When the lads arose next morning, their eyes gazed with joy and wonder
on the valley below, tinted with the rosy light of an ideal morning of
early spring. The river was no longer a big stream held by well-defined
banks.
"Look, Bill," Tim exclaimed, with wondering eyes. "Lake Pepin has run
over. All the woods are under water."
The river was indeed almost two miles wide, overflowing in the forests,
covering marshes and meadows, from bluff to bluff. Like a fiery red
ball, the sun came creeping over the eastern bluffs, and a soft red tint
was reflected from the great flood below the camp.
The campers found their canoe on high land where Barker had turned it
over, but the flood had almost crept up to it.
In a very short time the travelers were off.
"Keep your eyes peeled for snags and driftwood," the trapper cautioned
Bill. "We have only one canoe and cannot afford a wreck and a spill."
"You can depend on me," Bill replied. "The water is much too cold for
swimming. I want to stay in the canoe."
Tatanka and Barker plied their paddles vigorously and Tim did his share,
with a short light paddle.
At noon they made only a short stop for a cup of hot tea and a very
light lunch, wishing to go as far as possible before camping.
About three in the afternoon, the trapper told the boys to look out for
a good camping-place.
"We want to stop at a good spring," he said; "this river water isn't so
bad, but good spring water is much better."
"How can we find a spring!" the boys wanted to know. "We don't know the
country."
"If you are wise campers you can always find a spring," the old man
instructed them. "Look for places where the high bluffs come down close
to the water edge."
Within an hour a high bluff came into view a mile down the stream, and
the lads, who were getting both hungry and tired, expected to find a
good camp-site. In this hope they were disappointed. The current surged
along past the tree-trunks where rafts of driftwood and rubbish had
collected, while masses of dirty white foam were held by the dead wood
and rubbish. The place did not look in the least inviting, and the boys
looked in vain for a clear bubbling spring.
"Where are the springs, Mr. Barker?" Tim asked timidly.
"Well, my boy," the old man replied, "I reckon they are covered by the
flood."
"What shall we do for a camping-place?" Bill asked.
"Go on until we find one that suits us."
"But if we don't find one?"
"Then we camp at a place that does not suit us," the trapper replied
dryly. "Traveling down-river isn't like living in town. We'll just take
things as they come."
About five o'clock they came to a place where a small creek came in from
the west.
"Bill, you had better steer into this bay," the trapper suggested.
"We'll camp there for the night."
"It isn't a good place, Mr. Barker," Tim ventured to say. "Look at all
the dirty driftwood and the willow-bushes. We are getting into a swamp
where there can't be any springs."
The trapper smiled. "May be," he said to Tim, "we'll find a good place
and perhaps a spring, too. Everybody go slow now. Look out for snags,
Bill, and let us land near the foot of that big ash."
Within a few minutes all heavy packs were taken out of the canoe and the
craft itself was turned over in a dry spot high above the water.
There was not only one spring, there were several coming out of the
hillside and running into the small flooded creek.
"I knew we would find good water up this creek," the trapper told the
boys.
"How could you tell!" the lads wondered. "Have you ever been here?"
"No, I have never seen this place before, but I have seen many groves of
black-ash and they only grow in cold, springy ravines. Wherever you see
the slim gray trunks and the short spreading branches of black-ash you
can find springs. Sometimes the flow is small and you have to dig out a
little pool for your well, but good cool water always seeps and flows
around the roots of the black-ash."
Like every good leader, Barker had each man assigned to some special
camp duty.
He himself was cook and baker. The Indian set up the tent and made the
bed. Bill brought water and cut wood for the camp-fire, while Tim
gathered dry brush and sticks for the cooking-fire and set out the
dishes, which consisted of a tin cup and plate, knife, fork, and spoon
for each man.
"We don't need the tent," Barker said to Tatanka. "It is not going to
rain to-night and the miserable mosquitoes haven't come yet. Just make a
good bed on plenty of dry leaves and grass. The boys are very tired and
we are all a little bit soft after our rather lazy winter."
"What are we going to do if it rains?" Tim asked.
"Pull the canvas over our heads," the old man answered with a serious
face, "and if it rains hard, we'll get wet. But it isn't going to rain."
The lads wondered how he could know, but they asked no more questions.
In half an hour the trapper called out, "Supper! All hands fall to."
And they all fell to, for all were ravenously hungry, and bacon,
corn-bread, and roast goose hurriedly vanished in large quantities. The
goose had been roasted the day before and had just been heated on a
spit.
After supper Tatanka and Bill arranged the packs under the canoe while
Barker and Tim washed the dishes, for the trapper insisted that it is
just as easy to keep clean in camp as to live with a lot of dirt.
The place of their camp was a few miles below the town of Winona. They
had, however, not landed there for several reasons. They felt that they
had no time to lose if they would reach Vicksburg before the end of
summer, and before Grant could take the Confederate stronghold of the
Mississippi. They had no recent letters from Vicksburg, and on their
trip they could of course receive none. Barker and the lads had written
to the boys' parents that they might expect them in Vicksburg sometime
in June or July. "That is," the letter closed, "if at that time, we can
get in."
"If Grant has made up his mind to take Vicksburg," the trapper had told
the boys, "I reckon he'll stick around and fight till he gets it. No
matter how big and how many the swamps are that protect it. If he cannot
get at the city from the north, he will get at it from the south. If he
cannot keep a base of supplies in his rear, he'll do without a base and
will make his army live on the country, till he can establish a base."
Another important reason for their not stopping at many towns was that
they felt that Hicks was certainly trying to discover their whereabouts.
"The bad man is surely looking for us," Tatanka declared. "He has hired
scouts to let him know when we pass. We must not stop at the towns."
On the following evening they passed the Iowa State line and they were
now traveling between the States of Wisconsin and Iowa.
The scenery all along had been wonderfully grand. It showed the same
high wooded bluffs and steep bare rocks they had so much admired at
their camp on Inspiration Point.
This grand striking scenery continues some hundred miles into Iowa.
A large region in southern Minnesota, southern Wisconsin, and northern
Iowa has never been glaciated and is known as the driftless area. In
this region the great river and its tributaries have cut deep valleys
through layers of limestone, dolomite, and sandstone. The sides of the
valleys have never been rounded off by creeping glaciers, and the cliffs
of dolomite stand up straight and bold like the well-known Maiden Rock
and Sugar Loaf near Winona.
This stretch of the Mississippi from St. Paul and Minneapolis to
Dubuque, some four hundred miles long, is the greatest scenic river
highway in the world. Every American should travel over it before he
goes to see the rivers of Europe, most of which are insignificant
streams compared with the Mississippi. The whole navigable distance on
the Rhine is no greater than the great scenic course of the Mississippi,
and this course is less than one-fifth of the whole navigable length of
our great American river. He who has not traveled on the Mississippi has
not seen America.
Even several great tributaries of the Mississippi, like the Missouri and
the Ohio and the Red River, are larger than any river in Europe.
The boys soon learned to find good camping-places, and vied with each
other in selecting the best ones.
As far as they could, they camped a few miles above the larger river
towns. The supplies they needed they bought of farmers or in small
towns, two men generally going after the supplies and the other two
staying at the camp. Many interesting incidents occurred to them all,
but it would make our story too long to tell of them.
The river now became alive with all kinds of steamboats, some carrying
passengers and merchandise, others guns, ammunition, and soldiers, and
it often taxed Bill's skill to avoid danger from the swell of the big
boats.
Spring was advancing apace. When they reached the northern boundary of
Missouri, about the first of May, it was summer. The trees were green,
birds were in full song, and the woods were full of flowers.
Spring advances up the river at the rate of something like fifteen miles
a day. About the first of March poplars and hazel hang out their
pollen-laden catkins at St. Louis; while at the Twin Cities, the first
spring flowers appear about a month later, but as the party was rapidly
traveling southward, the season to them advanced three or four days in
twenty-four hours.
At the well-known river port of Hannibal, Missouri, they placed their
canoe and baggage on a steamer and took passage for Cairo at the mouth
of the Ohio. At the great busy port of St. Louis they kept quiet on the
boat. The next evening they landed at Cairo.
Below Cairo, the mighty stream grows to its full grandeur. It has
received its two greatest tributaries, the Missouri and the Ohio,
besides such streams as the Wisconsin, the Des Moines, the Iowa, and the
Illinois, all of them fine rivers for the canoeist, the fisherman, and
the sight-seer.
Cairo was the most northerly point, where the great struggle for the
possession of the Mississippi began between North and South.
The four travelers had now reached the scene of the Civil War on the
Mississippi.