Captain Sam: The Boy Scouts of 1814

happened before it and something else before that and something else before that, so that there is really no end to the beginnings that might be made. The only way I can think of by which a w

me about before going on with it. I must tell you just now who these boys were, where they were and how they came to be there. All this must be told sometime and when

ma. The Indians fought desperately, but General Jackson managed to conquer them thoroughly. He was empowered by the government to make a treaty with them and he insisted that they sho

again. As the people of the border used to say, he "left no gaps in the fences behind him," and so he insisted upon the treaty and the Indians at last signed

all very well, and very wise, too, for there was no man in the country who was fitter than he for the kind of work he was thus called on to do; but there was one very serious obstacle in his way. He had his commission; he had full authority to conduct the campaign; he had everything in fact except an army, and it does not require a very shr

afraid of danger. Many of them had fought bravely during the Indian war, and when Jackson called for volu

rance and unusual skill in all the things which help to make either a boy or a man popular in a new country. He was a cap

e sake of his health a few years before, bringing a large library with him, and he had educated his children very carefully, acting as their teacher himself. Sam was ready for college, and but for Jackson's call for troops he would have been on his way to Virginia, to attend the old

ut the work of learning it is not thrown away on that account. In learning it you train and discipline and cultivate your mind, making it grow both in strength and in capacity, and so the educated man has really a stronger and better intellect than he ever would have had without education. Many persons suppose,-and I have known even college professors who made the mistake,-that a boy's mind is like a meal-bag, which will hold just so much and needs filling. They fill it as they would fill the meal-bag, for the sake of the meal and without a thought of the bag. In fact a boy's mind is more like the boy himself. It will not do to try to make a man out of him by stuffing meat and bread down his throat. The meat and brea

le company was organized, under Sam's command as captain. Of course Sam had no real military authority, and he did not for a moment suppose that his little band of boys would be recognized as a company or he as a cap

how wandered out of his way, leaving the main alley and following a side one to its end. He therefore retraced his steps, feeling, as he went, for an opening upon one side or the other. He found several, but none of them did him any good. Following each a little way he came to its end in the matted logs, and had to try again. Presently he began to get nervous and frightened. He imagined all sorts of things and so lost his presence of mind that he forgot the outer appearance and size of the drift pile, and frightened himself still further by imagining that it must extend for miles in every direction, and that he might be hopelessly lost within its dark mazes. When he became frightened, he hurried his footsteps, as nervous people always do, and the result was that he blacked one

-a-a-ke!!" He knew then

se to pursue. When he threw the log down, he meant merely to shut Jake Elliott and his own boots up for safe keeping, and it was his purpose, when morning

ooking, saw something which looked surprisingly like a pair of boots, trying to force themselves out between two of the exposed roots. Then he heard retreating footsteps within the space enclosed by the circle of roots, and began to suspect the precis

e story of the night's exploits should become known to them, and while he knew that the culprit deserved the severest lesson, he was too magnanimous to subject him to so sore a trial. He went to sleep, therefore, resolved to release his enemy quietly in the morning, before the other boys should

m his couch of bushes, "but run down to the spring

ught somewhere in the woods beyond camp lines, a battle with fists for the mastery,

re. Go to the spring, as I tell you, and then go back to the fire, and get breakfast. Jake and I will be there in time to hel

good-natured revolt, but Sam's earnestness qu

ile, more than a hundred yards away from the near

e! J

hly broken and frightened. He dreaded the meeting with Sam nearly as much as he dreaded the terrible

this way,

when he had moved a

the top, just above

n't see the sk

tick to boost you, a

any places sticks were in the way, which it required his utmost strength to remove. The passage through which he was crawling so painfully, was one which Sam and his companions had made by dint of great labor, during their residence in the tree root cavern a year before. It led from the main alley way to their post of observation on top of the

p of the drift pile, and he saw Sam lying flat do

the boys will see us. Crawl out of the hole

jumped down to the ground on the si

e about it, and yet a moment before he would have made oath that those very boots were hidden hopelessly w

you get t

he point of throwing them into the river. If you think such an act by way of revenge was manly

it, Sam," began Jake

doesn't matter. You took them into the drift pile and put them into a hole there. The next thing you know of them I have them on my feet, and I assure you I haven't been inside the drift pile since you entered it. Solve that riddle in any way you choose. I

d the way. Prese

" he

el

unged up. What'

n't k

ust I t

choose. It is

ve whipped me?" exc

have, h

ain't fit

and I have whipped you fairly. Never mind that. You can s

aid Jake, ag

what is

e out an' keep the s

be mean, unmanly and wrong i

the onl

is the on

se you was afraid?" he

I'm not in the least

I'm bigg

except you. You wouldn't dare to lay a finger on me. I could make you lie do

or the boys to find, then,

ve told you once, but of course you can'