“My friend,” he called, “I think we should saddle our horses and ride away. At daybreak the bands of Dakotahs will again start to kill all white men they can find and to burn their houses. We should travel a good stretch before the sun rises, and, may be, in that way we can leave behind us the part of the country to which the war has spread.”
The trapper, like most men who have lived much alone in a wild country, was a light sleeper and was awake at once.
“Yes,” he replied, “we should travel a good stretch by starlight. Perhaps we can thus avoid falling in with any more Sioux warriors.
“We must take these lads to St. Paul before that man, Hicks, can find out where we have gone, and try to overtake us. He will not hesitate to set the Sioux on our trail, if he learns which way we have gone.”
Tim and Bill had to be shaken out of a sound sleep.
“Come along, lads,” Barker told them; “before the sun rises the Sioux will again be scouring the country. We must travel by night as far as we can.”
While the boys were getting ready, Tatanka and the trapper planned the day’s journey.
“We should strike out northeast for Shakopee on the Minnesota River,” advised Tatanka. “I used to camp and hunt there, when I was a boy, but it is now a white man’s town, and I do not think that Little Crow’s warriors will reach it. They will first try to take Fort Ridgely and New Ulm beyond the great elbow of the Wakpah Minnesota.”
“It is a good plan,” assented the trapper. “Our two guns are loaded with balls that carry a great distance. Let us put buckshot into the guns of the boys. If we are attacked, we will fire our own guns first and use the buckshot only if the Sioux come close up.”
“It is good,” said Black Buffalo. “If all white people were prepared like we are, the warriors of Little Crow would not take many scalps.”