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A Daring Escape
MAJOR STILLMAN, veteran of many years on the border, realized that the situation of his little band was extremely dangerous. So far, the triumphant Sacs had not made an appearance. Their gloating yells and whoops, echoing through the timbered area, showed that they were still entranced with the rich spoils and loot of the captured camp. Presently, however, they would again turn their attention to the whites by the creek-side. Their sharp-shooters would swarm in like angry hornets.
“We must steal away,” declared the Major determinedly, “while the red villains are occupied with their pillaging.”
“It won’t be an easy task, sir,” asserted one of the lieutenants dubiously.
“I’ve been thinking of taking to the creek bed,” rejoined Stillman.
“A corking good idea, sir,” said Ben Gordon. “The banks are plenty high enough to hide us from view.”
“Yes,” agreed the Major, “and the stream leads off to the southwest, the general direction in which we have to go.”
“It does seem like our best chance, may be our only chance.”
“The blasted Injuns might pen us up there, sir,” broke in Jim Martin, who had been an intent listener.
“If they did,” countered the officer, “we could shoot from the shelter of the banks. I doubt that we would be worse off than we are now.”
Word of the plan was quickly communicated to the rest of the troop. Throwing themselves flat on their stomachs, the anxious men wormed their way stealthily forward to the lip of the creek bank. Luckily, their movements were well hidden among the thickets and clustered timber. Jim Martin and a fellow trooper had been left behind as a rear guard, until the rest of the detachment got a slight start.
Ben Gordon was at the head of the little column, by the side of Major Stillman. They had gone perhaps a hundred yards down the bed of the creek, when a rifle cracked out sharply behind them. A second shot followed, and then all was quiet once again.
“Keep moving, men,” the leader called in a low voice. “The Sacs have sent scouts forward, and the two troopers are chasing them off. That’s just the way we planned it. It’ll make the pesky Indians think we’re still in the grove.”
Two minutes later, Jim Martin and his comrade came running up from behind, their hurried footfalls muffled by the soft sand at the creek edge.
“How did it look, Martin?” queried Stillman tensely.
“A couple of the red scamps tried to creep up, sir, like the slinkin’ serpents they are, but I think I put a ball through one of ’em.”
“Good!” said the Major. “That’ll make them think twice before they try it again. It may be a half-hour before they discover that we’re gone; and in that time we can cover a lot of distance.”
They now advanced steadily southward, at a more rapid rate. Ten minutes passed and they heard no alarm. Fifteen minutes and yet there was none. Twenty came, and by now they had reached the mouth of the creek, where it emptied into the swirling Rock River.
“Great Scott, look!” exclaimed Ben Gordon, pointing upstream a short way.
“Canoes!” cried Stillman, utmost joy in his tone.
“Yep, Injun canoes!” added the boy, gleefully eyeing the row of boats drawn up on the sloping bank, bottoms up.
“A hull danged fleet of ’em!” a soldier jubilated.
“Must belong to Black Hawk’s tribe,” opined the Major. “Mighty nice of the redskins to keep them at this particular place.”
There were six of the big bark boats, just sufficient to carry all thirty of the party. In a jiffy the craft were turned over and toted to the water. Two paddles were found underneath each.
The exultant men had hardly boarded the canoes and sunk their paddles into the water, when a long cry, piercing and full of anger, came from the grove that they had left.
“They’ve stalked the place,” laughed Stillman, “found out that we’ve gone, and are hopping mad about it. Now men, swing those blades lustily, so that we can get a good piece down river before dark.”
Keeping to the middle of the wide stream, where the strong current would aid them most, they glided smoothly down the channel. All the while they kept a watchful eye, especially to the rear, but there was no alarm. Two hours later, at twilight, they ran the boats into a little cove, where they beached them for the night. All hands were glad to step ashore, and stretch their cramped limbs, for the narrow canoes were crowded to the limit.
The wind, blowing down stream from the north, had grown quite cool with the coming of night. There was plenty of dry driftwood about, but Stillman decided not to risk a fire. Desolate howls came from the gloomy forest, as they lay down to sleep.
“Timber wolves!” said one of the men, casting a worried look at the encircling darkness. “I wish we had a fire. The beasts fear a blaze.”
The night was divided into watches of three hours apiece; but the darkness passed peacefully. Neither timber wolves nor red wolves came; and the thirty canoemen were off again the next morning at the first flush of dawn. Three hours afterward, at mid-morning, they pulled in safely at Dixon’s Ferry, thankful to the bottom of their hearts to have escaped from the clutches of the vengeful Sacs.
Taking leave of Stillman for the time being, Ben Gordon, Jim Martin and the three troopers at once went to the camp of their detachment, where they were greeted by the others as men returned from the dead.
“We gave you up for lost,” asserted Tom Gordon, pounding brother Ben on the back in unrestrained joy and relief.
“It’s a plumb miracle the Sacs didn’t lift yer scalps,” Bill Brown agreed, honest delight shining in his weatherbeaten face.
“Heap smart,” grunted Bright Star, “to get away from Hawk.”
“But where is Captain Van Alstyne?” inquired Lieutenant Clark anxiously.
“That I cannot tell you, Lieutenant,” responded Ben soberly. “I didn’t see him during the fight. Therefore, I know nothing of his probable fate.”
There followed a quick exchange of stories; and Ben soon learned that the detachment had duly started north that next morning, as ordered by Captain Van Alstyne upon his departure. The troopers, under Clark, had covered about half the twenty-five miles to Sycamore Creek, when they collided head-on with the first of the fleeing volunteers.
“But there was no stopping them,” stated Clark, his face flushing red with anger. “Such rank cowardice I never did see.”
“Yep,” added Bill Brown disgustedly, “they was the scaredest bunch o’ fellers I ever met up with. Ther eyes was fairly poppin’ outen ther heads, an’ they was a screamin’ bloody-murder that Black Hawk was comin’ with a millyun warriors.”
“They poured down that road,” continued the Lieutenant, “like a herd of buffaloes in a stampede. If I hadn’t shooed my troop to one side, I swear they’d have ground us to bits under their flying hoofs.”
“Bright Star say,” the Pottawattomee reminded them, “pale-face run like rabbit, when Black Hawk charge.”
“An’ most of ’em didn’t even stop,” related Bill, “when they hit the ferry. The miser’ble louts skedaddled fer ther cabins, fifty mile away, where they’ll scare the livin’ daylights outen everybody, with ther wild tales o’ the turr’ble Black Hawk an’ his rampagin’ braves.”
On the following morning, General Whiteside, with several hundred men, including the detachment of regulars under Clark, proceeded to the field of battle, where they buried the mutilated bodies of the dead. Among these was that of Captain Van Alstyne, whose tragic fate was thus learned by all; although they did not know, of course, that he had fallen before the whirling war-axe of the dread Prairie Wolf.
The Sac tribesmen, delirious with triumph, had by now withdrawn northward, to their old camp, after looting Stillman’s tents most thoroughly.
“There were rich stores of provisions and ammunition,” declared Whiteside, “and they all fell into the hands of Black Hawk. It’s a pity, too, for I think that the Sacs were pretty near destitute.”
“It will prolong the war,” observed Clark solemnly.
“I fear so, Lieutenant.”
“Another bad angle to it,” said Bill Brown, “is that the dad-busted militia runnin’ the way they done, it’ll give the Hawk a mighty poor notion o’ the fightin’ qualities of our troops.”
“And on the other hand,” nodded Whiteside sagely, “it’ll give the chief an exaggerated idea of the prowess of his own braves.”
“Well, it’s plain,” summed up Clark, “that the net result of the battle will be to encourage Black Hawk greatly. From now on, it’s war to the death.”
Two days later, Whiteside and his force returned to Dixon’s Ferry, there to await the arrival of additional troops; also to give his raw recruits further drilling, before exposing them to the wiles of the resourceful Sacs; for the wary general wanted no repetition of the rout at Stillman’s Run.
Meantime, there ensued a reign of terror on the border. Stories of Black Hawk and his savage cunning and cruelty spread like wild fire, carried by the fleeing volunteers. The name of the Sac chieftain became a household bugaboo. Nervous horror gripped farm and village across the wide breadth of the frontier. The rustle in the thicket of a prowling beast; the howl of a wolf on the prairie; the fall of a forest bough; the report of a hunter’s gun, were enough in this time of unreasoned panic to blanch the cheeks of the bravest men, and cause families to fly in the agony of fear for scores of miles, leaving all their most cherished possessions behind them.
Black Hawk was using his camp, some ten miles north of Stillman’s Run, as a base of operations. For two or three days, his spirits were much elevated by his smashing triumph over the volunteers; but soon there came events that somewhat dampened his enthusiasm, and gave a darker outlook for the future.
First, Indian runners came in from Mil-wa-ke, bringing tidings that the British had had a change of mind about meddling in Black Hawk’s war adventures. They now sent word, alas too late, advising the Sac chief not to take the war-path against the Americans.
“Ugh!” said Black Hawk, in reproachful tone, to Ne-a-pope and the Prairie Wolf, “your advice was bad. We have driven the Big Knives (whites) headlong in flight and taken many scalps, yet the craven Fox and Winnebago do not come to our side.”
“You were right, oh Black Hawk,” lamented the thin-faced Ne-a-pope. “Fox and Winnebago are old women. Their hearts are faint and their muscles weak.”
“Let the stinking Fox and Winnebago sit in their lodges,” the Prairie Wolf cried, fairly clicking his teeth in rage, “squaw-men that they are. The Sacs are warriors! We will fight on! Death to the pale-face!”
It was, indeed, death for the pale-face. Black Hawk, wild with hate and anger, sent out small bands of his red horsemen far and wide across the Illinois frontier.
On the twenty-second of May, at the Davis farm, on Indian Creek, twelve miles north of Ottawa, fifteen settlers, men and women, were massacred by the marauding warriors. Taken captive were two girls, Sylvia and Rachel Hall, who were carried back to Black Hawk’s stronghold. Here they were sold for two thousand dollars to the White Crow, a Winnebago chief, who had been sent out by the whites to conduct negotiations for their return. Two days later, the Crow safely delivered the anguished girls into the hands of the military.
Soon afterward, a band of eleven Sacs killed and scalped five white men at Spafford’s farm, on the Pecatonica River, a western tributary of the Rock. Neighboring settlers formed a posse of thirty men, however, and gave quick chase. They overtook the roving warriors in a swamp, and in a pitched battle lasting but a few minutes, killed all eleven savages; while of the pursuers only three were slain and one wounded.
On the next day, Black Hawk himself, with a party of picked braves, made a desperate attack on Apple River fort, a small, stockaded post in the northwest corner of the state. The little garrison sustained a heavy siege for upwards of four hours. Great courage was displayed by the whites. Women and girls moulded bullets, loaded fire-arms, cared for the wounded, and in general proved themselves true border heroines. The thwarted redmen retired with some loss, after laying waste by fire the neighboring cabins and fields.
En route home, this same war party attacked, with singular ferocity, a battalion of whites, one hundred and fifty strong, at Kellogg’s Grove, sixteen miles to the east. After a fierce encounter, the Indians were routed, losing twenty braves killed, while the whites counted but ten.
At Plum River fort, Burr Oak, Sinsiniwa, and Blue Mound, hard skirmishes were likewise fought. Bloodshed, flame, pillage and torture swept the whole northern border. Black Hawk and his feathered warriors were on the loose.