CHAPTER XI

_An Armed Negotiation_

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 the southern culinary fashion. These would answer as a sufficient substitute for bread, and as for meat, the company was to dine that day on the cold roast wild boar.

Just as Tom dropped the last of the dumplings into the kettle, he looked out through the half-open door and saw an ugly looking mountaineer creeping stealthily, and with his rifle in hand, up over the little cliff to the east of Camp Venture. His attention was evidently riveted upon the chopping boys, the scene of whose labors lay to the northwest of the house. Apparently, the man supposed the hut to be empty and intended to pass to the south of it, using it as a secure cover for his approach to the boys chopping.

Tom was a person distinctly quick of apprehension. In an instant, he saw what the man's plans were, and in another instant he had seized and cocked the Doctor's repeating rifle, which had fortunately been left in the hut.

As the mountaineer stealthily crept by the cabin, Tom "drew a bead" on him at not more than six paces distant, and called out:

"Lay down your gun instantly, or I'll shoot."

There was nothing to do but obey without a moment's loss of time. The mountaineer dropped his gun.

"Now, step inside," commanded Tom, still keeping the magazine rifle in position for instant and deadly use. "Step inside. I want to talk with you."

The man obeyed.

"Now, sit down on that stool," said Tom, "and tell me what you're up to. Come, now! No lying! Tell me what you were sneaking into this camp for!"

The man, who seemed much surlier and was certainly much brawnier than the former visitor to the camp, hesitated. Tom stimulated his utterance, by saying:

"Come, speak up! My patience is about exhausted, and I'm not going to wait for you to think of something false to say. Answer, or I'll shoot."

"Don't shoot, pard!" pleaded the man. "I didn't mean no harm. I only come to negotiate like."

"Then why were you sneaking and creeping upon my comrades with your rifle at full cock?"

"Well, you see, we fellers what lives up here in the mountings has to be keerful like. I wanted to make a bargain with you fellers, but if I'd 'a' walked into your camp regular like, why mebbe some on you'd 'a' shot me unbeknownst like. So I thought I'd just creep up like a catamount and git the drap on some on you, an' then tell you, simple like, as how I didn't want to do you no harm if you'd do us fellers no harm. I wanted to negotiate, that's all."

"Well, I don't like your way of negotiating," answered Little Tom, still keeping his rifle in poise against his hip ready for instant use. "I don't like to negotiate with a man that's 'got the drap on me' as you say. But now that I've 'got the drap' on you instead, I don't mind opening diplomatic relations--I don't suppose you know what that means, but never mind. Go on and tell me what it is you want."

"Well, you see," said the mountaineer, "first off we wanted you fellers to clear out'n here and git down out'n the mountings. We sent a man to you to negotiate that, an' you used him up so bad that he ain't no 'count no more in such business. Well, you won't go. We all seed that clear enough an' at first we was a plannin' to come over here with our guns and jes' exterminate you all. But then we knew what a hullabaloo that would raise. You see, it would 'a' give us away, like, an' next thing we know'd the revenue agents would 'a' come up here with a pack o' soldiers at their back, an' us fellers would 'a' been shot down like rabbits. So we held a little confab, like, an' we decided to let you fellers stay up here in the mountings ef you'd agree to behave decent, like."

"How exceedingly kind of you!" ejaculated Tom, derisively. "And how considerate! But go on; I didn't mean to interrupt. In what particular way do you exact that we shall behave ourselves in order to win your gracious permission to remain here on land that belongs to us?"

"Now, you're a gittin' at the pint," answered the man. "We're willin' to let you alone ef you'll let us alone. We're willin' to let you stay in the mountings an' cut all the timber you like, ef you won't bother us in any way."

"In what way have we bothered you?" asked Tom, who was growing steadily angrier with the man's extraordinary insolence.

"Well, you see, you fellers has planted your wood chute jist edzackly wrong."

"How so?"

"Well, ef you should send anything down that chute it would run right through a little shanty we've got down there under the cliff."

"An illicit still, you mean?" asked Tom.

"Well, as to that--"

"Never mind. You needn't lie about it. I understand. Now, as I catch your meaning, you want us to change the direction of our wood chute, so as to spare an illicit still that you have set up down there under the cliff, to hide it from the revenue officers. You've located that still on my mother's property, without leave or license, for she owns the whole of this side of the mountain down to its very foot; you are using her timber to fire up with under your still, without paying her a cent for it. In brief, you are thieves and robbers, and you have the insolence now to come here and demand that we shall change our chute in order to leave you undisturbed in your robbery of the government on the one hand and of my mother on the other. Very well, we will do nothing of the kind. At five minutes after three o'clock to-morrow afternoon we shall begin sending timber down through the chute. If you can remove your criminal apparatus by that time we'll not interfere with you. If you can't get it away by then, you'll simply have to take the consequences. But, at any rate, you can yourselves get out of the way, so that our timbers will not hurt you personally.

"Now go! Get away from here--no, don't pick up your rifle; I'll take care of that. You people have declared war on us, and in war it is not the custom to return arms to men captured and turned loose, I believe. I don't want your property, but I'm going to keep it for the present. If you'll come peaceably to my mother's house down in the town there, after we fellows go home, I'll give your rifle back to you. But not now, when you want it to shoot some of us with. Go now! and whether you get your still out by three o'clock to-morrow or not, be very careful that neither you nor any of your comrades remain there after that hour, for then the chute will begin to carry its load."

The evil-visaged man slunk away over the cliff by which he had ascended, and down the mountain. There was revenge written in every line of his countenance, and Tom quite well understood that he and his comrades must take care of themselves. Just as the fellow was marching away, with Tom's rifle leveled at him and with his own rifle lying upon the ground as a spoil of war, the rest of the company came up, but they did not interfere. They trusted Tom as a strategist, and they instantly saw that this was an "incident closed" as the diplomatists say. When the fellow was completely gone, Tom lowered the hammer of his rifle, restored it to its place, picked up the captured gun of the mountaineer, lowered its hammer to half cock, and carefully bestowed it in a convenient corner.

"What is it, Tom?" eagerly asked the others.

"Wait a minute!" said the boy, "till I dish up the soup. I hope it isn't spoiled, and as for the rest, I'll tell you all about it after dinner."