The door stood open and most of the windows in the two-room cabin were broken.
“Ugh,” grunted the Indian, “the thieves have been here. We shall find nothing to eat.”
“Wait a minute,” said Barker. “Let me look in the smoke-house in the hollow; perhaps the robbers didn’t find it. Here, boys,” he laughed, as he returned with a ham and a side of bacon, “this will help us out.
“Now, Tim, get some green corn and, Bill, you go and milk the two cows in the yard. They must have been in the woods when the Sioux raided the place. Tatanka may listen for bad sounds, but I think we are safe here and we shall soon have a real supper.”
In a few minutes Barker had closed the door, hung a blanket over the two windows, lit a candle and started a fire in the kitchen stove. Soon the corn was boiling and slices of bacon sizzled in the pan. Bill came in with a pail of milk and Tatanka came in and reported, “No Dakotahs here.”
No supper ever tasted so good to Bill and Tim, and the trapper-cook kept putting slices of bacon in the pan, while his hungry guests helped themselves as quick as the white slices curled and browned.
After supper the lads spread their blankets on the floor, tied Meetcha in the small woodshed and found a gunny-sack for him to sleep on.
After the two men had watered the horses at a near-by pond, tied them in the straw-shed, and provided them with plenty of hay, they sat down on the grass to smoke.
“The boys are asleep,” remarked Tatanka, as he filled his pipe a second time with a mixture of killikinnick and tobacco.
“They are my boys now,” replied Barker, “and I shall look after them. I can’t understand that man Hicks. I declare if I don’t almost believe he wanted the lads to get killed. I’d like to break his crooked old bones.”