Part 14 (1/2)
”Sorry--for what?” asked the Doctor.
”Why, now that you've told us so much about the great s.h.i.+ps, I want to hear more. I've at least a hundred questions to ask you.”
”Very well,” said the Doctor. ”The winter will be long and we'll have abundant opportunities of evenings to ask and answer all the questions we please. But just now our business is to get to bed and to sleep, or rather that's the business of you other fellows. My business is to go out and relieve Jim Chenowith as our picket guard. So good night boys, and good, refres.h.i.+ng slumbers to you!”
With that the Doctor shouldered a gun, first carefully examining its cartridges, and strode out into the bitterly cold night to do his turn at guard duty. He had indeed made himself a boy among boys, and he had won all hearts.
CHAPTER XVII
_Christmas in Camp Venture_
As breakfast was in course of preparation the next morning, Ed brought a large dripping pan and set it in front of the fire.
”Now you fellows,” he said, ”who are broiling bacon on the points of sharpened sticks, will please let the fat from it drip into this pan, and you'll kindly do the same from now till Christmas.”
”What's up Ed?” asked Jack. ”What do you want us to do that for?”
”Why the Doctor insists that I must stay indoors till after Christmas, so quite naturally it is going to fall to me to cook the Christmas dinner. I take it for granted that little Tom is going to get that big turkey gobbler he told us about, and I'm going to cook it properly--or as nearly so as the limited resources of Camp Venture will permit. To that end I shall want some drippings from broiling bacon. So save all the fat you can, boys, from now until Christmas.”
The boys asked no questions, knowing that Ed Parmly was by all odds the best cook in the camp, but they saved all they could of the drippings from the slices of bacon that they were toasting in the fire.
Three days before Christmas, Tom took his rifle and went out on the mountain in search of his big turkey. He brought back some game--Tom never failed to do that--but he came back without the big turkey, though it was well after nightfall when he arrived at the camp. Some of the boys were disposed to joke him about his failure, though of course in a friendly way.
”That's all right fellows,” answered Tom. ”But I've promised you that big turkey, and I'm going to deliver the goods.”
”How can you speak so confidently, Tom?” asked Harry. ”You've missed getting him to-day and you may miss getting him to-morrow and next day.”
”But I shan't do that,” answered Tom with that confidence which is born of knowledge and skill. ”I know where that turkey and his flock are roosting to-night, and I'll be there before daylight to-morrow morning.
I'll be right under him when he wakes, and I'll have my shot gun with me, for the range to a roost is short. I'll have that turkey gobbler here before noon to-morrow, or I'll admit that I'm no hunter.”
”But suppose he quits his roost during the night and wanders away somewhere,” suggested the Doctor, who knew nothing of the habits of wild turkeys.
”Turkeys never do that,” answered Tom. ”When once they go to roost they stay there till the dawn broadens into full daylight. Nothing could persuade them to quit their perches much before sunrise, and before that time I'll have that stately gentleman flung over my shoulder.”
Accordingly Tom left camp about two hours before the daylight came, and about ten o'clock he returned, bearing the gigantic gobbler, in triumph, and with it two smaller turkeys which he had also killed.
”There you doubters!” he said as he flung down the birds, ”I promised you a turkey dinner for Christmas and I've kept my word. It only remains for Ed to cook the big bird properly and I haven't the least doubt that he'll do that. The other two will keep in such weather as this as long as we care to keep them. What with the game we already have on hand, and these three turkeys, I think we're in no pressing danger of an outbreak of scurvy in camp, are we Doctor?”
”So long as you are around, Tom,” answered the Doctor, ”I shall feel no apprehension of scurvy, and still less of starvation.”
Tom had shown his spoil at that part of the camp where the other boys were chopping. Having done so he carried the turkeys to the house and delivered them over to Ed, who, incapacitated for other work by his wound, had made himself at once sentinel in charge of the prisoner and company cook.
As soon as Tom left the choppers, Jack stopped his work, and said to the others:
”I say, boys, Tom was a Christmas baby, and this coming Christmas day will be his eighteenth birthday. Isn't there any way in which we can celebrate it?”
”Yes,” answered the Doctor, ”We'll give a big dinner in his honor on that occasion and surprise him with it. I have been jealously saving a few onions and potatoes that I brought up the mountain in my pack. I have carefully guarded them against frost as well as against use, meaning to keep them all winter in case scurvy should appear among us.