Of the three, the Rock river route, through the great prairies of Illinois, perhaps presents the greatest variety of life and scenery. The Rock has practically two heads: the smaller, in a rustic stream flowing from the north into swamp-girted Lake Koshkonong; the larger, in the four lakes at Madison, the charming capital of Wisconsin, which empty their waters into the Avon-like Catfish or Yahara, which in turn pours into the Rock a short distance below the Koshkonong lake. Our course was from Madison almost to the mouth of the Rock, near Rock Island, 267 miles of paddling, as the river winds. The student of history finds the Rock interesting to him because of its associations with the Black Hawk war of 1832. When the famous Sac warrior "invaded" Illinois, his path of progress was up the south bank of that stream. At Prophetstown lived his evil genius, the crafty White Cloud, and here the Hawk held council with the Pottawattomies, who, under good Shaubena's influence, rejected the war pipe. Dixon is famous as the site of the pioneer ferry over the Rock, on the line of what was the principal land highway between Chicago and southern Wisconsin and the Galena mines for a protracted period in each year. Here, many a notable party of explorers, military officials, miners, and traders have rendezvoused in the olden time. Here was a rallying-point in 1832, as well, when Lincoln was a raw-boned militiaman in a scouting corps, and Robert Anderson, of Fort Sumter fame, Zachary Taylor, and Jefferson Davis were of the regular army under bluff old Atkinson. A grove at the mouth of Stillman's Creek, a Rock River tributary, near Byron, is the scene of the actual outbreak of the war. The forest where Black Hawk camped with the white-loving Pottawattomies is practically unchanged, and the open, rolling prairie to the south--on which Stillman's horsemen acted at first so treacherously, and afterwards as arrant cowards--is still there, a broad pasture-land miles in length, along the river. The contemporaneous descriptions of the "battle" field are readily recognizable to-day. Above, as far as Lake Koshkonong, the river banks are fraught with interest; for along them the soldiery followed up the Sac trail, like bloodhounds, and held many an unsatisfactory parley with the double-faced Winnebagoes.