"Sorry--for what?" asked the Doctor.
"Why, now that you"ve told us so much about the great ships, I want to hear more. I"ve at least a hundred questions to ask you."
"Very well," said the Doctor. "The winter will be long and we"ll have abundant opportunities of evenings to ask and answer all the questions we please. But just now our business is to get to bed and to sleep, or rather that"s the business of you other fellows. My business is to go out and relieve Jim Chenowith as our picket guard. So good night boys, and good, refreshing slumbers to you!"
With that the Doctor shouldered a gun, first carefully examining its cartridges, and strode out into the bitterly cold night to do his turn at guard duty. He had indeed made himself a boy among boys, and he had won all hearts.
CHAPTER XVII
_Christmas in Camp Venture_
As breakfast was in course of preparation the next morning, Ed brought a large dripping pan and set it in front of the fire.
"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 till Christmas."
"What"s up Ed?" asked Jack. "What do you want us to do that for?"
"Why the Doctor insists that I must stay indoors till after Christmas, so quite naturally it is going to fall to me to cook the Christmas dinner. I take it for granted that little Tom is going to get that big turkey gobbler he told us about, and I"m going to cook it properly--or as nearly so as the limited resources of Camp Venture will permit. To that end I shall want some drippings from broiling bacon. So save all the fat you can, boys, from now until Christmas."
The boys asked no questions, knowing that Ed Parmly was by all odds the best cook in the camp, but they saved all they could of the drippings from the slices of bacon that they were toasting in the fire.
Three days before Christmas, Tom took his rifle and went out on the mountain in search of his big turkey. He brought back some game--Tom never failed to do that--but he came back without the big turkey, though it was well after nightfall when he arrived at the camp. Some of the boys were disposed to joke him about his failure, though of course in a friendly way.
"That"s all right fellows," answered Tom. "But I"ve promised you that big turkey, and I"m going to deliver the goods."
"How can you speak so confidently, Tom?" asked Harry. "You"ve missed getting him to-day and you may miss getting him to-morrow and next day."
"But I shan"t do that," answered Tom with that confidence which is born of knowledge and skill. "I know where that turkey and his flock are roosting to-night, and I"ll be there before daylight to-morrow morning.
I"ll be right under him when he wakes, and I"ll have my shot gun with me, for the range to a roost is short. I"ll have that turkey gobbler here before noon to-morrow, or I"ll admit that I"m no hunter."
"But suppose he quits his roost during the night and wanders away somewhere," suggested the Doctor, who knew nothing of the habits of wild turkeys.
"Turkeys never do that," answered Tom. "When once they go to roost they stay there till the dawn broadens into full daylight. Nothing could persuade them to quit their perches much before sunrise, and before that time I"ll have that stately gentleman flung over my shoulder."
Accordingly Tom left camp about two hours before the daylight came, and about ten o"clock he returned, bearing the gigantic gobbler, in triumph, and with it two smaller turkeys which he had also killed.
"There you doubters!" he said as he flung down the birds, "I promised you a turkey dinner for Christmas and I"ve kept my word. It only remains for Ed to cook the big bird properly and I haven"t the least doubt that he"ll do that. The other two will keep in such weather as this as long as we care to keep them. What with the game we already have on hand, and these three turkeys, I think we"re in no pressing danger of an outbreak of scurvy in camp, are we Doctor?"
"So long as you are around, Tom," answered the Doctor, "I shall feel no apprehension of scurvy, and still less of starvation."
Tom had shown his spoil at that part of the camp where the other boys were chopping. Having done so he carried the turkeys to the house and delivered them over to Ed, who, incapacitated for other work by his wound, had made himself at once sentinel in charge of the prisoner and company cook.
As soon as Tom left the choppers, Jack stopped his work, and said to the others:
"I say, boys, Tom was a Christmas baby, and this coming Christmas day will be his eighteenth birthday. Isn"t there any way in which we can celebrate it?"
"Yes," answered the Doctor, "We"ll give a big dinner in his honor on that occasion and surprise him with it. I have been jealously saving a few onions and potatoes that I brought up the mountain in my pack. I have carefully guarded them against frost as well as against use, meaning to keep them all winter in case scurvy should appear among us.
But evidently Tom is taking care of that by keeping us abundantly supplied with fresh meat. So I"m going to suggest to Ed that on Christmas day he roast the onions in a pan or skillet and bake the potatoes in the ashes. That, with the big turkey, will give us a dinner fit for princes."
"Good!" cried the others, "and we"ll pretend to forget all about it"s being Tom"s birthday," added Jim Chenowith, "till the dinner is dished up in his honor. Then we"ll congratulate him."
Ed fell in with the plan with all heartiness when he was told of it. He was a notably good cook considering that he was a boy, and he was determined to produce the best result he could with the meagre means at his disposal.
On Christmas morning he took the giblets of his big turkey--the gizzard, liver, heart, the outer ends of the wings and the upper part of the neck, and put them on the fire to stew.
Then he puzzled his brain over the question of a stuffing for the gigantic turkey. He had no wheaten bread of any kind, and he doubted that corn bread could be made to answer. Just then he remembered that a box of crackers, two-thirds full, remained among Camp Venture"s stores.
He hunted them out and took as many of them as he needed. He toasted each to a rich crisp brown. When all were toasted he reduced them to crumbs. Next he mixed the crumbs together with the bacon fat drippings that he had made the boys save from their broiling. He added just enough water to make the ma.s.s half adhere together. Then he chopped up one small onion and mixed it with the stuffing. After adding a little chopped bacon and a liberal supply of black pepper, he pressed the whole ma.s.s into the hollow of the big bird and hung the turkey up before the fire to roast, placing a dripping pan under it, setting it whirling at the end of a string, and from time to time basting it with the drippings that fell into the pan.
A little later he placed the potatoes in the hot embers to bake. He put the onions into a skillet and placing live coals under and upon the lid of that utensil, left them to roast. Still later he made up some corn pones and set them to bake in another skillet. Finally, just before dinner time, he brewed a great pot of coffee.
But in the meantime he had taken the giblets off the fire, chopped them to a mince meat and poured them into the dripping pan that had reposed under the turkey as it roasted. Into this he poured the water in which the giblets had been stewed and added a little of the cracker crumbs for thickening, a little salt and a liberal supply of pepper. This done he stirred all together vigorously and produced a gravy of which even his mother--the best cook he had ever known--might have been proud.
At the very last he dug the potatoes out of the ashes, split open one side of each and inserted, in the mealy depths, a freshly broiled slice of bacon. This was to replace the b.u.t.ter which he had not.
Then he called the boys to dinner, but as the day was warm he served the meal on an improvised table out of doors, from which both points of possible invasion of the camp could be fairly well observed. He did this in order that the whole company, sentinel and all, might sit down together in celebration of Christmas and of little Tom"s birthday.
When the little company a.s.sembled, each member of it grasped Tom"s hand and warmly congratulated him, and when the boy learned how they had exerted themselves to make his natal day one to be remembered, he fairly broke down with affectionate emotion. It was a.s.signed to him to carve the great turkey gobbler, which in the absence of scales on which to weigh him, the boys pretty accurately estimated at twenty-six pounds.
Jack served the roast onions, which were done to a beautiful brown, and Ed himself dished out the potatoes, roasted to a hard crust without and enticing mealiness within.
The coffee was drunk with the meal after the manner of the country, and of course there was no milk to go with it, but these healthy, happy, out-of-door boys enjoyed that Christmas dinner as they had never enjoyed a dinner before.
Just as they were finishing the eating of it something struck and penetrated the clapboards that formed the extemporized table. Tom instantly glanced at the mark made, estimated direction and, turning, sent a bullet from his long range rifle toward the point from which he believed the shot to have come. A moment later there came another shot and another, and this time Tom saw the smoke of the rifles from which they came. He aimed carefully but quickly, and fired two shots in reply.
"There!" he said. "They are shooting from long range, or what they regard as such, up there on the mountain. They think we have nothing but shot guns and their plan is to shoot at us from too great a distance for us to shoot back. I reckon those three bullets of mine will give them a new idea of the situation, for this rifle carries at least twice as far as any they have."
Apparently Tom was right, for after his shots were delivered no more was heard from the a.s.sailing mountaineers.
"Now that teaches us a lesson," said Jack. "Our house door faces directly south and up the mountain. There are points up there from which those rascals can fire right into our house through the door, whenever they feel so disposed. We must stop that right now."
"But how?" asked the Doctor.
"By building a bullet proof barricade of poles right here, ten feet in front of our door," answered Jack. "We can easily do it this afternoon and still get some chopping done."
Jack"s suggestion was adopted instantly and the boys set to work at once to carry it out. They set up some poles about fifteen feet high and six feet apart, burying their lower ends deep in the earth. Then they set up a second line in the same way about eight inches in front of the first line. Next they placed in the s.p.a.ce between the two lines a tier of poles about five inches thick and so closely fitted together as to be bullet proof. Then for complete safety they cut small brush into pieces, and with them filled in what s.p.a.ce remained between the two lines of poles.
"Now then," said Jack, "Camp Venture is in a state of defence. But it needs offensive as well as defensive advantages. We are pretty well protected against stray bullets by the wooden barrier we have erected, but we must also be able to shoot over it whenever that becomes necessary. Let"s build a platform inside of it, so that one of us standing on it can see everything beyond and shoot as from a breast work, if those fellows insist upon shooting as a condition of the game."
So the boys built the platform of poles, with a little ladder leading up to it, and as it gave a full view of every part of the camp, it was decided that the sentry should thereafter be stationed there in a protected position, instead of being required to expose himself out under the cliff.
CHAPTER XVIII