Camp Venture: A Story of the Virginia Mountains

  CHAPTER XXI

  _An Enemy to the Rescue_

  The plan had been to set to work next morning to dig the house out ofthe snow; that is to say, to dig away a space around the cabin. But theDoctor forbade it.

  "The more force we expend in work," he said, "the more food we musthave, and as we have pretty nearly no food now, we absolutely mustn'texpend any force unnecessarily. We must simply rest to-day, doing nomore shoveling than is necessary to open a little larger area around thedoor, and to keep our path to the wood pile open."

  That day, the next and the next were passed in idleness and with growinghunger. The snow ceased for a time on the second day, but the severecold weather which alone could release the boys from their terribleplight, did not come. On the third day, the snow began to fall again ina pitiless and discouraging way, and by that time the food supply hadrun so low that the Doctor's dole of it was too small even to ward offthe severe pangs of hunger.

  Tom said that night: "Boys, I don't care what the consequences are, I'mgoing to break out of this to-morrow morning or perish in the attempt.I'd rather die in a snow bank, fighting for a chance, than sit here andslowly starve to death. My strength is already waning, and before itgoes altogether I'm going to make an effort to get some food. If I waitlonger I sha'n't have either the strength or the courage to go at all."

  This time nobody interposed an objection, but foreseeing Tom's need, andknowing that he would accept nothing not shared equally by the others,the Doctor deliberately dealt out a larger supply of beans than usualthat night. The meal was all gone. The pork had been eaten up, and afterthe Doctor gave out this supper, which it would take till eleven ortwelve o'clock at night to cook, there was left only about two quarts ofbeans in the camp, and absolutely not an ounce of food of any otherkind.

  In ordinary circumstances, if the boys had been thus shut up in theircabin and deprived of physical activity, they would have held long talksand learned much. Especially they would have beset the Doctor withquestions, the answers to which would have interested them. But now theywere too hungry for material food, too starved of body and far toodepressed in mind to care for conversation of any kind. They simply satstill and starved, in gloomy silence, and under the terrible oppressionof hopelessness and helplessness. All but Little Tom. His couragesurvived, and as he sat before the fire waiting for the beans to cook,he was resolutely planning ways and means by which, if possible, to makethe morrow's expedition successful. The chances, he knew, were a hundredto one against him, and he was trying, by the exercise of a carefulforesight, to bring that one chance in a hundred within his grasp.

  Presently he took off his boots and drove the heaviest nails there werein the camp into their heels, letting the heads protrude more than aquarter of an inch below the surface.

  "What's that for, Tom?" asked Jack, in listless fashion.

  "To keep me from slipping," Tom answered, "in climbing over rocks withsnow or ice on them."

  "But you're not really going to try this thing to-morrow, are you? Itwill be madness to attempt it."

  "Probably," answered Tom. "But madness or sanity I'm going to make theattempt. I don't see anything particularly sane in staying here in campand trusting to a quart or two of beans to keep life in six alreadystarved boys. I'd rather die trying than sitting still. So I'm going tostart at daylight."

  There was no use in arguing, particularly as the argument was manifestlyall on Tom's side. So all the boys remained silent.

  "I'm going to take two guns," said Tom, presently, "the rifle and a shotgun, so as to lose no chance of any game, big or little. I'll prettycertainly lose one of the guns before I get back if I ever get back atall."

  Nobody said anything in reply. Tom's remark had been addressed to nobodyin particular. Indeed it was rather a reflection out loud than a remark.

  Then Tom proceeded to get his ammunition belt ready. The rifle wasalready loaded in its magazine, with fourteen cartridges. For the shotgun, Tom put into his belt, twenty cartridges loaded with nine buckshoteach, and twenty that carried turkey shot--these last for game smallerthan deer.

  "I'll kill anything I see," he said, presently, "from a skunk to a bigbuck deer. We are hungry enough now to eat any sort of meat that maycome to our hand."

  Just then a noise was heard on the snow-covered roof--a noise as ofscratching and slipping. Nobody heard it but Tom, but his senses werealready in that condition of alertness which the morrow's work wouldrequire for its success. So, without saying anything to his comrades,Tom took the rifle, opened the door, and went out to see what the mattermight be. He reflected as he did so, that it was probably only someslipping of the snow and ice upon the clapboards, but at any rate hewanted to see for himself the cause of it.

  A few minutes later the boys inside the hut were startled by two cracksof a rifle and a heavy fall, just in front of the door. They seizedtheir guns and rushed out, stumbling over something at the door as theydid so.

  "Look out there!" called Tom, eagerly; "don't risk a blow from his clawsyet. He may have life in him still. Let me give him one more bullet tomake sure."

  With that Tom advanced and fired once more into the carcass of the largeblack bear that he had already killed.

  "It's pretty hard, isn't it?" said Tom.

  "What is?" asked the Doctor.

  "Why, to shoot a friend that had come to our rescue as that fellow did."

  "I don't understand."

  "Oh, yes you do, or at least you ought to," answered Tom, in whom thelong continued, but now released, nervous strain, had wrought anirritable mood. "Don't you see that fellow came here just in time torescue us from starvation--for I had hardly a hope of getting back withany game from to-morrow's expedition--and he brought a huge supply ofbear's meat with him, under his skin. By the way, boys, skin himcarefully, as his hide will be a valuable addition to my collection ofpelts. I have the painter's coat, a deer's hide, the skins of severalraccoons and opossums, thirty or forty squirrel and hare skins, and nowthis bear's thick overcoat will greatly increase the value of mycollection. Skin him carefully, but quickly, for we're going to have adinner of bear beef before we go to bed, and we'll eat bear beef to ourhearts' content till the weather releases us from our prison. I'm notgoing out for game to-morrow."