The Lure of the Mississippi

and a confusion of men's voices from the steep road leading do

upplies, for Colonel Pemberton had been ordered to leave the Sioux frontier in Minnesota and rush his battery and men to Washington as fast as possible. Fort Sumter had been fired on. President

issippi River. The soldiers at Fort Ridgely had to travel five hundred miles by steamboat to La Crosse, and in order

is blanket, with his head resting on a coil of rope, but the active Tim had never tired of watching the soldiers loading the big gu

uts of men rang through the night, he

has rolled down the bluffs; I tol

lls and hard-tack were scattered through the brush. Had it not been for the trees

than he got up, shook himself, scrambled up the bluff and did not stop until he reached the corral, where he uttered one of those bugle-calls which had earned him the name of Old Harmony. But soldiers are accustomed to accidents of this kind, and within hal

n marched into the mess-hall at Fort Ridg

e night. Had a painter like Catlin been present,

t smoking around their camp-fires, but most of them sat on the river bank watching the boatmen and the soldiers working in the red glare of the torches and bonfires. They had heard that the white people were having a war amongst themselves. Now th

he land along our river. We have been cheated out of it, and the

s out of Minnesota. But we shall keep their horses and their squaws and we shall make big feasts of t

our country and Manitou will send back the buffalo and the elk, and the deer will become numerous again. We shall have plenty of meat and skins as in the days o

alute, the few remaining men cheered their departing comrades and the soldiers on board replied with a ringing hurrah for Abe Lincoln and Fort Ridgely. Then the pilot rang a bell, the hawsers were

ll and Tim Ferguson, Sam Baker, a trapp

n a few miles below Fort Ridgely. Hicks, about whose business in the Indian country there were many conflicting rumors afloat, had been away for a week visiti

rrent. The Minnesota is one of the most twisted and crooked rivers in the West. In April, 1861, the water was so high that the placid, winding river had grown a mile wide, flooding its val

boat against the current. The engineers could not even stop her. The best they could do was to check her speed and let her drift flanking aroun

eeds and tearing good-sized trees by the roots out of the soft mud, but before she could be again gotten into clear w

command ever since the boat had left Fort Snelling, stood

turning!" were the only orders he gave to captain

hington, before the

with this same battery. "This is worse than a battle. We'll never get there. We'll be

y piece, than sail through the timber in thi

a willow tree, springing back as the side of the boat had p

ow," called out the old gunner a

, Captain; keep her going! The Government will build you a ne

ree men. "Then pass the line around the capstan and we'll pull her bac

men worked at screwing down and unscrewing bolts and nuts, with t

e cautioned them. "Any man that goes ov

st being lifted into place, when there was a scramble and a plunge-"Man overboard!"

ehind the wheel. The icy flood almost choked him, but he struck out after the man. By the glare of the torches he caught a glimpse of him bobbing up and being carried toward a mass of driftwood. He seized the back of the

he called. "I can't hol

te carpenter, and Bill were safe on boar

e raised the man's he

"turn this man over on his face

r work, men. We must reach Fo

. His teeth chattered and his hands felt so numb that he

he hurried to the mess-room and aske

d not have

he hot milk is all gone. The captain is in a deuce of a hurry

h stopped rattling, but set themselves with a will into the meal of ham, pot

ating, Colonel L

, boy?" he asked. "It w

replied. "We boys used to swim across

urg! You are too young to enlist. You had better stay in Minnesota