“ Just below the point it was half a mile wide and Tatanka could easily distinguish the deep dark channel from the light brown sandbars near shore.
Like a wonderful picture the valley spread out below the hunters. Dark groves of elms stood out clearly from long stretches of cottonwood in light gray. The swelling and bursting buds of the bottom maples showed great dashes of a dark ruddy red, while vast stretches of gray and brown marshes were dotted with brighter patches of orange willow and of bright red killikinnick.
“My people once lived here,” said Tatanka, at last. “They loved this land. ”

“ Early in November came one of those cold rain-storms that mark sharply the end of Indian summer which often prolongs the warm season far into autumn.
It was the first day that all four campers stayed in the shack, which the trapper and the Indian had during the preceding week transformed into a real cozy cabin. Chunks of ash, elm, maple, and cottonwood slowly burning in the old sheet-iron stove which Barker had set up in the middle of the room kept the cabin dry and warm, while the large spattering drops of rain beat a tattoo on the roof. ”

“ When he grew too old to walk behind the plow, he gave his farm to his boys, Bill and Tim, who, a few years later, carried him to his last resting-place on the bluff overlooking the winding Minnesota River.
Tatanka, with some other friendly Sioux, was assigned land on the Redwood River, where his descendants live to this day.
The great war in the South, and the bloody tragedy of Minnesota are seen to-day through the mellow light of history. There is no longer bitterness and hatred between white men and red men, between North and South. ”

“ Many Americans have made long trips to see the beauties of the Rhine and the Danube; the far grander beauty of the Mississippi is to our own people still an unexplored country. There are awaiting those who would go and see a thousand Inspiration Points on the upper Mississippi and ten thousand miles of semi-tropical wilderness, cane-brake, forest, lakes, and bayous on the lower river and its southern tributaries. Most Americans know the Mississippi only as a crooked black line on the map. ”

“ The lads gazed in wonder from the river to the sky and from the sky to the river. The Great Dipper stood out clearly.
“When does it rise and when does it set?” Tim asked.
“It is always there,” Tatanka answered. “It never rises and never sets, but the sun puts it out in the morning.”
The boys looked questioningly at the trapper. “That is true,” he confirmed Tatanka’s answer, “all the stars near the Polar Star never rise and never set. You can see them in the evening as soon as it is dark enough, and they shine till the rising sun makes them invisible. ”

“ When it grew too dark to shoot, the hunters came in with six geese. Bill had had the bad luck of merely winging a bird, so that he was compelled to follow his game for nearly an hour. A wild goose is so protectively colored that among dead leaves and brush it can make itself almost as invisible as a sparrow.
When Bill finally captured his bird, it was almost dark and he had forgotten to watch the direction to camp; he was lost.
He fired two shots in quick succession.
“There is Big Boy,” Tatanka laughed. “He is lost, Tim; shoot twice, so he can find home. He is hungry.” ”

“ Every pane in the one small window was smashed and in the hazel-brush just behind the little home, Jim Humphrey, the owner, lay dead, his hands still gripping the handle of an ax.
“The brutes have taken Jim’s wife and daughter with them,” murmured Barker. “Boys,” he continued, “you stand watch while Tatanka and I cover poor Humphrey’s body with green twigs and earth. We dare not wait to do more.” ”

“ My brother, you told me that a bad spirit shook the earth and trampled down the farms to make the lake.
“Look, the water is very black and very many dead trees grow out of it.”
“Tatanka,” exclaimed Barker, “you are forgetting what the missionaries have taught you. Haven’t they told you many times that there are no spook lakes, no bad medicine lakes? Those dead trees didn’t grow dead. They died, when the water rose around them. There are no bad spirits in the earth. The earth just shook and sank. You have been a scout for the white soldiers, and you have to forget your Dakotah superstitions.” ”

“ Tatanka assented. “He hides some evil plan in his heart, but I cannot tell what it is.”
“He does have some evil plan,” exclaimed the trapper as he struck the ground with his fist. “I reckon he will try to take the boys away from me, if he can find us.”
“He is a coward,” continued the Indian; “he will not come alone, he will bring other bad men to help him. We must be on our guard.”
“Tatanka,” said Barker, “I don’t know yet what I shall do, but Hicks will not get these lads unless he can take them from me. Will you stand by me?”
“Tatanka never deserted a friend,” the Indian replied. ”

“ White people who go down the Mississippi in boats do see some fine scenery, but the real grandeur of Mississippi River scenery is revealed only from good vantage-points on the crest of the bluffs. For those sufficiently strong and Venturesome to climb to those points, nature spreads out her grandest panoramas found in the inhabited part of the globe. ”

“ For the fire itself they had cut a big pile of green white-birch.
“Look here, boys,” Barker told them after supper, “we sleep between the log-fire and the lean-to. Any man that wakes up puts a few logs on the fire. In that way I think we’ll keep warm.”
They sat late around the camp-fire and when, at last, they were ready to roll in, Tatanka walked out to the point, below which river and valley spread out in a strange light.
“Look, my friend,” he called. “The whole sky is burning. It is growing daylight. The world is burning up.” ”

“ Of all the travelers on the Grey Hawk, Tatanka took the keenest interest in everything around him; for he had, before this trip, never seen the Mississippi farther south than La Crosse in Wisconsin. “Why do the white people need so many ships?” he wondered. “What will they do with all the big guns they have, and where are all the soldiers going to fight!”
“My friend,” Barker told him, “wait till we reach Vicksburg. There you will see soldiers and guns.”
“Where do all the black people live?” he asked. “Do they live in the woods and come out to work in the fields of cotton that we have seen? ”

“ Over night the creeks have become swollen, their turbid floods rush into the river, whose icy covering although still two or three feet thick has lost the brittleness and strength of winter. The creeks and brooks and countless bubbling, gurgling rills creep under the ice. With a slow, but resistless power, the power of a hydraulic press, they lift the frozen mass from its moorings on shore. ”

“ Tatanka took the string of the decoy in his left hand. In his right hand he held a spear, and the three fishermen seated themselves on a log.
“You sit still,” Tatanka told them. “Don’t jump. Fish have no ears, but they can feel every little noise in the water.”
It seemed a long time to the boys before anything happened. Then Tatanka bent over quickly, thrust his spear into the hole and brought up a large flapping pickerel.
“May be we caught him,” he spoke with a laugh. “Now, Bill, you catch him. This is the way Indians catch plenty fish in winter when they cannot find deer.” ”

“ From the Alleghenies, from the Rocky Mountains, from the Black Hills, the Ozarks, and the prairies of Minnesota, the streams are ever bringing down fine, fertile soil into the Mississippi, which spreads it at times of high water over fields, forests, and swamps and carries some of it into the gulf. So great is the amount of fine soil carried by the great river that every year it would make a vast block a square mile in area and four hundred feet high. ”

“ Tatanka and I will do the paddling.
“And no matter what happens, you boys keep quiet. We are going to Vicksburg.”
“Mr. Barker, did you get a pass?” Tim whispered anxiously.
“Never mind, Tim,” Barker ordered, “you just lie still and keep quiet now. Don’t move and don’t speak till I tell you.”
Sitting low in the bottom of the craft, Barker and the Indian paddled the large dugout into midstream, where both shores were lost. For a little while they paddled without making the slightest noise, as if they were hunting moose or deer on their northern streams. ”

“ Barker and Tatanka did not follow their routed enemies over the rise, but returned at once to their poplar fort.
After the four defenders had taken a drink out of Bill’s well, they all sat down in the shade on the edge of the thicket where the poplar leaves rustled pleasantly in the summer breeze.
“Now, friends,” the trapper said, “it is time for a little lunch. Here is a piece of cornbread left over from my breakfast. It isn’t much, but we all get a bite. In the meantime, keep your eyes on the prairie and look out for Indian heads.” ”

“ The fall of Vicksburg was an important event in the Civil War. A few days later, on the ninth of July, Port Hudson, the last Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi, also surrendered, giving the Federals complete control of the great river and cutting the Confederacy in two by detaching Arkansas, Texas, and Louisiana.
The Civil War settled a great question which had grown so vexing that no man or party was great enough to settle it, without appeal to arms. It brought untold sadness and suffering to thousands of homes, both North and South, but the South suffered much more than the North. ”

“ One who has skated only on artificial rinks and ponds does not know the thrill of traveling on a smooth winding river or on the transparent expanse of a frozen lake.
Tim tired very easily, but he grew visibly stronger every day. His fever had entirely disappeared.
Their Cousin Hicks, the boys seemed to have forgotten, at least they never spoke of him. They were happy and content in the care of their two friends.
The trapper, on the other hand, had become so attached to the lads that he once remarked to Tatanka: “I don’t see how I can ever tear myself away from these lads. ”

“ When the fishermen approached their net, they saw by the movement of the poles that they had made a good catch. The net was fairly alive with pickerel, pike, bass, and suckers, but they caught no gars or paddle-fish.
“Why don’t we catch some of those queer fish?” Bill asked.
“Don’t know,” replied the trapper. “You never see those in winter. May be they go south to live in warmer water.”
In the evening, the men dressed all the fish they had caught. They did not smoke them as they had done with the fish caught in warm weather, but they placed them on frames of sticks in a brush shed. ”

“ Tatanka, like a real Indian, was willing, and the boys, like all real boys, were eager to go.
“Each man take a blanket,” ordered Barker, as he put a day’s rations into his pack-sack, and in addition to his gun he also took an ax.
“What’s that for!” asked Bill, with his usual curiosity.
“To chop their heads off,” Tim spurted. “Bill, you ask lots of fool questions.”
The men laughed aloud. “One string to this crane hunt,” the old trapper told them. “The fellow that asks one of those ’tarnal botheration questions hikes back to the river and watches the boat till the rest of us come back. ”

“ The trapper’s mark reared and plunged for the open prairie, and the other rider also threw his pony around, for Tim’s bullet had gone singing close over his head. When they had run some hundred yards, both Indians turned and fired, but as the defenders had kept well under cover, the balls flew wild among the thick poplars.
Indian warriors have seldom held out long against men who made a brave stand. When the Sioux saw that they were getting the worse of the fight, they all withdrew to the wagon and started westward. ”

“ Barker told him in Sioux. “We need you. If the bad white men find us, they may steal the boys and kill me, if you leave us. You must stay with us and go with us to the city, where the white people have the big war.”
“I shall stay with you,” Tatanka promised, after a pause, “but I’m homesick for my people.” ”

“ The river, the bottom forest, even the Wisconsin bluffs could be plainly seen. The men could even see their canoe amongst the willows below.
“The world is coming to an end,” Tatanka muttered, overcome by his superstitious fears.
“No, it isn’t,” Barker explained to him. “We are seeing a grand display of northern lights, the greatest I have ever seen, although I have seen them many, many times. This is something many city people never see, because they are always cooped up in houses.”
In an hour it was dark again, and the tired hunters rolled up in their blankets before the fire. ”

“ It reaches a height of thirty feet. At the age of about thirty or forty years, the big cane flowers and produces an abundance of rich nourishing grains for stock and game. After flowering, the old canes die and new plants spring up from the seed. The young shoots are known as mutton cane, because deer and bear and stock grow fat on them.
“This cane,” said Tatanka, after they had eaten their supper, “is like the pipe-stem reeds of the Sioux Country. The Indian boys called them spear-grass, and we threw the reeds at each other when we played war.” ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. ”