While the engineers were repairing the machinery, the two boys and their friends went out in two small boats to hunt ducks and geese on the flooded marshes.

They landed on a small island of high land and the men chose a convenient blind behind some bushes. The boys had no guns and had just gone along to watch the fun and to bring in the ducks which the hunters would drop, but they found some unexpected and exciting hunting for themselves.

"See the rabbit, see the rabbit!" Tim cried. "He is sitting on a stump with water all around him."

The boys were surprised to find that the rabbit did not try to get away as they approached.

"He's dead," said Tim.

"No, he isn't," laughed Bill, "I see his nose move; he is breathing."

Some brush had drifted against the stump and the rabbit had eaten it as far as he had been able to reach.

When the boys lifted the rabbit into the boat, they had another surprise, for nestled under his fur they discovered a black meadow mouse that had also sought refuge on the stump when the water had risen.

"Take him off," Tim begged, "he'll freeze to death on the stump," and Bill took him off and placed him under the rabbit, who was quietly squatting under the seat as if he belonged there.

When the boys returned to the brush-and-gra.s.s-covered island, they discovered four more rabbits, who, however, were more lively than the one on the stump. They ran about in a most puzzling zigzag fashion and one even tried to swim across a channel to another piece of dry land.

But the boys caught them all and put them in the boat, from which they did not try to escape.

While they were chasing the rabbits the boys made another discovery. The island was alive with black meadow-mice; there were hundreds of them.

Every tuft of dead gra.s.s, every bush, every pile of dead leaves was crowded with them.

"Oh, Tim," teased Bill, "let's row back to the boat and get some pie for all your pets."

But Tim had caught the twinkle in his brother's eye. "Ah, you can't fool me," he came back. "Don't you think I know that these wild mice have plenty of gra.s.s and brush to eat till the water goes down?"

It did not take the boys long to decide what to do with the rabbits.

"If we could only keep them," was Tim's wish. "We would have as much fun with them as we had with our rabbits at Vicksburg."

"No use; we can't keep them," Bill argued. "We would have to stay at home every day or let them out, and if we let them out, they will eat up our garden and Cousin Hicks will kill them. There are too many rabbits at our shack now."

So the boys rowed their catch of game ash.o.r.e. When the boat touched land, the stupid rabbits became lively at once. They hopped out of the boat and, true to their instinct for hiding, disappeared at once; some into a hole and others under a pile of brush.

On their way back the boys, quite excited about this new way of hunting, peeped into a hollow log.

"There's an animal in it!" exclaimed Tim.

"Look out!" Bill warned him, "maybe it's a skunk. If you catch a skunk, you can't go back on the boat."

"It's no skunk," replied Tim. "It's a gray animal. It's a c.o.o.n. Let's catch him."

Bill poked the animal with a stick and before he had time to warn his younger brother to look out for the c.o.o.n's teeth and claws, Tim had grabbed the creature by the neck, dropped him in the boat and thrown his coat over the snarling animal.

"Look at him," Tim cried. "Doesn't he look funny, peeping out from under my coat?"

"My, but he is thin! I bet he is cold and starved. Let us take him to the hunters and give him something to eat."

"Mr. Barker, what does a c.o.o.n eat!" Tim shouted as they approached the men. "We've caught one."

"Anything, except wood," the trapper told them. "Give him a piece of duck-meat. We have ducks enough for the whole boat."

When Tim offered the racc.o.o.n a piece of duck-meat, he took it, soused it in the water in the boat, devoured it greedily and began whining for more. He ate several other pieces in the same way.

"Why does he wash his meat?" the boys asked.

"It's just his queer way," the trapper told them. "You give him a piece of fresh pie, and he'll souse it in a mudhole before he eats it.

"A c.o.o.n's a queer fellow. My German neighbors call him 'washbear,' on account of his peculiar habits. I had a tame c.o.o.n once, but he died from eating a pan of boot-grease."

"Why didn't you watch him?" asked Tim.

"You can't watch a c.o.o.n," the trapper laughed, "he's always in some mischief. I'd rather watch ten boys than one c.o.o.n."

On the four days it took the boat to reach Fort Ridgely the boys had plenty of time to ask the trapper about the war.

"It won't last long, that's what I think," the trapper told them. "When the Confederates see that Abe Lincoln has 75,000 soldiers, they will quit."

"Will they fight at Vicksburg?" asked Bill.

"No, you needn't worry, boys. They'll soon fix it all up at Washington and the soldiers will come home."

"The officer said it would be h.e.l.l at Vicksburg," Tim remarked, "and it would be a big, long war."

"That's what some of the army officers think," the trapper admitted, "but most other people don't think so."

Black Buffalo was as much puzzled by the war between the white people as the boys.

"Do the people from this country want to go south," he asked, "just as the Chippewas from the North want to come into our Sioux country?"

"No, that isn't it," the trapper explained. "The white people of the South want to keep their black slaves, and they wish to have a country and a president of their own. They don't like Abe Lincoln."

When on the evening of the fourth day, the steamer whistled for the Fort Ridgely landing, the boys were glad to get off the boat, but felt very uneasy about the reception Cousin Hicks would give them.

"I wish we could go back to Vicksburg," Tim whispered to his brother. "I am homesick."

"Come on, boys," Mr. Barker called in his pleasant, manly voice. "I'll stay at your shack to-night, and if your cousin is at home, I'll have a visit and a talk with him. Don't forget your c.o.o.n, Tim; I guess you will have to carry him if you want to take him home."

CHAPTER III-PLAIN TALK AND UGLY RUMORS

Cousin Hicks was at home and greeted the boys with apparent heartiness.

To Barker he was friendly, but did not invite him to stay over night.

"You need not go to any trouble," the trapper told him. "We have had our supper on the boat, and I will just spread my blanket on the floor for the night. You know a seasoned trapper can sleep anywhere."