The Lure Of The Mississippi Part 3

"Yes, do make yourself at home," Hicks said now. "I am glad you took the boys with you to St. Paul. It is a bit lonesome for them here, and I have to be away a good deal."

Next morning Hicks walked along the prairie road with Barker, and the trapper knew that Hicks had something to say to him.

When they were no longer within sight of the shack, Hicks began:

"It would suit me just as well, Barker, if you wouldn't take those lads away from my place. I'm their guardian and I reckon I can look after them."

"I'm glad to hear you say that, Mr. Hicks. I always thought the boys ought to have a guardian. But I want to tell you that, in my opinion, you have done blessed little guarding."

"Just the same," Hicks replied, his Southern accent becoming more p.r.o.nounced, "it would suit me just as well if you and yours wouldn't meddle in my business."

"Now look here, Hicks," the trapper turned on him with his gray eyes flas.h.i.+ng, "this isn't a matter of business at all. You claim to be the friend or guardian of these two boys, and you not only neglect them, but you expose them to great danger."

"Where's the danger, and what...?" Hicks started, his anger plainly rising.

"Hicks," the trapper cut him short, "don't pretend to me that you don't know. You know as well as I do that a storm is brewing here and that the Indians may break into murder and war almost any day. It would not have surprised me if they had broken out before the _f.a.n.n.y Harris_ had reached La Crosse."

"All the same," retorted Hicks, trying to straighten his lank and stooped body, "you and yours will let those boys alone in the future."

Barker felt this was a threat. "Good," he replied. "If that's your trump card, I'll play mine. Hicks, if any harm comes to those lads, I'll hunt you down and make you pay for it. Remember that! Your duty is to take those lads home to Vicksburg and you can come back with a load of rum, if you want to. We're through. Good morning."

The two men stood facing each other a moment. A whirling gust blew off the old gray hat of Hicks, and he hurriedly caught it and put it on again. Then, without a word, he turned and with a slouching gait started to go back.

Something about Hicks had startled Barker. For a moment he stood thinking. Had he not seen this man years ago? Then he leaned against an old gnarly bur-oak. Hicks turned as if he would come back, but when he saw the trapper watching him, he changed his mind.

"No, Hicks," the trapper thought, "your game won't work on me. You can't plug me in the back and bury me in the brush in the ravine."

But where had he met this man before? He lit his pipe and thought. Now it flashed upon him. Ten years ago, when he had been trapping and hunting wild turkeys in the valley of the Wabash, in Indiana, he had met a man he had never forgotten. The man was under arrest for murder and the sheriff stopped over night with him in Barker's cabin. The next day he broke away and had never been heard from. He had black hair then, dark eyes, and a small red scar stood out sharply on his white forehead.

"That man was Hicks!" the trapper exclaimed. "I never forgot that scar."

"Why has he brought those boys into the Indian Country?" Barker asked himself. "How could any parents trust their boys to a man of his kind?"

But Hicks could be very pleasant, and he was a good talker. He had made many friends among both Whites and Indians. He seemed to have some money and was a liberal spender. Nevertheless, after turning over in his mind all he knew about Hicks, Barker could not make up his mind why Hicks and the boys were here and why Hicks so absolutely neglected the boys he had evidently promised to look after.

A week later Barker met the boys at a slough, where both he and the lads sometimes went for a mess of wild ducks and the trapper decided to see what he could find out about Cousin Hicks. The boys being asked, told freely what they knew.

Cousin Hicks was some distant relative of their mother. He had lived at Vicksburg about a year and had often visited at their home and had sat many hours chatting with their father in his little store. The boys had gone north with him, so they could squat on some good land, and because Tim was often sick at Vicksburg. As soon as their parents could sell their store, they would also come north, because they had heard and read about the boom in Minnesota lands and what big crops of wheat it would raise. The boys liked it in Minnesota, only Tim got homesick at times.

Cousin Hicks was not mean to them, only he didn't work and didn't stay at home, but he never worked much in Vicksburg, either.

There had been some trouble and a lawsuit between their two grandfathers in Tennessee and the boys had never been to see them.

That was all the boys knew. It did not help Barker much, but he felt more sure than ever that Hicks was playing some crooked game and he decided to watch things, no matter what might be the outcome.

When fall came, the boys had eaten all the corn in their garden and in order to have something to live on during the winter, they went to a large slough to gather wild rice in the way they had learned of the Indians.

As the winter pa.s.sed, bad news came for the lads from the South. Their father wrote that the war was getting worse and that on account of it he could not hope to sell his store, but that the boys might as well stay in Minnesota.

The war had indeed, by this time, a.s.sumed immense proportions, both in the East and in the West near the Mississippi River. In the West, Grant had captured the important points of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson and had fought the terrible two days' battle of s.h.i.+loh. After this battle, most Northerners became convinced that the Confederacy would not suddenly collapse after one or two battles.

By the first of July, 1862, the land forces, under Grant and two fleets of gunboats, the lower under Admiral Farragut, and the upper under Commodore Henry Davis, had obtained control of the Mississippi River, except for a stretch of river between Vicksburg and Port Hudson, a distance of two hundred miles.

By far the most important and strongest point on the river still held by the Confederates was Vicksburg. It is located on the east side of the river on high land with wooded hills about two hundred feet high directly to the east of the city. The cities of St. Louis, Cairo, Memphis, and New Orleans were all held by the Union forces. It was of great importance for the Union forces to capture Vicksburg, because the capture of this city would give them complete control of the great river and would cut the Confederacy in two, cutting off their supply of grain and meat from Arkansas and Texas. If Vicksburg could be taken, the Confederacy would be blockaded on the Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico, and on the Mississippi.

The task of taking this important city fell to General Grant, and it proved a most difficult undertaking. The heavy batteries of guns placed in all favorable positions could not be silenced by the Federal gunboats. The city was also defended by a garrison of several thousand men, and on July 15th, the iron-clad Confederate ram, _Arkansas_, coming out of the Yazoo River, just above Vicksburg, ran through and practically defeated the whole fleet of Commodore Davis. For several days this one Confederate gunboat held both Admiral Farragut's fleet and the fleet of Commodore Davis at bay until both withdrew, one up, the other down, the river.

The fight of the _Arkansas_ under its fearless Captain I. N. Brown, is one of the most heroic chapters in naval warfare.

Why the Federals allowed this formidable ram six weeks to be completed and armed at Yazoo City, within fifty miles of their own upper fleet, has thus far remained a mystery. On the fifteenth of August, Bill and Tim Ferguson, after an interval of several months, received the following letter from their father at Vicksburg:

"_My dear boys:_

"You have probably read or heard about the fighting that has been going on here. Your mother and I live in a cave now and we are getting used to the screeching and bursting of sh.e.l.ls, which the Federal gunboats throw into the city. But now our one little iron-clad _Arkansas_ has driven off both the upper and lower Federal fleet. Think of that! and last night your mother and I slept at home once more.

"You boys would like to see the _Arkansas_. She looks like a scow with an iron house boat built on it. The house-boat part has slanting sides in every direction. Captain Brown, her commander, built her at Yazoo City; Brown had thousands of railroad rails bent into shape and with these he completely covered her sides and where he could not use rails, he used boiler-plate. If we only had a few more Browns and _Arkansases_, we would soon chase the whole Yankee fleet into the canebrakes.

"Most people here are still very hopeful that no serious attempt will be made by Grant and the Northern fleet to take Vicksburg, but I fear they are mistaken.

"Our fleet was so hopelessly smashed at Memphis that we have only a few vessels left, while the Federals seem to have no end of gunboats and transports. It may be that the Gibraltar of the Great River can not be taken, but I feel sure that Grant and Sherman and Admiral Porter now commanding the Federal fleet above Vicksburg, are going to try it. When that time comes, Vicksburg will be a bad place to live in.

"Mother would like to send you some turkeys and chickens, but as that is impossible, she hopes that you may really enjoy the wild ducks and geese that you have written about.

"We are very glad that you are far away from this fearful and sad war and we wish you to stay north till peace has come again."

The writer did not know that at the very time he wrote these words, two thousand Sioux were encamped on the Minnesota River, within a few hours'

ride of his boys, and were ready at almost any moment to rush into a war much more cruel than that being waged on the Great River, where only armed men fought against armed men.

CHAPTER IV-THE BREAKING OF THE STORM

Men who have lived outdoors and know the moods of nature fear the breaking of a storm that has been long brewing.

The Indian War which broke over the summery plains and valleys of Minnesota on Monday morning, August 18, 1862, swept over a large section of the State with the rush and fury of a long-brewing storm.

For several years the Sioux had been gathering a store of hatred and desire of revenge for real and fancied wrongs. On Sunday, the 17th of August, a few young Indians in an accidental quarrel with some farmers in Meeker county killed some cattle and murdered several whites. Under ordinary conditions this would have ended in the surrender and punishment of the criminals, but now it was the signal for three thousand Sioux warriors to rush into a carnival of murder and rapine, which swept over the frontier settlement as a tornado rushes through the forest.

At daybreak on the 18th, Black Buffalo knocked on the cabin of Trapper Barker.

"Get up, my friend," he called, "the war has begun. You must flee, or you will be murdered.

"I have just learned that Chief Little Crow has told the warriors to kill all white people they can find, and the warriors have started in large and small parties in all directions. Some people at the Lower Agency, near the big Indian camp, have already been killed. Make haste, Mehunka, or you will be killed."

"Do all the Indians want the war?" asked Barker, as he hurriedly dressed himself for flight.

"No," said Black Buffalo. "Many of us, Little Paul, John Other Day, myself, and many others think this war is foolish and will only bring tears and mourning to our women and children, and ruin to our whole people, but we are powerless to stop the madness of Little Crow and the young men."