"I can stand up as long as you can, Lieutenant," answered Tom, "even if I am not a soldier."
"But it is my duty to stand just now," said the lieutenant. "I must direct this operation and strike from here the moment my flanking parties reach proper positions."
"And it is my pleasure to stand," answered Tom, "to see how you do it."
The lieutenant again brought his glass to his eyes. Then he lowered it and looked earnestly at Tom, who still stood erect by his side, paying no heed to the rain of bullets about him.
"Why aren't you at West Point?" he asked. "You're the sort we want in the army."
Then, without waiting for an answer, the lieutenant again looked through his glass and seeing that his flanking parties had gained the positions desired in rear of the mountaineers, he ordered the whole line to advance as rapidly as possible. At the same time the flanking parties closed in upon the rear of the mountaineers, and five minutes later the action ended in the surrender of all the moonshiners.
Tom saw it all, but when it was over he discovered a pain in his left ear, and, feeling, found that a small-bore bullet had passed through what he called the flap of it, boring a hole as round as if it had been punched with a railroad conductor's instrument.
The captured mountaineers were brought at once to Camp Venture. Two of them were dead and three severely wounded. To these last and to two of the lieutenant's men who had also received bullets in their bodies, the Doctor ministered assiduously. The unwounded mountaineers were placed in a hastily constructed "guard house," built just under the bluff.