BEFORE HIGH BLUFF.
“What does Tommy intend to do?” asked Briscoe. “What is he going to
make by fortifying himself on High Bluff?”
“I don’t know,” answered Faxon. “Of course he don’t know that we have
anything to eat, and I suppose he thinks he can starve us till we
submit or clear out.”
“I think we will not let him know that we have anything in the way of
provisions,” added Briscoe.
“Probably he means to keep us out of our guns also,” I suggested.
“Isn’t there any way to get on the Bluff?” inquired Briscoe.
“I don’t know of any way. On the two arms of the lake the water is
deep, and the sides of the promontory are nearly perpendicular.”
“How deep is the ravine between the road and the bluff?”
“Fifteen or twenty feet, as nearly as I can remember; but the stream is
a rushing torrent at the bottom of it,” replied Faxon.
“Never mind; we will look at the place very soon. We can tell best how
to proceed when we know what Tommy intends to do. Where are the other
two scouts, Faxon?”
“I left them up by the bluff, to keep a lookout.”
“That’s right.”
“I told them not to let any of the fellows on the bluff see them.”
“Good!” exclaimed Briscoe. “As I understand the matter, Tommy can no
more get out of his fortress than we can get into it.”
“Not unless we permit him to relay the bridge he has taken up.”
“We will take care of that. Now, is there any place for us to camp near
the bluff, Faxon?”
“There is room enough above the road, though there isn’t much chance to
pitch many tents.”
“We haven’t many to pitch,” laughed Briscoe. “Now we must have a talk
with our fellows, and see how they feel.”
We walked up to the front of the line, where our boys were impatiently
waiting to learn the nature of Tommy’s position. The Senior captain
explained it to them, so that a portion of them probably understood it.
“I can’t tell what we shall do till we are on the ground,” said
Briscoe. “One thing is certain: if Tommy’s fellows will not let us on
the bluff, we will not let them off; for it’s a poor rule that won’t
work both ways.”
“That’s so!” laughed the crowd.
“We have plenty to eat. We can live comfortably for three days on our
stock of provisions. Tommy will have the election to-morrow, I suppose;
and very likely he will try to get some of you to go over and help him.”
“Not much!” shouted some of the more enthusiastic of the rebels.
“If any of you wish to go, I shall not prevent you from doing so.”
“We won’t have anything to do with them!” exclaimed several.
“They can’t elect officers without a quorum, which is half the
battalion. If they can buy off, say, ten of you, they can do it--not
without.”
“We’ll duck any fellow that deserts,” cried private Crampton.
“That’s the talk!”
“Fellows, I for one, can’t submit any longer to Major Toppleton’s
tyranny,” continued Briscoe, warmly. “If any of you wish to do so, it
is none of my business.”
“We don’t!”
“If we stick together, we can make an end of it before to-morrow night.”
“Stick together!” yelled the crowd, with one voice.
“We are rebels now,” laughed Briscoe.
“That’s so!”
“But we must have good discipline, or we can’t do anything,” the
senior captain proceeded. “If you are not satisfied with your present
officers, choose others at once.”
“No! No!”
“You are satisfied, then?”
“Yes! Yes!”
“Very well. If you want somebody else to command you, say the word, and
I will cheerfully obey any one you may select.”
“Briscoe forever!”
“Thank you. I wish you to obey orders without asking any questions. If
you do, we shall come out all right.”
“Briscoe and liberty!” screamed a facetious fellow.
“Briscoe--the Washington of the Toppleton Institute!” roared another.
“Briscoe--the next major of the battalion!”
“Thank you fellows; but the less buncombe we have, the better we shall
get along,” interposed the recipient of all these honors.
Briscoe gave his orders to form in column, and the march was resumed.
Jed, with the old mare,--the mother of the fiery colt,--brought up
the rear with the provisions and stores. We were an excited band of
warriors, for we expected a stirring time for the next day, if not
for the coming night. For my own part, I was continually studying the
problem which Faxon’s description of High Bluff presented, in order to
find the means of spanning the abyss that yawned between the two rival
and opposing portions of the battalion. I was quite sure that, if Wolf
Penniman had been with us, his engineering abilities would have enabled
him to walk right over it. But he was not with us, and we should be
compelled to overcome the difficulty ourselves.
“Halt!” said Briscoe, at the head of the column, after we had marched
about a mile.
Stepping forward, I saw the two scouts, whom Faxon had posted in the
road to observe the movements of Tommy’s force during his absence. We
could not yet see High Bluff, as it was concealed by the foliage of the
trees.
“What are they doing, Langdon?” asked Briscoe of one of them whom he
had called from his station.
“Nothing but fixing up the camp,” replied the scout. “Some of them are
cooking their supper, and others are loafing about the bluff. I should
judge that they had everything arranged to suit themselves. There are
a couple of sentinels near the road, who seem to be on the lookout for
us. You can go up there and take a look without being seen.”
Briscoe and I walked forward till we obtained a full view of High
Bluff. The situation was substantially as Faxon had described it. The
tents were pitched on the highest part of the promontory. The arms were
stacked in front of them. Near the gully, the material of which the
bridge had been composed was piled up. On one side a party were engaged
in cooking. The chasm between the road and the camp seemed impassable
to me, for I was no engineer. I could not help commending Tommy for the
good judgment he had displayed in choosing this natural fortress for
his camp, though I could not see how he intended to carry his point.
“Have they seen you yet, Langdon?” asked Briscoe of the scout.
“No; I’m sure they don’t know that we are within five miles of them.”
“We may as well keep still, then. Don’t you think so, Skotchley?”
“For the present, at least. Here is a good place to camp,” I replied,
pointing to a grove by the side of the road.
“That will be as good as we can find,” he replied.
The spot was a perfect paradise of lovely scenery. The ground
comprising about half an acre, was smooth. It was fenced in with
picturesque rocks, except on the side nearest to the arm of the lake
which separated it from High Bluff. All around and above us, the trees
grew out of the crevices in the rocks. Into this shady retreat Briscoe
marched our forces. Jed’s wagon was unloaded, and its contents piled up
in a convenient place.
“What are you going to do now?” asked Jed, after he had turned his
mare, in readiness to go home.
“Probably we shall not do anything to-night,” replied Briscoe.
“If I were you, I would go on that bluff and clean them out before
to-morrow morning,” laughed Jed.
“How would you get over there?” I inquired.
“Come with me and I’ll tell you.”
Jed led the way to the arm of the lake nearest to us. At the part
adjoining the road it was not more than thirty feet wide. Pointing to a
tall pine he gave a significant nod.
“Don’t you see it now?” he inquired, with a broad grin.
“No, I don’t,” replied Briscoe.
“You are not so smart as you were this forenoon,” laughed Jed. “Don’t
you see that you can cut that tree down, and let it drop over the
gully, so as to make a bridge for you?”
“Cut it down! How? With a jackknife?”
“No, with an axe.”
“We haven’t any axe, in the first place; and in the second, if we had,
we couldn’t fell that tree in seven years.”
“I can fetch that tree down in half an hour, as easy as I can turn my
hand.”
“We couldn’t if we had a dozen axes,” added Briscoe.
“Well, see here; you have done us a good turn to-day, boys, and I’ll
bring down an axe and drop it for you.”
“That’s the idea!” exclaimed Briscoe. “We shall be ever so much obliged
to you, if you will.”
“I’ll do it, and welcome.”
“But we must not let them know on the bluff what we are about,” I
suggested.
“Certainly not,” added Briscoe. “I see it all plain enough now. We
will make a demonstration over by the road, as though we were going to
throw a bridge across the chasm.”
“That’s the idea! The brush on the edge here is so thick that Tommy’s
fellows can’t see what we are about until the pine falls. Then we will
rush over on the tree, and capture the fortress.”
Jed promised to be on the ground the next morning with his sharp axe,
and then started for home. Briscoe and I surveyed the ground again.
We could do nothing that night, and if we kept out of sight, probably
Tommy would think we had returned to Middleport in disgust. We were
willing he should think so, and we instructed our fellows to keep as
quiet as possible. But it was necessary to have a fire, in order to
make coffee, for which we had brought with us all the materials. The
smoke and the light were liable to betray us; but it was agreed all
around that it would be better to be betrayed than do without the
coffee.
Faxon, while at the store, had been thoughtful enough to provide a
supply of tin cups. We had a can of milk in the cold water of the
brook. Several of our fellows were experienced in cooking, and if we
had supped with Lord Mayor of London, we could not have been better
satisfied with the fare, though we had only bread and butter and
cheese. And never were eighty-five young gentlemen happier, or better
pleased with themselves, than we were. It was the night before the
battle; but we were content to wait, though, as it happened, the battle
commenced that night, and very soon after we had finished our supper.
Perhaps it was just as well, for the coffee was rather trying to our
nerves, and we did not wish to sleep.