At the end of three hours the boat stopped at Prescott, at the mouth of the St. Croix, one of the two navigable tributaries of the upper Mississippi, near St. Paul and Minneapolis, almost two thousand miles from the Gulf of Mexico. Here the river grew wider and deeper, so that the pilot could pick his way with a little less anxiety, but to the four fugitives from the Sioux country, the mystery continued.
At one moment the boat was headed into a dark forest of tall cottonwoods and maples, and a little later the boys felt sure she would crash against a solid wall of rock, and then suddenly the river seemed to come to an end.
“We’ve lost the river, we’re in a big slough,” Tim whispered as he held firmly to Meetcha.
But always just in time, the wheel turned just enough and the boat glided safely past trees and cliffs, past sandbars and snags, and around every bend and turn.
The four travelers began to feel a little more at ease now. Tatanka lit his red pipe, Barker treated himself to a cigar which his friend Joe had slipped into his pocket, while the boys began to feel sleepy.
The smokers had taken only a few puffs when a messenger came. “The captain,” he said, “wishes you to smoke somewhere else. The light from your pipe and cigar bothers the pilot, so he can’t see where he is steering.”
“The boy is lying,” Tatanka murmured.
“No, he is not,” Barker dissented. “I have often heard the pilots say that on a dark night like this, the light from a pipe or cigar annoys them so much that they cannot steer right. We must find another place.”
It was not long before all four of the friends sought their beds. The boat stopped for more freight at Red Wing; and at Lake City, at the head of Lake Pepin, it was delayed until noon by some necessary repairs on the engine.
The first mate who took charge of the boat at noon was in doubt whether he should wait for a threatening storm to pass before he started down the lake, but the captain was impatient.