Their Cousin Hicks, the boys seemed to have forgotten, at least they never spoke of him. They were happy and content in the care of their two friends.
The trapper, on the other hand, had become so attached to the lads that he once remarked to Tatanka: “I don’t see how I can ever tear myself away from these lads. It would be hard for me to give them up to their parents, but if that man Hicks ever shows up to claim them, I tell you I’ll fight him to a finish.”
“Where do you think, my friend, that bad white man has gone?” Tatanka asked.
The old trapper thought a moment. He had often asked himself the same question. “Down-river,” he replied then. “He will inquire about us of steamboat men and hotel men. And he is likely to go clear down to Vicksburg. He has some evil design on the lads, but I’ll be hanged if I can figure out what it is. I can only think that for some reason he wants to keep them away from Vicksburg.
“He lost our trail at St. Paul or he would have been upon us long ago. I was on the lookout for him every day until we saw him go down-river lately. For the present we are rid of him, but he has some very strong reason for wanting possession of those boys, and I think we’ll fall in with him somewhere after we start south.”
About the Indian war in Minnesota, the boys and their friends were well informed. Barker and the Indian had in no way exaggerated the danger. The enraged Sioux had killed about eight hundred white people, and if the trapper and Tatanka had not taken the boys away, the lads would surely have lost their lives. At the beginning of winter, the Indian war was over. The whole Sioux tribe had been driven from the State of Minnesota. A good many Indians had been captured by General Sibley and all white captives had been released.
It was much more difficult for Barker and the boys to get a clear idea about the war on the Mississippi River near Vicksburg. They had received no letters from Vicksburg since they had camped at the foot of Lake Pepin, and all they really knew was that Grant was trying to take Vicksburg.
The city of Vicksburg lies under a high bluff on the east bank of the Mississippi. By December, 1862, the Confederates had lost control of the Mississippi River, except for a stretch of two hundred miles between Vicksburg and Port Hudson, both of which points they had strongly fortified. By holding this stretch of the great river, they controlled the mouth of the Red River and could secure large supplies and thousands of men from Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas.
The lowlands of the Mississippi at Vicksburg are about forty miles wide, and many streams and bayous wind this way and that way through vast marshes and forests.
In December, 1862, Grant tried to attack Vicksburg from the north by way of the Mississippi Central Railway, but the bold Confederate cavalry commander, Van Dorn, destroyed all his supplies at Holly Springs, and Grant was compelled to give up this plan.