their railroad ties and the other products of their chopping by a steep slide to the valley below by force of gravity and without any hauling whatever. Two of their schoolmates – Jim Chenowith and Ed Parmly had asked to join in the expedition. An arrangement had been made with the railroad people to pay a stipulated price for every railroad tie shot down the hill, a much higher price for every piece of timber big enough for use in bridge building and a fair price for all the cordwood sent down the chute. This latter was to be made of the limbs of trees cut down for ties or bridge timbers – limbs not large enough for other uses, and which must otherwise go to waste. The two boys who did not belong to the Ridsdale family – Ed Parmly and Jim Chenowith – were to pay to Mrs. Ridsdale a small price agreed upon for each tie or timber, or cord of wood that they should cut on her land, the rest of the price going to themselves.
During the last week before their departure Dr. LaTrobe had asked the privilege of joining the expedition. He was a man of means whose home was in Baltimore, but who had come to the town in which the boys lived in search of health and strength. He was a tireless student of science, and in the course of his duty in one of the charity hospitals of Baltimore he had contracted a fever. His recovery from it was so slow and unsatisfactory that he had abandoned his work and wandered away into South Western Virginia for purposes of recuperation and had been for some months boarding with Mrs. Ridsdale. In pursuit of health and strength therefore he asked to join the Ridsdale boys in their mountain expedition.
"I have quite all the money I want," he explained, "and so the ties and timbers and cordwood that I may cut will be counted as your own. All I want is the life in the open air, the exercise, the freedom, the health-giving experience of a camping trip."
Thus it was that the party had come together. They knew perfectly that once in the mountains after winter should set in in earnest their communication with the country below must be very uncertain. They therefore, took with them on their own backs and on the backs of their pack mules those necessaries which would most certainly render them independent of other sources of supply. The Doctor had largely directed the selection of food stuffs, bringing to bear upon it an expert knowledge which the boys, of course, did not possess.
"The basis will be beans," he said.
"But why beans?" asked Jack.
"For several reasons. First, because beans will keep all winter. Second, because beans are very nearly perfect food for robust people. They have fat in them, and that makes heat, and they have starch and gluten in them too, so that they are in fact both meat and bread. Pound for pound, dried beans are about the most perfect food possible. To make them palatable we must take some dry salted pork along. We can carry that better than pickled pork in kegs and we shall not have to carry a lot of useless brine if we take the dry salted meat."
The Doctor added some dried beef, a few hams, some bacon and a supply of sugar.
"Sugar," he explained, "is almost pure nutriment. It is food so concentrated that it ought never to be taken in large quantities in its pure state."
"That's why they were so stingy with me in the matter of candy when I was a little chap," soliloquized Tom.
The total supply of meat taken along was small, but it was quite well understood that the party must rely upon its guns mainly for that part of its food supply.
For bread there was a small quantity of "hard tack" and a large supply of corn meal.
The salt was securely encased in a water-tight and even moisture-proof oil-cloth bag. One big cheese was taken by special request of Ed's mother, who had made it a year before, and the Doctor approved its inclusion in the list.
"It weighs fifty pounds," he said to Jack who from the first had charge of the expedition, "but it is pure food and we couldn't put in fifty pounds of any thing else that would go so far to ward off starvation in case we get into difficulties. Next to a supply of coffee, nothing could be more useful."
There were only four pack mules to carry these things, but every member of the party carried a heavy pack on his shoulders, besides his gun and axe, so that altogether the expedition was reasonably well provisioned, in view of the fact that it was going into the mountains where game of every kind abounded.
No provender was carried for the pack mules. There was grass enough for them to live upon during the journey of two days and at the end of that time they were to be turned loose to find their own way down the mountain, cropping grass and herbs as they went.
There was a grind stone for the sharpening of the axes, and one of the boys carried a long cross-cut saw. The ammunition supply was large, and besides cartridges loaded with turkey shot it included several scores that carried full sized buck shot. The ammunition, added to the rest, very seriously over-loaded the mules. On a long journey those animals, large and brawny as they were, could not have endured the burdens laid upon them. But the trip up the mountain was to occupy a good deal less than two days and so the owner of the mules readily consented to the overloading.
That is how it came about that the five boys and Doctor LaTrobe were camping up there in a little mountain glade, on the night on which our story opens. They had less than a mile to go on the next day in order to reach their permanent camping place, but the journey was mainly a very steep up-hill one, and, their halt on the mountain side was in every way wise.
Healthily weary as they were it did not take the boys long to fall asleep after they had wrapped themselves in their blankets and lain down with feet toward the great blazing fire.
It was understood that the one on sentry duty should replenish the fire from time to time, but at Jack's wise suggestion the sentry was himself to remain well away from the blazing logs, and in the shadow of the woodlands beyond.
"Otherwise," explained Jack, "an enemy approaching in the dark might easily pick off our sentry, sitting or standing in the firelight, and then slip away in the darkness without the possibility of our seeing him."
The hours wore away, however, with no disturbance in the camp. One after another sentry aroused his successor and himself lay down to sleep.
It was nearing daybreak, and little Tom was on duty. There was already a rime of white frost on the grass and leaves and the atmosphere was chill. Tom looked longingly at the great blazing fire as he walked his beat in the woodland shadows far beyond reach of its comforting radiance.
"Any how this snappy air keeps a fellow from sleeping on post," he said to himself, "and they punish that crime with death in the army. Whew! how my ears ache!
"What's that?" he ejaculated under his breath as he heard a stealthy noise. Listening he heard a sound as of some one creeping up through the woods. He cocked both barrels of his shot gun, each of which carried nine buck shot, and breathlessly waited, listening and looking. Presently he fired, and instantly every member of the party was on his feet, gun in hand, for they were all sleeping with their pieces beside them.
"What is it?"
"Where is it?"
"Who is it?" and so on with question after question they bombarded little Tom.
"It's breakfast," said little Tom, calmly walking to the foot of a tree and there picking up a fat opossum.
There was a laugh, for half asleep as the boys were they saw the humor of the situation and realized under what a nervous strain they had been sleeping.
"Now go to sleep again," said Tom, "and when I wake you next time breakfast will be ready."
He went away into the woods and there dressed the opossum. Then he so far disregarded orders as to go to the fire and rig up a device for cooking the dainty
