"You Kansas Militia fellows are too much scattered," returned the civilian. "Why doesn't General Curtis get you concentrated down here by the border somewhere? I tell you, old Pap will be here before you know it. Why, he's already to Jefferson City, according to the latest despatches, cleaning up everything before him and coming this way like a jack rabbit. What is there between here and his front to stop his twenty-five or thirty thousand men? Nothing! Nothing to make him even hesitate."

"There will be something to make him hesitate, though," insisted the Kansas militiaman, stoutly. "Curtis _is_ concentrating, and we'll be sent across the State line to meet and stop Price somewhere around Lexington. You watch!"

"Would you go across the line?" queried the other.

"Certainly I would."

"Well, then, you're an exception," returned the civilian. "I'll bet you two bits that if the Kansas militia is ordered across the State line, nine-tenths of them will refuse to go. They're too afraid they'll be kept away over election and too afraid they'll have to give up a little shred of their sacred 'State Rights' to the National Government."

"Oh, well, some of the boys feel that way, of course," replied the militiaman, defensively, "but not all, by any means."

Al's curiosity had reached the breaking-point.

"I beg your pardon," he interrupted, leaning across the table, "but will you kindly tell me if General Sterling Price's army is invading Missouri?"

The two men looked at Al and Wallace in amazement.

"Why, yes, I should say it is," answered the militiaman. "Where have you come from that you didn't know that?"

"We have just come down the Missouri in a barge," Al answered, "and we haven't heard any late news; nothing since we left Omaha. We have been up in Dakota all Summer with General Sully, fighting the Sioux Indians."

"Oh, is that so?" asked the other. "We haven't heard much from that campaign, either. Did you whip the Indians?"

"Yes, we defeated and scattered them in two pretty big battles. But what about General Price?"

"Why, he entered southeast Missouri from Arkansas about the middle of September with an army of anywhere from fifteen to thirty thousand men.

He tried to take Pilot k.n.o.b, but General Ewing, who used to be here at Kansas City, you know, was there with a small force and repulsed him badly; knocked the tar clean out of him, in fact. Then he started for St. Louis but there were so many troops there that he seems to have given it up; at least, he is moving west along the Missouri and I guess he's somewhere around Jeff City now. I don't know whether he can take it or not; according to the latest despatches Rosecrans is going to try to hold the city. But we're looking for Price to come on out here and try to invade Kansas, anyhow."

"You say he's coming up the Missouri?" asked Al. "We've got to keep on down the river to St. Louis with our barge."

"Well, you'd better look out for old Pap, then," rejoined the other.

"He'll catch you, sure, and likely burn your boat; and if he don't the guerillas will. They're awful bad now, and there isn't a steamboat ever gets through without being attacked, and often they're destroyed."

Al felt a sudden chill of apprehension.

"Do you know whether they attacked the steamer _North Wind_ on her way down?" he asked, anxiously.

"No, I don't remember it," the militiaman returned.

"Why, yes, you do," broke in his companion. "Don't you know, two or three weeks ago a band of guerillas got the _North Wind_ somewhere between Lexington and Miami? They crossed the river on her and then burnt her up. It was reported several of her people were killed in the mix-up."

"Oh, that's right; I had forgotten," returned the soldier. Then to Al he said, curiously, "Why do you ask?"

"Nothing," answered Al, in a dull voice. "Only I had a young brother on her who had been a prisoner among the Indians. He was going home to his mother in St. Louis."

"Pshaw, that's too bad!" exclaimed the militiaman, sympathetically. "But he's probably gotten through all right."

"Maybe he has and maybe not," said Al. "It's hard to tell in such times.

Come on, Wallace," he added. "Let's go back to the boat."

They rose abruptly and left the store. Al slept very little that night, and when he did his rest was broken by troubled dreams of Tommy; he imagined his brother in all sorts of desperate situations and losing his life in a variety of horrible ways. Even when awake and thinking rationally, he realized that almost any of the fancies of his nightmare might easily be realities, for the guerilla warfare in Missouri at this time had degenerated into a carnival of barbarous brutality hardly exceeded in the history of any country, and the mercy or cruelty dealt out to a prisoner by one of these bands of lawless marauders depended almost wholly upon the humor of the guerilla chief.

CHAPTER XVII

CAPTURED BY GUERILLAS

Captain Lamont was disturbed by the rumors he heard at Kansas City of the dangerous condition of navigation below that point; but he was a brave and determined man, and would not be swerved from his purpose of reaching St. Louis, now that he had gotten so far on the way and overcome so many difficulties. The next morning the barge started out as usual, and as there was deeper water the farther down river she went, her progress became more rapid. Four days after leaving Kansas City she tied up for the night opposite Brunswick, Missouri, a town about twenty-five miles, by the channel, above Glasgow. Though it was said guerillas had been in Brunswick the day before, none had yet interrupted the journey of the barge, nor had any even been seen; and Captain Lamont and his men had begun to think that the alarming rumors circulating through the country were largely without foundation.

The following morning, a short time after the boat got under way, Captain Lamont found that the deck hand, Jim, was missing, and then he made the additional discovery that his own wallet was also gone. Though a guard had been maintained on the boat all night, as usual, Jim had contrived in some way to slip ash.o.r.e and escape with the money. The circ.u.mstances made Captain Lamont somewhat uneasy.

"I don't care about the money," said he. "There were only a few hundred dollars in the pocket-book. But I should like to know what that fellow wanted to get away for when we are so near St. Louis. He could have robbed me just as easily there, and then he would have been in a country where he could get a job when the money was spent. But he certainly can't expect to get one around here."

"I'll tell you, Captain," said Al, "I believe he's gone to try and find some rebs or guerillas to make an attack on our boat. You know he's a rebel at heart. He probably figures he can get me into trouble that way, and you, too; for he doesn't like you any too well."

"That's a long guess," replied the Captain, after studying Al's theory for a moment, "but it may be correct. Anyway, I wish I knew what he's up to."

The boat drifted lazily on for a couple of hours and at length came into the head of a long, gradual bend having, on its north side, a low, open sh.o.r.e of sandbars, with meadows and farm lands farther back, and on the south an extensive belt of timber growing between the water's edge and the bluffs. The channel ran close in along the timbered sh.o.r.e, and the place was such a favorable one for an armed party to attack pa.s.sing river craft, and had so often been utilized for that purpose during the war, that it had come to be known as Bushwhacker Bend,--"bushwhacker"

and "guerilla" being terms used interchangeably for describing the irregular partisans along the border.

As the boat came to the head of the timber, the pilot crowded her over as far as possible toward the north bank. But she had gone only a short distance when a crowd of apparently about fifty men, wearing all manner of ragged and dirty garments, suddenly arose among the trees and fired a rattling volley of musketry point-blank at the barge. The bullets plunged into her wooden sides and tore through her tarpaulin covers, though, almost miraculously, no one was. .h.i.t. Then a man wearing a sabre and dressed in gray clothes somewhat resembling a Confederate uniform, stepped forward and, waving his sabre toward the boat, shouted, with an oath,

"Bring that boat in here or I'll kill every man on board!"

Seeing nothing but guns pointing toward him and knowing well that the guerilla chief could make good his threat, Captain Lamont shouted back,

"All right. We'll come over. Don't fire again."

The pilot swung the barge over toward the south sh.o.r.e, the bushwhackers following her down the bank until she touched the land. Then the chief, accompanied by about half of his villainous-looking followers, sprang aboard.

"I'm Captain John C. Calhoun Yeager, u' the Confederate States army,"

said he, pompously, throwing out his chest as he confronted Captain Lamont.

"Heaven pity the Confederate States army, then!" muttered the mate, who was standing behind him.

"What's that?" demanded Yeager, turning sharply.

"I said, sir, that the Confederate States Army is honored," replied the mate, meekly.

"Oh!" said the guerilla chief, mollified. "You bet."

He smoothed down his coat with a satisfied air, then resumed to Captain Lamont,

"I'm gonta search this yere boat fer Yankee soldiers, an' if anybody peeps he'll git plugged full o' holes."