The day before their departure south was a very busy one for both men and boys.

When Barker told the boys at breakfast that they would all start down the river in the evening, it was only the strange place and people that kept the boys from shouting and turning somersaults.

“Are you going with us all the way to Vicksburg? And is Tatanka going?” Tim asked, big-eyed with suppressed excitement.

“We are both going,” Barker told them, “if we can get through. We should not have much trouble until we get to Memphis. Below Memphis, the river is full of gunboats and the country full of fighting armies. I don’t know how we shall manage there. We’ll have to see, when we get there.”

The four travelers could now take their horses no farther, and although they disliked to part with the animals there was nothing else to do. Old Joe, the hostler, paid them a fair price for the animals and again pledged his secrecy.

“There’s a good market now for horses,” he told his friends, “and I’ll sell them in a few days. If any inquisitive gent comes around, I’ll send him about his own business.”

After dark the four friends went on board the Red Hawk.

“You lads keep quiet in your cabin,” Barker told the boys, “till the boat has started. Tatanka and I will do a little scouting till we have cast off.”

The two men took a position behind some boxes and bales of freight. The landing was lit by several glaring torches, so that the two scouts could see clearly every person moving about, but they could not be seen themselves from the landing.

The deck-hands were just throwing on the last sticks of cord-wood and carrying on board the last sacks of wheat, when a stranger appeared and spoke to the captain.

“Can you carry another passenger?” Barker heard him ask. “I have blankets and can sleep on the deck.”
“Walking is good, on you can ride on a log, the water is fine.”
“Walking is good, on you can ride on a log, the water is fine.”

“Not another soul,” replied the captain. “Get off the gang-plank, you’re in the way.”

“But I must get to St. Louis,” the man argued.

“I don’t care what you must do,” the captain replied gruffly. “Walking is good, or you can ride on a log, the water is fine. Now get off the gang-plank. This boat leaves in five minutes.”

“Hicks,” whispered Tatanka. “Bad man Hicks,” as the man slouched back up town. “I’d like to throw my ax at him.”

“It’s a good thing that I described Hicks to the captain,” Barker chuckled. “The captain recognized him all right.”

Then the Red Hawk gave a long whistle, the pilot pulled the bell at the engine, there was a great hissing of steam and the big stern-wheel noisily churned the brown water of the Mississippi. Slowly the heavily-laden boat backed into mid-stream, again the pilot rang the bell, and the boat made a half-turn and was headed down-stream.

The boys came out of their cabin.

“How can the pilot find his way?” asked Bill, “when the night is so pitch-dark?”

“A good pilot knows the river by heart,” Barker told the boys. “He knows it by day and by night, and up-stream and downstream.”

At the present time it is comparatively easy to pilot a steamboat on the Mississippi. Hundreds of wing-dams, built by the government engineers, keep the current in the same channel, and numerous guideboards and lights on shore tell the pilot where to steer his boat. In addition to this, the modern boats are all provided with powerful headlights and search-lights.

At the time of the Civil War wing-dams, guideboards, shore-lights, and search-lights were all unknown. The safety of the Mississippi steamers depended entirely on the pilots. Their accurate knowledge of the river, their skill in handling the wheel, their quick decision in moments of danger, brought every year hundreds of boats safely back and forth between the ports of St. Paul and St. Louis.

As the Red Hawk was gliding by the magnificent groves of cottonwoods, which begin to line the Mississippi just below the Indian Mounds at St. Paul, the trapper and his three friends were quietly sitting on the upper deck in front of the pilot-house.

There was little talk, for all were absorbed in the running of the boat.

Now the boat seemed to be headed into an absolutely black wall, which proved, however, to be only the dense shadow caused by the forest or by a high rocky bank. Had the pilot not had the nerve to steer straight into the black shadow, he would have wrecked his boat among ............