Camp Venture: A Story of the Virginia Mountains

"I'm tired, and the other pack mules are tired, and from the way you move I imagine that the rest of you donkeys are tired!" called out Jack Ridsdale, as the last of the mules a...

Jack routed out the entire party before daylight next morning and bade them "get breakfast quick and eat it in a hurry. We've got to begin our house to-day," he added.

There was still much to do on the house and the boys set themselves at work on it very early the next morning. First of all there was a chimney to be built. Jack directed two of...

Tom had miscalculated the weather, misled as every body is apt to be by the calendar. As he had not at all anticipated, the softness of early March presently gave way to a sever...

Tom's second tour of guard duty ended at four o'clock in the morning, and he woke the Doctor to succeed him. Then, without attracting the other boys' attention, he rolled his bl...

During the next week or two after Christmas the boys made notable progress with their chopping, for even the Doctor had by this time become as expert as any of them in wielding...

The Doctor was an advocate of leisurely eating, but he impatiently hurried the boys through their breakfast the next morning and set them at work upon the bank with picks and sh...

The days passed 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 bear was dragged into the cabin. Jack picked out a bent stick of round wood, and with an axe quickly sharpened its ends into points, making of it a "gambrel" stick, about tw...

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. H...

The next few weeks brought nothing of adventure to the boys. Their work went on wonderfully well. They sent down the mountain innumerable ties and all the cordwood that the tree...

"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...

"Well," said little Tom long before supper, "if you fellows are too lazy to do any more work after an easy day like this, I am going out into the sunset to look for a turkey. I'...

The three Ridsdale boys and their comrades lived in a thriving, bustling little town in one of the great valleys which divide the Virginia Mountains into ranges each having its...

Ed's wound did not incapacitate him for the task of standing guard over the wounded and captured mountaineer. Ed was able to get out of bed and sit about the house with a gun sl...

Weary as they were with their over-energetic day's work, the boys went to bed early that night--all of them but Tom. That tireless Nimrod had found a bear's den the day before a...

Very early the next morning the boys, who had caught the Doctor's enthusiasm, began again their task of digging through the "out crop" coal, which began now to grow softer and m...

Tom went at once to his chopping, for being, as the Doctor said, "a healthy young animal," his sleep, his bath and his breakfast had completely cured him of his exhaustion.

Tom had not gone far on his journey before he discovered that the new Camp Venture was in fact situated very nearly at the base of the mountain. The headquarters of the railroad...

The bonfire was quickly built and stout, willing hands piled upon it the brush left over from their chopping till the blaze of it rose thirty feet into the air, illuminating the...

"Zero weather, boys, and below," called the Doctor, who was first to wake, about four o'clock that afternoon, and who, before waking the others, had gone out to inspect his weat...

"I say, Tom," said the Doctor, on Sunday morning, after the breakfast things had been cleared away, and the first fire had been lighted in the new fireplace, "I want to ask you...

The next morning the Doctor "drew" his coke oven, which was quite cool by that time. He minutely examined the coke and called Tom to look at it. "You see," he said, "how perfect...

Just a week later the boys were ready to quit Camp Venture and proceed down the mountain, or as Tom, quoting the mountaineers, put it, they prepared to "git down out'n the mount...

"Well, I'll tell you what he said and what he demanded and what answer I made. But you must bear in mind that what he said may not have been true, and what he demanded may not h...

"Why build the new Camp Venture, to be sure. Don't you understand that we're to stay here perhaps for a month, and must protect ourselves against the spring rains? We must build...

Little Tom was now in a quandary. He was on the bluff overlooking and south of the camp, but he did not know how to get into the camp. To walk in would be dangerous, of course....

"It's a stinging morning. Thermometer only ten degrees above zero outside; wind North-northwest, and blowing at twenty miles an hour; barometric pressure very high, indicating p...

Just before noon, Tom carefully removed all the bones and meat fragments from his soup kettle. Then he mixed up some corn meal dumplings and dropped them into the kettle, after...

"Boys," said Jack while supper was in process of consumption, "I'm afraid we've all got to do a little work to-night by moonlight. Fortunately there is a moon, but these thin, f...

It was nearly morning when the boys, wrapped in their blankets, began to stir uneasily and kick at their coverings. Every one of them was oppressed with heat, but for a time, we...

All arrangements having been agreed upon between Mrs. Ridsdale and Mr. Latrobe, it was not necessary to wait for the formal organization of the company before beginning the work...

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

After breakfast the boys began again the snow digging for their wood pile. They had somewhat miscalculated its locality, and so when they reached the ground with their descendin...

"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 a...

The next day the boys moved from their temporary shelter into their permanent winter quarters, building a fire in front of the door and making themselves as comfortable as they...

The little company had only a mile, or a trifle more, to go before reaching their final destination. But it was literally "up hill work." Often it was worse even than that, invo...

Two mornings after the talk reported in the last chapter Tom found, out under the bluff, a big bag of rye meal or rather of rye coarsely ground for whiskey making purposes. He d...

The revenue officers and the soldiers remained at Camp Venture, the Doctor caring for the wounded men who were rapidly recovering as the days went by. Meantime the boys were nea...

"Nevertheless Corporal Jenkins will get here with the supplies. He may be much longer in coming than we hoped for, but he will come. He is a man of resource and he never gives up."

During the night of Tom's bear hunt, the boys slept soundly, wearied as they were by an especially hard day's work. About three o'clock a soldier from out under the bluff rushed...

The lieutenant's faith in Tom's sportsmanship was so great that in making his requisition for thirty days' rations for his men and his prisoners he had asked to have all the mea...

By this time the boys were excessively tired. Climbing down over bluffs is weary work. So after dinner they stretched themselves out for a nap with their bundles under their hea...

There was no disturbance that night, and the next morning Tom took his two soldiers and went hunting again. Tom had a positive genius for getting game. This time he brought back...