The next day the boys and Tatanka again traveled in a dugout up and down the Yazoo River. Barker himself also went in a dugout within a mile or two of the point where the union line touched the Mississippi.

He returned after the boys and Tatanka had gone to bed, but they were still awake, because Tatanka had been telling them how many years ago, he and five other men had gone on the warpath against the Chippewas, the hereditary enemies of the Sioux.

The Chippewas used to come down in canoes on the Mississippi and fall upon an unsuspecting Sioux camp. After taking a scalp or two they would leave their canoes and return north across the forest. The Sioux would follow them, but they could seldom accomplish anything because they were always in danger of being ambushed by the retreating Chippewas. It was one of those stories Tatanka had just told with much detail.

“Where have you been, Mr. Barker?” the lads asked.

“I have been scouting,” the old man answered, apparently in high spirits. “I have taken a look at the rivers and the country and have visited with soldiers and officers and other men.

“I have also sent a letter to your parents.”

“How did you do that!” the boys inquired eagerly.

“One of our soldiers tied it to a piece of green wood and threw it over the Confederate breastworks.

“It may not be delivered, but I took a chance at it.”

The boys asked many other questions, but the old man would not talk and told the boys it was high time to go to sleep.

In the morning he told them that they were all to walk down toward the mouth of the Yazoo.

“We may camp there somewhere to-night,” he said, “and we may come back. We’ll put plenty of lunch in our pockets, but we leave all our stuff right here.”

They did not have to walk all the way. Various conveyances were going in their direction. It turned out that Barker didn’t really want to go to the mouth of the Yazoo; instead he took his party several miles farther close to the bank of the Mississippi, about a mile above the place where the union line touched the river. Here they made camp under a clump of low trees and Barker went to a neighboring farm house for a jug of water.

“We might as well eat,” Barker suggested when he returned. “You boys must be hungry as wolves after our long tramp this afternoon.”

“May we build a fire?” the boys asked.

“No, I think we had better not,” the old man replied. “It might attract some visitors that we don’t want to-night.”

In the far North, the midsummer twilights last a long time. Along the international boundary one can read in the open until nine o’clock, but in the South, daylight passes quickly into night.

When the four travelers had finished their supper it was dark.

“Mr. Barker,” asked Tim, “are we going to stay here all night? It will soon be pitch-dark.”

“Yes, it will be very dark. It is cloudy and it looks as if we might have a storm,” admitted the trapper.

The lads were mystified by Barker’s answer, but Bill felt that the trapper did not wish to answer any questions and that he had some secret plan to carry out.

But little Tim was less discreet. “Shall we build a lean-to?” he asked.

“No, Timmy,” the old man answered, smiling. “I reckon we won’t. If the good Lord sends us a shower to-night, I reckon we’ll just get wet. The rains in this country are warm and it will not hurt us to get wet.

“Let’s go down to the river and see the water run by.”

The trapper led the way under tall trees, and the other three followed in silence. If Tatanka knew anything about Barker’s plan, he did not betray his knowledge by either word or gesture.

At the foot of a large sycamore Barker stopped. It was now so dark that the trees across the river were not visible, but as the boys looked over the steep bank they could just see the bulk of a large dugout swaying in the current under some overhanging branches.

“Oh, Mr. Barker,” Bill whispered, “somebody keeps his boat here. Can you see it?”

“Yes, boys,” the old man replied in a whisper. “I know about it. It’s our boat. I bought it yesterday.

“Just slip down as quietly as you can and lie down in the middle of it. 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. Then Barker lifted his paddle out of the water.

“Down!” he whispered. “Lie flat and drift.”

For some time the dugout drifted like a dead log swinging around to right and left with the current. The boys lay absolutely still, hearing their own hearts beat and listening to the low sound of the current against the sides of the dugout.

Barker rose up slowly. “Paddle,” he whispered; “we are drifting into the timber.”

Again they paddled in silence.

A flash of lightning threw a gleam of light over the dark water. A dugout shot out from under the timber on the west bank.

“Who goes there? Halt!” a low deep voice called, and the four travelers heard the click of two guns.

“We are friends,” Barker replied.

“Pull in here!” the order came from the other craft.

Barker steered toward the shore and found himself alongside of two Confederate dugouts, with two men in each.

The leader flashed a lantern at the travelers.

“Who are you and where are you going?” he demanded. “Get out; we have to search you.”

The searchers found a piece of fresh beef and two loaves of bread and some coffee.

“That’s rich pickings,” the leader commented. “We haven’t had any beef between our teeth for two weeks.

“Come back in the woods a way and we’ll roast some of it, right away. But we can’t build a fire here. The Yanks have a lot of ammunition to waste and they might shoot some Minié balls at our camp-fire.”

Their four captors seemed hungry, for they ate all the bread and meat and drank the coffee as if they had been crossing a desert.

“That was good of you,” the leader remarked. “Wheat-bread, beef, and coffee are rather scarce in our town just now. We’ve been living on corn-meal and mule-steak.

“Now, Stenson,” he continued, “you take this bunch down to the guard-house and they can tell their story to the provost marshal in the morning. I reckon they don’t care to be shot before daylight.”

“Mr. Barker,” Tim asked, after they had been locked in a small room, “do you think they will shoot us?”

“Don’t worry, boys,” Barker said kindly. “We haven’t done anything they can shoot us for. Just lie down and go to sleep. Thank God, we’re in Vicksburg at last.”

The examination next morning was not very formidable. It was easy for Barker to prove that he and his company were not Northern spies; moreover the meeting of the boys with their parents convinced the military authorities that Barker had told them the exact truth.

“But how did you get past the union gunboats?” one of the officers inquired. “Did you get a pass?”

“If you please, gentlemen,” the old trapper replied with a shrewd smile, “you see we got by and I reckon as long as we don’t want to pass them again, it really makes no difference how we did it.”

The officer was satisfied, but one of his colleagues took up the inquiry.

“My friend,” he said, with a suppressed smile, “you have shown some ability as a blockade-runner, but your naval architecture is peculiar. Why did you nail that sheet iron to the inside of your ship? Don’t you know that it is customary to put the iron on the outside?”

At this question everybody laughed good-naturedly and with a broad grin, the old man replied:

“Well, you see, gentlemen, I had undertaken to deliver those lads alive in Vicksburg, and I was afraid that some of your men might fire at us before we had time to surrender. I was in a bit of a hurry when I converted that dugout into an iron-clad and I was afraid that she wouldn’t navigate well if I nailed the iron to the outside, because I was too much rushed to make a good job of it.”

“Well,” the presiding officer decided, “I guess we’ll have to let you stay. It would be cruel to send you back. Those Yankee gunners might start practicing on you. Too bad you couldn’t smuggle in a little more fresh beef and coffee and white bread.”

“Should have been mighty glad to do it,” the trapper assented, and at that the court adjourned.

The parents of the lads had received most of the letters the boys and Barker had sent, including the one thrown over the Confederate parapets.

Of Hicks they had neither heard nor seen anything, and by his silence he stood condemned.

Like most people in Vicksburg during the siege, the Fergusons lived in a cave, where they were fairly safe from mortar shells and Parrott shells which the union gunboats and batteries threw into the city every day.

For the sum of fifteen dollars two negroes dug a cave for Barker and Tatanka. Cave-digging had become a profession in Vicksburg and many of the colored men made good wages at it.

Barker and his party had heard a great deal of shooting and cannonading but now they were in the city at which the guns were aimed.

The mortar-boats, anchored below the city, did most of the bombarding. The mortars were short guns throwing large shells. They had to be aimed high and the shell fell almost vertically or with a great high curve.

This vertical fire did not do very much damage, but it drove practically the whole civilian population into caves in the high clay-banks. The civilians who had remained in Vicksburg had done so against the wishes of General Pemberton, and they were now living in constant terror of the shells, although very few people were injured or killed.

On the second day of Barker’s stay in Vicksburg, the bombardment, beginning at daylight, was especially heavy. Many of the people of Vicksburg had become so accustomed to the rushing and exploding of the shells that they gathered at various high points to watch the shells fly and drop.

Barker tried to induce Tatanka to go with him to Sky Parlor Hill, a high point where a good many people had assembled, but Tatanka would not come.

He sat in front of his cave and whenever he saw or heard a shell, he ducked into the cave as the boys expressed it.

“No, my friend,” he said to Barker. “If you said I should fight Chippewas on Sky Parlor Hill, I would come, but of the big roaring shells I am afraid.”

It was in vain that Barker and the boys explained to him that the mortars were not shooting at Sky Parlor Hill, and that............