“Whoopee, that’s good!” cried Pete, jumping up and cracking his heels together three times before he lit. “I’m comin’ on; but don’t git over near me, ez I’m fust cousin ter the cholera, an’ close related ter the smallpox on my father’s side.” There followed a few moments of quick question and answer, and it was learned that Perkins was the advance scout for a large force of volunteer militia that followed a mile behind. “We be more’n a thousand strong,” declared the voluble scout, letting fly a torrent of tobacco juice, “all hossmen, ’cept ’bout tew hunderd foot sojurs.” “Who is in command?” asked Clark. “Brigadier-Gen’ral Sam Whiteside, the best dad-blamed Injun fighter on the frontier. An’ in jest a half-hour yew kin confab with him person’ly. The men has marched twenty mile terday, over muddy roads. But ol’ Sam set his sights fer Dixon’s Ferry, this mornin’ when we busted kemp, an’ I’ll be durned ef we didn’t make it.” CHAPTER 11 The Lodge of Black Hawk That same evening, in an Indian lodge on the banks of Sycamore Creek, a small stream flowing into the Rock River about thirty-five miles north of Dixon’s Ferry, an important conference was taking place. The Indian lodge was that of the famed Sac chief, Black Hawk. It was a large lodge, covered with grass mats and very nicely arranged. Four sticks of wood, placed to form a square in the center, answered the purpose of a hearth, within which was a crackling fire of birchwood, the smoke escaping through an opening in the top. Against the sides, hanging from the poles or framework, were various skin bags containing food and other belongings. Sundry ladles, small kettles, and wooden bowls also hung from the cross-poles; and dangling from the center pole, by an iron chain, was a larger kettle, in which a meat stew of vension, rabbit and squirrel was seething over the brisk fire. On the floor of the lodge, between the warm fire and outer wall, were spread mats, upon which were seated three dusky Indians of the Sac tribe. One of these, on the north side of the lodge, was Black Hawk himself, dressed in a buckskin suit. The noted sachem was only some five feet, five inches in height, and rather spare as to flesh. His somewhat pinched features exaggerated the prominence of the cheekbones of his race. As to other facial characteristics, he had a full mouth, a pronounced Roman nose, bright and piercing eyes, no eyebrows, a high forehead, and a head well thrown back with a pose of quiet dignity. His hair was plucked out, with the exception of the scalp-lock, in which, on occasions such as this, was fastened a bunch of eagle feathers.