Captain Sam: The Boy Scouts of 1814

No matter where one begins to tell a story there is always something back of the beginning that must be told for the sake of making the matter clear. Whatever you tell, somethin...

The boys were now badly frightened, and the more so because they did not know what to do for their chief, who lay dying, as they supposed. His left hand and shoulder were bleedi...

Sam Hardwicke had thrown himself down under a clump of bushes, as I have said, a little apart from the rest of the boys. Before he went to sleep, however, his brother Tom, a lad...

The launching of the boat was easy enough, and she rode beautifully on the water. To test her capacity to remain right side up, Sam put the boys one by one on her gunwale, and f...

Bob handed Sam an official looking document, which was merely an acknowledgment of his service, a request that he should not abate his diligence, and an instruction to use his o...

"Sid," he said, "I have a prisoner and a despatch of very great importance to send to General Jackson. You must take the despatch and leave as soon as possible, with the prisone...

When Jake entered the camp it was fairly light, and as Sam looked at him he caught a glimpse of the file of soldiers in the thicket, three or four hundred yards away.

The next day the march was resumed, and continued with some haltings for rest until about three o'clock, when Sam chose a camp for the night, saying that they had already made a...

As it is impossible to tell at one time the story of the doings of two different sets of persons in two different places, it follows that, if both are to be told, one must be to...

Day light had no sooner shown itself the next morning than Sam started away from the camp on a tour of observation. He was a fine looking fellow as he strode through the woods,...

The boys marched steadily until sunset, when Sam called a halt and selected a camping place for the night. He ordered a fire built and himself superintended the preparation of s...

The young man, or boy rather,--for he was not yet eighteen years old,--who made this very emphatic remark, was a stalwart, well-built youth, lithe of limb, elastic in movement,...

"I didn't understand it so," replied Jackson, "when Walker recommended you for this service. However, it is all the better so, because _I_ know your devotion, and Tandy has assu...

Jake Elliott got very little sleep that night. Indeed it was nearly daylight when he fell asleep and it was one of Sam's marching rules to march early. He waked the boys every m...

Sam's despatch, written by the light of a few pine knots and with as much care as if it had been an important state paper,--for whatever Sam Hardwicke did he tried to do well,--...

"We're on an island," returned Sam, "and the island is somewhere here in the upper part of Escambia bay. You see how it lies on our map. The bay ends down there in Pensacola bay...

The quarrel having ended in the way described in the last chapter, the boys were compelled to find something else to talk about, as they were under a pledge not to refer further...

"Well then, why are we to stop here at all?" asked Tom, "and what have you been thinking about all the afternoon? You didn't open your head after it began raining, until we got...

Jake Elliott was a coward all over, and clear through. He had always been a bully and pretended to the possession of unusual courage. He had tyrannized over small boys, threaten...

"Not at present, and it rains. We must dry our clothes to-night if we can, and keep as dry as we can while we stay here, which may be for a day or two. To do that we must have a...

Two hours steady walking, over logs and brush, through canebrakes, across a creek, and through a tangle of vines, brought the party to the leaning pine tree. From that point the...

As Sam had anticipated, General Jackson decided at once that the boys could become useful to him only by volunteering in some of the companies already organized, and Sam began t...

At noon the next day Sam marched away from the camp at the head of his little company, reduced now to precisely six boys in all, counting the colored boy Joe, but not counting C...