The Great Dipper had swung only halfway around the Polar Star when
Tatanka rapped at the cabin door.
"My friend," he called, "I think we should saddle our horses and ride
away. At daybreak the bands of Dakotahs will again start to kill all
white men they can find and to burn their houses. We should travel a
good stretch before the sun rises, and, may be, in that way we can leave
behind us the part of the country to which the war has spread."
The trapper, like most men who have lived much alone in a wild country,
was a light sleeper and was awake at once.
"Yes," he replied, "we should travel a good stretch by starlight.
Perhaps we can thus avoid falling in with any more Sioux warriors.
"We must take these lads to St. Paul before that man, Hicks, can find
out where we have gone, and try to overtake us. He will not hesitate to
set the Sioux on our trail, if he learns which way we have gone."
Tim and Bill had to be shaken out of a sound sleep.
"Come along, lads," Barker told them; "before the sun rises the Sioux
will again be scouring the country. We must travel by night as far as we
can."
While the boys were getting ready, Tatanka and the trapper planned the
day's journey.
"We should strike out northeast for Shakopee on the Minnesota River,"
advised Tatanka. "I used to camp and hunt there, when I was a boy, but
it is now a white man's town, and I do not think that Little Crow's
warriors will reach it. They will first try to take Fort Ridgely and New
Ulm beyond the great elbow of the Wakpah Minnesota."
"It is a good plan," assented the trapper. "Our two guns are loaded with
balls that carry a great distance. Let us put buckshot into the guns of
the boys. If we are attacked, we will fire our own guns first and use
the buckshot only if the Sioux come close up."
"It is good," said Black Buffalo. "If all white people were prepared
like we are, the warriors of Little Crow would not take many scalps."
The morning was chilly. The grass and flowers of the prairie were heavy
with dew and the little voices of the night had all grown silent, only a
lost dog, bereaved of his master, could be heard barking and howling in
the distance. They passed a slough, where the tall rushes and grasses
and the pools of open water were covered with a gray patchy blanket of
fog, out of which rang the loud quacking calls of wild ducks and the
low, retiring notes of hundreds of coots. From the blackbirds and
swallows which the boys knew were roosting in the marsh by the thousand,
came not a sound, but from the grass near the margin of the slough came
the liquid, pebbly song of a marsh-wren.
"Listen, Bill," whispered Tim, "there's the little bird that never
sleeps."
"Oh, I guess he sleeps, all right," replied Bill, "only he is so little
that he can sleep enough in snatches."
"We must ride faster," said Tatanka. "The stars are getting small and
the eastern sky will soon be gray, then the Dakotahs will come out of
their camps."
The four travelers wrapped themselves in their blankets, and let the
willing horses fall into an easy gallop.
The boys were glad, when, at last, a big red ball pushed slowly over the
distant wooded bluffs of the Minnesota, but Barker and Tatanka reined in
their horses and approached the crest of every rise with the utmost
caution. After traveling an hour or more, in this way, Barker and
Tatanka stopped and dismounted in a small grove of oaks on a high knoll,
after they had made sure that no tracks led into the patch of timber.
"Here we eat breakfast," Barker told the boys.
"Why don't we hide in a hollow where we can't be seen?" asked Bill.
Tatanka laughed at this question. "In a hollow," he replied, "Dakotahs
see us first; on a hill, we see them first."
To the surprise of the boys, the Indian even started a fire and on
several green sticks began to fry slices of bacon and ham.
"Won't the Indians see the fire!" asked Tim.
"Not this fire," Bill told him. "Don't you see that Tatanka breaks from
the trees only the driest sticks that don't make a bit of smoke!"
Tim and Meetcha were very hungry and Meetcha crept, with quivering
nostrils very close to the hot slices of meat, which the Indian was
laying down on some oak leaves, but Tatanka struck him a sharp blow with
a switch and called, "Raus!" in a loud gruff voice, so the little
raccoon scrambled away in a great hurry.
"What did he say!" asked the boys. "He talked German to Meetcha," Barker
laughed. "He learned it from his neighbors. It means, 'Get out.'"
"Meetcha must learn not to steal," said Tatanka, with a smile. "He is a
little thief. Tim should let him run in the woods. He will make much
trouble."
The four travelers enjoyed a hearty breakfast after their morning ride.
"Boys," remarked the trapper, "if we eat at this rate, we shall live on
the smell of hambone to-morrow, unless we make Shakopee tonight."
There were no dishes to wash and Meetcha had to eat the scraps without
washing them, although to the delight of both men and boys, he went
through the motions with every piece he ate.
When the meal was over, Tatanka sat for a while and smoked in silence,
while Barker and the boys scanned the prairie from the margin of the
grove.
A mile to the south some dark objects were moving in the direction of
the wooded knoll, but they could not tell what they were. The boys
thought they saw Indians on horseback, but as Barker did not agree with
them they called Black Buffalo. After he had looked a minute he said:
"Ox-team and white men. We must wait for them."
"How can they get away from the Indians on an ox-team?" asked Bill.
"They can't," explained Barker, "except by a lucky accident. If any
Indians see them, they are lost."
When the ox-team came within half a mile of the knoll, Tatanka pointed
to the west.
"Look," he said, "now we must fight."
Three Indians on horseback were coming across the prairie directly
toward the white men, who tried to whip the oxen into a run so as to
reach the wooded knoll.
"Get on your horses," commanded Barker, and the four riders threw
themselves quickly between the team and the Sioux.
When the trapper fired a shot at the Sioux, the three Indians turned and
then dispersed themselves around the team. They fired their guns, but
the bullets all fell short.
On the wagon were two men and several women and children, and the party
had been traveling all night.
The Indians followed the team for an hour, but as the party kept to the
open prairie, the Sioux at last fell behind and gave up the pursuit.
In the middle of the afternoon, the party reached Henderson, where the
owner of the team stayed with friends, while the four horsemen rode
rapidly on to Shakopee, which they reached late in the evening.
The news of the outbreak had already reached the town and the people
were much excited, although no hostile Indians had been seen in the
neighborhood.
On the following day, Wednesday, August 20th, the four horsemen saw no
hostile Indians. There were no telegraph lines in those days west and
southwest of St. Paul, but the news of the outbreak had reached St. Paul
by special messenger, on Tuesday, the day after it started.
Barker and his party did not follow the usual road from Shakopee to St.
Paul, but traveled along old Indian trails and by-paths with which
Barker was well acquainted. Near the old inn which stood just west of
the Bloomington bridge across the Minnesota, they rested in the woods
until evening, for it was Barker's intention to reach St. Paul after
dark.
"I doubt not," explained the trapper to Tatanka, "that Hicks, if he is
alive, is already on our trail. He is certainly going to look for the
boys and myself at St. Paul, and he will most likely strike the road
between this place and St. Paul. If we travel on this road in the
daytime, we shall meet so many people that it would be an easy thing to
follow us. Everybody would remember you and me and the small boy with
the raccoon, so we must stay here, until after dark."
It was shortly after midnight on Thursday morning, that the travelers
reached St. Paul. Old Joe, the hostler, at one of the outlying taverns,
was not a little surprised to see his friend Barker appear at this hour
of the day.
"Hello, Sam," he exclaimed, as he shook the old man's hand, "I'm
powerful glad to see you. Only last night I was saying to the boys,
'This time they surely got Sam's scalp.' Mighty glad I am, they didn't."
The horses were soon put in their stalls and Meetcha was locked up in an
empty grain-box with some kitchen scraps and a pan of water.
"He will wash bones, wash bones, until daylight." Tatanka laughed.
"Now, Joe," said Barker, as the men were seated in the small lobby of
the tavern and after the boys had gone to bed, "here is a chance for you
to show that you are my friend. Don't tell anybody that we are here. A
lanky, squint-eyed cuss with a scar on his forehead may show up
inquiring for us. Don't put him on."
"Old Joe is no sieve," replied the hostler. "You can depend on me."
Then the men exchanged the news of the Indian war and the war down
South.
The news of the outbreak had reached St. Paul on Tuesday, Governor
Ramsey had at once appointed Henry H. Sibley of Mendota, to assume
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 passengers, but through his acquaintance with the mate, the
trapper arranged for passage 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 impassive 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 shining 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 bass, 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
grass 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."