Tatanka did not try to conceal his disapproval of the escape of Hicks.
“The mule-drivers were right,” he growled. “Hicks was all bad and should hang. I would have killed him and scalped him, too.”
“No, you red heathen,” Barker laughed at him, “you wouldn’t, you are not in the country of murderous Little Crow. You are in the lines of Christian soldiers.
“You had better be careful with your big talk or the soldiers will put you in the guardhouse.”
“I would be glad to live in the guardhouse, if I could first scalp Hicks.”
“You wouldn’t live in it very long. They would take you out and shoot you.”
“They could,” Tatanka persisted angrily, “if I had killed Hicks. A Sioux is not afraid of death.”
“You black-souled Indian,” Barker chided him good-naturedly. “I’m glad you didn’t see him. Now, we’ll all walk back to town. It’ll be dinner-time when we get there. Tatanka, you’ll feel less revengeful after you have filled your ribs with pumpkin-pie and bacon.
“After dinner you can scout for Hicks and if you find him, you may scalp him, but if he keeps going the way he went across that field, he’ll be in Alabama to-night.”
In the afternoon the boys took a swim in the river and introduced Tatanka to the ways and manners of a dugout. The lads had often traveled in a dugout before they went to Minnesota, and they soon convinced Tatanka that a log canoe was as safe as a birch canoe. In fact they claimed it was much safer, “because,” they said, “you can ride on either side of it. You don’t have to keep it right side up.”