The Lure Of The Mississippi Part 8

The news of the outbreak had reached St. Paul on Tuesday, Governor Ramsey had at once appointed Henry H. Sibley of Mendota, to a.s.sume command of a force of men to march against the Indians, and Sibley was already on his way with more than a thousand men.

Barker soon learned that a freighter, the _Red Hawk_, was due to start down river for Galena some time Friday evening. The boat could take but very few pa.s.sengers, but through his acquaintance with the mate, the trapper arranged for pa.s.sage for himself and the boys.

When he told Tatanka about his plans, the Indian did not seem to hear him, but his dark eyes wandered down the bend of the river, where the great stream sweeps southward in a magnificent curve, below the high white cliffs of the Indian Mounds and the long-lost Carver's Cave.

After a long silence, the impa.s.sive face of Tatanka lit up as with the fire of youth.

"I wish to go with you and the white boys," he said; "I wish to see once more the Great River, where my fathers fought the Ojibways, and the Winnebagoes. I wish to see once more the long s.h.i.+ning Lake Pepin, and its bold high rocks. There I lived when I was a little boy, before the first fire-canoe came up the Great River. My father killed many deer and my mother caught great fish, many kinds of fish in the river.

"Wakadan, the ba.s.s, the alligator-fish, the big buffalo-sucker that has no teeth, but has strength to run through a net, Tamahe, the pickerel, that has sharp teeth and is the wolf among fish, and the large black paddle-fish, besides many, many little fish, black and golden, and silver, which were caught only by the small boys.

"My brother, you will need me and I will go with you and fight with you if the bad white man comes to take away your boys.

"And I will travel along the Great River and be happy as I was when I listened to the the waves of Lake Pepin many winters ago.

"There our people never went hungry and all were happy, but now the dark clouds hang over all my people. The soldiers will drive them away from the Minnesota to the Bad Lands of the West, where the timber and the gra.s.s are poor.

"Once more, I will travel on the Great River and then I will join my people far west, and my friends will bury my bones where the hungry wolves can not reach them."

CHAPTER VII-ON THE GREAT RIVER

The day before their departure south was a very busy one for both men and boys.

When Barker told the boys at breakfast that they would all start down the river in the evening, it was only the strange place and people that kept the boys from shouting and turning somersaults.

"Are you going with us all the way to Vicksburg? And is Tatanka going?"

Tim asked, big-eyed with suppressed excitement.

"We are both going," Barker told them, "if we can get through. We should not have much trouble until we get to Memphis. Below Memphis, the river is full of gunboats and the country full of fighting armies. I don't know how we shall manage there. We'll have to see, when we get there."

The four travelers could now take their horses no farther, and although they disliked to part with the animals there was nothing else to do. Old Joe, the hostler, paid them a fair price for the animals and again pledged his secrecy.

"There's a good market now for horses," he told his friends, "and I'll sell them in a few days. If any inquisitive gent comes around, I'll send him about his own business."

After dark the four friends went on board the _Red Hawk_.

"You lads keep quiet in your cabin," Barker told the boys, "till the boat has started. Tatanka and I will do a little scouting till we have cast off."

The two men took a position behind some boxes and bales of freight. The landing was lit by several glaring torches, so that the two scouts could see clearly every person moving about, but they could not be seen themselves from the landing.

The deck-hands were just throwing on the last sticks of cord-wood and carrying on board the last sacks of wheat, when a stranger appeared and spoke to the captain.

"Can you carry another pa.s.senger?" Barker heard him ask. "I have blankets and can sleep on the deck."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Walking is good, on you can ride on a log, the water is fine."]

"Not another soul," replied the captain. "Get off the gang-plank, you're in the way."

"But I must get to St. Louis," the man argued.

"I don't care what you must do," the captain replied gruffly. "Walking is good, or you can ride on a log, the water is fine. Now get off the gang-plank. This boat leaves in five minutes."

"Hicks," whispered Tatanka. "Bad man Hicks," as the man slouched back up town. "I'd like to throw my ax at him."

"It's a good thing that I described Hicks to the captain," Barker chuckled. "The captain recognized him all right."

Then the _Red Hawk_ gave a long whistle, the pilot pulled the bell at the engine, there was a great hissing of steam and the big stern-wheel noisily churned the brown water of the Mississippi. Slowly the heavily-laden boat backed into mid-stream, again the pilot rang the bell, and the boat made a half-turn and was headed down-stream.

The boys came out of their cabin.

"How can the pilot find his way?" asked Bill, "when the night is so pitch-dark?"

"A good pilot knows the river by heart," Barker told the boys. "He knows it by day and by night, and up-stream and downstream."

At the present time it is comparatively easy to pilot a steamboat on the Mississippi. Hundreds of wing-dams, built by the government engineers, keep the current in the same channel, and numerous guideboards and lights on sh.o.r.e tell the pilot where to steer his boat. In addition to this, the modern boats are all provided with powerful headlights and search-lights.

At the time of the Civil War wing-dams, guideboards, sh.o.r.e-lights, and search-lights were all unknown. The safety of the Mississippi steamers depended entirely on the pilots. Their accurate knowledge of the river, their skill in handling the wheel, their quick decision in moments of danger, brought every year hundreds of boats safely back and forth between the ports of St. Paul and St. Louis.

As the _Red Hawk_ was gliding by the magnificent groves of cottonwoods, which begin to line the Mississippi just below the Indian Mounds at St.

Paul, the trapper and his three friends were quietly sitting on the upper deck in front of the pilot-house.

There was little talk, for all were absorbed in the running of the boat.

Now the boat seemed to be headed into an absolutely black wall, which proved, however, to be only the dense shadow caused by the forest or by a high rocky bank. Had the pilot not had the nerve to steer straight into the black shadow, he would have wrecked his boat among the snags on a sandbar, where the safe channel seemed to run.

At the end of three hours the boat stopped at Prescott, at the mouth of the St. Croix, one of the two navigable tributaries of the upper Mississippi, near St. Paul and Minneapolis, almost two thousand miles from the Gulf of Mexico. Here the river grew wider and deeper, so that the pilot could pick his way with a little less anxiety, but to the four fugitives from the Sioux country, the mystery continued.

At one moment the boat was headed into a dark forest of tall cottonwoods and maples, and a little later the boys felt sure she would crash against a solid wall of rock, and then suddenly the river seemed to come to an end.

"We've lost the river, we're in a big slough," Tim whispered as he held firmly to Meetcha.

But always just in time, the wheel turned just enough and the boat glided safely past trees and cliffs, past sandbars and snags, and around every bend and turn.

The four travelers began to feel a little more at ease now. Tatanka lit his red pipe, Barker treated himself to a cigar which his friend Joe had slipped into his pocket, while the boys began to feel sleepy.

The smokers had taken only a few puffs when a messenger came. "The captain," he said, "wishes you to smoke somewhere else. The light from your pipe and cigar bothers the pilot, so he can't see where he is steering."

"The boy is lying," Tatanka murmured.

"No, he is not," Barker dissented. "I have often heard the pilots say that on a dark night like this, the light from a pipe or cigar annoys them so much that they cannot steer right. We must find another place."

It was not long before all four of the friends sought their beds. The boat stopped for more freight at Red Wing; and at Lake City, at the head of Lake Pepin, it was delayed until noon by some necessary repairs on the engine.

The first mate who took charge of the boat at noon was in doubt whether he should wait for a threatening storm to pa.s.s before he started down the lake, but the captain was impatient.