CHAPTER XXIV
In the High Mountains
Tom's second tour of guard duty ended at four o'clock in the morning, and he woke the Doctor to succeed him. Then, without attracting the other boys' attention, he rolled his blanket into a compact bundle and strapped it high upon his shoulders. He next loaded his cartridge belt with twenty buckshot cartridges on one side and twenty cartridges that carried turkey shot on the other. He put a box of matches into one pocket and two thick slices of bear beef into another. Finally, he took one of the empty meal bags, carefully folded it up and thrust it into the breast of his hunting shirt.
Thus equipped he sallied out, and bidding the Doctor good morning as he passed the picket post, started off up the mountain. He had to pick his way very carefully till daylight came, and by that time he had passed well over the side of a ridge and was completely out of sight of Camp Venture.
Selecting a suitable spot where the wind had swept a rock clear of snow, he laid aside his gun and blanket, and set to work to build a little fire and cook one slice of his meat for breakfast. The other he reserved for a late dinner.
As he moved on after breakfast, he came upon a flock of quails—or partridges, as they are more properly called in Virginia. They were helplessly huddled under the edge of a stone and were manifestly freezing to death. For when Tom, who was too much of a sportsman to shoot birds in the covey, tried to flush them, meaning to shoot them on wing, they were barely able to flutter about on the ground, and wholly incapable of rising in flight.
"I may as well have them," said the boy, "seeing that they'll be frozen to death in another half hour." So, after a little scrambling, he caught the eleven birds and quickly put them out of their suffering. Drawing some twine from a pocket, he strung the birds together and threw them over his neck for ease of carrying.
The mountain up here was rugged and uneven, scarred and seamed with chasms and deep hollows. Tom devoted all his energies to peering into these as if searching for something. At one time, as he was hunting for a place from which to get a good view of a small but deep ravine, he flushed a flock of wild turkeys, seven or eight in number, and scarcely more than twenty feet distant from him. Curiously enough, he let them scamper away without so much as taking a shot at them.
That was exceedingly unlike little Tom Ridsdale, and obviously it meant something. But what it meant did not appear. But shooting makes a noise and attracts attention. Tom did not want to attract attention.
About two o'clock in the afternoon, Tom carefully reconnoitered a spot where great blocks of stone had fallen from cliffs above to a ledge below lying loosely there and making small caverns. Having satisfied himself that neither human habitation nor any human being was within miles of this little hiding place, Tom collected some sticks and built a little fire in one of the crevices between the great blocks of stone. Here, he cooked and ate his remaining piece of bear beef. Then he opened his blanket, rolled himself in it, and disposed himself to sleep, in a half sitting, half lying posture with his head and shoulders resting against the rock.