"That's always the way," said the revenue man. "The troops always fail us at the critical moment. That's why our efforts to break up moonshining always come to nothing."
"Pardon me, sir," answered the officer rising in his wrath. "I'll trouble you to take that back. The troops under my command have not failed you and they will not. We have nothing to do with collecting the revenue. That's your business. Ours is merely to fight anybody that resists you. That duty we are ready to do just so long as you may desire. We'll force a way for you to any part of these mountains that you may desire to visit and we'll keep it up for a year if you wish. But in the meantime somebody must provide my men with food!"
"If that's the way you look at the matter," said the revenue officer, "we might as well go down the mountain at once."
"It isn't a question of how I look at the matter," answered the lieutenant, impatiently. "I tell you I'm ready and my men are ready for any service you may assign to us. But I tell you also that we must have something to eat, and it is your duty to arrange it."
"But how can I?"
"Would it be impertinent in me to suggest," asked the lieutenant, "that you ought to have thought of that before you began your raid? If you had said to the commandant that your expedition was likely to occupy a week or two he would have ordered the commissary to furnish me with two or three weeks' provisions and the quarter-master to supply enough stout pack mules to carry them. As it was, you represented this as a two days' trip and he ordered me to carry three days' rations in the haversacks."
"Well, we'd better retreat at once," answered the revenue officer.
"But why? It isn't even yet too late to repair your blunder. Why can't you send one of your men down the mountain at once to bring up a train of pack mules loaded with provisions? He can be back here in less than two days if he hurries."
"But I don't know—" began the man.
"I don't care what you know or don't know," answered the young West Pointer. "I simply tell you that as soon as my men run out of rations I'll march them down the hill again. It is my duty to see that they don't starve."