The words of the Colonel had aroused a train of thoughts in the boy.
Was there really going to be war at Vicksburg? The boys had heard talk
of war, but not until they had watched the loading of the guns and the
embarking of the soldiers and had heard the pressing orders of the keen,
straight army officer to "keep her going," to "push her through," had
this war talk meant anything to them.
Tim was almost too young to understand such things, but to Bill the war
had suddenly become a fearful reality. Fortunately, these big guns were
not going to Vicksburg; they were going to Washington, which was a long,
long way from Vicksburg.
From the talk of the men and from newspapers which had occasionally
fallen into Bill's hands, the boys had learned that during the previous
winter their own State, Mississippi, had left the Union, and that
Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and Louisiana, had likewise followed the lead
of South Carolina, which had seceded a few days before Christmas.
By this time almost everybody on the boat was asleep, except the
carpenters and engineers, who were still working to put the steamer into
first-class running shape.
But Bill's mind turned from the great problem and puzzle of national
events to more personal problems, which in a vague manner he had often
tried to solve.
Why had his mother never told him anything about his grandfather in
Tennessee, except that he was a very good man, who lived on a large
plantation, and had many slaves? Why had he and Tim never visited their
grandfather? Many boys of Vicksburg spent months at a time on the
plantations of their grandfathers.
What kind of a man was their cousin, Hicks, really?
Both Bill and Tim liked Trapper Barker very much and even Black Buffalo,
although he was an Indian, and spoke only a broken English, they liked,
but they had begun to feel that there was something mysterious about
Cousin Hicks. He didn't try to make a farm. He had bought no farm horses
nor oxen like the other settlers. He had only planted a little corn and
a few potatoes and beans and he let the boys do the work in the small
field, while with a light team and wagon he visited around amongst the
Indians and Whites. Why didn't he stay at home and work like the German
and Irish and Yankee settlers?
Had he only gone to Minnesota so that Tim might grow big and strong in
the northern climate? Tim had often been sick at Vicksburg, but now he
was as strong and active as any small boy of his age; however, Cousin
Hicks seemed to take little interest in Tim's health.
At last the troubled boy fell asleep and all his puzzles were forgotten
until the clear call of the bugler: "We can't get them up--we can't get
them up in the morning!" echoed over the flooded valley. It seemed to
Bill that he had slept only a five minutes, although it was now full
daylight. The ruddy sheen of the rising sun was reflected in a broad
streak of red from the swirling, rushing and gliding waters, while
masses of black smoke were curling from the chimneys of the boat.
The _Fanny Harris_ had filled up with coal before she left St. Paul,
because the wood-yards were flooded and much of the cord-wood piled up
for sale at the different landing places had drifted down stream.
The second day's travel was much like the first, but contrary to the
expectation of the artillerymen, the boat did reach the Fort Snelling
landing in the evening, having made more than three hundred miles in two
days.
Her appearance, however, was more like that of a wreck than of a safe
ship. Had there been any turn-bridges in those days, they would not have
had to open for her. Only six feet were left of her tallest smokestack,
while the other projected only a yard above the deck.
But Colonel Lantry would not stop for repairs.
"How are her hull and engine?" he asked.
"All sound, sir," replied Captain Faucette.
"Then we shall cast off at daylight," he ordered. "You can patch her up
at La Crosse."
At La Crosse the soldiers, guns, and horses were transferred to railroad
cars. Col. John E. Pemberton accompanied his men to Washington, where he
resigned and entered the service of the Confederate States.
The four civilian travelers left the _Fanny Harris_ at Fort Snelling,
and stayed a few days at Snelling and St. Paul, till Barker and Black
Buffalo had finished their trading.
At these two places, the excitement was as great as it had been at Fort
Ridgely. Fort Snelling had been made the recruiting station for the
State, and from all over the State men were responding to the call of
President Lincoln. Hundreds of men were encamped in tents and rapidly
constructed shacks, because the old stone barracks could not hold them
all. Captain Acker's company was already complete and before the end of
the month the First Minnesota Regiment was mustered in.
At the frontier town of St. Paul, the excitement was as great as at Fort
Snelling. Everybody talked war, while at the river front two dozen boats
were hastily loading and unloading. Mixed with the excited white people
were a number of silent, stolid-looking Indians, both Chippewa and
Sioux. They were found in the stores, on the streets and at the boat
landing.
The town seemed full of soldiers from all parts of the State. Some of
the men of the _Fanny Harris_ had deserted the boat at Fort Snelling,
because they were afraid if they waited they might not be able to get in
on the 75,000 President Lincoln had called for.
On the first up-river boat, the two lads and their friends started back
for Fort Ridgely. They were all in a sad mood. Bill could not help
thinking of the words of the officer, in regard to Vicksburg, while
Barker and Black Buffalo were turning over in their minds the looks and
the talk of the Sioux, who in the red glare of torches and bonfires, had
been watching the loading of cannons and other preparations for the
departure of the soldiers.
Black Buffalo especially seemed in a sullen mood.
"Who is the white boys' cousin?" he asked Barker, when the two were
sitting alone on the rear deck after dinner, while the boys were
watching immense flocks of geese, ducks, and cormorants that were now
going north over the flooded valley.
"He pretends to be their friend," replied the trapper, "but I am, like
yourself, much puzzled by his actions and behavior. He does nothing for
the boys. He talks of finding a good squatter's homestead for them, but
even Bill is much too young to hold a piece of land till it is surveyed
and opened for settlement."
"He is not their friend," Black Buffalo uttered gruffly. "I see him
often talking with bad Indians and bad white men. I do not like him; he
is a bad man. He sells rum to the Indians, when he thinks no eyes see
him, and he talks against the good work of the missionaries.
"We should keep our eyes on him. He means to do some harm to the boys."
"What harm could he do to them?" Barker asked, trying to conceal his own
fears and the anxiety he had often felt about the relation of the two
boys to their supposed cousin.
"We must watch him," he said to Black Buffalo; "there is something
strange about him. He can talk well, but his eye is unsteady."
"Yes," replied the Indian, "his words do not tell you what is in his
heart."
In the middle of the afternoon, the engine broke down and the boat tied
up near the present town of Belle Plaine, about fifty miles above St.
Paul.
While the engineers were repairing the machinery, the two boys and their
friends went out in two small boats to hunt ducks and geese on the
flooded marshes.
They landed on a small island of high land and the men chose a
convenient blind behind some bushes. The boys had no guns and had just
gone along to watch the fun and to bring in the ducks which the hunters
would drop, but they found some unexpected and exciting hunting for
themselves.
"See the rabbit, see the rabbit!" Tim cried. "He is sitting on a stump
with water all around him."
The boys were surprised to find that the rabbit did not try to get away
as they approached.
"He's dead," said Tim.
"No, he isn't," laughed Bill, "I see his nose move; he is breathing."
Some brush had drifted against the stump and the rabbit had eaten it as
far as he had been able to reach.
When the boys lifted the rabbit into the boat, they had another
surprise, for nestled under his fur they discovered a black meadow mouse
that had also sought refuge on the stump when the water had risen.
"Take him off," Tim begged, "he'll freeze to death on the stump," and
Bill took him off and placed him under the rabbit, who was quietly
squatting under the seat as if he belonged there.
When the boys returned to the brush-and-grass-covered island, they
discovered four more rabbits, who, however, were more lively than the
one on the stump. They ran about in a most puzzling zigzag fashion and
one even tried to swim across a channel to another piece of dry land.
But the boys caught them all and put them in the boat, from which they
did not try to escape.
While they were chasing the rabbits the boys made another discovery. The
island was alive with black meadow-mice; there were hundreds of them.
Every tuft of dead grass, every bush, every pile of dead leaves was
crowded with them.
"Oh, Tim," teased Bill, "let's row back to the boat and get some pie for
all your pets."
But Tim had caught the twinkle in his brother's eye. "Ah, you can't fool
me," he came back. "Don't you think I know that these wild mice have
plenty of grass and brush to eat till the water goes down?"
It did not take the boys long to decide what to do with the rabbits.
"If we could only keep them," was Tim's wish. "We would have as much fun
with them as we had with our rabbits at Vicksburg."
"No use; we can't keep them," Bill argued. "We would have to stay at
home every day or let them out, and if we let them out, they will eat up
our garden and Cousin Hicks will kill them. There are too many rabbits
at our shack now."
So the boys rowed their catch of game ashore. When the boat touched
land, the stupid rabbits became lively at once. They hopped out of the
boat and, true to their instinct for hiding, disappeared at once; some
into a hole and others under a pile of brush.
On their way back the boys, quite excited about this new way of hunting,
peeped into a hollow log.
"There's an animal in it!" exclaimed Tim.
"Look out!" Bill warned him, "maybe it's a skunk. If you catch a skunk,
you can't go back on the boat."
"It's no skunk," replied Tim. "It's a gray animal. It's a coon. Let's
catch him."
Bill poked the animal with a stick and before he had time to warn his
younger brother to look out for the coon's teeth and claws, Tim had
grabbed the creature by the neck, dropped him in the boat and thrown his
coat over the snarling animal.
"Look at him," Tim cried. "Doesn't he look funny, peeping out from under
my coat?"
"My, but he is thin! I bet he is cold and starved. Let us take him to
the hunters and give him something to eat."
"Mr. Barker, what does a coon eat!" Tim shouted as they approached the
men. "We've caught one."
"Anything, except wood," the trapper told them. "Give him a piece of
duck-meat. We have ducks enough for the whole boat."
When Tim offered the raccoon a piece of duck-meat, he took it, soused it
in the water in the boat, devoured it greedily and began whining for
more. He ate several other pieces in the same way.
"Why does he wash his meat?" the boys asked.
"It's just his queer way," the trapper told them. "You give him a piece
of fresh pie, and he'll souse it in a mudhole before he eats it.
"A coon's a queer fellow. My German neighbors call him 'washbear,' on
account of his peculiar habits. I had a tame coon once, but he died from
eating a pan of boot-grease."
"Why didn't you watch him?" asked Tim.
"You can't watch a coon," the trapper laughed, "he's always in some
mischief. I'd rather watch ten boys than one coon."
On the four days it took the boat to reach Fort Ridgely the boys had
plenty of time to ask the trapper about the war.
"It won't last long, that's what I think," the trapper told them. "When
the Confederates see that Abe Lincoln has 75,000 soldiers, they will
quit."
"Will they fight at Vicksburg?" asked Bill.
"No, you needn't worry, boys. They'll soon fix it all up at Washington
and the soldiers will come home."
"The officer said it would be hell at Vicksburg," Tim remarked, "and it
would be a big, long war."
"That's what some of the army officers think," the trapper admitted,
"but most other people don't think so."
Black Buffalo was as much puzzled by the war between the white people as
the boys.
"Do the people from this country want to go south," he asked, "just as
the Chippewas from the North want to come into our Sioux country?"
"No, that isn't it," the trapper explained. "The white people of the
South want to keep their black slaves, and they wish to have a country
and a president of their own. They don't like Abe Lincoln."
When on the evening of the fourth day, the steamer whistled for the Fort
Ridgely landing, the boys were glad to get off the boat, but felt very
uneasy about the reception Cousin Hicks would give them.
"I wish we could go back to Vicksburg," Tim whispered to his brother. "I
am homesick."
"Come on, boys," Mr. Barker called in his pleasant, manly voice. "I'll
stay at your shack to-night, and if your cousin is at home, I'll have a
visit and a talk with him. Don't forget your coon, Tim; I guess you will
have to carry him if you want to take him home."