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 Mounds 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 bass, 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.”
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.”