The boys were again in high spirits. They felt sure that they would soon be at home, and there were so many new things to be seen that they had no time to feel sad. The horrors of war were but little visible, because there had been no active fighting for a month.
Barker, however, walked along in thoughtful silence.
“I must get the lads into town and I must kill or capture Hicks, if we set eyes on him again,” were the thoughts ever in his mind.
About the middle of the forenoon the long line of wagons halted on account of some obstruction ahead. Barker was chatting pleasantly with a number of teamsters, “mule-skinners,” as the soldiers called them. He had told them that he wanted to get the lads into Vicksburg and he had told them about the man, who for some reason, was bound to keep the boys in the North even at the risk of having them killed by the Sioux. The men became much interested, for even the roughest of men are quickly stirred in their sympathy by injustice and cowardly crime.
Three horsemen came slowly along the side of the road. They stopped as they reached the group of teamsters.
The foremost of them dismounted, walked slowly up to Barker, reached out his hand and said with suppressed excitement: “Hello, Barker, I’m glad to see you.”
“Hello, Hicks,” replied the trapper, returning the salute without offering his hand. “I can’t say that I’m glad to see you.”
“My boys are back a way,” Barker spoke firmly, the color rising in his cheeks and his gray eyes flashing, “and you and yours aren’t going to touch them.”
Hicks turned white and made a movement as if to draw a pistol.
Without a word from Barker three husky men sprang upon him and several pistols covered the other two men, who were ordered to dismount.
“Search him!” said Barker. “He is the man. I want to know why he wants possession of the boys.”
Hicks tried to tell the lies about kidnapped nephews and stolen horses, but the teamsters shook him into silence.
“Close up,” one of the men ordered. “You’re too late; we know all about you.”
A soiled piece of paper was found on Hicks.
“The bearer of this,” it read, “is to receive $10,000 if no heirs of Col. Henry P. Deming are found before January first, 1864.
“I don’t know,” protested Hicks. “I didn’t know I had the rag and don’t know where it came from.”