“I don’t know,” Barker told them. “I think two of their gunboats ran past the guns of the island on a very dark night. You had better ask Captain Banks about it.
“I reckon we’ll go to Vicksburg on the Grey Hawk. It will take us all summer to paddle the five hundred miles the way the river runs. You see, if we get there after Vicksburg falls, your people may not be there any more and we might not be able to find them. So I think we had better go with Captain Banks.”
Next morning early they carried their canoe out from under the big sycamore and cottonwoods on Island No. 10 and started north on a big bend of the river.
At noon they reached New Madrid, at that time a lively, hustling town, as Captain Banks had told them.
The Grey Hawk had already arrived and as Captain Banks vouched for his four friends, the commander was willing to let them go along to Vicksburg.
After supper, as they all sat on deck chatting with the captain, the lads begged the old river captain to tell them about Bissell’s Channel and about the fight at Island No. 10.
“That channel,” the captain began, “was cut by the Engineer Regiment of the West, and it was a great piece of work. It was done more than a year ago in March and April, 1862.
“You see, the Confederates held a strong fort with big guns on Island No. 10, and they had also planted guns on the left bank of the river above and below New Madrid, but we held New Madrid.
“Colonel Bissell’s men built large rafts for men to work on, for the water was very high at the time. At first they cut the trees about eight feet above the water. Then they rigged a frame and a long saw to the stump and four men, two at each end, pulled the saw and cut the stump about four feet and a half under water.
“The small trees were easy, but we had an awful time with some of the big elms that grow a kind of braces near the ground. On some of those we worked two hours, but Captain Tweedale, who was saw-boss, always figured out what was wrong when the saws began to pinch.”