than two days and so the owner of the mules readily consented to the
overloading.
That is how it came about that the five boys and Doctor LaTrobe were
camping up there in a little mountain glade, on the night on which our
story opens. They had less than a mile to go on the next day in order to
reach their permanent camping place, but the journey was mainly a very
steep up-hill one, and, their halt on the mountain side was in every way
wise.
Healthily weary as they were it did not take the boys long to fall
asleep after they had wrapped themselves in their blankets and lain down
with feet toward the great blazing fire.
It was understood that the one on sentry duty should replenish the fire
from time to time, but at Jack's wise suggestion the sentry was himself
to remain well away from the blazing logs, and in the shadow of the
woodlands beyond.
"Otherwise," explained Jack, "an enemy approaching in the dark might
easily pick off our sentry, sitting or standing in the firelight, and
then slip away in the darkness without the possibility of our seeing
him."
The hours wore away, however, with no disturbance in the camp. One after
another sentry aroused his successor and himself lay down to sleep.
It was nearing daybreak, and little Tom was on duty. There was already a
rime of white frost on the grass and leaves and the atmosphere was
chill. Tom looked longingly at the great blazing fire as he walked his
beat in the woodland shadows far beyond reach of its comforting
radiance.
"Any how this snappy air keeps a fellow from sleeping on post," he said
to 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 stealthy
noise. Listening he heard a sound as of some one creeping up through the
woods. He cocked both barrels of his shot gun, each of which carried
nine buck shot, and breathlessly waited, listening and looking.
Presently he fired, and instantly every member of the party was on his
feet, gun in hand, for they were all sleeping with their pieces beside
them.
"What is it?"
"Where is it?"
"Who is it?" and so on with question after question they bombarded
little Tom.
"It's breakfast," said little Tom, calmly walking to the foot of a tree
and there picking up a fat opossum.
There was a laugh, for half asleep as the boys were they saw the humor
of the situation and realized under what a nervous strain they had been
sleeping.
"Now go to sleep again," said Tom, "and when I wake you next time
breakfast will be ready."
He went away into the woods and there dressed the opossum. Then he so
far disregarded orders as to go to the fire and rig up a device for
cooking the dainty animal. He cut two forked sticks, sharpened their
lower ends and drove them firmly into the earth. Across these he laid
another stick and from it he hung the opossum by a bit of twine which he
twisted till it set and kept the roast revolving. Then he returned to
the shadows, but every now and then he came back to the fire to inspect
his roast and to set the string twirling anew.
Finally, just as day was breaking, little Tom aroused the rest with a
demand 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 animal
were picked clean and the final drop of coffee was drunk.