“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 sleeper2 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 warriors3.
“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 scouring4 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,” assented5 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 Buffalo6. “If all white people were prepared like we are, the warriors of Little Crow would not take many scalps.”
The morning was chilly7. 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, bereaved8 of his master, could be heard barking and howling in the distance. They passed a slough9, 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 quacking10 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 marsh11 by the thousand, came not a sound, but from the grass near the margin12 of the slough came the liquid, pebbly13 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 gallop14.
The boys were glad, when, at last, a big red ball pushed slowly over the distant wooded bluffs15 of the Minnesota, but Barker and Tatanka reined16 in their horses and approached the crest17 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 grove18 of oaks on a high knoll19, 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 nostrils20 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 scrambled21 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 hearty22 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 scraps23 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 pointed24 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 dispersed25 themselves around the team. They fired their guns, but the bullets all fell short.
On the wagon26 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 taverns27, 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.’ Mighty29 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 tavern28 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 lanky30, 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 Hawk31, 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 Mounds32 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 bass33, 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.”
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1
halfway
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| adj.中途的，不彻底的，部分的；adv.半路地，在中途，在半途 | |
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2
sleeper
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| n.睡眠者，卧车，卧铺 | |
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3
warriors
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| 武士，勇士，战士( warrior的名词复数 ) | |
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4
scouring
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| 擦[洗]净，冲刷，洗涤 | |
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5
assented
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| 同意，赞成( assent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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6
buffalo
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| n.(北美)野牛；(亚洲)水牛 | |
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7
chilly
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| adj.凉快的，寒冷的 | |
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8
bereaved
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| adj.刚刚丧失亲人的v.使失去（希望、生命等）( bereave的过去式和过去分词)；（尤指死亡）使丧失（亲人、朋友等）；使孤寂；抢走（财物） | |
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9
slough
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| v.蜕皮，脱落，抛弃 | |
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10
quacking
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| v.（鸭子）发出嘎嘎声( quack的现在分词 ) | |
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11
marsh
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| n.沼泽，湿地 | |
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margin
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| n.页边空白；差额；余地，余裕；边，边缘 | |
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13
pebbly
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| 多卵石的，有卵石花纹的 | |
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14
gallop
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| v./n.(马或骑马等)飞奔；飞速发展 | |
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15
bluffs
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| 恐吓( bluff的名词复数 )； 悬崖； 峭壁 | |
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16
reined
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| 勒缰绳使（马）停步( rein的过去式和过去分词 )； 驾驭； 严格控制； 加强管理 | |
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17
crest
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| n.顶点；饰章；羽冠；vt.达到顶点；vi.形成浪尖 | |
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18
grove
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| n.林子，小树林，园林 | |
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knoll
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| n.小山，小丘 | |
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nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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21
scrambled
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| v.快速爬行( scramble的过去式和过去分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞 | |
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22
hearty
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| adj.热情友好的；衷心的；尽情的，纵情的 | |
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23
scraps
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| 油渣 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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dispersed
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| adj. 被驱散的, 被分散的, 散布的 | |
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wagon
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| n.四轮马车，手推车，面包车；无盖运货列车 | |
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27
taverns
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| n.小旅馆，客栈，酒馆( tavern的名词复数 ) | |
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tavern
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| n.小旅馆，客栈；小酒店 | |
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29
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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lanky
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| adj.瘦长的 | |
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hawk
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| n.鹰，骗子；鹰派成员 | |
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32
mounds
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| 土堆，土丘( mound的名词复数 )； 一大堆 | |
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bass
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| n.男低音(歌手)；低音乐器；低音大提琴 | |
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