_A New Declaration of Independence_
"Well," said little Tom long before supper, "if you fellows are too lazy
to do any more work after an easy day like this, I am going out into the
sunset to look for a turkey. I'm not fond of salt meat, and besides
we've got to spare our salt pork against a time of need. I'll be back by
supper time."
With that he shouldered his gun, withdrew one of the buckshot
cartridges, inserted one loaded for turkeys in its stead, and strolled
away up the mountain side.
An hour passed and little Tom did not return. Another hour went by and
still no little Tom came. By this time darkness had set in and supper
was ready. The boys were growing uneasy, but they comforted themselves
with the thought that "Little Tom knows how to take care of himself,
anyhow."
So they sat down to their evening meal with a great fire crackling and
glowing in front of their temporary shelter, and filling it with fierce
light which completely blinded their eyes to everything in the gloom
beyond. They had carelessly stacked their arms in a corner, a dozen feet
beyond reach, and were chatting in a jolly way when suddenly there
appeared before them the tall mountaineer of the night before.
This time he was wilier than on his previous appearance. This time he
levelled his gun at the party and quickly stepped between them and their
arms. Then, with his rifle at his shoulder and his finger near the hair
trigger that was set to go off at the very lightest touch, he called
out:
"You got the drap on me las' night, but now I've dun got the drap on
you. Will you now git out'n this here mounting? I've dun give you notice
that us fellers what lives up here don't want no visitors from down
below. So throw up your hands and march right now, every one of you.
I'll take keer o' your guns an' other things, an' I'm not a goin' to
take this rifle from my shoulder till the last one of you is well
started down the mounting. Come now! Git a move onto you!"
At that moment a noise as of some heavy body falling was heard in the
outer darkness just beyond the limits of the firelight. The next
instant little Tom leaped upon the mountaineer's back grasped his
throat with both hands and dragged him to earth. His rifle went off in
the mélee, but fortunately the bullet had no billet and flattened itself
against the side of the cliff.
Of course the mountaineer was more than a match for little Tom and in a
prolonged struggle would easily have got the better of him. But the
other boys instantly came to their comrade's assistance and the intruder
was quickly and completely overcome.
He had received some ugly hurts in the encounter, among them a broken
arm, but the Doctor dressed the wounds and meantime the man became
placative in his mood.
"I was about to shoot him," said little Tom, "but it isn't a pleasant
thing to shoot a man even when you must, and so I thought of the other
plan, and jumped on his back instead. I knew I couldn't hold him down by
myself, but I knew you other fellows would come to my assistance, so I
risked that mode of operations."
"If you had shot him," said the Doctor, "you'd have been justified both
in law and in morals."
"Yes, I know that," said little Tom, "but I shouldn't have slept well
afterwards and I'm fond of my sleep."
"Well now eat your supper," said the Doctor, "and perhaps our friend
the enemy here will join you in enjoying it."
To the astonishment of all, the mountaineer eagerly replied:
"Well, I don't keer if I do. I ain't et nothin' sence a very early
breakfast, an' it wa'n't much of anything that I et then. As for the
little scrimmage, I don't bear no malice when I gits hurt in a fair
fight--least of all against a young chap like that. You see I had got
the drap on you fellers, an' when he come up sort o' unexpected like and
unbeknownst to me, he jist naterally took the drap on me. It was all
fair an' right, an' I want to say I'm grateful to him for not usin' his
gun. He could 'a shot me like a dog, an' he didn't."
All this while the lean and hungry mountaineer was eating voraciously
and in spite of his wounds with an eager relish.
"How do you people live up here?" asked the Doctor. "You can't grow much
in the way of crops. Do you generally have enough to eat?"
"Well hardly to say generally. Sometimes we has, and more oftener we
hasn't. You see our business is onsartain. That's why we don't like
strangers prowlin' around in the mountings. Now I've got somethin'
friendly like, to say to you fellers. Fust off I want to tell you _I'm_
not agoin' to bother you agin. I'm a believin' that you've come up here
on a straight business. But there's others that ain't got so much faith
as me. They'll make trouble for you if you stay. My advice to you is to
git out'n the mountings jest as quick as you kin."
"But my friend," said the Doctor, "Why should we leave the mountains? We
are on land owned by the mother of my young friends here. We have come
only to see if we can't get some money for her out of lands that have
never paid her anything--not even earning the taxes that she has paid on
them. Why shouldn't we stay here and do this? This is a free country,
and--"
"They's taxes in it," said the mountaineer, gritting his teeth, "an'
they's jails for them that tries to carry on business without a payin'
of the taxes. I don't call that no free country."
"It would be idle to argue that question," replied the Doctor. "But we,
at least, have nothing to do with the taxes. We are here to make a
little money in a perfectly legitimate way, by hard work. We are not
interfering with any body and we don't intend to interfere with any
body. But we're going to stay here all winter and carry on our
business."
"Yes!" added Jack, "and if any body interferes with us it will be the
worse for him."
"Well, you're makin' of a mistake," said the mountaineer, "an' I give
you friendly warnin'. As I done told you before, I believe you. I think
you're dead straight. But there's them what ain't so charitable, as the
preachers say. There's them that'll believe you're lyin', and 'll stick
to that there belief till the cows come home, an' they'll make a mighty
heap o' trouble fer you fellers ef you tries to stay here. They're men
that won't be watched I tell you, and forty witnesses, all on their
Bible oaths couldn't persuade 'em but what you're here to watch 'em.
It's friendly advice I give you when I tells you to git out'n these
mountings."
"All right," broke in little Tom, "but while you're scattering friendly
advice around suppose you advise your friends to let us alone. Tell them
that little Tom Ridsdale proposes to shoot next time, and to shoot his
buckshot barrel at that." Tom rose to his feet and added:
"You and your people mean war. Very well. I for one, accept the issue.
Hereafter it will be war, and in war every man shoots to do all the
damage he can. I have a perfect right to be here on my mother's land,
and here I am going to stay. If every other fellow in the party should
start down the mountain this night, I would stay here alone to fight it
out all winter. And every other fellow in our party feels just as I do.
Go to your criminal friends and tell them that! But warn them that if
they interfere with us we'll not wrestle with them, we'll shoot and
we'll take no chance of missing. We'll shoot to produce effects. We'll
never interfere with you or your friends, but you and your friends
mustn't interfere with us. If you do, you'll get war and all you want of
it. We've tried to do the right thing by you; and now I give you fair
warning."
"Well, all I've got to say," said the mountaineer, as he took his
departure, "is jest this: You fellers has dealt fair with me, an' I'll
deal fair with you. That boy that threw me down an' broke my arm mout
just as easy have shot me through the body; an' then the tender way that
the Doctor done up my arm! Why even a woman couldn't 'a' been tenderer
like. Now I ain't got no quarrel with you fellers, an' that's why I'm
advisin' you to git down out'n the mountings as soon as you kin. There's
others, I tell you, an' they ain't soft hearted like me. They'll give
you a heap o' trouble if you stay here."
"Let them try it," answered little Tom. "Let them try it. Then we'll see
who's who, and what's what. Now tell your friends what I've said to you.
There! good night! I hope your arm will get well. If it doesn't, come
over here and let the Doctor look at it."
With that defiant farewell in his ears the mountaineer took his leave.
"Was it prudent, Tom?" asked Ed Parmly, "to send that sort of defiant
message to the moonshiners?"
"Yes, quite prudent. We want them to know that we are here on our own
business and not on theirs, at all. We want them to know that we propose
to stay here whether they want us to do so or not. And finally, we want
them to understand that any interference with us on their part, will
mean war. I've simply issued a Declaration of Independence, and--"
"And to it," called out Jim Chenowith, quoting, "we pledge our lives,
our fortunes and our sacred honor."
"Now," said Jack, "from this hour forward we'll keep a sentinel always
on duty, so that we may not be caught napping. During the daytime, of
course, when we're chopping ties and timbers, we'll need no sentinels.
We'll keep our guns within easy reach, and so every one of us will be a
sentinel, but when night comes on we mustn't let anybody 'get the drap'
on us as that fellow did to-night. By the way, Tom, did you get any
game?"
"Why, yes. I forgot all about that. I dropped it out there to tackle
that mountaineer. I had carried and dragged it for weary miles, and I
wonder at my forgetfulness."
Without questioning him further two of the boys went off into that
circle of darkness which seemed impenetrably black when looked at from
the fireside, but which was light enough when they got within its
environment. There they found a deer, weighing perhaps a hundred and
fifty pounds, which little Tom had shot high up on the mountain and had
laboriously dragged, in part, and carried on his shoulders in other
part, all the way to camp.
Tom was much too weary to attend to it, but there were eager hands to
help, and while Tom slept, they dressed the venison, and when Tom waked
in the morning, he found that he had been completely excused from sentry
duty throughout the night. His toilsome hunt, his painful carrying of
the deer, his nervous strain over the necessity of encountering the
mountaineer, and pretty seriously injuring him, and above all, his rise
in wrath and his deliverance of a new Declaration of Independence as a
defiance to the mountaineers, had been decreed by unanimous vote of the
party to be the full equivalent of sentry service, and so Tom had been
permitted to sleep through all the hours till breakfast was served.