CHAPTER XXXIX

_The Doctor Sings_

AS soon as Tom was gone, the Doctor turned to the others and said:

"Come, boys, we must get to work."

"What have we got to do?" asked Jack.

"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 a shelter before Tom gets back."

"But, Doctor," interrupted Harry, "why should we stay here for a month?"

"Why, don't you understand," said the Doctor, "that we have discovered, right here on your mother's land, a coal mine that will certainly make her comfortable all her life and probably make you boys rich. We've got to find out enough about it to enable us to exploit it, and that will take a month at least."

"But tell us about the coal," said Jack.

The Doctor replied by singing:

"Old King Coal Was a jolly old soul, And a jolly old soul was he; He called for his pipe and he called for his bowl, And he called for his fiddlers three. Every fiddler had a fine fiddle And a very fine fiddle had he,

but," continued the Doctor, "not a man jack of them would tune up for Old King Coal till little Tom got back, because they had promised Tom not to set the fiddles going in his absence. That's a parable. It gives you fair warning that I'm going to keep my promise to our dearest comrade, Little Tom, and tell you nothing about this or any other coal till he comes back. But I tell you we shall have to stay here for a month at least, and that we need some sort of shelter against the heavy spring rains. So come, Jack, you are our architect. Tell us what sort of house to build."

Jack thought a few minutes, after which he said:

"We shan't need a house; at this time of year all we need is a shelter, closed in on three sides and open to the fire in front. We can build it of poles and cover it with a thatch of pine branches and other brush thick enough to shed the rain."

"But if we have only three sides to our house," said Jim, "how are we to keep the ends of the poles in place?"

"Oh, that's easy," said Jack. "We'll insert short bits of pole between them, with deep notches cut into them; and we needn't chink or daub at all. We ought to be able to build quite all the shelter we need, to-day and to-morrow, particularly as we are in a thick grove of young trees, just the size that we want for our poles. Get to work, every fellow of you, and cut poles with all your might."

Just then a thought occurred to Jack, and he took the Doctor aside for consultation.

"Doctor," he said, "It occurs to me that this coal mine, if it is a coal mine, is on my mother's land and that therefore it is worth my while and Harry's and Tom's to stay here and work up the possibilities of the case. It is also worth your while, because you are in fact the discoverer of it and my mother will naturally recognize your interest in it, especially as we shall look to you to find capitalists to work the thing."

"Oh, I'll do that, of course. If I'm right about the mine, I'll have no difficulty in finding plenty of capital. The mine is at exactly the right place, and as to my interest, I'll take care of that when I come to negotiate with the capitalists. I'll see to it that they allow me a proper commission for 'bringing the property to their attention,' as they phrase it. So don't bother about me."

"No, but I'm bothering about Ed and Jim. If they are to stay here and help us for a month or so, they must be paid in some way."

"Of course," answered the Doctor. "I've been so long thinking of our party as a unit, whose constituent members 'shared and shared alike,' that I had not thought of them as persons not interested in this new Camp Venture. Let me think a little!"

He bowed his head upon his hands for a time in meditation. Then he said:

"Of course your mother cannot work this mine herself. It will need at least a hundred thousand dollars of capital to make it productive--perhaps twice that sum. I know enough of the situation to know that I can arrange that without going out of my own family. My father and my brothers will put in the entire sum necessary--for I tell you there is a vastly valuable property here,--and will allow your mother her proper share of the stock for the mine itself. I'll arrange all that to her perfect satisfaction before anything is concluded. Indeed, I must do that. Otherwise she would naturally make somebody else her agent."

"Oh, she'll trust you, Doctor," interrupted Jack.

"It isn't a matter of trust, it's business," answered the Doctor. "But on purely business principles we shall be able to arrange for your mother to put in the property and my friends to put in the money capital. I shall not ask your mother for a cent, for she has been like a mother to me ever since I came down here for my health and began boarding with her. My own people will allow me out of their share, a sufficient interest to compensate me. Now, I undertake also that they or I shall allow to Ed and Jim, half a share each in the mine, supposing it to be capitalized at a hundred thousand dollars, in return for their services while we have to stay here."

"No, Doctor," said Jack, "I will not hear of that. If you'll furnish one-half share, I engage that my mother shall furnish the other. That will divide the thing equally."

The Doctor, seeing the entire justice of this arrangement, assented to it, and the two called Jim and Ed into the conference. When they laid the proposition before the pair, it was joyfully accepted. Ed said:

"Even without that, we shouldn't have left the camp. We fellows have had so good a time together that I, for one, would have stayed and done my share of the work, with or without a financial interest in it."

"So should I," said Jim, enthusiastically. "Now that we are to be capitalists and stockholders and all that sort of thing, it will require all our self restraint not to grow cocky and refuse to work. Still there are a lot of poles to cut for the new shelter, and if you two fellows are going to stay here all day and talk, the rest of us must work all the harder."

"We're going to work at once, Jim," said the Doctor. "But I want you to understand that in my judgment this mine is going to be a great property, and that your share in it will go far to make you prosperous men."

Then Ed broke down. He had lived a hard life, trying to aid his widowed mother by such work as he could do, and this prospect opened to him, of a little income independent of his work, overcame him with emotion as he thought of the good mother released perhaps from the necessity of hard toil for the rest of her life. The simple fact is that as Ed turned away to hide his emotion, the tears rolled down his cheeks. But if he sobbed, it was not until he had gone down the hill well beyond the ledge of broken stones that marked the boundary of the camp.

When night came, the eager boys began again to question the Doctor about coal and coal mines. To every question, he replied by singing "Old King Coal," and declaring anew his resolute purpose not to talk at all on that subject till little Tom's return. But the Doctor was jubilant all the same, and he said presently, "His Majesty King Coal is a very generous monarch and he is going to make all of us well to do if not actually rich." Then he broke out again into the song:

"Old King Coal Was a jolly old soul, And a jolly old soul was he; He called for his pipe and he called for his bowl, And he called for his fiddlers three."