"Yes. I could stand them now. I went all over that ground when I first tried to get an appointment."
"Well now," broke in Jack, "this isn't getting meat. Tom, go hunting immediately, and keep on going hunting till the famine in this camp is over. I haven't a doubt the lieutenant will lend you the men you want to help carry game."
"Certainly!" answered the lieutenant, beckoning to a sentinel to come to him.
"Tell Sergeant Malby to send me two strong men instantly."
Tom took two guns with him, requiring one of the soldiers to carry the rifle, while he carried the shot gun, double loaded, for big or little game. It was now about noon, and the hunting party did not return till after dark. When they did they brought with them as the spoil of our young Nimrod's guns, a half grown bear, a deer weighing perhaps a hundred and fifty pounds, three wild turkeys and a big string of hares and squirrels. Besides these Tom was laboriously dragging by a string a big wild boar.
"That boar's a disputed bird," he said. "This soldier, Johnson, and I fired at him at the same instant. He set out to rip Johnson open with his tusks, like a vest with no buttons on it, and Johnson fired to protect himself. At the same moment I fired a charge of buckshot into the beast. Johnson's bullet struck him in the neck, just about where I fondly imagine the jugular vein or something else of that sort to be, while my nine buckshot striking him just behind the left fore leg, went through him about where his heart ought to be if it's in the right place. Anyhow the animal gave up the ghost in an astonishing hurry, and possibly the Doctor might find out, by a post mortem examination, which shot killed him. But in my humble opinion the time necessary for that can be better spent in preparing the gentleman for the table. I move that we roast him whole and invite the soldiers to dine with us! He's big enough to go round."
It did not take long to carry that motion or to begin carrying it into effect. The lieutenant ordered the company cook to assist Ed in preparing the wild boar and roasting him. Ed carefully saved the "giblets" for future use, a proceeding which gave the company cook a totally new economic suggestion in the use of animals killed for food. Then the two required the other soldiers to build a great fire out-of-doors, and to erect a pole frame work near it, from which they hung the boar to roast. Ed gave the cook still another good suggestion by thrusting a dripping pan under the hog and catching all he could of the fat that fell from the animal.
"What do you do that for?" asked the company cook.
"For two reasons," answered Ed. "First, because I want all this fat to cook with and to use as butter hereafter. You've no idea how far it goes when people are on short rations. Secondly, because if all this fat fell upon these glowing coals it would blaze up and our hog would be scorched and burned. You are a company cook and I never was anything of the sort. But I honestly believe I could teach you some things about cooking."
"Of course you could," said the soldier. "And perhaps I could teach you some also. I could show you how to bake bread on a barrel head, or even on a ramrod, only we don't have ramrods since these new-fangled breech-loading guns came into use."