"I beg your pardon," he interrupted, leaning across the table, "but will you kindly tell me if General Sterling Price's army is invading Missouri?"
The two men looked at Al and Wallace in amazement.
"Why, yes, I should say it is," answered the militiaman. "Where have you come from that you didn't know that?"
"We have just come down the Missouri in a barge," Al answered, "and we haven't heard any late news; nothing since we left Omaha. We have been up in Dakota all Summer with General Sully, fighting the Sioux Indians."
"Oh, is that so?" asked the other. "We haven't heard much from that campaign, either. Did you whip the Indians?"
"Yes, we defeated and scattered them in two pretty big battles. But what about General Price?"
"Why, he entered southeast Missouri from Arkansas about the middle of September with an army of anywhere from fifteen to thirty thousand men. He tried to take Pilot Knob, but General Ewing, who used to be here at Kansas City, you know, was there with a small force and repulsed him badly; knocked the tar clean out of him, in fact. Then he started for St. Louis but there were so many troops there that he seems to have given it up; at least, he is moving west along the Missouri and I guess he's somewhere around Jeff City now. I don't know whether he can take it or not; according to the latest despatches Rosecrans is going to try to hold the city. But we're looking for Price to come on out here and try to invade Kansas, anyhow."
"You say he's coming up the Missouri?" asked Al. "We've got to keep on down the river to St. Louis with our barge."
"Well, you'd better look out for old Pap, then," rejoined the other. "He'll catch you, sure, and likely burn your boat; and if he don't the guerillas will. They're awful bad now, and there isn't a steamboat ever gets through without being attacked, and often they're destroyed."
Al felt a sudden chill of apprehension.