"Do you know whether they attacked the steamer North Wind on her way down?" he asked, anxiously.
"No, I don't remember it," the militiaman returned.
"Why, yes, you do," broke in his companion. "Don't you know, two or three weeks ago a band of guerillas got the North Wind somewhere between Lexington and Miami? They crossed the river on her and then burnt her up. It was reported several of her people were killed in the mix-up."
"Oh, that's right; I had forgotten," returned the soldier. Then to Al he said, curiously, "Why do you ask?"
"Nothing," answered Al, in a dull voice. "Only I had a young brother on her who had been a prisoner among the Indians. He was going home to his mother in St. Louis."
"Pshaw, that's too bad!" exclaimed the militiaman, sympathetically. "But he's probably gotten through all right."
"Maybe he has and maybe not," said Al. "It's hard to tell in such times. Come on, Wallace," he added. "Let's go back to the boat."
They rose abruptly and left the store. Al slept very little that night, and when he did his rest was broken by troubled dreams of Tommy; he imagined his brother in all sorts of desperate situations and losing his life in a variety of horrible ways. Even when awake and thinking rationally, he realized that almost any of the fancies of his nightmare might easily be realities, for the guerilla warfare in Missouri at this time had degenerated into a carnival of barbarous brutality hardly exceeded in the history of any country, and the mercy or cruelty dealt out to a prisoner by one of these bands of lawless marauders depended almost wholly upon the humor of the guerilla chief.