“Now don’t hurry that Vicksburg campaign of yours. Better paddle about in the swamps and bayous for a few weeks. They say in about a month the town will have to surrender. You can’t get a pass into Vicksburg. They’ve been shut up two weeks now.”
That evening the four travelers had a good supper on board of Dick Bank’s boat and Dick also fixed beds for them on board the steamer, and at daylight before the town was awake, they paddled their light craft into a small winding channel which led into one of the most mysterious lakes of North America, Reelfoot Lake, a lake made by the great earthquake of 1811, generally known as the earthquake of New Madrid.
Tatanka was especially happy to be on this small winding stream.
“It is like the winding Minnesota River,” he said, “and it is beautiful like the small rivers that join the Mississippi above Lake Pepin. For a long time they follow their own winding trail in the bottom woods, as if they were afraid to go near the great Mississippi in which all big and little rivers lose themselves.”
“The trees are different here,” Bill remarked. “We never saw any cypress on the Minnesota.”
They spent nearly all day on this winding channel, and it was not until an hour before sunset that they came in sight of the strange waters and scene of Reelfoot Lake.
“I will not go there,” said Tatanka, when, at last, the Lake of the Sunken Lands spread out before them. “It is a spook lake, a lake of bad spirits. We must not camp on it. My brother, you told me that a bad spirit shook the earth and trampled down the farms to make the lake.
“Look, the water is very black and very many dead trees grow out of it.”
“Tatanka,” exclaimed Barker, “you are forgetting what the missionaries have taught you. Haven’t they told you many times that there are no spook lakes, no bad medicine lakes? Those dead trees didn’t grow dead. They died, when the water rose around them. There are no bad spirits in the earth. The earth just shook and sank. You have been a scout for the white soldiers, and you have to forget your Dakotah superstitions.”
Tatanka was silent a while, and stopped paddling.