Part 11 (2/2)

”Now first of all,” said Tom, when breakfast was over and the boys again began questioning him as to his night's adventure,--”first of all if I ever disappear again you're not any of you to worry about me. You all say that 'little Tom knows how to take care of himself,' and I believe I do, particularly when I have a double-barrelled shotgun with me and forty cartridges loaded with buckshot in my belt.

”Now to explain. I was curious to find out how far the moons.h.i.+ner who 'negotiated' with me at the muzzle of your magazine rifle, Doctor, was telling the truth, and how far he was lying. So I made up my mind to climb down the mountain, following the line of our chute, and find out whether or not that big timber had made a wreck of an illicit still down there. Of course it hadn't. That was only an 'explanation' invented by the fellow for immediate use, when he was caught sneaking up here to shoot some of us. His sole purpose was to drive us 'out'n the mountings'

as these people put it. His plan was to sneak up here behind the house and shoot some one or other of us, and thus compel us to 'git down out'n the mountings.' He thought we'd all be out there chopping and that after dropping one of us he could slip away unseen and of course unrecognized.

He thought that then we'd quit. He didn't know that that cat had scratched me so badly that the Doctor had condemned me to stay here at the house, and so he was taken completely by surprise when I levelled that repeating rifle at him, at less than six paces distance. So he resorted to humanity's last resource, lying. I remember reading in a book somewhere that Queen Elizabeth said that 'a lie is an intellectual way of meeting a difficulty.' Well that fellow was very intellectual. He lied 'to the queen's taste'--even Queen Elizabeth's taste. He told me that he had come up here to ask us fellows to change the direction of our chute, lest it demolish his still down there--though of course he didn't admit that it was a still. I wanted to find out about that and so I slipped away and climbed down the mountain. I found the still all right--indeed I found three of them--on my mother's land, but there isn't one of them in the line of our chute or within a quarter of a mile of it. All that was a fable made up to cover the moons.h.i.+ner's murderous mission.

”Well when I found the stills in full blast I made up my mind to watch their operations for a time. I was securely ensconced upon a ledge which I thought inaccessible from below, but it wasn't. For presently those fellows threw out their pickets, and one of them climbed up to my particular ledge, to keep 'watch and ward' there. There were only two things for me to do. Either I must shoot the fellow and take my chances of running away over a difficult track with which the moons.h.i.+ners were familiar while I was not, or I must crouch away somewhere where the moons.h.i.+ning picket was not likely to see me.

”As the more prudent of the two courses open to me, I chose the latter.

There was a sort of half cave there, a crevice in the rocks, and I crawled into that, and there I stayed all night, with my gun at full c.o.c.k and with Little Tom every instant on the alert. My plan was to keep myself hidden as long as I could, and if discovered to get in the first shot, and then run as fast as I could. Fortunately I was not discovered, and about half past six o'clock the stills ceased operations and the pickets were called in. Then I made my way around the side of the mountain and got back to camp.

”There, that's the whole story of Little Tom's night adventure. Now let's get to work at our chopping, for I am well enough now to do my share and I hereby declare my independence of the Doctor.”

”That's all right,” said the Doctor, ”but if you break open any of those wounds, I'll order you to bed again.”

”But wait awhile,” interposed Jack. ”There's something serious in all this. Obviously these people don't intend to make open war upon us.

Their plan is to sneak upon us and now and then to shoot one of us from some hiding place, in order to drive us out of the mountains. Now we've got to look out for that. We can do it in two ways. First we can send a slab down the chute with a message in it asking our friends down below to send up the revenue officers and a company of soldiers to arrest all these men, telling the revenue people that we'll show them the stills and the men. In other words we can 'carry the war into Africa' as the Romans did, and put these fellows on the defensive instead of ourselves standing in that position. Or, if we don't care to do that--and there are reasons against it--”

”What are the reasons against it?” asked Little Tom, whose disposition it was always to take the offensive in a righteous controversy.

”Well, not more than a dozen or twenty of these mountaineers are actively engaged in this illicit distilling business, but all the rest of the mountaineers are their friends and most of them are their relatives, for these mountaineers have intermarried until almost every one of them is the near kinsman of all the rest. Now if we call in the a.s.sistance of the revenue officers and the troops behind them, the best that we can hope for is to put a dozen or so of them into jail, while possibly two or three of them will be shot in the melee. That will leave the rest of them to make war upon us, with the a.s.sistance of all the men of the mountains.”

”Well what's the other plan,” asked Tom, who very reluctantly gave up the idea of aggressive fighting.

”We must so place a sentinel every day that no man can come within rifle range of us without being discovered and stopped--with a bullet if necessary. Fortunately our camp is so placed that there are only two points at which it can be reached, and fortunately again there is one sheltered point--out there under the cliff--from which a sentinel can see anybody approaching by either of the only two roads that lead into our camp. My plan is to keep a sentinel always under the cliff out there.”

Jack had so thoroughly thought the matter out that it needed no discussion. His plan was instantly adopted, one boy was sent to the sentry's post under the cliff, and the rest made a late beginning of the day's work of wood chopping.

CHAPTER XV

_Two Shots that Hit_

The days pa.s.sed rapidly now, as they always do when people are busily at work, and little by little the boys sent a great number of ties and timbers and many cords of wood down the chute.

One evening Tom and Ed were ”playing on the piano.” That is to say they were grinding axes by the firelight. For when the grind-stone was provided with a proper frame and set up in the house, Tom insisted upon calling it the piano, though some of the boys wanted to consider it as a sewing machine or a typewriter. One thing was certain, it must be kept in doors. Otherwise the water would freeze upon it, rendering it useless.

As Tom and Ed played upon the piano immediately after supper, Tom said to the Doctor:

”Tell us some more about beans?”

”I don't clearly catch your meaning,” answered the Doctor.

”Why you once began telling us how valuable beans were as human food,”

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