_A Puzzling Situation_
No sooner was the action over and the wounded men attended to than the
lieutenant again talked with the revenue officer. That person was more
halting and irresolute than ever. He had hidden, in a crouching position
behind the barrier during the fight, and Jack, seeing him thus screened,
had said to him:
"Perhaps you now begin to understand why we needed our protective work;"
but the man made no answer. The lieutenant said to him after the mélee:
"Now that I have two of my own men and three of the mountaineers
severely wounded, I cannot march down the mountain. I shall stay here
and answer any duty call you may make upon me. But I must have food for
my men and for your prisoners. Are you going to provide it or are you
not?"
The man who was not only irresolute but an arrant coward as well,
hesitated. He pleaded for "time to think."
"But while you are thinking," answered the soldier, "we'll all starve.
Are you ready to send one of your men down the mountain under escort or
are you not? Yes or no, and I'll act accordingly."
"Well, you see, this fuss will bring all the moonshiners in the
mountains down upon us," answered the man, "and really, Lieutenant, I
don't think it would be prudent just now, to weaken your force by
detaching any of your men. We might all be butchered here at any
moment."
The military officer was exasperated almost beyond endurance by the
manifest cowardice and obstinacy of the revenue agent. He was on the
point of breaking out into denunciation, but he restrained himself and
called to a sentinel instead. When the sentinel came he said to him:
"Tell Sergeant Malby to report to me," and when the sergeant touched his
hat and stood "at attention," the lieutenant said:
"Go at once and make out a requisition for one month's supplies for all
the troops and all the prisoners, and for pack mules enough to bring the
stuff up the mountain. Order Corporal Jenkins to report to me with a
detail of four men, equipped for active work, immediately."
Then borrowing writing materials from the boys, he wrote a hurried note
to his commandant below, relating the events that had occurred and
setting forth the circumstances in which he was placed. By the time that
this was done, the sergeant returned with the requisition ready for
signature, and the corporal reported with his squad. With a few hurried
instructions to the corporal, the lieutenant sent him down the mountain,
specially charging him to hurry both going and coming. "You see we've
got all these prisoners to feed--seven of them, not counting the
wounded--as well as ourselves. We'll all be starving in another
twenty-four hours. So make all haste."
Then the lieutenant sought out the boys, who had gone to work at their
chopping--all of them except the Doctor, who was still busy over the
wounded men,--for Ed was now well enough to do a little work each day,
under orders to avoid severe strains and heavy lifting.
When the officer sought out Jack and asked him for a conference, Jack
called the other boys about him, explaining:
"Our camp is sort of a republic, Lieutenant, in which all have an equal
voice, while each does the thing that he can do better than anybody else
can. So with your permission I will call all the boys together for our
talk."
The lieutenant assented and all sat down on the logs that were lying
about.
"We're in a rather awkward position," said the military man. "That
revenue agent asked our commandant for some soldiers to protect him in
raiding a still up here. He gave us the impression that it would take
one day to come up here and do the work, and one day for our return. So
I was ordered to take half a company, with three days' cooked rations,
and accompany the revenue officers. They knew just where your camp was,
and they thought they knew that it was the still they wanted.
"Now the irresolute--Well never mind that. The revenue agent insists
upon staying in the mountains for an indefinite time, and now that two
of my men and three of our prisoners are severely wounded and in the
hands of your good young Doctor, I am not reluctant to stay. But we must
have food, and that sublimated idiot has provided none and is afraid
even to send after any. So I have myself sent a squad down the mountain
with a requisition. They will return just as quickly as possible, but I
don't see how it will be possible for them to get back under two, or
more--probably three days. So I want to ask you to lend us some
provisions, which I will return the moment the caravan gets here."
"But we have no provisions!" said Jack, in consternation. "Our total
supply consists of less than two bags of meal and perhaps half a dozen
squirrels and rabbits. That wouldn't go far among so many."
"I'll tell you what," broke in Tom. "If the lieutenant will lend me two
men to help carry, I'll go foraging and see what I can bring in in the
way of game."
Jack explained to the military man that Tom had been from the first the
camp's reliance for meat supplies, and that incidentally he had secured
all the meal that was then in camp.
"Excellent!" exclaimed the lieutenant. "We have more bread than anything
else, and we needn't borrow any of your meal. But if your brother--by
the way, it was you who stood by me in the fight out there this morning,
wasn't it? Are you much hurt?"
"Oh, no," answered Tom. "One of those moonshiners thought I ought to
wear earrings, and so he pierced my left ear with a bullet, that's all,"
said Tom, whose ear the Doctor had carefully disinfected and bandaged.
"But why aren't you at West Point?" again asked the officer. "I never
saw a cooler hand or a boy that the army so clearly needed. Why aren't
you at West Point?"
"Because I can't get an appointment," said Tom.
"Why can't you get an appointment?"
"Because I have no political influence. You see my father, while he
lived, was very active in politics, and he belonged to a party just the
opposite of the one our present Congressman belongs to."
"Would you like to go?" asked the lieutenant.
"Very much, indeed," answered Tom. "I want just the sort of education
they give there."
"Could you stand the entrance examinations--say a year hence?"
"Yes. I could stand them now. I went all over that ground when I first
tried to get an appointment."
"Well now," broke in Jack, "this isn't getting meat. Tom, go hunting
immediately, and keep on going hunting till the famine in this camp is
over. I haven't a doubt the lieutenant will lend you the men you want to
help carry game."
"Certainly!" answered the lieutenant, beckoning to a sentinel to come to
him.
"Tell Sergeant Malby to send me two strong men instantly."
Tom took two guns with him, requiring one of the soldiers to carry the
rifle, while he carried the shot gun, double loaded, for big or little
game. It was now about noon, and the hunting party did not return till
after dark. When they did they brought with them as the spoil of our
young Nimrod's guns, a half grown bear, a deer weighing perhaps a
hundred and fifty pounds, three wild turkeys and a big string of hares
and squirrels. Besides these Tom was laboriously dragging by a string a
big wild boar.
"That boar's a disputed bird," he said. "This soldier, Johnson, and I
fired at him at the same instant. He set out to rip Johnson open with
his tusks, like a vest with no buttons on it, and Johnson fired to
protect himself. At the same moment I fired a charge of buckshot into
the beast. Johnson's bullet struck him in the neck, just about where I
fondly imagine the jugular vein or something else of that sort to be,
while my nine buckshot striking him just behind the left fore leg, went
through him about where his heart ought to be if it's in the right
place. Anyhow the animal gave up the ghost in an astonishing hurry, and
possibly the Doctor might find out, by a post mortem examination, which
shot killed him. But in my humble opinion the time necessary for that
can be better spent in preparing the gentleman for the table. I move
that we roast him whole and invite the soldiers to dine with us! He's
big enough to go round."
It did not take long to carry that motion or to begin carrying it into
effect. The lieutenant ordered the company cook to assist Ed in
preparing the wild boar and roasting him. Ed carefully saved the
"giblets" for future use, a proceeding which gave the company cook a
totally new economic suggestion in the use of animals killed for food.
Then the two required the other soldiers to build a great fire
out-of-doors, and to erect a pole frame work near it, from which they
hung the boar to roast. Ed gave the cook still another good suggestion
by thrusting a dripping pan under the hog and catching all he could of
the fat that fell from the animal.
"What do you do that for?" asked the company cook.
"For two reasons," answered Ed. "First, because I want all this fat to
cook with and to use as butter hereafter. You've no idea how far it goes
when people are on short rations. Secondly, because if all this fat fell
upon these glowing coals it would blaze up and our hog would be scorched
and burned. You are a company cook and I never was anything of the sort.
But I honestly believe I could teach you some things about cooking."
"Of course you could," said the soldier. "And perhaps I could teach you
some also. I could show you how to bake bread on a barrel head, or even
on a ramrod, only we don't have ramrods since these new-fangled
breech-loading guns came into use."
Two or three hours later, at ten o'clock, the big porker was roasted "to
a turn," and Jack, recognizing the necessity of maintaining military
distinctions in all that related to association in military life,
invited the lieutenant to take the night dinner with him and his
companions inside the house, leaving the soldiers to dine out of doors,
in accordance with their custom. So Jack asked Ed to cut off a ham and
some other choice parts of the wild boar and send them into the hut.
There the boys and the lieutenant dined together, with the three revenue
officers for additional guests.
The lieutenant had no very kindly feelings for the chief revenue
officer, because he had discovered him to be a coward, and a brave man
never likes to touch elbows with a coward, at dinner or any where else.
On the other hand the chief revenue officer had no very kindly feelings
for the lieutenant, because he knew that the lieutenant had found him
out for the coward and incapable that he was, and it is not in human
nature for any man to feel kindly toward another who has found him out
to that extent.
Nevertheless the dinner passed off pleasantly enough until the
lieutenant, at its end, asked of the revenue agent:
"Are you going to raid any stills to-night?"
"No!" angrily answered the officer. "Why do you keep on asking me that
question?"
"Only that I may make my dispositions accordingly," calmly answered the
lieutenant. "You forget that I am here in an entirely subordinate
capacity. I am under no orders to raid stills. I am here only to support
you in any raids you may make. You represent the civil arm, I the
military, and the military arm is always subordinate to the civil. It is
not for me to suggest that you might successfully raid half a dozen
stills to-night. It is my duty simply to offer my services and those of
my men in aid of any plans you may have formed. And, as it is my duty to
consult the comfort of my men, so far as that is possible, I naturally
ask whether you want them on marching duty to-night or whether I may
order them to make themselves as comfortable as they can in bivouac. As
I now understand that you do not contemplate any active operations
to-night, I will make my dispositions accordingly. Sentinel!"
This last was a summons to the soldier who always stands guard just
outside the door of any house or tent in which a commanding officer may
be. The sentinel entered immediately and saluted.
"Call the corporal of the guard," commanded the lieutenant, "and bid
him report to me for instructions."
In half a minute the corporal came. The only instructions he received
were these:
"Bid the sergeant report to me here." Thus in military life is
everything done "decently and in order." The sentinel could not have
summoned the sergeant without quitting his post; but he could summon the
corporal by a simple guard call, and the corporal could go to the
sergeant and summon him to the lieutenant's presence. When he appeared
and deferentially saluted, the lieutenant said to him:
"We shall remain where we are till further orders. Dispose the men in
the best way you can to make them comfortable and let them build
camp-fires. Throw out six pickets up the mountain on the south, one
below here on the north, one on the east and one on the west. Send the
men on the south as far up the mountain as where the enemy was
encountered this morning. Then charge the sentries who are guarding our
prisoners to be on the alert and serve as camp guards as well. They are
to listen for shots from any of the pickets and report to me as soon as
one is heard from any direction. I shall sleep under the bluff, near the
spring. The watchword is 'alert;' the countersign 'attention.'"
"But, lieutenant," said Jack, when the sergeant had taken his leave,
"why will you not accept our hospitality? Why will you not sleep here in
our house? We have five wounded men here, it is true, but there is one
spare bunk and you are more than welcome to it."
"I am very grateful, I am sure," said the lieutenant, "but it is the
rule of my life that whenever I am in command and my men have to sleep
in the open, I also sleep in the open. I have lived up to that rule even
in a blizzard on the plains. Besides, this--well, this revenue
officer--has done just enough to provoke the moonshiners and their
friends, and not half enough to intimidate them. That is why I ordered
our pickets thrown so far out to-night. There is a half sunken road
running across the ridge up there. They had it for a breastwork this
morning. I mean to have it next time. But what I was going to say is
this: A man sleeping in a house sleeps soundly; a man sleeping in the
open sleeps very lightly. As it is my purpose to visit all my pickets at
least three times to-night, I want to sleep very lightly; so with all
thanks for your courteous hospitality, I will sleep out under the bluff
to-night, and now I must say good night."