"Now we've laid out our camp, but we haven't named it yet. With the enmity of the moonshiners already aroused, it's a venture—our staying here I mean—but we're going to make the venture. So I propose that we call this camp of ours 'Camp Danger,' or 'Camp Risk' or camp something else of the sort."
"Why not call it 'Camp Venture?'" asked Harry.
"Good! 'Camp Venture' it is," answered Ed Parmly and the Doctor in unison. "Let it be 'Camp Venture'" and, added the Doctor, "if we are up to our business we'll show our friends that 'Camp Venture' did not venture more than its members were able to carry out. I'll tell you what, boys, I'm going to keep a diary setting forth all our adventures, and when the thing is over and done for, I'm going to write a book about it."
"Then we'll all be heroes of romance," said Jack. "Who'll be the villain of the piece?"
"Not at all," answered the Doctor. "I shall use fictitious names for all of you and even for myself, so that nobody shall ever know who we are or who it was that lived and experienced and perhaps suffered in 'Camp Venture.' I'm not going to spoil you superb fellows by making public personages of you before your time. But I'm going to write a book about your doings and sayings, which will perhaps interest some other boys and help them to meet duty as it ought to be met."
This story is the book that the Doctor wrote.
CHAPTER IV
A New Declaration of Independence
"Well," said little Tom long before supper, "if you fellows are too lazy to do any more work after an easy day like this, I am going out into the sunset to look for a turkey. I'm not fond of salt meat, and besides we've got to spare our salt pork against a time of need. I'll be back by supper time."