He himself was cook and baker. The Indian set up the tent and made the bed. Bill brought water and cut wood for the camp-fire, while Tim gathered dry brush and sticks for the cooking-fire and set out the dishes, which consisted of a tin cup and plate, knife, fork, and spoon for each man.
“We don’t need the tent,” Barker said to Tatanka. “It is not going to rain to-night and the miserable mosquitoes haven’t come yet. Just make a good bed on plenty of dry leaves and grass. The boys are very tired and we are all a little bit soft after our rather lazy winter.”
“What are we going to do if it rains?” Tim asked.
“Pull the canvas over our heads,” the old man answered with a serious face, “and if it rains hard, we’ll get wet. But it isn’t going to rain.”
The lads wondered how he could know, but they asked no more questions.
In half an hour the trapper called out, “Supper! All hands fall to.”
And they all fell to, for all were ravenously hungry, and bacon, corn-bread, and roast goose hurriedly vanished in large quantities. The goose had been roasted the day before and had just been heated on a spit.
After supper Tatanka and Bill arranged the packs under the canoe while Barker and Tim washed the dishes, for the trapper insisted that it is just as easy to keep clean in camp as to live with a lot of dirt.
The place of their camp was a few miles below the town of Winona. They had, however, not landed there for several reasons. They felt that they had no time to lose if they would reach Vicksburg before the end of summer, and before Grant could take the Confederate stronghold of the Mississippi. They had no recent letters from Vicksburg, and on their trip they could of course receive none. Barker and the lads had written to the boys’ parents that they might expect them in Vicksburg sometime in June or July. “That is,” the letter closed, “if at that time, we can get in.”
“If Grant has made up his mind to take Vicksburg,” the trapper had told the boys, “I reckon he’ll stick around and fight till he gets it. No matter how big and how many the swamps are that protect it. If he cannot get at the city from the north, he will get at it from the south. If he cannot keep a base of supplies in his rear, he’ll do without a base and will make his army live on the country, till he can establish a base.”