Barker, through the influence of Captain Banks, had found quarters for
his party in a vacant corner of an old warehouse. Other rooms were not
procurable and in these secluded quarters, he felt safe from annoying
and curious visitors, and from various camp-followers always found in
the rear of an army.
He was most anxious to get the boys into Vicksburg and start for home
with Tatanka, who had so loyally shared all the dangers and hardships of
the long journey.
But how to get into Vicksburg was a puzzle. Securing a pass seemed out
of the question and any other way that he could think of looked either
impossible or extremely dangerous, because sentinels and patrols of both
Grant's and Pemberton's armies watched the river day and night.
He feared that in the confusion and excitement of surrender, even if it
did come soon, he might fail to find the parents of his boys. Between
this anxiety and the possibility of again meeting Hicks, he lay awake,
thinking a good part of the night.
The next forenoon the four men from the North accompanied a train of
wagons with rations and ammunitions for the soldiers east of Vicksburg.
The boys were again in high spirits. They felt sure that they would soon
be at home, and there were so many new things to be seen that they had
no time to feel sad. The horrors of war were but little visible, because
there had been no active fighting for a month.
Barker, however, walked along in thoughtful silence.
"I must get the lads into town and I must kill or capture Hicks, if we
set eyes on him again," were the thoughts ever in his mind.
About the middle of the forenoon the long line of wagons halted on
account of some obstruction ahead. Barker was chatting pleasantly with a
number of teamsters, "mule-skinners," as the soldiers called them. He
had told them that he wanted to get the lads into Vicksburg and he had
told them about the man, who for some reason, was bound to keep the boys
in the North even at the risk of having them killed by the Sioux. The
men became much interested, for even the roughest of men are quickly
stirred in their sympathy by injustice and cowardly crime.
Three horsemen came slowly along the side of the road. They stopped as
they reached the group of teamsters.
The foremost of them dismounted, walked slowly up to Barker, reached out
his hand and said with suppressed excitement: "Hello, Barker, I'm glad
to see you."
"Hello, Hicks," replied the trapper, returning the salute without
offering his hand. "I can't say that I'm glad to see you."
"Where are the boys?" asked Hicks.
"My boys are back a way," Barker spoke firmly, the color rising in his
cheeks and his gray eyes flashing, "and you and yours aren't going to
touch them."
Hicks turned white and made a movement as if to draw a pistol.
Without a word from Barker three husky men sprang upon him and several
pistols covered the other two men, who were ordered to dismount.
"Search him!" said Barker. "He is the man. I want to know why he wants
possession of the boys."
Hicks tried to tell the lies about kidnapped nephews and stolen horses,
but the teamsters shook him into silence.
"Close up," one of the men ordered. "You're too late; we know all about
you."
A soiled piece of paper was found on Hicks.
"The bearer of this," it read, "is to receive $10,000 if no
heirs of Col. Henry P. Deming are found before January first,
1864.
"John C. Chesterton."
"What does it mean?" demanded Barker.
"I don't know," protested Hicks. "I didn't know I had the rag and don't
know where it came from."
"All right!" said the spokesman of the teamsters. "Boys, tie him to that
gum-tree.
"Hicks, you have just five minutes to explain that paper and say
anything else you may want to say.
"Take a look at your pistols, boys!"
Hicks began to tremble.
"Let me go," he groaned, "and I'll tell the truth."
"Tell the truth!" shouted the men, "and we'll see."
"Colonel Deming," Hicks began, "is the boys' grandfather. Their mother
married against his wishes. He disinherited her, and made a will that
Chesterton, a distant relative, should fall heir to the Deming
plantation, which is very valuable, if no children of his daughter were
found before January 1st, 1864.
"Chesterton learned about the two lads and hired me to keep the two boys
out of sight. I didn't mean to harm them."
"Like blazes you didn't!" cried the spokesman. "You deserted them when
the Indians broke out.
"Boys, get a rope; the fellow is too rank rotten for our bullets!"
An officer with a patrol came along and inquired what all the row was
about, and the teamsters told him the story, which was corroborated by
Barker.
"I don't want him hanged," Barker added, "but I don't want to see his
face again.
"Hicks," he spoke calmly, turning to the prisoner, "I'll shoot you on
sight, if you ever cross my trail again!"
The officer thought a minute.
"Let him go, men," he decided. "Don't soil your hands on him.
"Here," he ordered two soldiers, "take him out of our lines to that open
field. He is to trot straight for the timber east. If he stops running,
you shoot him.
"Hicks, if you ever show your face inside our lines again, we'll find a
tree for you pretty quick. March!
"My regiment can make good use of these three horses."
[Illustration: "Take him out of our lines to that open field."]
"What about these two fellows? Can we hang them? We've got the rope all
ready." The men asked their questions half in earnest and half in grim
jest.
"They were partners of Judas Hicks."
The two prisoners protested their innocence, claiming that they had
believed the story of Hicks about kidnapped nephews and stolen horses.
"Give us a chance to go back north or put us to work here. We're
innocent of any crime."
"That sounds good," said the officer, "the transport _Northern Star_
leaves for St. Louis to-night or to-morrow. She is short of men. Restler
and Stone, take these men back to Haynes Bluff and turn them over to the
captain of the _Northern Star_. Tell the captain he will furnish me a
good dinner when he returns from St. Louis."
When the officer and his patrol had left, Barker turned to the group of
teamsters.
"Men," he said, with a choking voice, "you have done me a great service
for which I can never repay you, but if you ever come north to
Minnesota, I'll show you the finest land the Lord put down on this
earth."
"Will it grow cotton and sweet potatoes?" drawled one of the men.
"No, it won't do that, but it will grow everything else. Corn and wheat,
fish and game, and great straight pines."
The teams of wagons ahead began to move. The drivers cracked their whips
and called: "Good-bye, old man. You'll never see Hicks again. We'll come
north after we get through at Vicksburg."
Barker went back and soon found Tatanka and the boys.
The three were much stirred by the news about Hicks and his two friends.
Tatanka did not try to conceal his disapproval of the escape of Hicks.
"The mule-drivers were right," he growled. "Hicks was all bad and should
hang. I would have killed him and scalped him, too."
"No, you red heathen," Barker laughed at him, "you wouldn't, you are not
in the country of murderous Little Crow. You are in the lines of
Christian soldiers.
"You had better be careful with your big talk or the soldiers will put
you in the guardhouse."
"I would be glad to live in the guardhouse, if I could first scalp
Hicks."
"You wouldn't live in it very long. They would take you out and shoot
you."
"They could," Tatanka persisted angrily, "if I had killed Hicks. A Sioux
is not afraid of death."
"You black-souled Indian," Barker chided him good-naturedly. "I'm glad
you didn't see him. Now, we'll all walk back to town. It'll be
dinner-time when we get there. Tatanka, you'll feel less revengeful
after you have filled your ribs with pumpkin-pie and bacon.
"After dinner you can scout for Hicks and if you find him, you may scalp
him, but if he keeps going the way he went across that field, he'll be
in Alabama to-night."
In the afternoon the boys took a swim in the river and introduced
Tatanka to the ways and manners of a dugout. The lads had often traveled
in a dugout before they went to Minnesota, and they soon convinced
Tatanka that a log canoe was as safe as a birch canoe. In fact they
claimed it was much safer, "because," they said, "you can ride on either
side of it. You don't have to keep it right side up."
Barker also went down to the Yazoo River and took his first lessons in
handling a dugout, but he soon returned to town to see if he couldn't
find some way of getting into Vicksburg.
An old fisherman to whom Barker broached the subject, carefully, gave
him this advice:
"Stranger," he said, "there be a fellow in the Union army somewhere. His
name is U. S. Grant. Ye may have heard of him. They say he is much set
on getting into that town. May be if ye and he put your heads together
ye can find a way to get in."
"Look here, my friend," Barker replied, somewhat angered, "I have a very
good reason for wanting to get into Vicksburg."
"I reckon ye have that," the old fisherman replied, testily. "I reckon
ye are a Confederate spy or a Federal spy. If ye are, ye'll have to find
your own way into town. Ye cant get me into trouble. Two of my sons are
in General Pemberton's army, if they haven't been killed. I'm too old to
fight, and I won't mix up with spies. Ye're the third stranger this week
that's talked to me about getting into Vicksburg, so ye'll have to
pardon me, if I'm a bit techy. I tell them all my boat's not running."
Barker protested that he was neither a Confederate nor a Federal spy.
"Well, if ye aren't a spy, ye can't get in. It's only birds and fish and
spies that can get in. We can't even smuggle in a side of bacon for our
boys. I hear they're eating rats and mules with young cane for
vegetables."
Barker was silent. His sympathy went out to the old man, whom like
thousands north and south the great war had made sad and lonely.
"If ye ain't a spy," the old man took up the conversation again, "I'll
give ye a bit of advice. Don't ye talk to anybody about getting into
Vicksburg. It's a bad subject for conversation just now at this place.
"The Union men would turn ye over to the soldiers, and there are still
men here whose hearts are filled with hatred against the North.
"When the war began I hated Lincoln and all men north. I have seen
enough of the men from the North that I hate them no more, but I am sad
and lonely and I pray that the war may soon end."