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Produced by Roger Frank.





                      THE LURE OF THE MISSISSIPPI

                                   BY

                                D. LANGE

       AUTHOR OF "ON THE TRAIL OF THE SIOUX," "THE SILVER ISLAND
              OF THE CHIPPEWA," "LOST IN THE FUR COUNTRY,"
                  "IN THE GREAT WILD NORTH," AND "THE
                        LURE OF THE BLACK HILLS"

                       ILLUSTRATED BY W. L. HOWES

                                 BOSTON
                       LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO.

                        Published, October, 1917

                      COPYRIGHT 1917, BY D. Lange
                      THE LURE OF THE MISSISSIPPI

                             Norwood Press
                          BERWICK & SMITH CO.
                             NORWOOD, MASS.
                                U. S. A.

[Illustration: "Come out, you white men, and fight!"]




FOREWORD

The story told here has for its scenic background the Mississippi River
and its fine northern tributary, the Minnesota, the "Sky-tinted Water"
of the Sioux Indians.

The story opens in the spring of 1861. The Civil War has begun. Lincoln
has called for 75,000 volunteers, while to regiments and batteries of
the small regular army orders have been issued to hurry to Washington as
fast as possible.

Colonel John C. Pemberton embarks his battery on the _Fanny Harris_, at
Fort Ridgely on the Minnesota River. Hundreds of sullen Indians watch
the troops leave, and visions of regaining their rich hunting grounds in
the Minnesota valley arise in the minds of the starving savages, who
have been brooding for several years over real and fancied wrongs.

Within a year of the departure of the soldiers, a furious Indian war
sweeps over the young State of Minnesota, while on the Mississippi from
Cairo to New Orleans Federal and Confederate fleets and armies battle
for the control of the Great River. On this historical background move
the characters of the story: Barker, the old trapper; Tatanka, the Sioux
scout; Tim and Bill Ferguson, two Southern boys; and their doubtful
friend, Cousin Hicks.

At Vicksburg, in the summer of 1863, we meet again the former Colonel
John C. Pemberton, now a general in the Confederate army, stubbornly
defending the besieged city against the Federal army under General
Grant.

D. Lange.
St. Paul, Minnesota,
June, 1917.




Contents


    CHAPTER I--ON BOARD THE _FANNY HARRIS_
    CHAPTER II--IN GREAT ANXIETY
    CHAPTER III--PLAIN TALK AND UGLY RUMORS
    CHAPTER IV--THE BREAKING OF THE STORM
    CHAPTER V--THROUGH A DESERTED LAND
    CHAPTER VI--DANGEROUS TRAVELING
    CHAPTER VII--ON THE GREAT RIVER
    CHAPTER VIII--AFTER THE WRECK
    CHAPTER IX--HUNTING BEES AND DRIVING FISH
    CHAPTER X--CATCHING A MONSTER
    CHAPTER XI--AFTER WILD GEESE
    CHAPTER XII--IN A WINTER CAMP
    CHAPTER XIII--FISHING THROUGH THE ICE
    CHAPTER XIV--SIGNS OF SPRING
    CHAPTER XV--AT INSPIRATION POINT
    CHAPTER XVI--SMELLING THE STORM
    CHAPTER XVII--SOUTHWARD AT LAST
    CHAPTER XVIII--IN THE SUNKEN LANDS
    CHAPTER XIX--PAST ISLAND NUMBER TEN
    CHAPTER XX--ON TO VICKSBURG
    CHAPTER XXI--WHEREIN OLD ENEMIES MEET
    CHAPTER XXII--THE OLD TRAPPER'S SECRET
    CHAPTER XXIII--THE LAST DAYS OF VICKSBURG




Illustrations


    "Come out, you white men, and fight!"
    With his right hand he raised the man's head above the current.
    "Walking is good, on you can ride on a log, the water is fine."
    The two men bought a boat of the trader.
    "It is a forest of ghost trees," Tatanka murmured.
    "Take him out of our lines to that open field."




CHAPTER I--ON BOARD THE _FANNY HARRIS_


There came through the night loud crashing and rumbling sounds, and a
confusion of men's voices from the steep road leading down from Fort
Ridgely to the boat-landing on the Minnesota River.

All afternoon, big William Ferguson and his ten-year-old brother,
Timothy, had watched the six-mule teams of the United States Army trot
down the steep narrow road with guns, caissons and army supplies, for
Colonel Pemberton had been ordered to leave the Sioux frontier in
Minnesota and rush his battery and men to Washington as fast as
possible. Fort Sumter had been fired on. President Lincoln had called
for 75,000 volunteers, and from north and west, the scattered
detachments and batteries of the regular army were rushed to Washington.
The long-threatened Civil War had begun.

But in those days, Minnesota was a long way from the Atlantic coast, for
the railroads had only just touched the Mississippi River. The soldiers
at Fort Ridgely had to travel five hundred miles by steamboat to La
Crosse, and in order to make all possible haste, they continued by
torchlight the loading of guns, caissons, ammunition, horses, and
stores.

It was the liveliest day little Tim Ferguson and his big brother, Bill,
had ever seen. Bill had at last gone to sleep, wrapped in his blanket,
with his head resting on a coil of rope, but the active Tim had never
tired of watching the soldiers loading the big guns, and the carpenters
and engineers repairing the boat for the fast and dangerous downriver
trip on the flooded, winding Minnesota.

When the crash of timbers and the shouts of men rang through the night,
he shook his sleeping brother, calling:

"Get up, Bill, get up! A mule team has rolled down the bluffs; I told
you they would. Come along, Bill!"

Tim had guessed right. Among the trees lay the wagon and mules, while