Part 5 (2/2)

”Thank you, sir,” said Al, flus.h.i.+ng with pleasure. ”I hope I deserve it.”

”You understand,” Mr. White continued, ”I don't want you to leave me; but I owe it to the Union to give her the best I have when she asks it.

I am past middle age myself and I don't think I am worth enough as a soldier to volunteer yet; there are plenty of younger and stronger men still pouring in to fill up the armies. But if the war drags on and the time comes that I feel she needs my actual, physical services, I shall go. Meantime, as I say, I shall give her the best I have in other ways, and you are part of that best. Though you are not old enough to be a soldier, I know you will appreciate that your work as a civilian employee may be quite as valuable to the Government as though you were enlisted in the service.”

”Indeed I do, Mr. White,” answered Al, ”and I shall do my best to serve the Union faithfully.”

In the new work upon which he entered next day Al continued throughout that momentous Summer and Fall. Though serving in a capacity both humble and obscure, he had his part in preparing and forwarding the supplies which enabled General Grant to cut loose from his base, swing his army around to the rear of Vicksburg, and two months later to capture that Gibraltar of the Mississippi with all its garrison and munitions of war.

He helped to make ready the subsistence carried by Grant's and Sherman's armies when they went to the relief of Chattanooga; and from the depots where he worked a constant stream of stores was always going forward to the thousands of Union troops scattered in fortified posts and encampments or marching hither and thither all over the Southwest fighting innumerable minor battles and skirmishes. But his daily occupation was very prosaic and needs no more than casual mention.

At length, when Autumn came again, another letter was received from General Sibley. It was as disappointing as the one of the year before.

He told briefly of the long Summer's campaign in which he had marched westward from the Minnesota River to the Missouri, defeating the Indians in three pitched battles and driving them across the Missouri, and of the later advance of another column up the valley of the Missouri, under General Alfred Sully, which had also encountered and defeated the Indians. But neither column had rescued Tommy, though they had heard rumors of his whereabouts and had gained a little new information concerning his captor.

The latter, it now seemed clearly established, was an Upper Yanktonais warrior named Te-o-kun-ko, or, in English, The Swift. From the statements of hostile Indians who had talked with friendlies or had surrendered to the troops during the campaign, it appeared that this man had not been with the main body of the Indians during the Summer; he had taken his family, in company with a small party of about a dozen other lodges, over into the country along the Yellowstone and Powder Rivers, in Idaho. They had probably spent the season in hunting and skirmis.h.i.+ng occasionally with the Crows, the powerful people occupying most of that region, who were hereditary enemies of the Sioux. It must be understood that the great Sioux Nation consists of a number of different tribes, of which the Upper Yanktonais tribe is one, and the Lower Yanktonais another. It seemed that he still had with him the white boy whom he had captured in Minnesota. The lad seemed perfectly contented and was displaying such apt.i.tude and prowess in learning to ride, shoot, hunt, and perform the other feats of skill, agility, and hardihood which the Indians regard as most manly, that Te-o-kun-ko took great pride and delight in him and was evidently trying to wean him away from any longing for his white relatives, in the hope of eventually making him, to all practical intents, a full-fledged Sioux warrior.

General Sibley added that in the Spring of 1864 General Sully would almost certainly lead another expedition up the Missouri to fight the Indians, though whether he himself would move against them again was doubtful. He renewed his regrets that he had been unable to recapture Tommy, and his hopes that another year would surely see him restored to his family, and here the letter ended.

Mrs. Briscoe and Al were not only bitterly disappointed by the news; it positively stunned them. The idea that Tommy could have been, all this time, anything but a suffering and wretchedly unhappy prisoner, was entirely new to them. That he could have grown not merely contented with his lot among the savages but even attached to it, a possibility very clearly suggested by General Sibley's letter, seemed unbelievable, at least to Mrs. Briscoe. But Al, on reflection, was not so much inclined to scoff at it as he had been at first. He remembered having heard of several cases in which white boys, taken captive by Indians when so young that their affections and habits were not deeply rooted, had become so attached to the wild, free life of the red men that they voluntarily renounced civilization and remained all their lives with the people of their adoption. Then he recalled the prominent characteristics of Tommy's disposition,--his st.u.r.dy independence, his love for being out of doors, for handling horses and for hunting and trapping,--inclinations which he had not shown until their removal to Minnesota but which had developed rapidly there, where Tommy, in the midst of a solitude which was almost wilderness, had apparently been happier than ever before in his life. He recalled, also, the little boy's warm-hearted affection for his parents and for himself and Annie; a trait of character which certainly seemed the strongest argument against the theory that Tommy could grow to forget them. But Al was obliged to admit to himself that the other impulses of his young brother's nature would all find gratification in the life of the plains; while, moreover, if he were kindly treated, even his affections might be kindled for the people with whom he was living. He had been with the Indians now for more than a year, which is a long time in a young boy's life.

The more he became convinced of such possibilities, the more was Al disturbed and alarmed by them. It had been bad enough to think of his brother as a heart-broken captive, but to think of him as perhaps a future renegade, an apostate to his race, was far worse, for it added shame to sorrow. He could not bear to think of his mother having to face such a calamity. Finally he took his troubled thoughts to his uncle, who was always kind, sympathetic and helpful.

”I have been thinking a great deal about this matter, too, Al,” said Mr.

Colton. ”There is no question in my mind that Tommy might take the course you speak of, if he should remain long enough with the Indians.

From the reports we have he seems to be well and even happy. The most important reason now for getting him away from them seems to be to remove him from their moral influence. But, incredible as it may seem, I really believe there may be a possibility that now; even if the soldiers should find him, he would be unwilling to come away with them.”

Al looked at his uncle and slowly nodded his head in agreement.

”Yes, I believe that might be so,” he answered. ”And it seems to me, Uncle Will, for that very reason if no other, I ought to go with the next expedition; for if Tommy should be found I know that when he saw me and I told him about mother and all of us, he would want to come back.

But I can't go, that's all.”

”Al,” said Mr. Colton, ”I agree with you that you ought to, and I think probably you can. Since midsummer my business has begun to revive.

People are commencing to see that the South is getting the worst of this war and there is a growing feeling of confidence that the Union is going to be saved. Therefore interest is reviving in business matters of all kinds, real estate among others. If the Union is going to be preserved, St. Louis will continue to be a great and growing city; n.o.body cared to speculate on what it would be while the success of the Confederacy seemed probable. But, you see, I am beginning to have business again, and if our armies continue gaining such victories as they have been during the last six months, there will be more business by next Spring.

I wish to Heaven I could go into the service and help to hasten the end; but this,” he moved the stump of his left arm impatiently, ”forever debars me from such service. But if I can help you to go where you may be able to a.s.sist in recovering your brother and at the same time to be perhaps of some service to our country, even though you are not old enough to enlist, I shall feel that I have done something. I think by Spring I shall be able to take care of your mother and sister while you are gone and I shall be only too glad to do it.”

Al's cheeks flushed with mingled surprise and pleasure. His sense of duty, however, was still uppermost.

”But, Uncle Will,--” he began.

”Now, that's all right, Al,” interrupted Mr. Colton. ”This is simply a family matter, and you need not worry about it at all. The only question which remains to be settled is whether it can be arranged for you to accompany an expedition into the Indian country. If General Sibley were going, no doubt he would be willing to find a place for you some way.

But it seems that he may not go again, and another commander, like General Sully, for instance, may not want to have you. However, we shall have to wait to settle that until we know more about actual plans for next season's campaign, and that probably will not be possible until late Winter or early Spring.”

Mrs. Briscoe at first found it very hard to reconcile herself to the plan, for she was divided between anxiety for Tommy and apprehension lest harm should befall Al if he went in search of his brother. But by pointing out to her that it was still uncertain whether the commander of the expedition would permit him to go at all, Al, shrewdly aided by his uncle, induced her to give the subject calm consideration, being convinced that if she did so she would in time see that it was best. So the Winter pa.s.sed with little further discussion of the subject. Al continued at his work, Annie was attending school, and Mrs. Briscoe aided her sister with the duties of the household. Indeed, the refugees from Minnesota seemed to have become fixtures in the Colton home, and, though all of them thought occasionally of their returning some time to the abandoned claim above Fort Ridgely, the time for doing so remained in the indefinite future. None of them could feel like attempting to resume the even tenor of their lives until Tommy should have been brought back from his captivity.

CHAPTER VI

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